A/N: well this is my first attempt at an Alex Rider story or this sort of genre so forgive any character errors or general errors of style I assume it'll get better as I get more experience. I've tried to avoid clichés as far as possible but considering the fact that I'm bringing in K Unit some will be unavoidable. to a certain extent, I'm going to write the K Unit characters as they generally appear in fics though as I've grown fond of them but there may be a few differences. Also, I am not going to make excuses for my update habits. I have access to a computer but not the net so when I can go online I'll update. The only internet I get on regularly is on my cell but I can't update from there. I am also a first year varsity student in Computer engineering as of the 18th of January and apparently that means I will lose any semblance of a life. I do have the plot planned out and a few chapters written up, this is just to see how it is received. But anyway, on with the story.

Disclaimer: before I could even try to pretend to be Anthony Horrowitz I would need a gender change

Back-up

The Royal and General Bank was, as per usual, devoid of any real customers, this would not have come as a surprise to anyone who had an inkling of what the Royal and General Bank was, but there were few enough of those. Anyone who actually went in with the intention of opening an account usually came out disgusted or disappointed. The fees were exorbitant, the Bank empty and the staff did not inspire confidence, to say the least, then again they didn't think they needed to, they had enough of their own.

Several stories up, in a sombre waiting room sat four men. At a glance, you would think that they had nothing in common, not even nationality. If you looked more carefully however you may find that there was something about them that was the same. Maybe it was the way they held themselves, alert, at attention with an almost military discipline, or perhaps it was in the way they all seemed to be in shape and well muscled. An extremely astute person may have noticed the flicker of recognition when they'd seen who else was in the room, but you'd have to have been quick. If you'd met them on the street you'd never have thought they had trained together, and if you'd known they'd spent eleven weeks living together you may find yourself shocked to know that not one of them knew the other's names. But that was life, or work. Four heads snapped to the door seconds before it opened and a cheerful girl of Hispanic origins told them that Mr Blunt would see them now. They filed out of the waiting room and into an office, unconsciously falling back into the formation they had used at Brecon Beacons. The dark haired, short, muscular man took the lead, followed by another dark haired man this one far thinner and taller with square features. Third was a slim blond man with calluses on his first and second fingers, the type you get from permanently having to sew clothes together, or people, which ever pleased you. The last in the line was a brunette with an easy going face and lips that were inclined to smile, few knew it but that face could become rock hard in less than a second. They faced a man who in all honestly should have been called Mr Grey not Mr Blunt. Everything about him was grey, his clothes, his hair and astonishingly enough, even his skin had a grey tint to it. Behind him was a serious looking woman sucking on a peppermint. She began the conversation, if you could call it that.

"You all know each other so I'm not going to waste time introducing you. I am Mrs Jones and while I know only agent Daniels is technically an MI6 agent we have organised to borrow you for the duration of this mission. The situation is certainly not ideal, but we have no time to do anything else."

She placed a piece of paper on the table and slid it across to them. It was a photo of a young, blond boy, he was fair skinned and of indeterminable age. A teenager certainly but there was something in his face that would make you question that, something in the way he held his head and how his eyes seemed to have seen too much. Instead of a happy, carefree expression that was so typical of youth, nothing graced his features. There was no hint of a smile or of laughter, no anger or sadness visible, nor the defiance they'd grown accustomed to, his face was empty. They regarded it for a few seconds and looked back up at the pair before them. This time it was the grey man who spoke.

"You are all familiar with Alex Rider, or Cub as I believe you called him. He is one of our most useful agents and is currently on a mission. As it happens, we need to get a few, believable people to him."

"Alex is in a boarding school keeping an eye on the son of a retired General and businessman, who we believe may be attacked soon. He will be spending his holidays with the boy at a summer camp but new faces have suddenly appeared. We need to get people in who can protect Alex and not look like they're following a script. We hope that the time you spent with him in the SAS training will be sufficient to make it seem like you know him. You'll be expected to protect him in a combat situation and keep your eyes open for suspicious individuals. We have organised papers and cover stories for you and while Alex knows to look out for help he doesn't know who will be coming, to help with the surprise. Any questions?"

