Disclaimer : I don't own anything.
AN : English is not my first language. Please, be kind with me :) (I need a beta, by the way!)
Night was falling. In the west sky, hues of orange and red were slowly darkening. Millions of stars were bejewelling the deep velvet of the dark firmament. A crispy wind, cold and sharp, was howling furiously between the tall buildings. Behind the thin protection of his package, Dale Rierx took a quick glance at his watch. He let his load drop softly on the roof ground, and crouched smoothly, the back against the parapet.
Focused, the young man opened the black, dull case with swift gestures despite his gloves. Leisurely, with the assurance brought by long years of practice, he began to assemble the rifle. It was a robust weapon, well known for its accuracy and good range. With almost fond motions, Dale finished to put it together. He checked the work done with a keen eye: a jammed rifle was the last thing he would want tonight.
The wind was ruffling his long, dark locks, sending them wildly in front of his eyes. His black leather jacket helped him to keep warm in the freezing twilight. The city was faintly murmuring dozens of stories below. This close to the sky, Dale could easily imagine himself truly alone. He took a deep, rejuvenating breath. He could feel the tension slowly intensifying, and his shivers were not all due to the cold.
He exhaled slowly before straightening up slightly, and assessed the surroundings.
The building he had chosen was situated far from the target. His position was not the closest, nor had the most convenient line of sight. On the other hand, it had the benefits of not being under heavy surveillance. Dale had been observing the vicinity for months, and had spotted this place relatively quickly. It was finally the perfect place to be at this time.
Lights were on in the target's flat. Despite having spent days and nights observing it, Dale had never been able to spot the woman get in or get out of it. This had brought indirectly a precious information: another way existed for security purposes.
This fact had led him building the operation he planned to execute tonight. Every fortress, every protection system has its flaws.
Letting drop binoculars, he let a sudden smile adorning his features.
Last one thing to do before being fully ready. He pulled out a tiny box from the inner pocket of his jacket, and opened it with careful gestures. Inside, he removed a small syringe, tugged away the collar of his turtleneck, and injected himself the drug through the carotid. The relief came instantly. Blissfulness inundated him, taking away stress and anxiety. Like the sand after the wave, he felt released from useless thoughts. His mind was sharpened for the next few hours and the pain, always looming, always menacing, would be contained far away.
Entry 57.b: Protocol is going ahead. Subject is not lenient. Near death has already occurred three times. The loss of the subject is not acceptable: he has to be broken soon.
Tulip Jones was in her kitchen, busy to make herself a full pot of coffee. Sounds were curiously muffled in the atmosphere, and even the rumbles of the machine failed to put a semblance of life in her home. She let out a sigh. Work awaited her, like every night. It was the sole thing that managed to keep old shadows and whispers aside, on the far back of her mind. Lately, these shadows were much rasher, bringing themselves on the front when work and personal history echoed together.
The head of the MI6 shook herself off her dark musings when the cafetiere drilled petulantly, signalling the end of its job. Tulip grabbed the coffee pot along with a mug, and made her way towards her office. No sugar nor milk to make the drink softer.
The room was on the back of the flat and had no opening. Tulip liked to let the door unclosed, and let the shimmer flooding freely through the huge window of her living room overlooking London. At this hour, the city glinted and lived with the last shake of activity before the deep slumber brought by the dead of the night. Tulip found herself focusing better here, with the perspective of long hours working with no distraction or interruption. She sat before her desk, whose corners were full of paper piles menacing to fall over. Directly in front of her, was laying neatly a single folder. Across was typed in bold letters: TOP SECRET – HIGHLY CLASSIFIED. She opened it by a flick of her wrist, and began to leaf through it while sipping her warm beverage.
