This takes place after The Woes of Brookland. Oh, and I'm almost done with the first chapter of that sequel. Look for it!
Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider.
Alex woke up fairly late one Saturday morning with a loud groan. He couldn't help it, he was exhausted; Tom had dragged him to his friend's older brother's girlfriend's cousin's house the night before. When Alex had asked where they were going that was the explanation he'd been given, which had left him more confused than when he was trying to figure out Damian Cray's diabolical plan. Alex had spent the night with kids he didn't remember if he was supposed to know, highly bored with their drunken and high state.
Tom wasn't into to drugs or alcohol and neither was Alex, so when midnight rolled around he dislodged Tom from the girl on the stairs and dragged him to the front door. They were halfway down the block when several cop cars peeled around the corner and in the panic of not wanting to be arrested they'd spent an half an hour in the bushes.
Alex had told Tom he wasn't going to speak to him for a little while, to which Tom replied he needed to be a teenager for once his life before it was too late. His words were frightening close to K-Unit's advice to him several months earlier which only made Alex fall all the more silent.
He'd made it home at around one in the morning and promptly tripped over the army duffel bag in the front entrance. Cursing, he kicked the damn thing out of his way and went upstairs. He changed then fell into bed, not even bothering to crawl under the covers before falling into a deep sleep.
The duffel bag explained why Jack hadn't called him once that night to find out where he was after curfew came and went; Eagle was back in town. The two adults had been dating for about a month now and seemed pretty serious. Eagle had been gone for about a week for a job with K-Unit. Despite, Eagle and Jack's relationship, Alex hadn't seen the rest of K-Unit once. He guessed they got enough of each other in the field, why spend more time together? The two adults had probably been up to Alex-really-didn't-want-to-know-what all night which effectively held off the lecture he would have been getting otherwise.
Waking up about noon, Alex plodded downstairs towards the kitchen to get something to eat.
"Cub!" came the excited cry when he entered and, not being fully awake, Alex felt his heart stop momentarily. Thankfully, his surprised cry was suppressed.
"Jesus, are you trying to give me a heart attack?" he exclaimed ignoring the laughter of the four soldiers.
"Little jumpy, aren't ya Cub?" Fox asked mockingly and Alex glared at them.
"What are you doing here?" he asked crossing to the fridge and grabbing a Monster. He didn't feel like tea and Jack had already shut off the coffee pot. He went and sat in the empty chair at the table.
"We're off duty for a bit," Wolf told him leaning back in his chair. "So we decided to stop by."
"Why?" Alex asked.
"Why not?" Snake said back. Alex rolled his eyes then glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were alone.
"Please, tell me you didn't bring any guns into the house," he said. "Jack'll flip."
"We're unarmed," Fox confirmed. "We're just here to hang out."
"Terrific," Alex mumbled sarcastically just as Jack walked in with two grocery bags.
"Alex, get up and help," she ordered.
"Why me?" he asked, already annoyed by the influx of people in his house. Alex had never been the social type and he didn't like unannounced visits, no matter who it was. Only Tom ever really got away with not calling before showing up. There was a reason Alex had never had a surprise birthday party.
"Because I said so," she snapped, clearly in a bad mood. "And you," she rounded on Eagle who looked a tad scared. "Get your crap out of the hallway! I almost tripped and I'm sure Alex did too, when he came in at one in the morning." Alex froze in surprise, the can of energy drink half way to his mouth. He'd thought he'd gotten away with it; apparently not. That explained the bad mood; Alex's lateness and her morning grocery store trip were a volatile combination when it came to Jack. She hated when he missed curfew, one of the few things she'd get parental-like about, and she hated shopping.
"Tom took me there," he said lamely.
"To where?" Jack asked hands on her hips.
"His friend's older brother's girlfriend's cousin's house," Alex replied seriously. Jack took a moment in an attempt to decipher his words before giving up with a shake of her head and an annoyed huff. Alex turned back to the table and saw Eagle looking highly confused.
"Don't even bother," Alex said and all four soldiers looked at him. "I still don't know whose house it was." Alex ignored Jack's banging as she put things away with much more force than necessary while Eagle got up to take his things to the bedroom.
"So, anybody have any idea what we're gonna do today?" Snake asked stealing Alex's Monster. He blocked the boy's attempts to get it back before Alex stopped trying. The three soldiers started shooting out ideas but nothing stuck.
"Whatever happened to Laser Quest?" Eagle asked as he came back. All three SAS soldiers perked up at the idea. Since Laser Quest was the fun version of their jobs they'd wanted to go since Brecon Beacons, but without a kid with them they'd just look stupid. That's were Alex came in.
"We don't have even teams," Snake pointed out setting the now empty can of Monster in front of Alex. He gave the man a highly annoyed glare.
"Only if Jack doesn't go," Fox said and the five males turned to look at the red headed American.
"Fine," she said with a shrug. "But I'm not going to be on Alex's team."
"Why not?" Wolf asked.
"I relish the opportunity to kill him," she said treating Alex to rather twisted smirk.
"You can try," he challenged.
"I will," she promised. "Believe me, I will."
"Holy crap," Wolf breathed out, ducking down by Alex behind one of the wooden blocks on the game floor. "How is she doing that?"
The six of them had split into two teams and were pretty much ignoring the birthday party kids around them, who in turn were too scared of the big men to attack. It was Alex, Wolf, and Fox against Jack, Eagle, and Snake. Despite Alex and Jack being the only two non-soldiers of the group, they were the best players.
