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“What is it Foaly?” Artemis growled. “I was in the middle of something.” His Armani shoes barely making a sound as he skittered down a flight of stairs to the lab.

The technician twirled his goatie. “You can make goo goo eyes at your girlfriend later, Mud Boy.”

The youth raised a sculpted brow. “How did you-- Foaly, you rapscallion, did you finally find a way past my security system?”

“No, I guessed.”

“Oh,” the genius wondered for a moment whether to believe him, then pushed the matter from his mind. “What has happened?”

“Just what you said would happen, Arty boy. The boys in the office spread rumors about a raid, and Abbott got spooked. Fifty-four minutes ago a shuttle took off fifteen minutes ahead of schedule with no one inside. At least, that’s what the officials on the scene thought, but I looked through the security feeds. Look at your phone’s screen.” Artemis pulled the cell away from his face as the technical consultant sent him security video. “All of the security cameras inside the terminal went dead for a three-minute span,” he said, putting himself on speaker. “But this was taken by a Charge n’ Sip camera outside the main terminal doors. See that elf there?”

“You mean the one with the backpack and ski mask?” Artemis replied. “Not the smartest perpetrator, is he?”

“Smart enough to take out our feed,” Foaly grumbled as the masked man on the screen found the camera and pointed a blue light at the lens.

“He used some kind of electromagnetic charge,” the prodigy murmured as the screen turned snowy.

“He almost certainly has Abbott in that pack of his,” the centaur grumbled, “and he just waltzed into our terminal and took a shuttle to the surface.”

“So what’s the good news?” he asked, pressing his thumb into the bio-gel pad at the lab’s entrance.

“The good news is there’s a limited amount of places he can hide topside. Though I’m calling to warn you; he’s probably looking for another cancer donor.”

“Which terminal did he exit out of?” Artemis asked, nodding to Holly when she mouthed, ‘Foaly?’

“E1. Tara.”

“Then he’s close. I’ll compile a probability of which hospitals he’ll most likely strike--”

“Already done. His most logical choice is Children’s University Hospital on Temple Street. The security is lax and the kids are sick.”

“Excellent. We’re on our way.”

“Tell Holly back up is en route.”

“Right,” Artemis said, snapping the phone shut and turning to the waiting elf. “We know where he’s going to be.”

As Holly checked all her equipment for a daytime operation, Artemis escorted Charlie to a small, concrete room in the basement off of the Butlers’ training areas.

“You are most likely not in any danger, but we cannot be too careful,” he explained, ushering her into the cell. “Abbott has gotten the better of us once too many times in this caper for me to be confident.”

“You have a panic room in your basement?” Charlie asked, sitting on a child-sized cot in the center of the room.

“Oh no, the panic room is upstairs,” he replied. “This was Holly’s cell when I kidnapped her.” He enjoyed the look of shock on Charlie’s face for a moment before continuing. “Anyhow, the locking mechanism is on the inside, so you can leave any time you like. However, for your safety, I would implore you to stay here until Holly, Butler, or I come and fetch you. If we are not back in three hours, tell Juliet that we’ve been compromised. She’ll know what to do.”

“Wait!” Charlie caught his sleeve as he crossed over the foot-thick threshold. “What if something happens to me?”

Artemis shook her off and gently pushed her back into the cell. “If you’re taken off the grounds, which is unlikely, we’ll be able to find you.” He grinned devilishly. “I installed a tracking device on your person while you were knocked out yesterday.” Before Charlie could protest, the door closed with an ominous boom.

The Fowl Bentley pulled up in front of Children’s University Hospital half an hour later.

“According to the hospital schematics, there are only two public entrances to the building, one on the street level, and one in the car park,” Holly said, scrolling through the screens of data on her LEP helmet visor. “However, with the unknown fairy technology at Abbott’s disposal, he could get through any number of openings, including the ventilation system and the sewers.”

“Then perhaps,” Artemis replied, shrugging off his Armani jacket and pulling on a U2 sweater, “we should focus on possible exits. If Abbott and his crony do arrive via the ventilation system, they would need another route to conceal and carry their sick captive.”

