So... here I am with a brand new story, and, boy, am I excited about that.
No, really. Can't you hear it in my voice?
Basically, this idea's been brewing in my head for ages now, literally, about two months, but it requires some... imagination on your parts. You see, John and Helen Rider lived, which I know is gonna be a bit difficult for some people to swallow. Yeah, I could have done it with Ian, but I wanted to do an AU Alex Rider. I've never done one of them. Plus, if we're into initials here, and most of us seem to be, what with OOC, AU, etc, if I wrote an Alex Rider AU, I'd technically be doing an AU AR.
Sorry. I'm easily distracted.
Well, here's chapter one of how Alex, aged seven, took on MI6, and won.
Or, alternatively, how much chaos can one small child cause? Hint: if his name is Alex Rider? A hell of a lot.
DISCLAIMER: Any characters who bear any vague resemblance to anything which Anthony Horowitz wrote are probably mine. Because, the way I've written them, his characters are so out of character, he wouldn't recognise them. Just for closure, though, let's reinforce the obvious, shall we? Because, unfortunately, some bast... really nasty person already bought the film rights, and Anthony Horowitz isn't sellin' the book rights any time soon.
John Rider was generally an excellent morning person. In his job, not immediately being ready for anything immediately after you woke up was a massive, massive downside, and John had been doing his job for too many years not to be excellent at it.
However, when he was at home, with his small family, he hated getting undue surprises early in the morning. It was due to the separation he liked to keep between his family and his job; early-morning surprises were things he got when he was working. With his family, things went along a smooth pattern. He got up, he went downstairs, Helen made him a tea, he got himself some cereal, or toast. His seven year old son, Alex, thumped his way downstairs, dragging his school backpack, generally with a question about homework.
John was far from stupid, but sometimes he found it difficult to keep up with Alex. For one thing, the three years they had spent travelling around Europe before Scorpia finished with them had left their mark on Alex, and he was as liable to come down chattering in Polish as he was in English. Alex had a gift for languages, and John and his family had spent at least six months in Poland – as well as France, Italy, Spain and Germany. Alex had been a precocious child, and he had quickly cottoned on to the language changes, picking them up as he went along. John himself was fluent in three other languages, but Alex could speak at least French and Spanish flawlessly, and it would be difficult to distinguish him from a German, or an Italian, or even a Pole, from his accent alone. John found his son's rapid-fire changes from language to language exhausting.
This morning, Alex was talking in French, bantering light-heartedly with his mother. John watched the pair of them, fondly. Alex and Helen were alike in temperament, if not in looks; both were patient, extremely intelligent, and had a lively sense of humour. On the other hand, Alex looked overwhelmingly like his father, right down to the habit the both had of quirking their mouths to one side when they were amused, or thinking.
"Viens ici." John commanded, grinning, and Alex gave him a quick hug, before resuming his conversation with his mother, flashing his dad a smile every now and then.
Absently, with half his attention on Alex and Helen's conversation, John flicked through the post. A bill, a postcard for Helen, something from Yassen, which he'd have to open in the office, another bill, yet another bill, something from Alex's school, a bank… wait. Something from Alex's school?
He tore open the envelope.
Take your Children to Work! It read, in bright red letters across the top.
John frowned.
This is an excellent opportunity for father-child bonding. A large percentage of fathers find that they are not as involved with their children as their wives are, and we, at the Sacré Coeur Prep. School, think that this is a wonderful chance for children to get an insight into their fathers' adult world, and a chance for you, as a father, to get a little closer to your child…
John put the letter down, then picked it up again, and looked at the date suggested for the bloody scheme.
He swore, softly, and Helen shot him a sharp look. Wordlessly, he handed it to her.
"Putain." She swore herself, apparently without thinking about it, still thinking in French, but distracted by the letter.
"Qu'est-ce que c'est?" Alex piped up, and she laid an absent hand on his head, ruffling his hair.
"Rien, Alex." She broke into English again. "Sweetheart, could you just run upstairs for me? I need my diary; I think it's on my bedside table. You couldn't just run and get it for me? I know it's in my bedroom somewhere"
"OK." He nodded, seriously, and ran off.