Few minutes' later, brow creased and peppermint in mouth, she stopped her reading. She was examining the picture of a young man, who was sitting casually near a white car. It was blurred due to the motion and the zooming, but it was possible to distinguish his face. He had high cheekbones and an aristocratic jaw, and a scornful smile seemed to be tugged at his lips. Behind his shades, it was impossible to determine the direction of his gaze, but he was apparently gazing at the photographer. Dark hair framed his handsome face.
Tulip had been looking at this picture every night since it was in her hands. Too many agents had died on the field before one of them was finally able to bring this crucial information.
Leaning backwards, Tulip stretched her back.
After the fall of Scorpia, nearly six years ago, the terrorism world had been left in shambles. New organizations were founded, blooming like daisies. Scores were settled between past and new leaders, leaving the world at peace for a few years. Now, times had changed, and few of these organizations had emerged victorious. One in particular was on the right path to become the next Scorpia. It was not currently nearly as powerful, but it was growing rapidly, and disposed of a few potent assets.
Tulip flipped a leaf, and the Chinese symbol of SAN appeared. The three horizontal lines, the bottom one a bit longer than the other two, represented the ideogram for the number three. SAN seemed to have its roots in China, obviously. In only three years, it had gained a lot of territory rapidly, between clever alliances and swift eliminations.
Its leader was well known by the MI6: after all, the Dr. Three had a long history of terrorism behind him.
Entry 63.d: Moulding a mind through sheer pain is an interesting concept, and this opens new exciting paths for our next researches. However, it is regrettable that it takes this long to adequately shape and control adequate subject material.
Dale was in position, waiting. With one last overlooking glance, he wedged the rifle against his shoulder and tilted his head to place his right eye just behind the scope. Calmly, he scanned the surroundings of his target. He spotted four snipers where he expected them. Logically, only a few positions were relevant for this kind of protection job. Common sense was often taking over the laborious seek of unpredictability.
In front of the building, four men in uniforms were standing alert. Six more, this time in civilian clothes, were dispatched in different places of the street, trying to remain inconspicuous somewhat successfully.
Dale checked his watch. It's time.
Indeed, a delivery truck stopped against the sidewalk. The driver stepped out, took a huge package from behind the truck, and made his way toward the guarding men.
Dale raised his left hand, a tiny remote cradled in his palm, and flipped the switch.
A sudden blackout occurred, and rampant darkness filled streets and buildings. Only car headlights ripped it occasionally. On the roof, the young man could hear cries of fear and screeches of tires intertwining together. He waited a few seconds, and saw lights returning only in the targeted building. Their emergency generator was taking over. He smiled and flipped another switch.
A flash of blinding brightness this time, followed close by a resounding explosion. Dale had closed his eyes to preserve his night vision. He opened them slightly in time to see a giant ball of fire engulfing the vicinity of the front door, where the delivery man had brought the package a minute prior. Raising slightly the end of his rifle, he targeted the huge window situated on the twenty-third floor, and pulled the trigger four times. The shots were fired with deadly accuracy, and the special bullets embedded themselves in the concrete, on the four corners of the pane. One last flipping of switch and the bullets exploded. As expected, they were not enough to rip the thick armour open, but a huge fissure appeared on the wall around the window, and debris started to fall over.
Chaos is now entering the field.
Entry 68.c.3: The confusion state is an interesting condition to work with. The possibilities are near limitless, but we cannot afford to ruin the subject's potential. Our next objective is themaintaining of the retrograde amnesia. Inducing an association between withdrawal syndrome and mental conditioning is the next logical step of the protocol.
Tulip was beginning to feel a familiar headache pounding behind her tired eyes. SAN disposed of a few very deadly operatives. Their reputation had been hard-earned. One in particular had made his code-name well renowned. Vesper was known to be the right hand of the Dr Three. He was his personal hound, sent after his enemies like a rabid hunter and seemed to never have failed an assassination. A couple of her agents had lost their life by his hand. It was his picture that she has been studying obsessively for months.
Vesper had remained a mystery for nearly two years. Nobody would know his face or his name. Fortunately, information had been gathered and anonymous tips had been sent to her three months ago, so MI6 was not dealing with a ghost anymore.