“They would need a vehicle,” Butler added, snapping a magazine into his Sig Sauer and tucked an extra clip, wrapped in a handkerchief, in his front lapel pocket.

“It all depends on who they decide to kidnap,” the genius pointed out. “We’re talking about a three pound guinea pig and a seventy pound elf. Even a sick child would be difficult to handle.”

“You think they’re going to take a baby,” Holly realized.

He shrugged, dragging a hand through his slicked hair to muss it. “It’s what I would have done. The initial challenge of security is worth it if the captive is incapable of planning an escape later on.”

“Well, then,” Butler opened the door, and Holly turned on her shield. Artemis could hear the buzz of the Neutrino next to his ear. “Let’s crack on.”

Victoria returned from church that morning a little upset and very worried. Charlie hadn’t turned up for Sunday worship that morning. She knew her friend was sometimes forgetful and always late, but she couldn’t even reach her on her cell phone. She tried Butler’s number, since Charlie seemed to hang out with him a lately, but he didn’t answer, either. Finally, she called Artemis.

“Victoria, lovely to hear from you,” he said upon answering, “but now is not the best time.”

“I’ll be quick,” she said. “I can’t find Charlie anywhere. Do you know where she is?”

“Have you asked Juliet?”

Victoria paused. She had ignored her suspicions of Artemis’s actions lately, but now she had the worst feeling that Charlie was involved, too, and if she was, he definitely wouldn’t tell her. “I asked her, she said she didn’t know.”

“Well, she wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I had Butler drive her to the family doctor’s clinic. He doesn’t make house calls on Sundays.”

“O-oh. Okay. Thanks.” Victoria pressed the end button and immediately went in search of Juliet. She found her in the twins’ shared room, scrubbing a strange, red goo from the walls. When the goo moved on its own, attaching itself to her arm, both women yelped and jumped away from the failed experiment. Finally, the bodyguard took notice of her guest.

“Victoria! Nice to see you!” she said, wiping her arm on her already soiled apron.

“Yeah.” She stuffed her hands into her sweater pockets. “You too. Have you seen Charlie?”

Juliet looked out of the corner of her eye at the messy wall as she said, “No, I haven’t. She’s with my brother, right? Bowling, I think.”

The artist pursed her lips. “What time did they leave?”

“I think I heard the car leave about-- two hours ago?” She wrung a washcloth in her fists. “She’s really into bowling huh?”

“Yeah,” Victoria hummed, surveying the toy and clothes cluttering the room. “Where are they really?” Before the blonde could protest, she continued, “I don’t know you very well, but you have too much of a commanding presence to use the word ‘think’ so often unless you were hiding something. Also, you and your brother seem close, so any scheme he was in on he’d tell you about it, to keep Mrs. Fowl off the scent.” She took a step toward the babysitter. “But I’m not Mrs. Fowl, and I’m not falling for it. Charlie is my best friend, and you will take me to her.”

Juliet raised her hands in surrender, though her glossed lips curled up at one side in amusement. “Alright, hot shot, I’ll take you to her. I have to get a hazmat suit to remove that monster anyway.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks.” She straightened with embarrassment as she obediently followed the older woman out the door.

Artemis did his best to saunter lazily through the hospital’s linoleum halls, inhaling with his mouth to avoid the smell of human waste and strong cleaning agents. He passed through the brightly-colored rehab center without any trouble, which was connected to the pastel infant’s ward by a service hallway. Butler walked a few paces behind, looking into rooms at random as if searching for his child, when in fact he was watching out for fairy activity and cataloguing possible escape routes. Holly, shielded, flitted about the building with her chest sensor on, scanning for fairy life forms.

The infant ward looked like a machine nursery, with towers of medical technology wired to each child, most of whom lay unnervingly still in their metal cradles.