Helen looked at John, and he stared back at her. "Well, we haven't sent a reply saying we won't do it, so they'll assume that we will." She pointed out. "And it's not like we've got time to send one now, or hire a sitter to look after Alex for the day. How did it come so late? We live three streets away from the school."
"Can't you take him with you?" He pleaded.
"I'm on surgery duty today, John. I sincerely doubt that you'd want a child like ours in a surgery, and there's hardly anywhere else I can leave him in a hospital. I love him to bits, but he's hardly the calmest of children, is he? And he gets in and out of trouble faster than you do, and leaves more devastation behind him. No." she said, decisively, folding the letter up, and placing it on the table. "You'll have to take him with you. You'll be doing deskwork all day, so it's not like he's going to find out some dread secret about the Ukrainian Government, is it?"
John put his head in his hands. "Oh, I am going to look like such an idiot today." He moaned. Helen smiled, laying a hand on his shoulder.
"I'm sure you'll get by. He's a nice kid, John, and he's bright and likeable, and people like him when they meet him…"
"It's the idea of him meeting the people I work with that scares me. What if he meets Halton? I know he's my boss, and everything, but that man is an opportunist. He meets a kid like Alex – bright, multilingual, karate-trained, and all that other stuff – well, he'll be going on missions with me quicker than you can say 'unfair'. What about Alan Blunt? That man may well be a brilliant analyst, but he's as ruthless as they come; I wouldn't trust him with a child any further than I could throw him. And he's a big man. Or how about Tulip Jones? She's still mourning the loss of her kids, six years later. Meeting Alex might be the last straw for her. And what if Alex guesses that there's something up? Like you said, he's bright. Any of these things could spark a complete disaster."
"Don't be such a wet blanket." Helen laughed. "Everything will be fine."
"And I'll be the laughing stock of the entire office. Honestly – turning up with a seven-year-old. Me! MI6's finest agent! With a small child in tow!" he was starting to sound a little hysterical. "I'll never live it down. They'll call me 'the babysitter' from now until I retire."
"Oh, arrange something with Halton." Helen mock-snapped. "Tell him that you don't want to let anyone think that Alex will be a weak point with you, and say that he's about to go into care, or something, that he's a throwover from your last mission. Weren't you helping Yassen with those kids being held hostage in Warsaw? Well, tell Alex he's to speak Polish all day, for practice, and let everyone think he's one of them."
Unfortunately, both Helen and John forgot how much Alex looked like John.
Until, that is, Alex walked in, and handed his diary to his mum.
Thoughtfully, with a hint of worry in his voice, John said, putting a hand on Alex's head, and rubbing a few of the strands between his fingers, "Hel – we're going to need hair dye."
Helen bit her lip. "Yes. Oh, dear."
John was a little late to work that day. Alex, who at least half understood that his daddy did something dangerous, and had spent three years of his young life being told to do strange things like not speak at all to anyone except his parents, or in nothing but Spanish, was hardly phased by the instruction that he had to speak Polish for a day. It wasn't like he couldn't have done that standing on his head, and he'd have probably lapsed into a different language at some point in the day anyway.
Helen had run out and bought some brown hair dye, and John had helped his son put it in, and now Alex looked perfectly nondescript. Brown hair, brown eyes, average tan, average height, boring clothes. There was nothing to distinguish him from a hundred other seven year olds. And he looked nothing like John; it was strange how much hair colour could do.
With a mental sigh, John headed up to Sir Michael Halton's office, passing the various security checks, and allowing Alex to be given a tag to where round his neck, with a tracker in it, so they could find him. John handed over his ID, but Alex had to be scanned for weapons. When they were both found to be clean, they were waved through.
John knocked, then muttered to Alex. "Don't say a word, OK, Alex? I'll do all the talking, right?"
"Tak." Alex nodded, solemnly, and John took a few seconds to remember all his earlier edicts about talking in Polish.
A muffled 'come in!' drifted through the reinforced wood door – John took a deep breath, and opened the door.
"Ah, John." Halton nodded, and John allowed himself a tiny, almost infinitesimal smile. It wasn't like Halton hadn't known exactly who he was.