Jack had Wolf running in circles trying to avoid her laser and Alex had already captured Snake, currently be being guarded by Fox in their base. Alex avoided Jack since he knew she really could capture him and he didn't want that to happen. However, she had mostly ignored him, opting instead to hunt Wolf down.
"Doing what?" Alex asked hiding his smile turning to look around the corner of the block.
"She keeps popping up with no warning," Wolf growled clearly not liking the position a civilian had put him in.
"She's not that good," Alex said untruthfully just to see how riled Wolf would get. "She's not even trained in stealth." This did nothing for Wolf's mood and the man quickly moved away in an attempt to lose Jack. He made it about eight yards before her green laser caught the sensor on the back of his vest and his gun deactivated. Alex couldn't hear what the two were saying above the music and little kid screams but he could see Wolf's annoyed look.
Alex ducked back down to avoid being seen as Jack took Wolf to her team's base. With Snake already captured, and guarded by Fox, and Wolf being guarded by Jack, it was just him and Eagle now.
Crossing to a ladder leading to a mostly unused catwalk over the main game area, Alex quickly climbed up. He'd had the foresight to wear a dark shirt and shorts so when he army crawled across the catwalk he blended in with the shadows. He stopped halfway across and looked around for Eagle; not seeing him on one side he turned to the other side. He caught sight of the soldier as he moved continually, ducking behind the random blocks and partitions.
Using his blue colored laser Alex aimed at a spot on the floor to the left of the box Eagle was crouched behind. The man instantly went left around the blue dot, figuring it was a trap to make him go right as Alex knew he would. Eagle's training told him when to recognize a bout of fire that was intended to send him in a certain direction.
The same thing applied here. Only a few times did he have to 'drive' Eagle where he wanted him to go. Eagle did the opposite of he thought Alex wanted him to do never even considering that Alex was using reverse-psychology on him. Alex effectively maneuvered Eagle into a corner of the dark game floor where the man ducked behind a partition. Knowing he didn't have much time before Eagle recognized his vulnerable position and took off, Alex quickly slid from the catwalk to the wide partition two feet below him. He army crawled his way to the end, positioned his gun, and waited.
A moment later, Eagle attempted to make it to a block some ten yards away. Halfway there Alex fired his laser and Eagle's gun blinked off as the sensor on his chest read the hit.
Eagle stopped and looked around, trying to see who had shot him but Alex didn't move. The man didn't know Wolf was captured, so he had no idea who'd 'killed' him. Since no one came to take him to an enemy base, his gun reactivated two minutes later and he resumed play, as per the rules.
For the next twenty minutes, Alex army crawled his way on top of partitions and the catwalk taking out Eagle an additional four times. He'd cut him off twice from getting back to his own base and he could tell the man was thoroughly frustrated by Alex's game of cat and mouse.
When the one minute left alert sounded, Alex decided to just end Eagle for the rest of the game. Eagle had managed to find a partition that went under the catwalk and Alex army crawled his way over and stood up directly above him. Looking down he saw Eagle peering around the corner looking for any sign of who was chasing him. Alex jumped off the partition, spinning in midair so that when he landed he was facing Eagle. The soldier heard the soft thud as he landed and his head whipped around. Alex fired at the sensor, 'killing' him before he could react.
A few minutes later, when the others came to find them, Alex was still trapped in Eagle's headlock. His laughter had made his limbs weak and he was unable to break the strong hold.
"That was fun," Jack exclaimed as they sat around the table in the Chinese buffet restaurant K-Unit was obsessed with. Both Wolf and Eagle grumbled something and everyone laughed at them.
"I can't believe you killed Andy so many times, Cub," Fox said, clapping the teen's shoulder in congratulations.
"I can't believe Jack actually got Wolf," Alex said ignoring the glares he got from both men.
"Yeah, how did you manage that?" Snake asked stealing a wonton off of Alex's plate.
"What is it with you and my food?" Alex asked him aiming a light kick at the soldier's shin. Snake smirked and landed his own kick to Alex's leg. "Ow!" Alex exclaimed in mock hurt.
"Oh, please," Snake admonished rolling his eyes. He turned back to Jack. "Seriously, how?"
"I've been living with Alex for seven years now," she said, lightly pinching his earlobe and Alex, in a typical teenage response, squirmed away from the affection, bumping into Fox. Jack ignored him and continued. "You pick things up. All the Rider boys were like that."
"They all play cat and mouse?" Fox asked. The man had been MI6 for about a month before going back to the SAS and from what he'd seen they never played things straight. Everything was a twisted and serious game.
"Pretty much," Jack said with a nod. She had K-Unit enthralled as this was probably the most insight they'd ever gotten into the mystery that was Cub. "Family of spies and all that. It's in his blood."
"You know what we should do?" Alex asked lightly, rapidly, and bluntly, changing the subject.
"What?" Eagle asked through his mouth full of chicken which earned him a disgusted glare from Snake.
"We should go paintballing," he said.
"Yeah!" Jack practically shouted in her excitement. Wolf, Fox, and Snake looked ready to agree when Eagle put his foot down.
"Absolutely not," he said sternly and his Unit looked at him in surprise. Usually, he was the first one to agree to things like this.
"Why not?" Alex asked unable to stop himself from feeling a bit disappointed by the fast and firm denial.
"Lasers are one thing, paintballs are quite another," he stated obviously.
"What's your point?" Wolf asked him.
"I have no interest in having Cub here, hunt me down in the woods, repeatedly, with something that could leave bruises," he said with a low level glare at Alex. "I will not die by paintball." Needless to say, he'll never hear the end of that one.
Hah, hope you guys enjoy that and please review.