The Opal Deception

  “Should we blast them from the skies?” asked the younger Brill brother eagerly. At last some of the action he had been promised.

  “No,” replied Opal. “A plasma burst would give our position to human and fairy police satellites. We go silent. Turn off everything. Even life support. I don’t know how they got this close, but the only way they’re going to find out our exact location is to run into us. And if that happens, their sad little shuttle will crumple like cardboard.”

  The Brills obeyed promptly, switching off all of the shuttle’s systems.

  “Good,” whispered Opal, placing a slim finger over her lips. They watched the shuttle for several minutes until Opal decided to break the silence.

  “Whoever is passing wind, please stop it, or I will devise a fitting punishment.”

  “It wasn’t me,” mouthed the Brill brothers simultaneously. Neither was anxious to find out what the fitting punishment for passing wind was.

  E7, Ten Minutes Earlier

  Holly eased the LEP shuttle through a particularly tricky secondary shaft and into E7. Almost immediately, two red lights began pulsing on the console.

  “The clock is ticking,” she announced. “We just triggered two of Foaly’s sensors. They’re going to put the shuttle together with the probe and come running.”

  “How long?” asked Artemis.

  Holly calculated in her head. “If they come supersonic in the attack shuttle, less than half an hour.”

  “Perfect,” said Artemis, pleased.

  “I’m glad you think so,” moaned Mulch. “Supersonic LEP officers are never a welcome sight among burglars. As a general rule we prefer our police officers subsonic.”

  Holly clamped the shuttle to a rocky outcrop on the chute wall. “Are you backing out, Mulch? Or is just the usual moaning?”

  The dwarf rotated his jaw, warming it up for the work ahead. “I think I’m entitled to a little moan. Why do these plans always involve me putting myself in harm’s way, while you three get to wait it out in the shuttle?”

  Artemis handed him a cooler sack from the galley. “Because you are the only one who can do this, Mulch. You alone can foil Koboi’s plan.”

  Mulch was not impressed. “I’m not impressed,” he said. “I’d better get a medal for this. Real gold, too. No more gold-plated computer disks.”

  Holly hustled him to the starboard hatch. “Mulch, if they don’t lock me in prison for the rest of my life, I will start the campaign to give you the biggest medal in the LEP cabinet.”

  “And amnesty for any past and future crimes?”

  Holly opened the hatch. “Past, maybe. Future, not a chance. But no guarantees. I’m not exactly flavor of the month at Police Plaza.”

  Mulch tucked the sack inside his shirt. “Okay. Possible big medal and probable amnesty. I’ll take it.” He put one foot outside onto the flat surface of the rock. Tunnel wind sucked at his leg, threatening to tumble him into the abyss. “We meet back here in twenty minutes.”

  Artemis handed the dwarf a small walkie-talkie from the LEP locker. “Remember the plan,” shouted Artemis over the roar of the wind. “Don’t forget to leave the communicator. Only steal what you are supposed to. Nothing else.”

  “Nothing else,” echoed Mulch, looking none too pleased. After all, who knew what valuables Opal may have lying about up there. “Unless something really jumps out at me.”

  “Nothing,” insisted Artemis. “Now, are you sure you can get in?”

  Mulch’s grin revealed rows of rectangular teeth. “I can get in. You just make sure their power is off and they’re looking the other way.”

  Butler hefted the bag of tricks that he had brought with him from Fowl Manor. “Don’t worry, Mulch. They’ll be looking the other way. I guarantee it.”

  Police Plaza, The Lower Elements

  All the brass were in the Operations Room, watching live television updates on the probe’s progress when Foaly burst in.

  “We need to talk,” blurted the centaur to the general assembly.

  “Quiet,” hissed Council Chairman Cahartez. “Have a bowl of curry.”

  Chairman Cahartez ran a fleet of curry vans in Haven City. Vole curry was his specialty. Obviously he was catering this little viewing session.

  Foaly ignored the buffet table. He snatched a remote control from a chair armrest and muted the master volume.

  “We have big trouble, ladies and gentlemen. Opal Koboi is loose, and I think she’s behind the Zito probe.”

