I'M BACK PEOPLES! NOW GO AHEAD AND ENJOY WHAT SHOULD HOPEFULLY BE AN EVEN MORE AWESOMER STORY THAN FEARLESS!

Oh, and for people who don't know, this is the FOURTH story after Not for the Faint Hearted, What Doesn't Kill You Will Inevitably Try Again and Fearless (in that order). PLEASE read the other three first, otherwise you may have NO IDEA what is going on in this story (have you noticed I love CAPITALISING key words?)!

Disclaimer: I do not own the Alex Rider series.

Chapter One

Just in case you didn't pay attention to the author's notes: this story is a FOURQUEL! (If that's even a word...)

Alex Rider opened his eyes tiredly, rubbing the sleep out of them, before rolling over in bed and turning off his annoyingly loud alarm. Down the hallway, he could hear the sound of water running, signifying that Jack Starbright was already up and ready. With a sigh, the blonde boy got out of bed, pulled some clothes out of his closet at random, and left his room.

He entered the kitchen with a yawn, before making himself some toast and two cups of coffee, one of which would be drunk by Jack when she got downstairs. Alex sat down at the table with a huff, hungrily devouring his toast.

Today was a rather special day. A sad kind of special. Today marked the four year anniversary when sixteen year old Alex had been kissed by a stunning Australian girl with a broken arm. Now, at the age of twenty, Alex Rider had long since completed his GCSEs and graduated from Brooklands (yes, he actually managed to graduate – MI6 had left him alone long enough to allow that). To those who had known about Alex's double life when he'd been in school, the newly acquired bruises and scars currently scattered across his body would've been no surprise.

Because, now it was officially MI6 Agent Alex Rider who was sitting in the kitchen, devouring his toast.

For weeks after the Aussie agent had left, Alex had done nothing but thought about the girl's parting words of advice about his future. No matter how small, you still have somewhat of a say in your life...But eventually, he'd made his fateful choice. Because he knew that, from the day MI6 had first blackmailed him into joining, he would one day die as a spy.

It was in his blood.

And the more he thought about, the more he accepted it. Sure, he hated being a spy. But not a single person, not even himself, could say that he wasn't good at his job. It was something he'd been trained to do. He'd always wanted to help people, to make the world a better place. If that meant that he had to become a spy, then so be it. Plus his life was already pretty much screwed up as it was. Better him then someone else who could possibly be able to lead a normal life.

"Good morning, Alex," Jack interrupted his daydreaming as she came into the kitchen, reaching for her cup of coffee, her hair still wet from her shower.

"Hey Jack," Alex grinned.

It had taken months of sweet talking and persuasion before Jack had accepted the fact that Alex went and joined MI6. After that though, the American had realised that the best thing she could do was to provide the MI6 agent with support, encouragement, and a meal on the table at the odd times that he returned from missions.

"Do you have to go down to the Bank today?"

"Yeah," Alex said, wrinkling his nose in disgust, "Paperwork. Sometimes, I wish that I was still underage, then I wouldn't have to deal with that enormous mountain they call 'protocol reports'."

"Well sweetie, that's life for you," Jack said in a sympathetic manner, ruffling the boy's blonde hair. She was much happier when he was bored to death filling in paperwork, rather than having him risk his life stopping maniacs and psychopaths.

Almost as soon as Alex finished his breakfast, a series of car horns beeped from outside his house. Yelling a hurried goodbye to Jack the twenty year old ran out the door, pausing only long enough to grab his coat from its hook. He pulled on the dark blue coat while he hurried outside into the biting cold.

"Hey," he breathed as he got into the car. Agent Rose Allende turned around from the driver's seat.

"Good morning Alex! Ready for more paperwork?" She asked with a grin.

"Don't tease me," Alex huffed. As Rose's protégée, Alex had to endure surviving through his own paperwork, as well as the mountains that Rose decide to make him do. According to the woman, it was "character building". According to Alex, it was "legalised torture".

