“Nice clay,” he said, giving the ground a lick. “Tastes like profit.”
Holly stepped from the passenger seat and sideswiped Mulch’s behind with her loafer.
“There will be no profit for you if we can’t get into the terminal unseen.”
The dwarf picked himself up. “I thought we were supposed to be friends. Easy with the kicking and the punching. Are you always this aggressive?”
“Can you do it or not?”
“Of course I can. I said so, didn’t I? I’ve been running around this terminal for years. Ever since my cousin—” Artemis butted in on the conversation. “Ever since your cousin Nord, if I’m not mistaken. Ever since Nord was arrested on pollution charges, and you broke him out. We know. We know everything about you. Now, let’s move on with the plan.”
Mulch turned his back to Artemis, casually unbuttoning his bum-flap. This action was among the worst insults in a dwarf’s arsenal. Second only to what was known as the Tuba, which involves a cleaning of the pipes in someone’s direction. Wars have been fought over the Tuba.
“Moving on, chief. Stay here for fifteen minutes, then make your way to the main entrance. I would take you with me, but this tunnel is too long to hold things in, if you catch my drift.” He paused for a wink. “And if you stand too close, that’s exactly what you’ll be catching.”
Artemis smiled through gritted teeth. “Very well. Most amusing. Fifteen minutes it is, Mr. Diggums, the clock is ticking.”
“Ticking?” said Mulch. “Fairy clocks haven’t ticked for centuries.”
Then he unhinged his jaw and leaped with astonishing grace, diving into the earth like a dolphin slicing through a wave, but without the sunny disposition or cute grin.
Though Artemis had seen this a dozen times, he could not help being impressed.
“What a species,” he commented. “If they could take their minds off their stomachs for a few minutes, they could rule the world.”
Holly climbed onto the hood of the car, rested her back against the windshield, feeling the sun on her cheeks.
“Maybe they don’t want to rule the world. Maybe that’s just you, Arty.”
Arty.
Guilt gnawed at Artemis’s stomach. He gazed at Holly’s fine familiar features and realized that he couldn’t keep lying to her any longer.
“It’s a pity we had to steal this car,” continued Holly, eyes closed. “But the note we left was clear enough. The owner should find it without a problem.”
Artemis didn’t feel so bad about the car. He had bigger nails in his coffin.
“Yes, the car,” he said absently.
I need to tell her. I have to tell her.
Artemis put a toe on the Mini’s front tire and climbed onto the hood beside Holly. He sat there for a few minutes, concentrating on the experience. Storing it away.
Holly glanced at him sitting next to her. “Sorry about earlier. You know, the thing.”
“The kiss?”
Holly closed her eyes. “Yes. I don’t know what’s happening to me. We’re not even the same species. And when we go back, we will be ourselves again.” Holly covered her face with her free hand. “Listen to me. Babbling. The LEP’s first female captain. That time stream has turned me into what you would call a teenager again.”
It was true. Holly was different: the time stream had brought them closer together.
“What if I’m stuck like this? That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?”
The question hung in the air between them. A question heavy with insecurity and hope.
If you answer this question, it will be the worst thing you have ever done.
“It wasn’t you, Holly,” Artemis blurted, his forehead hot, his calm cracked.
Holly’s smile froze, still there but puzzled. “What wasn’t me?”
“You didn’t infect my mother. I did it. It was me. I had a few sparks left over from the tunnel, and I made my parents forget I’d been missing for three years.”
Holly’s smile was gone now. “I didn’t . . . but you told me . . .” She stopped in midsentence, the truth washing across her face like a disease.
Artemis pressed on, determined to explain himself.“I had to do it, Holly. Mother is dying . . . will be dying. I needed to be certain of your help. . . . Please understand . . .”
He trailed off, realizing that there was no explaining away his actions. Artemis allowed Holly several minutes to fume, then spoke again. “If there had been another way, Holly, believe me.”
No reaction. Holly’s face was carved in stone.
“Please, Holly. Say something.”
Holly slid from the hood, her feet connecting solidly with the earth.