  A high-back swivel chair swung around. Ark Sool was lounging in it. “Opal Koboi? Amazing. And she’s doing all this psychically, I suppose.”

  “No. What are you doing in that chair? That’s the commander’s chair. The real commander, not Internal Affairs.”

  Sool tapped the golden acorns on his lapel. “I’ve been promoted.”

  Foaly blanched. “You’re the new Recon commander?”

  Sool’s smile could have illuminated a dark room. “Yes. The Council felt that Recon had been getting a bit out of hand lately. They felt, and I must say I agree, that Recon needs a firm hand. Of course I will stay on at Internal Affairs until a suitable replacement can be found.”

  Foaly scowled. There was no time for this. Not now. He had to get clearance for a supersonic launch immediately.

  “Okay, Sool, Commander. I can lodge my objection later. Right now we have an emergency on our hands.”

  Everyone was listening now. But none with much enthusiasm, except Commander Vinyaya who had always been a staunch supporter of Julius Root, and would certainly have not voted for Sool. Vinyaya was all ears.

  “What’s the emergency, Foaly?” she asked.

  Foaly slipped a computer disk into the room’s multidrive. “That thing in the Argon Clinic is not Opal Koboi; it’s a clone.”

  “Evidence?” demanded Sool.

  Foaly highlighted a window on the screen. “I scanned her retinas and found that the last image the clone saw was Opal Koboi herself. Obviously during her escape.”

  Sool was not convinced. “I’ve never trusted your gadgets, Foaly. Your Retimager is not accepted as actual evidence in a courtroom.”

  “We’re not in a courtroom, Sool,” said Foaly through ground teeth. “If we accept that Opal could be loose, then the events of the past twenty-four hours take on a whole new significance. A pattern begins to emerge. Scalene is dead, pixies are missing from the clinic, Julius is murdered, and Holly is blamed. Then within hours of this, a probe is sent down a decade ahead of schedule. Koboi is behind all of this. That probe is on its way here and we’re sitting around watching it on PPTV . . . eating stinking vole curry!”

  “I object to the disparaging curry remark,” said Cahartez, wounded. “But otherwise I get your point.”

  Sool jumped from his chair. “What point? Foaly is connecting dots that don’t exist. All he is trying to do is exonerate his late friend, Captain Short.”

  “Holly may be alive!” snapped Foaly. “And trying to do something about Opal Koboi.”

  Sool rolled his eyes. “But her vitals flatlined, centaur. We remote-destructed her helmet. I was there, remember?”

  A head poked into the room. One of Foaly’s lab apprentices. “I got that case, sir,” he panted. “Quick as I could.”

  “Well done, Roob,” said Foaly, snatching the case from the apprentice’s hand. He spun the case around. “I issued Holly and Julius with new suits. Prototypes. They both have bio-sensors and trackers. They are not linked with the LEP mainframe. I never thought to check them earlier. Holly’s helmet may be out of action, but her suit is still functioning.”

  “What do the suit’s sensors tell us, Foaly?” asked Vinyaya.

  Foaly was almost afraid to look. If the suit sensors were flatlining, it would be like losing Holly again. He counted to three, then consulted the small screen in the case. There were two readouts on the screen. One was flat. Julius. But the other was active in all areas.

  “Holly is alive!” shouted the centaur, ki
ssing Commander Vinyaya soundly on the cheek. “Alive and reasonably well, apart from elevated blood pressure and next to zero magic in her tank.”

  “And where is she?” asked Vinyaya, smiling.

  Foaly enlarged the locator section of the screen. “On her way up E7, in the shuttle that was stolen by Mulch Diggums, if I’m not mistaken.”

  Sool was delighted. “Let me get this straight. Murder suspect Holly Short is in a stolen chute next to the Zito probe.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That would make her the prime suspect in any irregularities concerning the probe.”

  Foaly was very tempted to actually trample Sool, but he held his temper in check, for Holly’s sake. “All I’m asking, Sool, is that you give me a green light to send the supersonic shuttle to investigate. If I’m right, then your first act as Commander will be to avert a calamity.”

  “And if you’re wrong? Which you probably are.”

  “If I’m wrong, then you get to bring in public enemy number one, Captain Holly Short.”