She stood up brusquely and took a few steps to relax herself. Her walk led her on a familiar path, the one she took often to her strong-box carved in the wall. She opened it, and took a thick, worn folder lying on the top shelf.
She came back slowly at her desk, and placed the folder next to the other one, still open at Vesper's picture. Due to years of manipulating it, she knew every page, every words of it by heart. She opened it occasionally to take a look at the pictures. Memory of faces and expressions had the sad tendency to fade with time, blurring in a false reconstruction of reality. Indeed, she pictured in herself the face of Alex Rider always like the first time she had met him, nearly seven years ago. In her head, he would still have baby fat rounding his cheeks, and his laughing eyes would be still inhabited with light. He was a child back then, only fourteen years old.
Tulip had seen his innocence slowly taken away from him. Light had faded, and softness had been reaped out to be replaced by cold harshness. She didn't like to remember this time. She wasn't in charge back then, but she couldn't bring herself to pretend that she would not have done the same thing if she were in Blunt's shoes.
After all, Alex had saved millions of lives multiple times.
Faint awe accompanied every time she thought of it, but crude sadness was always the feeling that dominated others. In his last mission, Alex never came back.
Egypt was the one time too many. Alex had been used like a bait against Scorpia, but MI6 had been manipulated like rookies on this operation. This resulted into the death of Alex' caregiver and in the disappearing of him. The body of his doppelganger had been found, a bullet in the head. It was nearly symbolic: everything that held a link to Alex had been erased. It was like he had never existed: only a very few people could tell they had knew this boy, and how much the world owed him.
Tulip still had agents on the case, out of sheer determination. Recently, it evolved: faint leads had been found, and they hinted that Alex was somewhere out, doing only God knew what.
Lost in her musings, Tulip started when lights went off, bathing the room into thick darkness.
She quickly took a glance outside, and saw that a good part of the district was affected by the blackout as well. Then, power returned when the generator took over, and she let out the breath she was unconsciously holding. Her relief didn't last long: a sudden loud noise, along with the shake of the building happened, indicating an important explosion somewhere in near surroundings.
An attack, she thought, leaping on her feet while gathering hurriedly papers. She closed the two folders before placing them under her left arm.
Her phone rang, and in the middle of the first ring, a huge crack resounded near the window. Tulip felt her eyes widening when the entire pan seemed to drop slightly, like it was left ajar.
She put the phone against her ear.
"Please join us immediately on the extracting spot, Ma'am." The voice of the security head was calm, professional, but she could perceive a faint hint of tension underlying it.
"I'll be there in twenty seconds."
Entry 122: Rewiring implementation has taken four months and thirteen days. Today, the subject behaviour has followed every steps previously specified. Two safe months has been decided before moving ahead in the protocol.
Dale ran, taking long strides before jumping smoothly over the low wall. He fell off the roof, and the wind screeched at him. He couldn't help the mad laugh that escaped him, while speed and feeling of sheer liberty invaded his blood. He could faintly see the ground of the back street rushing at him, and after few second of free fall, he tightened up his grip over the rope. He reached the ground almost leisurely, and took off the harness in one swift motion.
No one was here to see him reach the manhole, which he had opened slightly few hours prior. He pushed hard the cast iron disc, and jumped down. Pitch black prevailing in the sewer, he reached for his torch and flicked it on. Minuscule droplets saturated the atmosphere, and shimmered lazily in the ray of light. The air, filled with watery echoes, was somehow sensibly hotter than the outside. With a sweeping motion, he assessed his surrounding before taking a run.
He knew the way like the back of his hand. Having worked in these tunnels for weeks already, he reached the construction site in no time. Everything had been left as is by workers at the end of the day. Dale smiled: maybe he would take the time to cancel the order tomorrow. After all, there had been no true reason to do the modification on the ceiling and on the wall. Two months ago, he had sliced into the server of the Civil Engineering Service and had put a high priority task that had led to the heavy alteration of the sewer pathway.
