A/N: I do not own Alex Rider or any related characters.

Curiosity Killed The Big Bad SAS Man

- by -

Raksha Child 571

Oneshot

Life sucks. That was the first thought that came into Alex's head the moment he opened his eyes to see the familiar ceiling of K-Unit's barracks.

Wait a minute.

Rewind.

K-Unit? Barracks?

And then the past 24 hours caught up with him. Alex groaned and pulled the pillow over his head.

Damn MI6 and their blasted stamina training. He couldn't care less about 'keeping up to date on the latest skills' or 'improving his Karate techniques,' all he wanted was five more minutes for his brain to return to normalcy and for him to wake up and realise that this was all just a horrible dream.

Squeezing his eyes shut once more, Alex pinched himself on the arm; then opened his eyes.

And sighed again. No such luck.

He had to face reality: he wasn't dreaming and Blunt and Jones had sent him here to train – during his half term break as well!

Dragging himself out of bed, he lurched to his feet and somehow managed to stuff his unresponsive body into the uniform he'd been issued with.

Still not fully awake, Alex slapped a hand to his cheek and was promptly surprised to discover how much more awake it suddenly made him.

Fully alert, he stepped out into the brisk morning air. A thin curtain of mist hovered above the camp that was Brecon Beacons, also known as Hell-In-Its-Worst-Form to all teenage spies being used by MI6.

Clambering down the steps to the grass, slash mud, Ales noted that he could no longer feel his ears. Even though it was now Spring, the weather pretty much froze you all year long in the UK, Wales was evidently no different than England.

Stretching his back quickly, making it give off a satisfying 'pop', Alex jogged off towards that wonderful place known as the mess hall where elite soldiers of the British Army were given mush to eat.

Grimacing at the remembered flavour, Alex wondered if there was a sort of competition going on for who could make him the worst food – the chef here, or Jack?

Musing over that very good question, Alex slipped through the door and into the noisy hubbub of said building.

Queuing behind several other soldiers in line for his mush, Alex's musings were interrupted as whispers began to spread throughout the hall.

"It's that kid again…"

"What's his name again? Tadpole, Fawn, Nestling, Calf, Foal, Kitten…some kind of baby animal…"

"He's with Spec. Ops, that one, or so I've heard…"

Alex, not completely oblivious to this, decided to keep on pretending to muse while listening in on what they were saying.

It was kind of like putting in headphones for your iPod and then listening in on conversations while everyone thinks your deaf to the world, (1) something he'd done once or twice at school, during the few times when he was actually there, that is.

Alex became aware of other soldiers queuing behind him and the funny glances they were sending him, but ignored them, hoping and praying they wouldn't start anything this morning when he was in a crappy mood and quite pissed at the world in general, Karma in particular.

All this was found to be in vain when one of the soldiers behind him tapped him on the shoulder. Ignoring him, Alex continued to do what he had been doing – staring off into the distance with a weird look on his face.

The man became annoyed, and tapped him again more forcefully so that Alex couldn't pretend not to notice.

Turning around, Alex pasted a polite, inquiring look on his face.

"Yes?"

"What's your name?"

"Who wants to know?"

"Name's Wasp."

"Cub."

And with that, Alex began to turn around but stopped when the man spoke again.

"Is it true?"

"I beg your pardon?"

Having recaptured Alex's full attention, the man asked, "Is it true that you work for SO?"

The man's eyes were suddenly surveyed by two brown pieces of ice that had evidently seen more of the world than any normal teenager.

"Who told you that?" he asked, voice going deadly soft.

"Just a rumour," Wasp said, starting to get uncomfortable with the situation.

"I asked you who you heard it from," the teen stated, voice still frosted with deadly intent.

"I can't remember, one of the guys from K-Unit, I think. You trained with them, right?"

The man watched the boy relax shoulders that had been unconsciously tensed. "Did he have black hair, about your height, and blue eyes?"

Wasp thought hard. "Yeah, that sounds like him."

Alex smiled to himself. "Yes, it's true."

Said spy turned to face the front and found his eyes meeting that of about twenty other soldiers that had gathered around Alex and Wasp in curiosity.

Hastily, they all turned around again, evidently embarrassed to be caught watching.

Alex was in the middle of comparing Mush Sample 1in his head against Jack's 'Lasagne', when he tapped, none too gently on the shoulder again.

Annoyed, he dropped all pretences of being polite, spun to face Wasp and snapped, "What now?"

Wasp opened his mouth to speak but Alex cut him off.

"Did you know, you're about to live through an amazing phenomenon, right now? Incredible isn't it? In fact, it's already happening."

"Huh?" was Wasp's highly intellectual response.

"You're about to survive pissing me off," said Alex. "Something rare few have had the privilege of living through."

Seeing Wasp's slightly confused expression, Alex muttered, "SAS, they're all the same. Sarcasm goes to such waste on you people."

Wasp's eyes had gotten a strange gleam in them. "I'll shut my mouth if you tell me how to sign up for MI6," he said.

Alex looked at him. Honestly, the man wanted to become a spy? Then let him.

"First," Alex said, in a robotic voice. "Ensure all other of your family members work for MI6 or are dead. Learn a couple of languages, and have various skills they might be interested in, such as a black belt in Karate. Then jump out of a fifteenth floor window, almost miss the flag pole you are trying to hold onto and climb back into an office next door."

All of the soldiers standing around were staring at him when he finished.

Alex sent a hard look at Wasp.

"Good luck!" he said, and tried to turn around. He was unsuccessful.

"Is that really how they recruited you?" he asked, in something like horror. The kid was only what? 16? Christ's sake!

Alex thought about how to get around the question. "Of courses not!" he said, a twisted smile lingering on his lips.

They had forced him through blackmail, of course. Duh.

And with that, Alex picked up a plate of mush, placed it on his tray, and walked off, leaving a good portion of Britain's Elite Force staring after him.

Smirking to himself over the bemused looks Alex was sure he was getting, he sat down at an empty table.

Life was good.

(1) Has anyone else done this? I did this once when on a car journey that lasted approx. 3 hours just to entertain myself. I was especially amused when people asked me questions and then I would say 'What? What?' really loudly, just to annoy them. Lol.

So yeah, anyway. Life has been pretty busy, but I was sitting through a double period of Chemistry (again? Do all my good ideas some from when I'm half asleep…*ponders at idea*) and I was in the middle of accessing notes on my phone to plot the outline to Chapter 14 of TAaC, when this idea came to me and I started text-typing.

Actually, this stemmed from a scene I was going to type into TAaC, but someone it didn't fit so I cut it and changed it.

As you probably picked up, I said Ch 14 of TAaC. Ch 13 is just being polished and sparkle-i-fied, as my friend says, then it will be posted.

I really need to rewrite the summary for TAaC too, so if you have any ideas or suggestions please leave them in your review or PM me.