  Sool stroked his goatee. It was a win-win situation. “Very well. Send the shuttle. How long will it take to prep?”

  Foaly pulled a phone from his pocket and hit a number on the speed dial.

  “Major Kelp,” he said into the mouthpiece. “Green light. Go.” Foaly smiled at Ark Sool. “I briefed Major Kelp on my way over. I felt sure you’d see it my way. Commanders generally do.”

  Sool scowled. “Don’t get familiar with me, ponyboy. This is not the start of a beautiful relationship. I’m sending the shuttle because it is the only option. If you are somehow manipulating me, or bending the truth, I will bury you in tribunal hearings for the next five years. Then I will fire you.”

  Foaly ignored him. There would be plenty of time for trading threats later. He needed to concentrate on the shuttle’s progress. He had gone through the shock of Holly’s death once before; he did not intend to go through it again.

  E7

  Mulch Diggums could have been an athlete. He had the jaw and recycling equipment for sprint digging, or even cross-country. Plenty of natural ability, but no dedication.

  He tried it for a couple of months in college, but the strict regime of training and diet did not suit him. Mulch could still remember his college tunneling coach giving him a pep talk after training one night.

  “You got the jaw, Diggums,” the old dwarf admitted. “And you sure got the behind. I ain’t never seen no one who could pump out the bubbles like you do. But you ain’t got the heart, and that’s what’s important.”

  Maybe the old dwarf was right: Mulch never did have the heart for selfless activity. Tunneling was a lonely job, and there wasn’t much money in it either. And because it was an ethnic sport, the TV networks were not interested. No advertising meant no big pay deals for the athletes. Mulch decided his digging prowess could be more profitably utilized on the shady side of the law. Maybe if he had some gold, then female dwarfs would be more likely to return his calls.

  And now here he was, breaking all his rules, preparing to break into a craft that was bristling with fairy sensors and occupied by armed hostiles. Just to help someone else. Of all the vehicles on the planet or under it, Artemis just had to get into the most technologically advanced shuttle in existence. Every square inch of the stealth shuttle’s plating would be alarmed with lasers, motion sensors, static sheets, and who knew what else. Still, alarms were no good if they weren’t activated, and that was what Mulch was counting on.

  Mulch waved good-bye in the general direction of the shuttle, just in case anyone was still watching him, and traversed the rocky outcrop to the safety of the chute wall. Dwarfs do not like heights, and being technically below sea level was not helping his vertigo.

  The dwarf sank his fingers into a vein of soft clay sprouting through the rock wall. Home. Anywhere on earth was home to a dwarf, as long as there was clay. Mulch felt calm settle over him. He was safe now, for the time being, at any rate.

  The dwarf unhinged his jaw with twin cracks that would make any other sentient species wince. He popped the snaps on his bum-flap and launched himself into the clay. His gnashing teeth scooped buckets of clay from the chute wall, creating an instant tunnel. Mulch crawled into the space, sealing the cavity behind him with recycled clay from his rear end.

  After half a dozen mouthfuls, the sonar filaments in his hair detected a shelf of rock ahead, so he adjusted his course accordingly. The stealth shuttle would not be set down on rock because it was top of the range, and as such would have a battery rod. The rods telescoped from the belly of the ship, drilling fifty feet below the ground and recharging the shuttle’s batteries with the power of the earth. The cleanest of energies.

  The battery rod vibrated slightly as it harvested, and it was this vibration that Mulch homed in on now. It took him just over five minutes of steady munching to clear the rock shelf and reach the tip of the battery rod. The vibrations had already loosened the earth, and it was a simple matter for Mulch to clear himself a little cave. He spread saliva on the walls and waited.

  Holly piloted the LEP craft through the small shuttleport, overriding the shuttle doors with her Recon access code. Police Plaza hadn’t bothered to change her code, because as far as they were concerned, she was dead.

  A sheet of black rain clouds was spreading shadows across the Italian countryside as they cleared the holographic outcrop that shielded the shuttleport. A light frost coated the reddish clay, and a southerly wind lifted the shuttle’s tail.

  “We can’t stay out here for long,” said Holly, throttling back to a hover. “This transporter doesn’t have defenses.”