And that was how the four servants of Mother England found themselves on a plane flying towards a small island, just off the coast of America for an extended 'holiday'. James Wolfe and Ben Fox were supposedly old friends who were taking their summer to gain valuable work experience and people skills. They were doing this by volunteering as counsellors at a children's summer camp with an American program intent on giving people from all walks of life a chance to live and work in America. There were three others coming over from the UK with them, one was a blonde Scotsman who would be the camp's doctor called Peter Linda, another was an energetic man called Emmet Evans who permanently wore a badge with an eagle on it and was an avid bird watcher. The fifth man had been cleared and was of no practical interest to the team, except for as a source of amusement. He had landed up sitting next to Emmett Evans who had already earned himself a nickname, two actually. Birdman and Eagle, because of the badge, of course. The fifth man in the party, Francis Jamieson, or Frank, was fast becoming scared of the strange man alongside him. Frank suffered from ornithophobia, or a fear of birds in layman's English and suffice to say, he was starting to think that he'd picked the wrong chair. The man next to him scared the living daylights out of him and seemed happily oblivious to the fact. Frank had sat through hours of hearing about how to distinguish between the call of a Pied Kingfisher and the call of a Starling. The names meant little to him and the differences between them escaped him. He heard a chuckle come from the two men in front of him and wished he could switch seats. He may have been even more distressed had he heard their whispered conversation.

Since when did those to sound even vaguely alike?

I don't think they even resemble each other.

At the other end of the world, the blond boy from the photo was packing his bags. Alex Rider carefully laid aside a set of spare clothes for the trip to the summer camp, along with a few other things he would be taking on the plane. His iPod from Smithers as well as a few other gadgets he'd kept or received for the mission. A fine quality ball point pen which contained a mike, voice recorder, torch, small, but relatively powerful laser and a tranquiliser. A nice new watch, which worked unlike the last one, but also contained a tracking device and alarm. This one was waterproof, glowed in the dark and had, in case the battery ever got stolen, could also be solar power. So he'd just have to ask his kidnappers to be polite enough to kidnap him during the day. His clothes were all made of material that was bullet proof at a distance, except for his jackets which would be bullet proof from much closer. He had a rubric's cube key ring which if he completed and tapped the middle block of each face exactly twice would transform into a grenade powerful enough to destroy a single story building. It also had a mechanism that would automatically shift the blocks into the correct position when used in conjunction with his watch. His laces were a surprise gift from Tamara Knight, they, like her own, contained laser wire. He sighed, at least this time MI6 had given him something which helped his school work. He'd taken extra maths and science lessons when he should have been doing French. It hadn't taken the school long to figure out that he spoke French fluently and didn't understand a great deal of his maths and science. MI6 had said they'd send in back up but had said little else for security reasons. The door to his room opened and his roommate walked in. John Smith, an unfortunate choice of name by his father, was the son of a General who had very recently annoyed the American mafia and also Alex's charge. In a way, Alex was grateful that the situation had been explained to John before hand and so he knew exactly who Alex was. Alex genuinely liked the younger, by two months, boy and would have hated the feeling of having John think that the friendship was only a ploy to get into a position to protect him. He was also generally fond of the General. He'd been outraged when he'd heard about Alex's job and for no other reason than he was worried that the fifteen year old would be hurt. The first thing he'd done was tell Alex that he was doing the wrong things and should come back to the business when he was an adult if it appealed to him. He hadn't pressed the issue when Alex had said he couldn't but, courtesy of his iPod, he'd heard the General giving Mrs Jones an earful about the situation. He'd spoken to Alex about it later, not asking him why or telling him to stop just using one of the strangest analogies Alex had ever heard, but probably one of the truest.

Just remember this Alex, it all depends on what you want out of life. An eagle sores and is king of the sky, but know this, weasels don't get sucked into the engine of a plane. Just think about that lad.

"You ready to go?"

"Yeah, just let me finish with this."

Out of habit Alex put a few hairs into the zippers on his bag before sealing it.

"All done."

"Dad's bought business class tickets for us, I hope you don't mind, I know we can afford better he just doesn't want to-"

"Draw attention to us. It's cool mate, he didn't have to do this for me in any case."

Alex finished with a grin, playing his part perfectly. Privately he agreed with some parts of the General's theory and disagreed with others. General Harry Smith believed in inconspicuousness. He said that a police escort just told people that you thought you were important and gave whoever wanted to kill you a nice, flashing, noisy target. If you went by in an average car, no one would know the difference. That was where Alex disagreed, most people wouldn't know the difference but a trained assassin would make it his business to know the difference. That was when bullet proof windows came in handy, the police escort, not so much. He knew because he had been taught. Then again, he also knew that no matter how many precautions you took, there was always a way in. But he understood not drawing attention to yourself. So John did average things. His clothes weren't overly expensive, they were nice but they were the same clothes a thousand other teens wore. He went to a good school but it wasn't something like Dr Grief's institution. Even his name was common, John Smith. Memorable only because it was so commonplace. John grinned back at Alex and picked up his carry bag.

"c'mon, the school will send our bags to the airport for us and you don't want to be late for dad."

Alex nodded and slung his bag over his shoulder, following John out the room.