Artemis- Paranoid Delusions

Artemis was jumping between psychoses.
“Not real!” he shouted at the descending ship. “You are nothing but
a delusion, my friend.”
And from there he hopped straight over into paranoia. “You planned
this,” he shouted at Holly. “Who were your partners? Foaly without
doubt. Butler? Did you turn my faithful bodyguard against me? Did
you burgle his mind and plant your own truths in there?”
From the rooftop, the directional mike in Holly’s helmet picked up
no more than every second word, but it was enough to tell her that
Artemis was not the clinical logistician he used to be.
If the old Artemis could see the new Artemis, the old Artemis would
die of embarrassment.
Like Butler, Holly was having a hard time controlling her rebellious
sense of humor in this dire hour.
“Get down!” she called. “The ship is real!”
“That’s what you want me to think. That ship is nothing more than a
cog in your conspiracy. . . .” Artemis paused. If the ship was a cog in
the conspiracy, and the conspiracy was real, then the ship must be real.
“Five!” he blurted suddenly, having forgotten all about it for a minute.
“Five ten fifteen.”
He pointed all of his fingers at the ship, wiggling them furiously.
A ten-finger salute. Surely that will vaporize this vision.
And it seemed as though the fingers were having an effect. The four
discus-shaped engines, which had been trailing behind the main body
like helpless puppies tethered to their spooked master, suddenly
flipped and began emitting anti-grav pulses that lolloped toward the
ground in fat bubbles, slowing the ship’s descent faster than seemed
possible for a craft of such inelegant dimensions.
“Hah!” crowed Artemis. “I control my own reality. Did you see
that?”
Holly knew that, far from controlling anything, Artemis was
actually witnessing a fairy probe’s landing sequence. She had never
actually piloted a deep-space probe herself, but nevertheless knew that
standing underneath such a behemoth while it was dropping anti-grav
bubbles was more than enough to get a person killed, and wiggling
fingers like a sideshow magician was not going to change that.

- The Atlantis Complex, Chapter 3