  “We won’t need long,” said Artemis. “Fly in a grid search pattern, as though we’re not certain where exactly the stealth shuttle is.”

  Holly punched some coordinates into the flight computer. “You’re the genius.”

  Artemis turned to Butler, who was cross-legged in the aisle. “Now, old friend, can you make certain that Opal is looking this way?”

  “Can do,” said Butler, crawling to the port side exit. He knuckled the access button and the door slid back. The shuttle bucked slightly as the cabin pressure equalized, then settled.

  Butler opened his bag of weaponry and selected a handful of metal spheres, roughly the size of tennis balls. He flicked back the safety cap on one, then depressed the button below with his thumb. The button began to rise to its original position.

  “Ten seconds until the button is flush with the surface. Then it makes a connection.”

  “Thank you for the lecture,” said Artemis dryly. “Though now is hardly the time.”

  Butler smiled, tossing the metal sphere into the air. Five seconds later it exploded, blowing a small crater in the earth below. Scorch lines emanated from the crater, giving it the appearance of a black flower.

  “I bet Opal is looking now,” said Butler, priming the next grenade.

  “I’m sure others will be looking soon. Explosions don’t tend to go unnoticed for long. We are relatively isolated here. The nearest village is approximately ten miles away. If we are lucky, that gives us a ten-minute window. Next grid square, please, Holly. But not too close; we don’t want to scare them off.”

  Fifty feet below the ground, Mulch Diggums waited in his little DIY cave, watching the tip of the battery rod. As soon as it stopped vibrating, he began working his way upward through the loose clay. The telescopic rod was warm to the touch, heated by the energy it conducted to the shuttle’s batteries. Mulch used it to help him on his journey, pulling himself upward, hand over hand. The clay he consumed was broken and aerated from the rod’s drilling action, and Mulch was glad for that extra air. He converted it to wind, using it to boost himself upward.

  Mulch increased his pace, pumping the air and clay through his recycling passages. Opal would only be distracted by the shuttle for so long before it occurred to her that it was a diversion. The rod thickened as he went along, until he arrived at a rubber seal in the b
elly of the shuttle itself, which was raised on three retractable legs two feet off the ground. When the shuttle was in flight, this seal would be covered by a metal panel; but the shuttle was not in flight at the moment, and the sensors were turned off.

  Mulch climbed from his tunnel and rehinged his jaw. This was precision work and he needed fine control of his teeth. Rubber was not a recommended part of a dwarf’s diet, and so could not be swallowed. Half-digested rubber could seal up his insides as effectively as a barrel of glue.

  It was an awkward bite. Difficult to get a grip. Mulch flattened his cheek against the battery rod, worming upward until his incisors could get some purchase on the seal. He bore down on the heavy rubber, rotating his jaw in small circles until his upper tooth broke through. Then he ground his teeth, enlarging the rent until there was a six-inch tear in the rubber. Now Mulch could get one side of his mouth into the gap. He tore off large chunks, careful to spit them out immediately.

  In less than a minute Mulch had torn a foot-square hole. Just enough for him to squeeze through. Anyone unfamiliar with dwarfs would have bet money that Mulch would never squeeze his well-fed bulk through such a narrow aperture, but they would have lost their cash. Dwarfs have spent millennia escaping from cave-ins, and have developed the ability to squeeze through tighter holes than this one.

  Mulch sucked in his gut and wiggled through the torn seal, headfirst. He was glad to be out of the faint, morning sunlight. Sun was another thing dwarfs did not like. After mere minutes in direct sunlight, a dwarf’s skin would be redder than a boiled lobster’s. He shinned along the battery rod into the shuttle’s engine compartment. Most of the small space was taken up with flat batteries and a hydrogen generator. There was an access hatch overhead that led into the cargo bay. Light ropes ran the length of the compartment, giving off pale green light. Any radiation leak from the generator would show up purple. The reason that the light ropes were still working without power was that illumination was supplied by specially cultivated decaying algae. Not that Mulch knew any of this; he just knew that the light was very similar to the luminescence from dwarf spittle, and the familiarity made him relax. He relaxed a bit too much, as it happened, allowing a small squib of tunnel gas to escape through his bum-flap. Hopefully nobody would notice that. . . .