“Hold it, Captain!” ordered Trouble.
“I am a trained negotiator, sir,” said Holly, hoping the respect in her tone would get her what she wanted. “And I was once …” She glanced guiltily at Artemis, sorry that she had to play this card. “I was once a hostage myself, so I know how these things go. Let me talk to them.”
Artemis nodded encouragingly, and Holly knew that he understood her tactics.
“Captain Short is correct, Commander,” he said. “Holly is a natural communicator. She even managed to get through to me.”
“Do it,” barked Trouble. “Foaly, you keep trying to reach Atlantis. And assemble the Council; we need to begin evacuating both cities now.”
Though you could not see their real faces, the gnomes’ cartoon expressions were bored now. It was in the slant of their heads and the bend of their knees. Perhaps this whole thing was not as exciting as they hoped it would be. After all, they could not see their audience, and no one had responded to their threats. What had started out as a revolutionary action was now beginning to look like two big gnomes picking on a pixie.
Pip waggled his gun at Kip, and the meaning was clear. Why don’t we just shoot her now?
Holly activated the microphone with a wave of her hand.
“Hello, you there. This is Captain Holly Short of the LEP. Can you hear me?”
The gnomes perked up immediately, and Pip even attempted a whistle, which came through the vox-box as a raspberry.
“Hey, Captain Short. We heard of you. I’ve seen pictures. Not too shabby, Captain.”
Holly bit back a caustic retort. Never force a kidnapper to demonstrate his resolve.
“Thank you, Pip. Should I call you Pip?”
“You, Holly Short, can call me anything and any time you like,” squeaked Pip, and he extended his free hand toward his partner for a knuckle bump.
Holly was incredulous. These two were about to totally incapacitate the entire fairy world, and they were goofing about like two goblins at a fireball party.
“Okay, Pip,” she continued evenly. “What can we do for you today?”
Pip shook his head sorrowfully at Kip. “Why are the pretty ones always stupid?” He turned to the camera. “You know what you can do for us. We told you already. Release Opal Koboi, or the younger model is gonna take a long sleep. And by that I mean, get shot in the head.”
“You need to give us some time to show good faith. Come on, Pip. One more hour? For me?”
Pip scratched his head with the gun barrel, pretending to consider it. “You are cute, Holly. But not that cute. If I give you another hour, you’ll track me down somehow and drop a time-stop on my head. No thanks, Cap. You have ten minutes. If I was you, I would get that cell open or call the undertaker.”
“This kind of thing takes time, Pip,” persisted Holly, repeating the name, forging a bond. “It takes three days to pay a parking fine.”
Pip shrugged. “Not my problem, babe. And you can call me Pip all day and it won’t make us BFFs. It ain’t my real name.”
Artemis deactivated the microphone. “This one is smart, Holly. Don’t play with him, just tell the truth.”
Holly nodded and switched on the mike. “Okay, whatever your name is. Let me give it to you straight. There’s a good chance that if you shoot young Opal, then we’re going to have a series of very big explosions down here. A lot of innocent people will die.”
Pip waved his gun carelessly. “Oh yeah, the quantum laws. We know about that, don’t we, Kip?”
“Quantum laws,” said Kip. “Of course we know about that.”
“And you don’t care that good fairies, gnomes that could be related to you, will die?”
Pip raised his eyebrows so that they jutted over the top of the mask. “You like any of your family, Kip?”
“Ain’t got no family. I’m an orphan.”
“Really? Me too.”
While they bantered, Opal shivered in the dirt, trying to speak through the tape. Foaly would get voice analysis on the muffled mumbles later—if there was a later—but it didn’t take a genius to figure out she was pleading for her life.
“There must be something you need,” said Holly.
“There is one thing,” replied Pip. “Could I get your com-code? I sure would love to hook up for a sim-latte when this is all over. Might be a while, of course, what with Haven City being in ruins.”
Foaly put a text box on the screen. It read: They’re moving Opal now.
Holly fluttered her eyelids to show she understood, then continued with the negotiation. “Here’s the situation, Pip. We have nine minutes left. You can’t get someone out of Atlantis in nine minutes. It’s not possible. They need to suit up, pressurize, maybe; go through the conduits to open sea. Nine minutes is not long enough.”
Pip’s theatrical responses were getting a little hard to take. “Well then, I guess a lot of people are going swimming. Fission can put a hell of a hole in the shield.”
Holly broke. “Don’t you care about anyone? What’s the going rate for genocide?”