Artemis Fowl 08 - The Last Guardian Read Free

bodyguard.
    “Unknown.”
    They hurried down the retro corridor toward the clinic’s courtyard. Butler outstripped the group and held open the old-fashioned hinged door with its stained window depicting a thoughtful doctor comforting a weeping patient.
    “Are we taking the Stick?” asked the bodyguard, his tone suggesting that he would rather not take the Stick.
    Holly walked through the doorway. “Sorry, big man. Stick time.”
    Artemis had never been one for public transport, human or fairy, and so asked, “What’s the stick?”
    The Stick was the street name for a series of conveyor belts that ran in parallel strips along Haven City’s network of blocks. It was an ancient and reliable mode of transport from a less litigious time, which operated on a hop-on/hop-off basis similar to certain human airport-walkway systems. There were platforms throughout the city, and all a person had to do was step onto a belt and grab hold of one of the carbon-fiber stalks that sprouted from it. Hence the name Stick.
    Artemis and Butler had of course seen the Stick before, but Artemis had never planned to use such an undignified mode of transport and so had never even bothered to find out its name. Artemis knew that, with his famous lack of coordination, any attempt to hop casually onto the belt would result in a humiliating tumble. For Butler, the problem was not one of coordination or lack of it. He knew that, with his bulk, it would be difficult just to fit his feet within the belt’s width.
    “Ah, yes,” said Artemis. “ The Stick. Surely a green cab would be faster?”
    “Nope,” said Holly, hustling Artemis up the ramp to the platform, then poking him in the kidneys at just the right time so that he stepped unconsciously onto the belt, his hand landing on a stick’s bulbous grip.
    “Hey,” said Artemis, perhaps the third time in his life he had used a slang expletive. “I did it.”
    “Next stop, the Olympics,” said Holly, who had mounted the belt behind him. “Come on, bodyguard,” she called over her shoulder to Butler. “Your principal is heading toward a tunnel.”
    Butler shot the elf a look that would have cowed a bull. Holly was a dear friend, but her teasing could be relentless. He tiptoed onto the belt, squeezing his enormous feet onto a single section and bending his knees to grasp the tiny stick. In silhouette, he looked like the world’s bulkiest ballerina attempting to pluck a flower.
    Holly might have grinned had Opal Koboi not been on her mind.
    The Stick belt trundled its passengers from the Argon Clinic along the border of an Italian-style piazza toward a low tunnel, which had been laser-cut from solid rock. Fairies lunching alfresco froze with forkfuls of salad halfway to their mouths as the unlikely trio passed by.
    The sight of a jumpsuit-clad LEP officer was common enough on a Stick belt, but a gangly human boy dressed like an undertaker and a troll-sized, buzz-cut man-mountain were quite unusual.
    The tunnel was barely three feet high, so Butler was forced to prostrate himself over three sections, flattening several handgrips in the process. His nose was no more than a few feet from the tunnel wall, which he noticed was engraved with beautiful luminous pictograms depicting episodes from the People’s history.
    So the young fairies can learn something about their own heritage each time they pass through. How wonderful, thought Butler; but he suppressed his admiration, as he had long ago disciplined his brain to concentrate on bodyguard duties and not waste neurons being amazed while he was belowground.
    Save it for retirement, he thought. Then you can cast your mind back and appreciate art.
    Police Plaza was a cobbled crest into which the shape of the Lower Elements Police acorn insignia had been painstakingly paved by master craftsmen. It was a total waste of effort as far as the LEP officers were concerned, as they were not generally the type who were inclined to gaze out of the