Racket and noises had successfully covered his own activity. He finally reached the entry of a smaller tunnel, and headed towards its end. He gathered a bag concealed behind a stone, and took a mace firmly with his right hand before beating down the wall. It fell off almost immediately, having been weakened step by step by Dale during these days of work. The young man inwardly cheered, and went through easily after having flicked off his torch.
He was in another tunnel, which wasn't on any of current official maps. He crouched in the dark and pulled out an uniform off the bag. He removed his pants and sweater before dressing up quickly. Looking like his preys helped him to stir the pot and confuse his enemies. It was not a huge advantage, but everything was good to take when he expected to be largely outnumbered.
Entry 143.a : The main flaw of the project has been already discussed, and remains being the necessity of regular self-injections to keep the conditioning on hold. Sending the subject in too long mission without supervision will involve a significant risk.
Tulip sent all the content of her desk in the huge shredder conveniently placed just next to it. She pressed the right combination, and the machine incinerated the whole stuff in few seconds. She grabbed her coat and the two folders she had been studying. She then reached swiftly the armoured door of her flat, pulled it open and made her way in the corridor. Four bulky men were waiting, line of shoulders stiff and jaw strained.
"Have you sent the decoy, Mr Holmes?"
"Yes, Ma'am. Three cars will go out in a minute, and two others in three minutes."
She nodded curtly and walked hurriedly toward the lift door. "I expect a full report of the event. Headquarters need to be informed."
"Purple alert has been set off. A team will be awaiting us in the underground passage, but we need to hurry." Mr Holmes keyed swiftly his pass through the card reader, then did the same with hers. A bell ringed before the door opened, agonizingly slowly.
The cabin was not very large, and Tulip found herself uncomfortably pressed on the back while the four men stuffed in.
"I reckon that there has been a somewhat huge explosion," Tulip stated coldly. The sentence hung in the air, before Mr Holmes let finally a tiny breath out.
"Near the front door. Three dead, of whom one civilian. There are injured but I don't know how many."
The rest of the short trip down was spent in silence. Tulip was furrowing her brows, feeling anger building slowly. She didn't know who was foolish enough to dare to attack her, but she was resolute to find out.
The door finally reopened and they all went out, relieved. The darkness faced them, absolute despite the pitiful attempt of the lift light to fend them off. The door closed, and black engulfed them. Mr Holmes turned on a torch, and directed the ray on both sides of the tunnel. No one awaited them.
"Where's the security guard," asked Tulip.
"I told him to do some reconnaissance, he's surely not far."
While the words tried to be reassuring, she could perceive the uncertainty in his voice.
"We have to keep moving," said Mr Holmes while tugging her by her arm. He made a swift motion with his right hand, and the tallest agent took the lead, gun ready. They went over a first bend after few dozen of meters.
Her security head took his walkie-talkie and called: "Smith, where are you?"
Only static responded him. "Smith, do you copy? Over."
More static sounds, and then: "There's something wrong."
He batted an eyelash. "What do you mean?"
Tulip felt a cold wave wash over her. She knew this voice, these intonations and these clipped ways to form words. And they didn't belong to Timothy Smith.
"Identify yourself!" Apparently, Mr Holmes had finally reached at the same conclusion.
There was no answer, or at least not a voiced one. A gunshot resounded, loudly echoing between walls, but seemed to come from far into the tunnel. One of the security men collapsed suddenly.
"Cut off the light," shouted Holmes while sending Tulip on the ground. Then, security men retaliated and triggered their guns multiple times. The shower of bullets finally stopped, bringing a very welcomed relief to Tulip's ears.
"An ambush," Holmes whispered. "We need to retreat. Now!"
Tulip got swiftly on her feet and sprinted blindly back toward the lift, a hand running over the side wall. Her breaths were jerky, and her heart beat loudly.