“Hello, young man.” A thin nurse with curly brown hair pinned up under her cap smiled at him. “What are you doing in the intensive care wing? You’re a little old to be down here, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes-- yeah,” Artemis struggled with the grammatically incorrect slang. “It’s boring downstairs, so I thought I’d have a look around-- are all of these rooms occupied?”

“All except one,” she replied, checking her clipboard. “It’s unfortunate that the ward is so full, but they’ll get better.”

He nodded, genuinely disheartened, and turned to leave. “I can find my own way back.” He walked away in the opposite direction until he could no longer hear the soft thuds of the nurse’s orthopedic sneakers, then met up with Butler at the entrance to the infant wing.

“So?” he asked.

“All children are present and accounted for.” Butler raised a grey eyebrow when he ward grunted at the news. “Well, don’t look so disappointed.”

“This doesn’t make any sense, Butler,” Artemis hissed, rubbing his chin. “I mean, this is the logical thing to do-- at least it would be, if we weren’t here.”

The bodyguard’s brows overshadowed his dark eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why did Abbott take the E1 shoot when he knew we’d be able to get here ahead of him? Why didn’t he take a shuttle to America or India, somewhere it would take us a while to get to?” He squinted down at his custom leather shoes as he hypothesized. “If he had arrived here before us, it would have been by mere minutes. Now that we have confirmed that we have indeed beaten him to the proverbial punch, his objective will be substantially harder to obtain, so why, knowing this, did he escape Haven so conspicuously?”

Butler’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t think he’s here.” Artemis nodded, and the large man massaged his temples, trying to divine his wards logic. “Then why are we here, Artemis?”

“Do you know the benefit of being an ex-criminal mastermind is, Butler?” Artemis asked, rubbing his arm through the uncomfortably loose sweater.

Butler shook his head.

“I know how they think. If I were Abbott, I’d know my adversary would consider this the most likely target, even if I was not planning on utilizing it.” The bodyguard nudged his ward, prompting him to get on with it.

Artemis responded by activating the microphone in his collar. “Holly, change the perimeters of your search. Instead of sweeping for fairy life, try scanning for fairy technology.” He looked up at his bodyguard out of the corner of his eye. “If it were me, I’d exploit this foreknowledge of my enemy’s movements to send a message. And knowing Abbott, actions speak louder than words.”

“I’ve swept the north and west wings: nothing,” Holly whispered in Artemis’s ear, still shielded as she perched herself on a chair adjacent to his in the infant ward’s waiting area.

He folded up a Time magazine and talked as if he addressed Butler, who was comically cramped into one of the chairs. “Which only leaves this wing,” the genius hummed. “I assume in this very ward; it has the highest occupant density.”

“If he hid it here, it’ll be impossible for us to deal with it without drawing undo attention to ourselves,” Butler pointed out, standing to stretch.

“‘Deal with what?’” Holly hissed.

Artemis’s brow hung over his deep blue eyes. “A bomb.”

Before the elf could make further comment, he continued, “I don’t believe Abbott would bring it here himself, though. In fact, I don’t think he’s even arrived on the surface yet.” The mastermind stood and began to walk briskly down the hall, as if he’d forgotten something. Butler and Holly dutifully followed, neither of them completely following his train of thought. “He knew we’d catch his trail, so he threw us a red herring, one he knew we wouldn’t be able to ignore.” Artemis entered the one vacant hospital room. It was fully outfitted with a motorized hospital bed surrounded by towering, grey machinery that looked dead without their flickering lights and beeps. A few chairs were stacked next to a closed window with blinds drawn down, and an unopened good-sized package on the top chair.

“His elvish friend mesmerized a delivery boy, using the humans to transport their own doom,”Artemis whispered, approaching the package with measured steps.

Butler closed the door and lowered blinds over the window looking onto the hall as the genius knelt in front of the box. Using a scanner application on his specially-modified cell phone, he made sure the container itself wasn’t rigged to explode when opened. Then, he produced a switchblade disguised as a pen from his jacket pocket and sliced through the packing tape. The cardboard sighed in relief as the flaps separated.

All three friends held a collective breath as he tilted back the cardboard lid.

