The Opal Deception
From Artemis Fowl
[edit] Plot
The story begins with the pixie genius Opal Koboi in an asylum, appearing to be a coma after the collapse of her revolution. In reality, she actually was in a self induced healing coma, a coma she learnt at the age of fourteen, which is young even by human standards, much less fairy. Though Opal was convinced that her rebellion in the second book would succeed, she still prepared a contingency plan which involved setting two of her most trusted employees, Merval and Descant Brill, to work in an asylum and creating an account of money to be opened in the case that the revolution failed and she did go into a coma. After spending a record amount of time in the coma, she had her two accomplices in the J. Argon Clinic replace her with a brain-dead clone, exactly like Opal in a coma.
After this, she progressed to frame Captain Holly Short with the murder of her Commander, Julius Root. She also sent a Bio-Bomb to Artemis Fowl II, who was incidentally at the time committing a bank robbery, and another to the now outlawed Holly. As Holly fled to try to save Artemis, she almost got killed by a bomb that had been following her, too late to save Artemis. Luckily for Artemis, his faithful bodyguard Butler saved him from another contained bio-bomb. Holly met up with Artemis after the bombing, relieved to find him alive. She took him to one of the fairies' many Cham Pods. She tries, but fails to bring back Artemis' memories of The People (which are later revived by the plan Artemis developed in book three of the series, and then the pod is blown apart by Opal and her henchmen, who had been following them all along in a stealth-shuttle. Two things went in Artemis' favor which were: a) he left his cell phone on in his pocket, leaving the whole conversation on a phone at the Fowl home; b) Holly did not bring Butler, him being too big to be removed without suspicion.
Opal once again tries to kill both Artemis and Holly by leaving them in the Eleven Wonders Theme Park and spraying them with a scent that makes them smell like female trolls ready to mate. Just before their certain demise, they are rescued by Butler and Mulch Diggums, who, after escaping the prison vessel transporting him, returns to Fowl Manor to present Artemis with the memories stored on the disc he received. Mulch returned the disc, restoring Artemis' memories, they proceed to try to hunt down Opal Koboi. They locate her in E7, her plan to create an interspecies war almost at fruition. At the same time, Foaly discovers Opal's clever plan and convinces the council to send a supersonic attack ship to check on Holly. While Artemis manages to stop Opal, just before her ship explodes, she fires two torpedoes at their ship, which then turn upon the Supersonic Attack Shuttle flown by Trouble Kelp. Though after a while, Holly is cleared of all charges, she is frustrated by her department's new chief and resigns, becoming a private detective along with the dwarf Mulch, who was acquitted on all charges. She maintains a secret correspondence with Artemis, who has finally appeared to redevelop some morals, giving to the public the priceless artwork he stole. Though it may be just a copy because it was sent in regular mail and Artemis has a reputation to fake impressionist paintings.
[edit] Secret Message
There is a secret message written in Gnommish typed along the bottom of the book. Using the decoder in The Artemis Fowl Files, in says:
- "A recruitment letter from the centaur Foaly, technical consultant to the Lower Elements Police-
- Trusted ally, if you have decoded this Gnomish message, then you are a deputy officer in the Lower Elements Police. You will not be aware of this fact because it is the practice of the LEP to mindwipe our human allies. We do this so they cannot remember being recruited. If you cannot remember the Fairy People, or our underground city, then you cannot betray our existence to the greedy humans. Of course, not all humans are greedy. You, deputy, are a noble member of your species. And clever too. Our intelligence department studied your file and concluded they you were suitable for LEP membership. At the moment, you are only a deputy officer. To become a fully fledged officer, you must complete four tasks.
- Decode this message. Something you are well on your way to completing.
- Save the life of a member of another species. You can complete this task in any number of ways: open a window to release a trapped fly, build a bird bath in your garden, release a mouse from a trap...
- Achieve a perfect score on a school test, or homework assignments. In this job, you need to be smart, as well as fit.
- Wash yourself every day for a week. This is a difficult assignment, especially for you boys who do not like contact with water. If you are going to work underground often in cramped tunnels, you will appreciate a partner who does not smell like a hermit dwarf.
- Once you have completed these tasks, you must summon your recruiting officer in the ancient fashion:
- Go to your back yard or nearest green area.
- Make sure you are not being watched.
- Find a soft spot of ground and burrow a six inch hole with a broom handle or short stick. When your hole is ready, tap out the letters “L” “E” “P” in horse code:
- “L” tap, tap, wiggle, tap, “E”, wiggle, wiggle, tap “P” tap wiggle drill.
- Do this at least a hundred times, and our underground sensors will pick up the vibration and send up an L. E. P. officer with your uniform and orders.
- Good luck, deputy!
- Foaly
This is not part of the letter but don't you think it would take a really long time for the LEP officer to arrive or they will not pick it up?
All though it's hard to proove it's possible that "Foaly" just wanted to do this so that any human who dechipered it would improve the human race in some small way.
Once again there is also a rewrite which has failed to have been mentioned.
[edit] Rewrite
There has never been a regulated scientific study of dwarf's special abilities. What we know about them is based on folklore and hearsay. The most famous of these abilities is the dwarf tunnelling method by which they eat dirt and air, before expelling them out the other end.
Though the actual force of this expulsion has never been measured, several witnesses have reported windows breaking more than twenty metres away. It is said that a master recycler can finetune his gas emissions so that instead of a widespread blast of flatulence he shoots out a concebtrated volumn of wind. Legend has it that one such master recycler (a certain Blurt Miggums) was so accurate with these columns that he could turn on a light switch from the other side of the room.
Dwarfs themselves use casual terms to refer to the strength of their gas emissions. A "shirt flapper" is a gentle emission that would barely inflate a child's balloon. A "pants ripper", a sturdier blast and would certainly blow a hole in even the sturdiest material . A "nought to sixty" is a right whopper and could accelerate whoever dropped it to dangerous speeds. A "strap yourself down" is about as strong as it gets and could help a dwarf achieve flight. And finally the legendary "dark side of the moon" or simply "dark side". If released on a mountain top it could put a dwarf into orbit.
There is no evidence that a dark side is anything more than a myth. All the same if you see a dwarf on a mountain with a red face, take cover. You can't be too careful around dwarf wind.FowlFan 14 17:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
