Got the idea for quite a while but never got around doing it.
Useful criticism is encouraged and please be kind this is my first Fanfic
PS: Many references to many different things will be mentioned cos me. :P
There will be most likely a lot of tenses issues that is because I am overhauling a huge portion of the story and I am juggling them around. They will be fixed ASAP.
It's been two months since MI6 last called, everything seemed like it has died down, the spy life seemed to be finally over. Alex could finally concentrate on his school work. It's now the summer holidays and Alex intended to spend the time resting and catching up on the work he missed, but it was not to be when the dreaded phone rang. Alex ignored it, but the answering machine kicked in.
"This is Janice from Royal and General speaking, Your financial Analyst Mrs Jones is requesting a meeting at 11 pm sharp today." the calm but dreaded voice of the operator on the other end clicked off.
Alex could only sigh as he knew what it meant, a new assignment. He had already resigned to his fate, a pawn to MI6, there was no point in resisting as it would only mean having a group of heavily armed personal blowing through his doors and windows, the last time that happened was bad enough. He did not need a repeat of it again.
Tom sleepily walked down the stairs. "Who was that?" he asked. Tom moved in with Alex 2 months ago after he had just returned from a short mission. His parents were too busy arguing with one another or avoid each other to notice him. Alex had become his pseudo older brother taking care of him ever since he left home after another one of their parent's drunken brawl.
"The bank. If I don't contact you or come back within the year. Everything I own is yours." Alex replied cynically.
Getting into his car, although he was underage, but when did that stop MI6? He has been issued a driver's license and ID that showed that he was 21, at least he was now getting paid, with extra on the top in order to keep him quiet, all tax-free. It was enough for him to buy an Aston Martin DB9 and leave plenty in an offshore account.
The car sped through traffic, its government-issued plates ensured he won't be pulled over. Despite the horrendous London traffic, he still made it with sufficient time to spare for him to go to a nearby cafe and have a cup of chamomile tea to calm himself before the inevitable happens.
With 10 minutes left to spare, Alex left and drove into the building's underground carpark. His experience with using the front entrance wasn't pleasant and he would like to avoid a similar incident. The suited security guard that stood guard at the lift lobby gave a slight nod in greeting as Alex walked into the Staff the only elevator. Swiping the key card and punching in the floor level on the fingerprint sensitive buttons gave Alex access after a short moment as it verified his identity.
It only took less than a few seconds before the lift rumbled to a halt. It's doors opening revealing rows and rows of small cubicles, to any normal outsider it just looked like any other usual office or bank. Drab and grey were the words that would first come to mind. Taking a deep breath as he steeled himself as he walked past the cubicles to the wooden panelled walls at the end of the room a single screen on the side writing "Department Head's office".
Alex did not bother knocking as he pushed the set of thick mahogany double doors open. Mrs Jones had been expecting Alex of course as soon as he pulled up in the carpark and when his lift arrived. A file had been placed in front of her facing Alex, gesturing to him to take a seat.
"Now as you know, we only call you in when we have no other choice…" she began to explain, only to be cut off by an increasingly irritated Alex.
"Cut the crap Tulips and get to the point. We both know you had other options, just mine was the most efficient."
Jones gave a small nod as she cleared her throat. "Ahem. As I was saying we need your help. MI5 has something we need and we agreed to work together on a particularly sensitive case in Singapore. The rest of details are in the file before you. It seemed that MI5 themselves have their own child spies…"
"I know, Cherub. I heard about them." Alex spat interrupting the head of MI6 a second time which is unprecedented in the history of British intelligence but a norm to Jones when she was with Alex.
Jones raised an eyebrow, in a fashion just like Blunt, "Just how much do you know about them? And for how long?"
"Enough. I know they were formed during WWII and operate independently under MI5. I know they are treated much better than you lot have, and I know they actually have a choice in accepting a mission and an ethics committee to decide on which cases are deemed 'Safe' to go and rejected missions most of the time go to me. I have known all of this for at least 7 months during the mission in the Canary Islands. " Alex replied, his dark brown eyes drilling right into Jone's. The hidden implications could be sensed from the tone alone.
"I see… I will not ask where you got the information from but anyway… back to the case at hand. We need you to join up with several members of cherub for an operation. You and another operative will be tasked with primarily protecting Cherub operatives as they work."
"Who is the target this time?" Alex asked as he flipped the file open.
"Kalden Young. Son of Philip Young the CEO of the Atlas International Group, a Defense company based in Singapore." Jones calmly explained. Alex's eyes flashed with recognition when he saw the picture attached to the file.
"What is so significant about it?" Alex pushing Jones for an answer. As he flipped through the case notes.
"You might have guessed this is not primarily about Kalden, it's his father, in-case you haven't heard he is the 27th richest man alive and of course he s adored by many people. His Company Atlas International Invests billions in many countries the UK included; he gives millions to charities.
However, it seemed like not everything he does is so clear-cut or noble. Atlas International is a conglomerate of many different industries, but at its core, they are a private defence company producing, designing and selling weapons of all sorts. Recently we uncovered shipments, huge shipments of weapons bound for all sorts of people at the port in Liverpool and Heathrow airport thanks to a tip-off from someone in Atlas. The manifest recovered Included destinations to a few nasty regimes in central Europe and Africa. Most of them are weapons designed by other companies but produced under licence, the serial numbers printed also lead back to Atlas. To put it simply, he might be the world's biggest Arms dealer in the world. Atlas denies them of course and the raid does not contain enough evidence to build a solid case on them."
Jones paused for a moment to let Alex digest the information as he read and listened to her at the same time. He showed no emotion, after being in this line of work for so long hardly anything could surprise him nowadays.
