So I noticed something... (spoilers I guess?)
I was reading Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony again and I noticed an exchange that is really making me wonder now that I think about it. On p.129-130, Artemis and the others have tracked down Minerva to her home/headquarters, and it is described to be a virtual fortress. There are cameras everywhere, several guards, etc. I won’t explain everything, but Butler goes as far as to say, “I think I saw this place in a Bond movie once.” But then there’s this exchange:
Artemis: No problem for you, surely?
Butler: I’m a bodyguard, Artemis. A human bulletproof vest. Breaking into fortified castles is not my speciality.
Artemis: You have rescued me from more secure locations than this one.
Butler: True. But I had intel, an inside man. Or I was desperate.
This got me thinking. The first time I had read this exchange, I had assumed that the previous rescues that Artemis was mentioning were just the rescues we see with the fairy folk, but once I started thinking about it, I’m not so sure now. See, up until this point, the four times that could be considered rescue scenarios for Artemis are 1) Cudgeon holding him hostage in Arctic Incident, 2) Blunt’s attack in the beginning of Eternity Code, 3) the entire plan involving Spiro in Eternity Code, and 4) Opal’s revenge plot against Artemis and Holly in Opal Deception.
The problem is that none of these situations sound like what Artemis and Butler are talking about in the above conversation. With Cudgeon, yes the situation was dire there for a few moments, but a reinforced door was the only thing keeping Butler from Artemis when the danger arose, and comparing that to a “fortified castle” is a bit of a stretch.
Blunt’s attack is even more of a stretch. There’s no denying that Butler was desperate when that happened, but the public restaurant it took place in was hardly a secure location, and Artemis wasn’t rescued from the location so much as rescued from the event that just happened to take place there. It wasn’t a retrieval mission like their above conversation alludes to.
The Spiro mission would probably be the most like the situation Butler and Artemis are talking about, but the problem is that Butler wasn’t involved in that plan at all. He wasn’t even there, much less actually doing the rescuing like the incident they’re talking about.
Finally, with Opal’s revenge plot with Artemis and Holly, it always appeared to me that Mulch and Butler’s real struggle to rescue them wasn’t actually getting into the theme park so much as getting there in time. Butler and Mulch spent much more time getting a vehicle to take them there than it did for Mulch to tunnel through the ceiling and... use his talents to help Artemis and Holly. While the theme park was definitely a dangerous place to be, it wasn’t exactly secure like other locations like the Spiro Needle were, seeming much easier to get in than get out.
So unless I’m missing something, they’re talking about something we never see in the series, which leads to my big question: if it’s nothing we see in the book series, then what event(s) are Artemis and Butler talking about? Because I would really love to know what happened there. (Especially with Butler saying he had intel OR he was desperate, implying at least two instances where Artemis was kidnapped and held somewhere secure like the Minerva house.)