"Michael." He nodded, by way of greeting. "This is my son, Alex." Halton nodded stiffly at the seven-year-old, who stared at him, fascinated.
Michael Halton turned his cold, blue eyes back onto John. "Why, exactly, is he here?"
"Oh, er…" John shifted, a little uncomfortably. "Well, you see… it's a thing he has to do for school, and my wife couldn't take him, because she's, um… she's in surgery at the moment."
"Nothing serious, I hope?" Halton inquired, blandly, his voice showing as much concern as it might if he was discussing different shades of whitewash.
"I'm sorry." John said, quickly. "I, er… I mean that she's working in the surgery. Not that she's having it. You'll know that she's a nurse, of course; and she couldn't take Alex into surgery with her."
"Of course not." Halton's eyes slid away, as he thought. "You'll know, John, that he's in danger here."
"Yes. That's why we've dyed his hair."
"It's not an overly effective disguise. Take him to Pierce; his new assistant is experimenting with coloured contacts that change the shape of the eye. He can have some of those. What's the cover story for him?"
"A throwover from the hostage retrieval mission I last took. He's here so I can take one more statement from him, to clear up the details before he goes to British Child Services. And he's in British Child Services, rather than Polish for his own safety. Less likely to be traced."
There was a pause while Halton thought it over. "Not bad. It's water-tight, at least - Gregorovich won't tell anyone the truth, if he values his skin. Anyway: make sure this boy of yours keeps out of trouble. And if he tells anyone anything about this place, it's your job on the line, John."
"Yes. Thank you." He nodded. "I understand."
"I'll see you at three for your next briefing. It's within London, you'll be pleased to know."
John took the offered papers – presumably with information about his next mission – and left. He took a very silent Alex to his office, introduced him to his secretary as 'Oktav', explained why he was here, then led the boy into his office, and handed him a book to read. Then he immersed himself in his paperwork.
Fifteen minutes later, his secretary knocked on the door.
"Yes?" he asked.
"Um… I'm sorry, sir, but… it's Oktav." She said, her voice shaking a little.
"Why, what's he done?"
"Well, he's… you see, I'd forgotten my encoded password for password-access files, and I guess he heard me getting upset about it, because he came out, and, well… he seems to have solved the code we use for the passwords."
John was conscious of a cold breeze going through him, raising goosebumps, and giving him an uncomfortable, coiling feeling in the pit of his stomach. "But he… h-he can't have." He stammered. "He's a seven year old."
"Well, I know. But he got my password back for me, because I told him my first name. Luckily I speak a bit of Polish, and he asked me for my date of birth. If he can break my password for me, he's into all the restricted files I have access to, and he'll be able to break the passwords for all the secretaries, even – even Mr. Halton's, sir! And if he can access the things that she's got available to her…" she paused, and said, softly, "If he knows these passwords, sir, we either have to change the entire system, or…"
"Have him killed, yes, I know." John snapped. The idea of killing Alex, right now, was sounding disturbingly tempting, but was, at the same time, a horrifying and sickening idea to his father. "Look, Lucy," he said, in an attempt to be soothing. "Don't worry about this. I'll talk to Halton about it later. It's not like this isn't a totally internalised system – it can't be accessed from anywhere else in the world. This will be alright."
"But what if the nationalists who held him hostage get hold of him again?" she asked, innocently, a little crease in her forehead showing how worried she was. Lucy was an exemplary secretary, and rarely let anything past her impassive front, but this would have the entire office in an uproar. "They might get it out of him, and they've got enough clean members of their organisation to get one of them working here…"
John gritted his teeth. Alex's cover story was proving to be more trouble than it was worth. When his brat grew up, John hoped that the boy understood exactly how many years of his life he'd sacrificed on the altar of 'father-child bonding'.
John adored his son, but there were times when even his fatherly love and pride were taxed overly much, and finding out that his seven year old son had hacked into one of Britain's highest technological security systems was one such time. At that moment, throttling his son was beginning to sound almost irresistibly tempting.
"Don't worry about it." He gritted out. "I'll sort it out with Halton. Send Al… Oktav in here, would you?"
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LOL! ami xxx