Description
“What is it Foaly?” Artemis growled. “I was in the middle of something.” His Armani shoes barely making a sound as he skittered down a flight of stairs to the lab.

The technician twirled his goatie. “You can make goo goo eyes at your girlfriend later, Mud Boy.”

The youth raised a sculpted brow. “How did you-- Foaly, you rapscallion, did you finally find a way past my security system?”

“No, I guessed.”

“Oh,” the genius wondered for a moment whether to believe him, then pushed the matter from his mind. “What has happened?”

“Just what you said would happen, Arty boy. The boys in the office spread rumors about a raid, and Abbott got spooked. Fifty-four minutes ago a shuttle took off fifteen minutes ahead of schedule with no one inside. At least, that’s what the officials on the scene thought, but I looked through the security feeds. Look at your phone’s screen.” Artemis pulled the cell away from his face as the technical consultant sent him security video. “All of the security cameras inside the terminal went dead for a three-minute span,” he said, putting himself on speaker. “But this was taken by a Charge n’ Sip camera outside the main terminal doors. See that elf there?”

“You mean the one with the backpack and ski mask?” Artemis replied. “Not the smartest perpetrator, is he?”

“Smart enough to take out our feed,” Foaly grumbled as the masked man on the screen found the camera and pointed a blue light at the lens.

“He used some kind of electromagnetic charge,” the prodigy murmured as the screen turned snowy.

“He almost certainly has Abbott in that pack of his,” the centaur grumbled, “and he just waltzed into our terminal and took a shuttle to the surface.”

“So what’s the good news?” he asked, pressing his thumb into the bio-gel pad at the lab’s entrance.

“The good news is there’s a limited amount of places he can hide topside. Though I’m calling to warn you; he’s probably looking for another cancer donor.”

“Which terminal did he exit out of?” Artemis asked, nodding to Holly when she mouthed, ‘Foaly?’

“E1. Tara.”

“Then he’s close. I’ll compile a probability of which hospitals he’ll most likely strike--”

“Already done. His most logical choice is Children’s University Hospital on Temple Street. The security is lax and the kids are sick.”

“Excellent. We’re on our way.”

“Tell Holly back up is en route.”

“Right,” Artemis said, snapping the phone shut and turning to the waiting elf. “We know where he’s going to be.”

As Holly checked all her equipment for a daytime operation, Artemis escorted Charlie to a small, concrete room in the basement off of the Butlers’ training areas.

“You are most likely not in any danger, but we cannot be too careful,” he explained, ushering her into the cell. “Abbott has gotten the better of us once too many times in this caper for me to be confident.”

“You have a panic room in your basement?” Charlie asked, sitting on a child-sized cot in the center of the room.

“Oh no, the panic room is upstairs,” he replied. “This was Holly’s cell when I kidnapped her.” He enjoyed the look of shock on Charlie’s face for a moment before continuing. “Anyhow, the locking mechanism is on the inside, so you can leave any time you like. However, for your safety, I would implore you to stay here until Holly, Butler, or I come and fetch you. If we are not back in three hours, tell Juliet that we’ve been compromised. She’ll know what to do.”

“Wait!” Charlie caught his sleeve as he crossed over the foot-thick threshold. “What if something happens to me?”

Artemis shook her off and gently pushed her back into the cell. “If you’re taken off the grounds, which is unlikely, we’ll be able to find you.” He grinned devilishly. “I installed a tracking device on your person while you were knocked out yesterday.” Before Charlie could protest, the door closed with an ominous boom.

The Fowl Bentley pulled up in front of Children’s University Hospital half an hour later.

“According to the hospital schematics, there are only two public entrances to the building, one on the street level, and one in the car park,” Holly said, scrolling through the screens of data on her LEP helmet visor. “However, with the unknown fairy technology at Abbott’s disposal, he could get through any number of openings, including the ventilation system and the sewers.”

“Then perhaps,” Artemis replied, shrugging off his Armani jacket and pulling on a U2 sweater, “we should focus on possible exits. If Abbott and his crony do arrive via the ventilation system, they would need another route to conceal and carry their sick captive.”

