Free Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex by Eoin Colfer Page B

probe’s belly and a gangplank swing down on hydraulics. Something was coming out.
    Hope I get to wake up, Holly thought. I hate the ice and I don’t want to die cold.
    Then she closed her eyes and did not feel her limp body roll from the rooftop and thump into a snowdrift below.
    Barely a minute later, Holly’s eyes fluttered open. Waking up felt jagged and unreal, like documentary footage from a war zone. Holly could not remember standing, but suddenly she was on her feet, being dragged along by Foaly, who looked extremely disheveled, possibly because his beautiful quiff had been totally singed and sat balanced on top of his head like a bird’s nest. But mostly he seemed depressed.
    “Come on, Captain!” Foaly shouted, his voice seeming a little out of sync with his mouth. “We need to move.” Holly coughed amber sparks, and her eyes watered.
    Amber magic now? I’m getting old.
    Foaly shook her shoulders. “Straighten up, Captain. We have work to do.”
    The centaur was using trauma psychology. Holly knew this: she could remember the in-service course in Police Plaza.
    In the event of battle stress, appeal to the soldiers’ professionalism. Remind them of their rank repeatedly. Insist that they perform their duty. This will not have a long-term healing effect on any psychological wounds, but it might be enough to get you back to base.
    Commander Vinyáya had given that course.
    Holly tried to pull herself together. Her legs felt brittle from the knees down, and her midsection buzzed from the post-healing pain known as magic burn.
    “Is Artemis alive?”
    “Don’t know,” said Foaly brusquely. “I built those things, you know. I designed them.”
    “What things?”
    Foaly dragged her to a glassy droop in the glacier, slicker than any ice rink.
    “The things hunting us right now. The amorphobots. The things that came out of the probe.”
    They slid to the bottom of the bank, leaning forward to keep their balance.
    Holly seemed to have developed tunnel vision, though her visor was panoramic. The edges of her vision crackled with amber static.
    I am still healing. I shouldn’t be moving. Gods know what damage I will do myself.
    Foaly seemed to read her mind, but more likely it was fairy empathy.
    “I had to get you out of there. One of my amorphobots was heading your way, sucking up everything in its path. The probe’s gone below, to gods know where. Try to lean on me.”
    Holly nodded, then coughed again; the spray was instantly absorbed by her porous visor.
    They hobbled across the ice toward the crater where Artemis lay. He was extremely pale and there was a speed drip of blood running from the corner of his mouth to his hairline. Foaly dropped to his forelegs and tried to encourage Artemis back into consciousness with a stiff talking to.
    “Come on, Mud Boy,” he said, poking Artemis’s forearm. “No time for lollygagging.”
    Artemis’s response to this chastising was a barely noticeable jerking of his arm. This was good—at least it told Holly that Artemis was still alive.
    Holly tripped over the crater’s lip, and stumbled to the bottom.
    “ Lollygagging ?” she gasped. “Is that even a word?”
    Foaly poked Artemis one more time. “Yes. It is. And shouldn’t you be killing those robots with your pencil?”
    Holly’s eyes seemed to light up. “Really? Can I do that?”
    Foaly snorted. “Certainly. If your pencil has a super-duper demon magic beam inside it instead of graphite.”
    Holly was still groggy, but even through a fugue of injury and battle stress, it was obvious that the situation was dire. They heard strange metallic clicks and animalistic whoops chittering through the air, softly at first then rising in tempo and intensity to a frenzy.
    The noise grated against Holly’s forehead as though her skin were being yanked.
    “What is that?”
    “The amorphobots are communicating,” whispered Foaly. “Transferring terabytes of information wirelessly. Updating each other. What