E L E C T R I C
B L U E

- Dim Aldebaran -

:i:

They never did discover who had first spilled the beans, who had first sent the pictures. The government to first claim credit was, of course, the United States, the forever righteous, ever omnipotent.

Long ago, they had had an office poll on the matter:

Foaly suspected it was actually China, a rising star in both the economic and scientific world of globalization. He had always been rather fond of China before the Discovery. So adaptable, so full of potential—yet doomed to fall once the race of Mud Men collapsed with the last drop of oil. It could have been epic, if not for Mao Zedong.

Trouble had bet Switzerland, suspecting Opal had left something more than gold ingots with her favored chocolatier.

Root put his bets on India and Pakistan, simultaneously. His reasoning was that in their little cold war, considered childish by the fairies, they had found something they shouldn't have, something only desperate eyes could have found as they sought training camps and spy bases and missile silos and all the other playing pieces in the game of war.

Holly's bet was on Ireland.

Electric blue eyes, where did you come from?

Electric blue eyes, who sent you?

The black market had been the first to jump into the fray; while governments stood by, torn by bureaucracy and general disbelief, connections were made. With it came the Fowls—old habits die hard. Very hard.

It was declared an international holiday when Mud Men—or, to be politically correct, humans—walked the streets of Haven for the first time since the days of the Roman Empire. Calendars put it as 'Goodwill Day'; Hallmark even made cards, and it was traditional for interspecies friends to send each other cards on this day.

Artemis Fowl had been the first to spend euros there, buying The Lower Elements Express in its first ever English edition off of a vendor. He was a still a child, still just a little boy then, and he had seen his picture on the front cover, scowling at the camera: FOWL OPENS NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN UN AND COUNCIL

He was more than a business man.

He was Artemis Fowl.

He did it all.

Electric blue eyes, always be near me;
Electric blue eyes, I need you.

Between negotiations, he had focused his efforts on bringing legitimate companies belowground, entwining the economies of the two so helplessly that their home countries could not help but agree. He led the charge with his own Fowl Engineering Corporation, which specialized in adaptors between human and fairy technologies. It was wildly successful, of course, as everything Artemis Fowl is fated to be.

LEP, suspicious of Fowl's motives in his dynamic actions, had ordered an audit of his new company—but it was perfectly clean, perfectly clean, gleaming of new money as he spun the cultures of the two worlds closer and closer together. They could scarce believe it, Holly especially—she knew his father had been the only thing keeping him legitimate, until he died just before the Discovery had been made.

He became a regular visitor to Ops Booth—the paranoid centaur and the arrogant bastard had found each other at last. Foaly, surprisingly enough, showed no resentment as Artemis learned two thousand years of fairy technology in a matter of months. Since then, all major scientific developments had been a collaborative effort between them. There was talk of a merger between their two engineering firms.

Holly rarely talked to him—only an exchange of nods when she entered Ops to speak to Foaly, barely a smile.

She shouldn't care so much.

He was binding their worlds together.

Domine, Domine, Deus,

Domine, Adiuva Me.

Domine, Domine Deus,

Domine, Adiuva Me.

Artemis Fowl was a celebrated hero amongst humans; the eighteen-year-old savior of the world. His every word was snatched at by the mobs, who worshiped them as only Gandhi's followers had before. Young, handsome, and quite possibly the most intelligent being ever to walk on or below Earth—no wonder the humans loved him, no wonder he wielded such power.

The fairies had watched in awe as he used his power to fuse the world together. Over the course of mere years he healed the ethnic conflicts using, not words, but money, pouring the money of the Fowl name into Bosnia, Rwanda, Pakistan and India. His business interests between the fairies and middle-class humans kept it coming.

What a man, they all said, what a wonderful man. He saves our world now; what will he be doing in thirty years? Opening the gates to Eden?

She knew it wasn't true.

Artemis didn't give speeches.

Artemis didn't design the latest fairy ipods.

But then where was he?

You should know, you should know I love you,
You should know, you should know I'm here.

There was only one wound that would not stop bleeding; and Artemis' hands were bloody with the effort.

