My name is Jessica Palmer. I am fifteen years old. I am part of a group named Scorpia. I have been one of their agents since I was eleven. I had been training to be their agents since I was six though. My entire family has always been in the Scorpia. Or at least that's what I've been told. It's the only life I know. The only life I have.

I walked into the office and delivered the money. "There you go, John." I told him.

He gave me his usual, ugly toothy smile. "Thanks, Jess, right on time, early actually as always."

I nod. "What now?"

"You are wanted in room E7." he tells me. "You are dismissed."

"All right." I told him, saluting as you always did to someone who was higher than you when you were about to leave a room or when you were dismissed.

I headed to E7. E7 is basically a conference/office room. Also it's the place that assignments are handed out by one of our heads. This was only one of the assignment bases. The main base was in Italy. This was the second base though.

I walked into the room and saluted. When you meet the head that is what is expected for you to do.

"You don't have to salute me, Jessica." he said to me.

I sat down. "Okay."

"Ready for your new assignment?" he asks.

I nod. Of course I was ready. I was always prepared to do my part.

"You are to get close to a boy, Alex Rider." he handed me the file. "He is a MI6 agent. Fifteen years old. Yesterday was his birthday. He lives with his guardian, an American named Jack Starbright. He has vowed that the mission he did several weeks ago was his last, but we don't trust him for multiple reasons. That's where you come in. We want you to get close to him. You will be going to school with him. You will have all the same classes. You will be staying in a house right across the street from him. Make him become your best friend. It will be the ultimate test of your training. Do you think you can handle this?"

I smiled. "Of course I can. I was trained by the best, after all, Uncle Ash."

Alex's Point of View:

"Alex, did you hear about the new family moving in?" Jack asks me as we eat a Chinese dinner that she cooked.

I shook my head. "Didn't know anything about them."

"Well apparently, they have a daughter about your age. Maybe you could show her around." Jack suggests.

"I'll think about it." I said.

She sighs. "You need to do something, Alex. Your really starting to worry me. You aren't acting like you. All you ever do is mope around the house bored."

I was bored. And I guess I was moping.

I quit the one thing that kept me on my toes. Out of boredness. Just to make Jack happy. But that didn't make me happy. No, despite all the injury and annoyance that that life had caused me, I missed it. It was the only connection I had to my parents and my Uncle Ian. Now it seemed like I was more distant from them than ever.

I looked up at Jack, who gazed at me with hopeful eyes. "All right. I'll show her around."

She got up and put her arms around me, kissing me on the cheeks. "I'm so glad to hear that. It'll give you something to do."

What she really meant was something to get my mind off of the MI6.