The two remaining security men trailed off and continued to fire from time to time to cover her and Mr Holmes. However, one cry followed by an indistinct gargle taught her that whoever was prowling in the darkness was slowly gaining the upper hand. Holmes' grip tightened briefly around her arm before letting her go with a jerk. He turned on his torch before throwing it back, pausing to fight off their aggressors. She ran few last meters, trying to not take a glance over her shoulder when struggle sounds seemed to pursue her, and reached the lift. She fumbled with her pass, until that the fact she hadn't Holmes' one dawned in her mind.
Turning over, she was about to shout when a vice grip suddenly curled around her neck.
Entry 159: Keeping the subject far from his previous ties remains a necessity. A fragile equilibrium has been established, and can be threw off with a mere reminder: name, face, location…
Getting rid of Jones henchmen had been almost easy. While they had not bad reflexes, they had doomed themselves when they hadn't brought with them any night vision device. The blackout had been planned on for this fact, and Dale knew well that no one could get ready for everything. The secret was to play all moves to surprise the adversary. He had been lucky today.
He smiled, and flicked on his torch directly on the face of his target, who he was keeping solidly against the door.
"Well, Mrs Jones, I can't say you're an easy prey."
She widened her eyes despite the crude light, and whispered faintly a name he couldn't decipher.
"Boss wants a recorded execution. If you please remain still, I'll be kind and quick." His tone was almost bored while he rummaged in his bag for his camera.
"You're Vesper, right?" Jones voice was strangled, and she seemed to have trouble breathing.
"Quite right, Mrs Jones. No less indeed was to be expected from the head of MI6." He pulled out his device, and pressed on the record button.
"Why do you dye your hair?"
Dale paused, taken aback by the question. How did she knew that? He had kept his hair black as far back he could recall. After all, blond hair was too conspicuous, especially in China. He didn't like the idea that someone could describe him with one word.
"I'm not here to chitchat, so keep quiet."
"Maybe you should take a look at this folder, Alex. I'm sure you'll be glad to learn some of the information –" Jones wheezed at the end of the sentence when Dale grip tightened.
"My name's not Alex," he said flatly. A curious mixture of feeling arose suddenly in him: coldness, hollowness, and strange above all, sorrowfulness. Headache built up, and he felt the first symptom of withdrawal creeping up his back. Except that the next injection was not scheduled before the morning, and it had been years that this routine had sufficiently kept the pain at bay.
"Yes it is. You're Alex Rider, and we've lost you years ago in Egypt. I know you well, and you're worth better than being a mindless puppet." Her voice was sad, yet almost ironic.
"I'm... You're wrong." Dale found himself unable to gather his thoughts, which were now roaring like a tempest. A faint idea went through, fragile in the hurricane. Maybe if I get rid of her, everything will be all right. He raised his gun, pressed the end harshly on her forehead, and nearly pulled the trigger.
"Ian Rider was your uncle, Jack Starbright your housekeeper... Did that ring any bell?" Words were stronger, better defined, and seemed to rip through the chaos. Locks of fiery hair, laughing eyes, disappearing in a conflagration. Don't wanna remember, it's forbidden, forbidden, forbidden, forbi– Dale shut tightly his eyes, before dropping on his knees. He put his throbbing head between his hands, gun completely discarded. He faintly heard rustles of silk when Jones crouched and slid an opened folder before his eyes.
A teenager was staring back at him. He couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen years old. Serious brown eyes, fair hair and a mouth set firmly in a determined line. It was his own face, which echoed endlessly behind the wall of pain, menacing to engulf him at any moment.
"Please, let me help you." The young man felt more than saw the hand reaching toward him. He slapped it away violently, before gathering clumsily the folder. Getting up swaying, he reached the edge of the pool of light. He needed to be elsewhere, to resort his feeling, to fight off the pain.
"Leave me alone," and then he faded into the darkness.