Chapter 1
Alex Rider had just received his latest mission. He was to infiltrate a school to investigate a potential suspect. But the school was a spy school. And the suspect was a sixteen year old schoolboy. And the suspect was also an assumed assassin.
Alex Rider was no ordinary teenager. He was MI6's youngest spy and as such had a lot of cases like this. This one happened to be in America. The CIA refused to train their own teenage spies as they felt it was immoral, strangely enough they didn't seem to have a problem with using Alex whenever they felt like it, which seemed to be pretty regularly these days.
Alex was booked to fly to the States the next day. First though, he had to check in with Mr. Smithers. This, however, was not much of a chore. Alex enjoyed his regular visits to the odd man and often looked forward to them in the lead up to a mission. Smithers was no ordinary MI6 agent, he was a genius, an inventor of sorts. His office was on the eleventh floor of the MI6 headquarters and that's where Alex was headed. Smithers created gadgets of sorts for the spies. He especially enjoyed making gadgets for Alex as it was a challenge, he had to disguise them as something Alex, as a schoolboy, might possess. Last time it was a Nintendo DS, different functions were used by inserting different games into the device. It had been amazing and Alex couldn't wait to see what he'd get this time.
Alex took the stairs two at a time to the eleventh floor, where Smithers was expecting him. "Hello there, my dear boy," said Smithers, the twinkly eyed, red faced, middle aged, overweight man sitting in the office chair behind the desk. "Hey there, got anything new for me this time?" Alex asked eagerly. "Oh you're going to love this," replied Smithers with a wink.
Twenty minutes later Alex emerged from the office geared up for his next mission. He had been given a range of gadgets from ultra-sticky hair gel to microscopic cameras that looked exactly like tiny flies. He also got the use of a tablet that had camera, explosive, communication and x-ray functions. He was ready for this mission.
Alex boarded the plane the next day and the flight went smoothly enough. It was long but he slept for some of it and also watched a James Bond film, laughing to himself at all the ridiculously unrealistic things that 'secret agent' did. He got off the plane and found a car and driver waiting for him, ready to bring him to the Blackthorne Academy.