Rose drove off towards the Bank, not really bothering with being careful on the still frozen roads. Alex just rolled his eyes; she hadn't gotten them killed yet, but at this rate Rose's driving was probably worse than all his missions put together. They reached the Bank in record time, which was saying something, and once Rose had parked her car in the 'reserved' section, they both got back out into the freezing cold and into the lobby of the bank.

Discreetly waving their clearances in the direction of the receptionist, they both entered the lift. Alex pressed the floor button for both of them, since they would be working in the same office. With a rather pleasant 'going up', the lift began ascending. A ding later and the doors slid open.

"Another day in the office," Rose sighed.

"Another day of boredom," Alex added, opening the door to a mountainous pile of paperwork. The two agents couldn't help themselves; they both let out groans of frustration before reluctantly stationing themselves on their respective sides of the table and cutting the pile into thirds. Rose pulled one third of the folders towards her while Alex dealt with the remaining two thirds.

"Aww, you two stuck with paperwork again? That's just too bad," a mocking voice said from the doorway.

Without missing a beat, without even bothering to spin around and face the intruder, Rose snapped, "Shut it Daniels."

Agent Ben Daniels smirked, nodding a greeting at Alex before turning back to his former protégée. "You know I'm not going to give up teasing rights just 'cause you tell me to. And, it's going to take me a while to get over my promotion. So...deal with it Allende, because you wish you were me."

"Why the hell would I wish to be a stuck-up, arrogant, ignorant, annoying jerk?"

Ben shook his head. Even though Rose's back was towards him, he could still hear the smile in her voice. Alex just rolled his eyes. The two seriously had the same argument every single bloody day, and it was really getting on his nerves.

"Well, just to give you two the heads up, there's a mission coming up which Blunt had you two in mind for," Ben said, leaning against the doorframe.

"You know," Rose said, mock disappointment in her voice, "I don't think you're supposed to use your higher clearance to look these things up for us. It just might be, oh I don't know, illegal."

Ben shrugged. "It's been a while since you were sent out, though Alex there only just came back. Just letting you know to be prepared."

Rose sighed. "Daniels, I spent the last week and a half at the freakin' SAS camp, training with ignorant dim-wits who seem to give me an extra hard time than the rest of the agents just for the hell of it. I'm as prepared as I could possibly be without killing myself."

Ben snorted. "Since you're in such a pleasant mood, I believe I'm going to just leave you to your paperwork now, while I go and get some newbie debriefed." With a cheerful wave to Alex, who nodded in return, the MI6 agent turned and left.

"I'm seriously starting to hate this," Rose muttered, opening one of the files, taking some notes, and signing on the front before putting it into a separate stack, "It's like Blunt purposely bores me to death, just so I jump at the chance of going out and risking my life."

"You know," Alex said as he signed his own file, "I wouldn't be surprised if that was actually his plan."

"I'll let you know if I ever find out," a dry voice interrupted them, causing the two agents to start and spin to face the door.

Mrs Tulip Jones stood just outside their office, struggling to conceal her amusement. Tucked under her arm were about three relatively thick folders, and in one hand held a cup of coffee, no doubt specially ordered for Mr Blunt. The strong smell of peppermint wafted into the room, though after so many years spent around the woman, Alex had long gotten used to the smell.

"Mrs Jones," Rose said respectively, standing from her chair. Alex followed suit.

"Agent Allende, Agent Rider," Mrs Jones acknowledged, "If you could both follow me." And so saying, the woman turned and left. Alex and Rose exchanged a look before hastening to follow MI6's second in command.

Unsurprisingly, the woman led the two to the closed door of Mr Blunt's office. In the years in which he'd been forced to work for MI6, Alex had grown to hate that door. Now however, he couldn't help the small feeling of excitement which he was reluctantly acknowledging. The truth was that, simply, times change.

"Mr Blunt," Rose said respectively as the three entered. She and Alex sat down in the chairs opposite Mr Blunt, while Mrs Jones carefully set the files and coffee in front of her boss, before going to stand beside him.