“They would need a vehicle,” Butler added, snapping a magazine into his Sig Sauer and tucked an extra clip, wrapped in a handkerchief, in his front lapel pocket.

“It all depends on who they decide to kidnap,” the genius pointed out. “We’re talking about a three pound guinea pig and a seventy pound elf. Even a sick child would be difficult to handle.”

“You think they’re going to take a baby,” Holly realized.

He shrugged, dragging a hand through his slicked hair to muss it. “It’s what I would have done. The initial challenge of security is worth it if the captive is incapable of planning an escape later on.”

“Well, then,” Butler opened the door, and Holly turned on her shield. Artemis could hear the buzz of the Neutrino next to his ear. “Let’s crack on.”

Victoria returned from church that morning a little upset and very worried. Charlie hadn’t turned up for Sunday worship that morning. She knew her friend was sometimes forgetful and always late, but she couldn’t even reach her on her cell phone. She tried Butler’s number, since Charlie seemed to hang out with him a lately, but he didn’t answer, either. Finally, she called Artemis.

“Victoria, lovely to hear from you,” he said upon answering, “but now is not the best time.”

“I’ll be quick,” she said. “I can’t find Charlie anywhere. Do you know where she is?”

“Have you asked Juliet?”

Victoria paused. She had ignored her suspicions of Artemis’s actions lately, but now she had the worst feeling that Charlie was involved, too, and if she was, he definitely wouldn’t tell her. “I asked her, she said she didn’t know.”

“Well, she wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I had Butler drive her to the family doctor’s clinic. He doesn’t make house calls on Sundays.”

“O-oh. Okay. Thanks.” Victoria pressed the end button and immediately went in search of Juliet. She found her in the twins’ shared room, scrubbing a strange, red goo from the walls. When the goo moved on its own, attaching itself to her arm, both women yelped and jumped away from the failed experiment. Finally, the bodyguard took notice of her guest.

“Victoria! Nice to see you!” she said, wiping her arm on her already soiled apron.

“Yeah.” She stuffed her hands into her sweater pockets. “You too. Have you seen Charlie?”

Juliet looked out of the corner of her eye at the messy wall as she said, “No, I haven’t. She’s with my brother, right? Bowling, I think.”

The artist pursed her lips. “What time did they leave?”

“I think I heard the car leave about-- two hours ago?” She wrung a washcloth in her fists. “She’s really into bowling huh?”

“Yeah,” Victoria hummed, surveying the toy and clothes cluttering the room. “Where are they really?” Before the blonde could protest, she continued, “I don’t know you very well, but you have too much of a commanding presence to use the word ‘think’ so often unless you were hiding something. Also, you and your brother seem close, so any scheme he was in on he’d tell you about it, to keep Mrs. Fowl off the scent.” She took a step toward the babysitter. “But I’m not Mrs. Fowl, and I’m not falling for it. Charlie is my best friend, and you will take me to her.”

Juliet raised her hands in surrender, though her glossed lips curled up at one side in amusement. “Alright, hot shot, I’ll take you to her. I have to get a hazmat suit to remove that monster anyway.”

“Oh. Uh, thanks.” She straightened with embarrassment as she obediently followed the older woman out the door.

Artemis did his best to saunter lazily through the hospital’s linoleum halls, inhaling with his mouth to avoid the smell of human waste and strong cleaning agents. He passed through the brightly-colored rehab center without any trouble, which was connected to the pastel infant’s ward by a service hallway. Butler walked a few paces behind, looking into rooms at random as if searching for his child, when in fact he was watching out for fairy activity and cataloguing possible escape routes. Holly, shielded, flitted about the building with her chest sensor on, scanning for fairy life forms.

The infant ward looked like a machine nursery, with towers of medical technology wired to each child, most of whom lay unnervingly still in their metal cradles.