“Fifteen minutes are up,” she said. “Time to move out.”
She strode across the McGraney boundary without a backward glance, legs cutting twin swathes in the green-black grass. Dawn sunlight shimmered on the tip of each blade, and Holly’s passage set a surging ripple of light flashing across the meadow.
Extraordinary, thought Artemis. What have I lost?
There was nothing to do but trudge after her.
Mulch Diggums was waiting for them inside the holographic bush at the shuttleport’s concealed entrance. In spite of a thick coating of mud, his smug expression was easy to read.
“You won’t be needing an omnitool, Captain,” he said. “I got the door open all on my lonesome.”
Holly was more than surprised. The shuttleport’s main door needed a twenty-digit code, plus a palm-print scan, and she knew that Mulch was about as technologically minded as a stink worm. Not that Holly wasn’t relieved, as she had anticipated a thirty-minute slog resetting the log once she opened the door herself.
“So ...tell me.”
Mulch pointed down the corridor toward the subterranean escalator. A small figure was spread-eagled on the ramp, his head covered in a blob of shining goo.
“Commander Root and his heavy mob have cleared out. Only one security guard left.”
Holly nodded. She knew where Julius Root had gone. Back to Haven to wait for her report from Hamburg.
“The guard was on his rounds up here when I tunneled in, so I swallowed him briefly and gave him a lick of dwarf spit. Everyone reacts differently to the phlegm helmet. This little pixie tried to escape. Slapped the sensor, spouted the code, then staggered around a bit before the sedative got him.”
Artemis pressed past into the access tunnel. “Perhaps our luck is finally turning,” he said, certain he could feel Holly staring daggers into the back of his head.
“A pity he didn’t open the lockup,” sighed Mulch. “Then I could have double-crossed you two and made off with the shuttle.”
Artemis froze. “Shuttle?” he braved Holly’s hostile gaze to ask. “A shuttle, Holly. Do you think we could still beat my younger self to Morocco?”
Holly’s eyes were flat, and her tone was n
eutral.“It’s possible; it depends on how long it takes me to cover our tracks.”
The shuttle was what LEP pilots would call a snowgood, as in Snowgood for anything but the recycling smelter. Butler, Artemis knew, would have been more straightforward in his assessment of the vehicle.
He could hear the big bodyguard’s voice in his head. I have driven some heaps in my time, Artemis. But this pig is ...
“. . . is barely out of the Stone Age,” murmured Artemis, then chuckled ruefully.
“Another joke, Mud Boy? You’re really in fine form today. What is it this time? Did you tell some poor trusting fool that they caused a plague?”
Artemis hung his head wearily. This could go on for years.
Mulch had stumbled across the shuttle when he’d tunneled to the port wall and wind-blasted a sheet of metal cladding from a service tunnel wall. He knew the panel would be loose because he had utilized this point of entry on previous visits. The shuttle had been up on blocks and under a lube tent, and so Mulch could not resist a little peek. Lo and behold, a tunnel scraper in for refitting. Just the thing for hopping around the People’s network of subterranean access tunnels.
It had been a simple matter for Holly to reverse the clunky shuttle back down the monorail to the tunnel access hatch.
Meanwhile, Artemis had been covering their tracks, removing all traces of their visit to the shuttleport. Wiping video crystals and replacing the lost time with loops. There wasn’t much he could do about the unconscious sprite or the loader-worth of LEP hardware they had helped themselves to from the lockup, but Mulch had no problem taking credit for those.
“Hey, I’m already public enemy number one,” he had said. “It’s not as if I can go any higher on the list.”
So now they were seated inside the tunnel scraper, which was slotted into a launching bracket, drawing a few minutes’ charge from the coupling dock before they dropped into the abyss. Holly spent the time falsifying a report for the tunnel authorities.
“I’m telling them that the shuttle paddle has been upgraded as per the service order, and the ship has been requested by the North African shuttleport to do a supply artery de-clogging. It’s a drone flight, so they won’t be looking for any personnel on board.”