"Agent Allende, Agent Rider," Mr Blunt said in his usual impassive way, "A rather delicate situation has risen over in the United States, and the CIA has called in for a...favour," the head of the Special Operations emphasised the last word with a slight trace of a sneer, before it was vanished back into impassiveness again. "We need agents whom we can trust to get the job done right."

Rose and Alex nodded. This was the same speech the man seemed to use every time he sent the two out on missions.

"There is a special private boarding school run independently from the government, known as Bayswater High," Mrs Jones said, taking over the explaining, "The President allows it due to the fact that every year the school turns out brilliant and bright eighteen-year olds. The school doesn't follow the State curriculum in any way, and only allows exceptionally bright or talented students in.

"Every year, the school runs a sort of winter camp, where they invite the best and brightest in the world to give lectures to, under the motto 'Training the Leaders of Tomorrow'. They invite several guest lecturers from around the world too, though they do have a fixed staffing board.

"This year however, one of the guest lecturers the school decided to invite is Raymond Hobbs. The FBI ran a background search on the man, and found that his true name is James Olsen, an ex-CIA agent. Mr Olsen's ex-specialty was covert weaponry, and at the lecture he will apparently be speaking about electronics and such. He was fired from the CIA last year for incorrect use of force during interrogation."

"Meaning that he tortured his suspects so much they all lost their sanity," Rose muttered. Mrs Jones nodded her head in confirmation, before continuing her debriefing.

"Our problem is that with his background and known tendency to be unstable at the best of times, it is not really a good idea for the man to be lecturing to an entire auditorium of children. The FBI has so far been unsuccessful in their attempts to dissuade Bayswater High from dropping that lecturer. The CIA can't do anything about him as they are not linked to Bayswater and thus have no control over the school. Which is why they've now called in this favour.

"Your job is to get inside that school and make sure that the man can't do anything he's not supposed to. Like seek revenge against his agency by holding the entire camp hostage. Alex, this one is all down to you. You're the only agent who would be able to infiltrate the teenage part of the camp without raising suspicion. If you want to back out, do so now. If not, we'll begin negotiations for your backup team," Mrs Jones concluded, looking over at the silent boy.

Alex stared back at her, though his mind had already drifted away from reality. It was currently calculating all the pros and cons of the mission, and the survival rate. Well, if he assumed that the man would take the camp hostage, which he probably will, then he was bound to have to save someone from dying. If the man only took a few teens hostage, the end result would probably be the same...

"I'll do it," Alex said, "But I just have one question. This isn't going to turn out like what happened at Point Blanc Academy is it?"

"Not a chance," Mrs Jones said with a hint of a smile, "We know for a fact that none of the guest lecturers, well aside from Mr Olsen, or Mr Hobbs as you should now call him, have any inclination to take over the world. You'll be safe from them."

Alex sighed in relief. "So, do I get a new name or something?"

Mrs Jones nodded. "You will be playing the nephew of one of the professors, who will in turn be one of our agents. You are now John Saunders, a rather bright spark already at university level. Here's the full details," she added, sliding across a folder to Alex.

"So, what do I do?" Rose asked.

"You'll be part of the backup team," Mr Blunt said, "Should anything go wrong, I expect you to be in there before any buildings can be blown up, or any lives are taken. Oh, Agent Allende, I'm making you the leader."

Rose's eyebrows shot up. "Me? But...but, what about Ben-I mean Agent Daniels?"

"Agent Daniels has a slightly different role to play in this mission. He'll be coming in any moment now to take his full briefing." Right on cue, the door opened and Ben Daniel's walked in. He grinned at Alex and Rose before nodding politely in the direction of his bosses.

"Alex, meet Peter Saunders, Professor of Genetics at the University of Oxford."

Well, that seems like a pretty good place to stop chapter one.

So, what did you all think of it? Does it seem like an exciting start, or were you all sleep by the end?

Lol, now I've set a story in three main countries: Australia, England, and now the USA...maybe next I should have one in China or something?

IMPORTANT! Okay, what do you call football(England) or soccer(Australia) in the United States?

Okay, now that that's done...I'll update ASAP.

Love Chariots99