“Can we please focus? We are supposed to be professionals." Holly said.
"Not me!" said Orion cheerily, "I'm just a Teenager with hormones running wild and may I say, young fairy lady, they're running wild in your direction.”
“Look!" said Foaly, pointing with some urgency into the vast steel-gray gloom, "Someone who cares!”
“Oh, I'm crazy all right. I do have plenty of psychoses. Multiple personality, delusional dementia, OCD. I've got them all, but most of all, I'm crazy about you.”
“Orion:"Oh, how I pray that dragon will turn 'round so that I may smite it."
Foaly: "Smite it with what? Your secret birthmark?"
Orion: "Don't you mock my birthmark, which I may or may not have.”
“Orion brightened. "I have an idea."
"Yes?" said Foaly, daring to hope that a spark of Artemis remained.
"Why don't we look for some magic stones that can grant wishes? Or, if that doesn't work, you could search my naked body for some mysterious birthmark that means I am actually the prince of somewhere or other.”
“I feel a little dizzy," said Orion. "But also wonderfully elated. I feel that I am on the verge of finding a rhyme for the word orange."
"Oxygen deprivation," said Foaly. "Or maybe it's just him.”
“How do I love thee? wondered Orion. "Let me see. I love thee passionately and eternally...obviously eternally-that goes without saying." Holly blinked sweat from her eyes. "Is he serious?" she called over her shoulder to Foaly. "Oh, absolutely," said the centaur "If he asks you to look for birthmarks, say no immediately." "Oh, I would never." Orion assured her. "Ladies don't look for birthmarks; that is work for jolly fellows like the Goodly Beast and myself. Ladies, like Miss Short, do enough by simply existing. They exude beauty, and that is enough." "I am not exuding anything." said Holly, through gritted teeth. Orion tapped her shoulder. "I beg to differ. You're exuding right now, a wonderful aura. It's pastel blue with little dolphins." Holly gripped the wheel tightly. "I'm going to be sick. Did he just say pastel blue?" "And dolphins, little ones," said Foaly.”
“So, what did you get for me?"
Angeline paused for a beat. "Jeans."
"What?" croaked Artemis.
"And a T-shirt.”
“Me," Artemis blurted. "I'm the nut."
Artemis could have sworn the squid winked at him before bringing the five-ton chunk of spacecraft swinging down toward the morsel of meat in its blue shell.
"I'm the nut!" Artemis shouted again, a little hysterically, it must be said.”
“You know, Miss Holly, you look very dramatic like that, backlit by the fire. Very attractive, if I may say so. I know you shared a moment passionne with Artemis which he subsequently fouled up with his typical boorish behavior. Let me just throw something out there for you to consider while we're chasing the probe: I share Artemis's passion but not his boorishness. No pressure; just think about it.
This was enough to elicit a deafening moment of silence even in the middle of a crisis, which Orion seemed to be blissfully unaffected by.”
“Very well, I promise. So, what did you get for me?" Angeline paused for a beat. "Jeans." "What?" croaked Artemis. "And a T-shirt" ...Artemis took several breaths. "Does the T-shirt have any writing on it?" A rustling of paper crackled through the phone's speakers. "Yes, it's so cool. There's a picture of a boy who for some reason has no neck and only three fingers on each hand, and behind him in this sort of graffiti style is the words RANDOMOSIY. I don't know what that means but it sounds really current." Randomosity though Artemis, and he felt like weeping.”
“Artemis: I am not buoyed by that.
Foaly: You are not supposed to be buoyed by that. You are supposed to be equalized.
Mulch: I'm pretty sure that both of you just made really horrible jokes. But I'm not sure because I think you broke my funny bone.”
“Quickly, Holly," said Artemis urgently. "Follow those bubbles."
Holly opened the throttle. "Now there's an order I never thought I'd hear from you.”
“Butler snapped his fingers. "Focus, Artemis! Time enough for your Atlantis Complex later. We have the Atlantis Trench outside that door and six miles of water above it. If you want to stay alive, you need to stay alert." He turned to Holly. "This is ridiculous. I'm pulling the plug."
Holly's mouth was a tight line as she shook her head. "Navy rules, Butler. You're on my boat, you follow my orders."
"As I remember, I brought the boat."
"Yes, thanks for bringing my boat.”
“Orion sniffed. "Good. Then, worthy centaur, perhaps you could give me a ride to the village on your way back. Then I can make a few pennies wth my verses while you build us a shack and perform circus tricks for passersby."
This was such a surprising statement that Foaly briefly considered jumping into the hole to get away.”
“He threw his head back and sang, "'I am a centaur, yes, a centaur is what I am.' It's not like you to wax, Artemis"
"Foaly is singing," said Holly. "Surely that's illegal?”
“And I will not be beaten by that jackass."
"Jackass?" said Foaly, wounded. "My favorite uncle is a jackass.”
“So if you're not Artemis Fowl, then who are you?"
The boy extended a dripping hand straight up. "My name is Orion. I am so pleased to meet you at last. I am, of course, your servant."
Holly shook the proferred hand, thinking that manners were lovely, but she really needed someone cunning and ruthless right now, and this kid didn't appear to be very cunning.”
“Ah, my princess. Noble steed. How does the morning find you both?”
“Are you saying that you people knew about these amorophobots all the time?"
"Of course we did. They attacked us in Iceland. Remember?"
"No. I was unconscious.”
“Is that how you're going to take me? Scare me into voluntarily coming aboard, then steal my Ice Cube?"
"It's always cubes with you," noted Foaly, somewhat randomly. "What's wrong with a nice sphere?”
“Earth,” he began, ignoring the impulse to open his notes folder and count the words. He knew this lecture by heart.
“Our home. She feeds us, she shelters us. Her gravity prevents us from flying off into space and freezing, before thawing out again and being crisped by the sun, none of which really matters, as we would have long since asphyxiated.” Artemis paused for laughter and was surprised when it did not arrive. “That was a little joke. I read in a presentation manual that a joke often serves to break the ice. And I actually worked icebreaking into the joke, so there were layers to my humor.”
“I hear that you were on a date with Trouble Kelp. Are you two planning on building a bivouac any time soon?”
“Mulch's tongue lolled out, resting on the centaur's neck. "Mmm," he mumbled around his tongue. "Horse. Tasty"
"Let's go," said Foaly nervously. "Let's go right now.”
“Radomosity, thought Artemis. And he felt like weeping.”
“A fifeteen-year old, of to save the world, with faries. - Angeline Fowl”
“Vinyaya was being openly antagonistic, and that was an emotion that could be trusted, unless of course it was a bluff and the commander was a secret fan of his, unless it was a double bluff and she really did feel antagonistic.”
“I am not exuding anything," said Holly through gritted teeth.
Orion tapped her shoulder. "I beg to differ. You're exuding right now, a wonderful aura. It's pastel blue with little dolphins.”
“This was a nightmare scenario for any bodyguard: stuck in the middle of a transparent tube, several miles underwater, with a murdering band of fugitives at one end and an enthralled but still highly skilled police officer at the other.”
“Platitudes or otherwise, there were no words to ease the agony of living.”
“In 1970, a superior Court judge issues an order forcing the desegregation of Los Angeles schools. The judge survives an assassination attempt and loses his job in the next election.”
“I had always believed that right was like north to my father: a thing as real as sunlight, a place on the map, the arrow on a compass.”
“In general the assumption of all of us, child or adult, was that this was a new country and that a new country had no history. History was something that applied to other places.”
“The Golden Rectangle is the only rectangle with the property that cutting a square from it produces a similar rectangle.”
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