"To give you a bit of context, his company has been at the heart of the international arms trade ever since the deregulation of the armaments market in the early 2000s. The Singaporean government even owns a large stake in the company as part of its sovereign wealth fund and they are making a killing off it. They will not give up Philip Young or his company easily. Any evidence of Atlas involvement have been carefully destroyed and protection from the local government makes him one of the toughest man to catch. Not to mention how cosy he is with other world's governments especially the US and ours. He hardly travels as well, even if he does his travels these few years have been restricted solely to the Asian region, primarily Vietnam and the two China's the ROC and the PRC.
None of those governments is far from friendly with us, to give Phillip Young up would take a miracle of impossible proportions. Every single operative we have sent came back either unable to get close and gain any useful information the last one we sent came back in a package wrapped in pink ribbons on 10th downing street. It is clear they have insider knowledge of our operations. They will be expecting an adult which is why we need your expertise, Alex." Jones almost sounded like she was begging, popping in another peppermint. "That last incident did not go well with the prime minister and he is demanding we do something about it."
"It's not like I have a choice in this anyway, what do you want me to do about it?" Alex sighed. His face remaining emotionless.
"Cherub will be trying to befriend Phillip's Sons, you will be providing protection as well investigating Atlas International for anything that could be of use to us. You will be heading to the Campus tomorrow Smithers will give you what you need. In the meantime, I would suggest you get yourself informed." Sliding an additional manila folder to Alex with the same rubber TOP SECRET stamp on it. Signifying the brief was over.
Alex scowled as he snatched the folder up and gave one quick glare at Jones as she went back to her paperwork as if nothing had happened as if she did not send him to meet certain death. One could wonder how she even slept at night.
The devil's room closed behind him and his fate sealed, he felt constricted by the feeling, it was the same feeling he always felt when he gets assigned to missions like this.
At first glance, the floor was almost a carbon copy of the floor above. The same cubicles and offices, the only change being a break room of sorts just left of the lift lobby.
Smither's private office was on the right, one of the largest in the whole building and for good reason too. At first glance, the exterior looked like any other but inside it was much, much larger. Inside the thick wooden panelling and wooden door was not an office like Jones but an entire workshop. A chemistry set placed prominently on the central table, always bubbling with all sorts of liquids and chemicals. Computers and papers strewn all over the place, contain all sorts of jargon even Alex could understand. Despite the size, Smithers had a second floor below used for his own crazy testing purposes connected via a system of secret stairs and a lift that is connected all the way to the basement where the rest of the Q department worked their magic."
Smithers still wearing his traditional 'fat suit' sitting at a white table toying with the new iPhone X.
"You are back I see. I heard you assigned to protective detail for those Cherub fellows. Rare to see Jones assign an agent your calibre for this." Twirling his chair around as he smirked at Alex.
"Beats getting dropped into situations that require me sacrificing part of my life for. If anyone needs a protective detail it's that woman and Blunt. I swear, one day I am going to kill the both of them for real."
"I am sure they already got that eventuality covered." the large man laughed, the chair creaking in sync with the booming voice. "Alright. Enough tittle-tattling, the both of us have work to do. Here is what the head wanted me to give you, with a few extras thrown in of course. I know how you loved the Zit cream and the yo-yo. So here are a few extras and your new phone, just finished with last minute adjustments." Handing Alex a black duffle bag and the iPhone X he was fiddling with.
"One of my proudest modifications, I call it the iPhone Xpermental Combines the functions of the Nintendo, yoyo and the old iPhone abilities together. I trust that you know how to operate them." Handing over the iPhone, it was covered with a black case a small handle like shape jutted out at one side.
"The apps should make them quite obvious, a Pdf file of the manual is attached, should you need it. Lastly. She finally thinks it's high time you have these beauties."
Smithers smiled placing 3 black pistols, then a compact rifle with a foregrip attached and an ACOG sight, and then a submachine gun with the same attachments.
"Finally. At least now the odds aren't heavily in the other's favour. But this seems excessive even by my standards don't you think?" Alex asked hefting one in his hands. The cold smooth metal was nice to his touch, it was also not very heavy to his surprise.
"I don't know why but she was insistent you carry extra weapons. First of is this. Our standard issue pistol, a USP compact, nothing special." holding it up for Alex to see, "Next is my favourite, the FN 57 with an extended barrel and more importantly an under barrel shotgun, just pop your shell in there and boom. It can fire any type of 12 gauges round lethal or non-lethal, it can launch flares as well if you wish." Holding up a rather long looking pistol and a shotgun shell, its under-barrel shotgun was menacing enough by itself, coupled with the sleek black finish and the gun it made a very intimidating weapon.
"Last of all your backup pistol, a Walther P99, I should mention all the guns here are all custom made to make it much more manageable for you and the pistols require the owner's fingerprints. Here, to program them just put them in their cases and put your finger on the scanner here." holding up a box for the gun with a fingerprint scanner on the side.
"The other two are your harder hitting weapons, an HK416C compact fitted with a foregrip, Acog sight and tension grips should your hand get wet, and an MP5K. I am sure you are already proficient in them.
Here the briefcase to keep all of them safely with the usual safety features and of course 100% invisible to metal detectors. Now, unless you need a new set of bullet-proof outfits I reckon it's best you hurry along. You have a long day ahead of you."
"Thank you, Smithers. Fantastic work as usual. I am sure they would be of great use." Alex giving a small smile as he shook Smithers hand after collecting everything and walked out of the door.
"Just remember to return at least one of them in working condition!" he could hear Smithers shout through the closing door.
Chapter 1 has been sort of overhauled. But I will not be surprised if there are still mistakes so please point them out to me :D