The Middle East had not disintegrated yet, its boundaries still in that writhing, twisting state so reminiscent of torture. Globalization could not break the ties of the soul, globalization could not make one love thy neighbor, globalization could not make one forget.

Money had done its charm on everything else—Africa only needed food, and an influx of volunteers, which Artemis had gotten with his silver tongue. Bosnia needed walls and time to cool off. Pakistan and India only needed the right candidates sponsored by the multi-billion-dollar Fowl name.

The Middle East was a half-severed limb, bones broken and reset incorrectly time and time again, cutting itself in its self-pity, rotting from the corruption. Diseases could so easily spread from there to the rest of the body, a body now so perfect and beautiful.

Doctor Artemis did what he could.

If he amputated the limb, it wasn't his life that would be sacrificed—it would be the whole body, dying of blood loss from a wound nothing could cure.

No, nukes were not the answer.

Some people thought otherwise.

She knew Artemis would stay on the surface, driven by whatever had made him bind the worlds to try and heal the Middle East even as war would erupt. Who would the terrorists kill but those little 'demons' from 'Hell', who had tempted the rest of the world with their 'magic'?

He wouldn't help the fairies.

He'd abandon them for his own people in the end.

Always be near me, guardian angel,
Always be near me, there's no fear.

Fairies no longer had a technological edge. Within five years, their technologies had been integrated into human society with surprising ease. The humans now held the advantage:

They knew where the fairies lived, where they were concentrated, where they were weakest.

They had the numbers, the terrible, mobbing numbers.

They had the resources.

War was a messy thing nowadays. It wasn't fought with countries; it was fought with people, individuals lashing out and fading back into the mob, invisible. There was no way to fight it but with words, falling down on deaf ears like a hard rain a-falling.

D'Arvit, why did Artemis have to be a hero…? All the defenses of Haven could not fight a war when the enemy walked the streets, all the precautions could not keep homemade blue rinses from detonating…

That was how the war would be fought, merely an extension of the neoCrusades.

They could not close Haven to humans. To do so would be an act of war.

Plans were being made to escape to the stars—the Council was not as stupid as they seemed. Perhaps leaving Earth was the ultimate heresy for the fairies, but it was better than what they knew what was to come. The neoCrusades would extend to them, and they as a people were not ready for the war. But to do so was to lose their heritage, their magic—she'd rather die.

Perhaps she was merely being sentimental. Perhaps the prophecies of an apocalyptic war against terrorism were wrong. Perhaps Artemis would find a way to heal the greatest schism of all, that of religion, that of the soul—

But she doubted it.

Artemis was the greatest being in ten-thousand years. Was it his purpose to unite the world? Was that why he was born?—it was strange to think of all the pain he suffered, that they had suffered, to come to that point. Had her kidnapping been part of the plan? Was that blasphemous mind wipe meant to be, was Root supposed to die?

Would she be remembered as the fairy who changed his heart and saved the world? Would she be in the history books for giving him a soul—a neo-Mary, of sorts?

It seemed stranger yet to think that's how she might be remembered.

Now, he wouldn't even smile at her.

Domine, Domine, Deus,
Domine, Adiuva Me,
Domine, Domine, Deus,
Domine, Adiuva Me.

Ops Booth was five minutes from her cubicle. Ten, if you included buying some drinks along the way. It would be so easy to intrude upon them for a few minutes—it would be so pathetically easy to talk to Artemis Fowl the Great.

She could save the world with those drinks.

She could look into his eyes as he talked about how he would bring peace to the world.

He might smile at her.

Perhaps, he might save her mind instead of the world.

She doubted he would. Artemis was too much of a hero, now.

:i:

The song is called Electric Blue, by the Cranberries, an Irish rock band. The weird lyrics are in Latin, which I thought was rather appropriate for Artemis Fowl.

That was a little weird and probably a little hard to understand (it's supposed to be somewhat complex… I don't think I got that across very well…) but ah well. I hope you all liked it anyway.

Constructive criticism is always appreciated, and will be taken into account during the next revision—see my update forum. Thanks for reading!