“Hello, young man.” A thin nurse with curly brown hair pinned up under her cap smiled at him. “What are you doing in the intensive care wing? You’re a little old to be down here, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yes-- yeah,” Artemis struggled with the grammatically incorrect slang. “It’s boring downstairs, so I thought I’d have a look around-- are all of these rooms occupied?”

“All except one,” she replied, checking her clipboard. “It’s unfortunate that the ward is so full, but they’ll get better.”

He nodded, genuinely disheartened, and turned to leave. “I can find my own way back.” He walked away in the opposite direction until he could no longer hear the soft thuds of the nurse’s orthopedic sneakers, then met up with Butler at the entrance to the infant wing.

“So?” he asked.

“All children are present and accounted for.” Butler raised a grey eyebrow when he ward grunted at the news. “Well, don’t look so disappointed.”

“This doesn’t make any sense, Butler,” Artemis hissed, rubbing his chin. “I mean, this is the logical thing to do-- at least it would be, if we weren’t here.”

The bodyguard’s brows overshadowed his dark eyes. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, why did Abbott take the E1 shoot when he knew we’d be able to get here ahead of him? Why didn’t he take a shuttle to America or India, somewhere it would take us a while to get to?” He squinted down at his custom leather shoes as he hypothesized. “If he had arrived here before us, it would have been by mere minutes. Now that we have confirmed that we have indeed beaten him to the proverbial punch, his objective will be substantially harder to obtain, so why, knowing this, did he escape Haven so conspicuously?”

Butler’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t think he’s here.” Artemis nodded, and the large man massaged his temples, trying to divine his wards logic. “Then why are we here, Artemis?”

“Do you know the benefit of being an ex-criminal mastermind is, Butler?” Artemis asked, rubbing his arm through the uncomfortably loose sweater.

Butler shook his head.

“I know how they think. If I were Abbott, I’d know my adversary would consider this the most likely target, even if I was not planning on utilizing it.” The bodyguard nudged his ward, prompting him to get on with it.

Artemis responded by activating the microphone in his collar. “Holly, change the perimeters of your search. Instead of sweeping for fairy life, try scanning for fairy technology.” He looked up at his bodyguard out of the corner of his eye. “If it were me, I’d exploit this foreknowledge of my enemy’s movements to send a message. And knowing Abbott, actions speak louder than words.”

“I’ve swept the north and west wings: nothing,” Holly whispered in Artemis’s ear, still shielded as she perched herself on a chair adjacent to his in the infant ward’s waiting area.

He folded up a Time magazine and talked as if he addressed Butler, who was comically cramped into one of the chairs. “Which only leaves this wing,” the genius hummed. “I assume in this very ward; it has the highest occupant density.”

“If he hid it here, it’ll be impossible for us to deal with it without drawing undo attention to ourselves,” Butler pointed out, standing to stretch.

“‘Deal with what?’” Holly hissed.

Artemis’s brow hung over his deep blue eyes. “A bomb.”

Before the elf could make further comment, he continued, “I don’t believe Abbott would bring it here himself, though. In fact, I don’t think he’s even arrived on the surface yet.” The mastermind stood and began to walk briskly down the hall, as if he’d forgotten something. Butler and Holly dutifully followed, neither of them completely following his train of thought. “He knew we’d catch his trail, so he threw us a red herring, one he knew we wouldn’t be able to ignore.” Artemis entered the one vacant hospital room. It was fully outfitted with a motorized hospital bed surrounded by towering, grey machinery that looked dead without their flickering lights and beeps. A few chairs were stacked next to a closed window with blinds drawn down, and an unopened good-sized package on the top chair.

“His elvish friend mesmerized a delivery boy, using the humans to transport their own doom,”Artemis whispered, approaching the package with measured steps.

Butler closed the door and lowered blinds over the window looking onto the hall as the genius knelt in front of the box. Using a scanner application on his specially-modified cell phone, he made sure the container itself wasn’t rigged to explode when opened. Then, he produced a switchblade disguised as a pen from his jacket pocket and sliced through the packing tape. The cardboard sighed in relief as the flaps separated.

All three friends held a collective breath as he tilted back the cardboard lid.