Chapter 1.
"Shake shake, shake shake, a shake it! Shake shake, sha-".
Alex Rider slammed his hand on the snooze button on his mobile phone alarm while groaning sleepily. He really had to change that alarm.
He rolled over with the intention of going promptly back sleep, only to be dumped onto his blue carpeted-floor.
"Get up Alex!" Jack Starbright shouted up the stairs. Jack was an American, who had first come over to England as a student and was now Alex's legal guardian and one of his closest friends.
With his eyes half shut, and with his fair hair bringing a new meaning to the term 'bed head', Alex stumbled down the wooden stairs, missing his footing several times.
When he trudged into the kitchen, he was met with the smell of instant coffee and toast.
Rubbing his eyes, Alex saw Jack sitting at the kitchen table, consuming toast with honey, and swigging down the coffee. Smiling groggily at the familiar sight, Alex grabbed a cereal bowl and a carton of milk before chucking some Cornflakes in the bowl and pouring in some milk.
Plonking himself down on a chair opposite Jack, Alex realised how hungry he was, and started to devour the cereal.
After he had finished wolfing down his cereal, he swigged down a few mouthfuls of milk straight from the carton and then proceeded to run up the stairs two at a time (now passably awake), throw on his school uniform, and start the daily hunt for his black Nike schoolbag.
After finding the wretched bag in the cupboard under the stairs, he shouted a hasty goodbye at Jack, grabbed his bike, plugged in his iPod and started to pedal furiously in the direction of Brookland High School.
When Alex was passing the morning traffic queue on the main road, marking the halfway mark of his cycle to school he glanced at his watch. If he didn't get in to school on time today, he would get detention, so Alex was relieved to see that he had plenty of time.
Because of this, Alex slowed down to a more leisurely pace to admire the weather. It was a glorious day; the sky was a pleasant blue with only a few white clouds dotted across it.
The sun was on his back and the wind was only a cool breeze. As it was a near perfect morning (a rare occurrence in Chelsea), Alex wanted to kick a ball around the tennis pitch with his best friend Tom, and as he didn't want to be laid down with forgotten homework, Alex racked his brain for any homework which may have escaped his notice the previous night.
A horrifically boring essay on any issues raised by the class novel, 'The Wave' for English; French vocabulary; maths equations and a ridiculous drawing of a piece of draped fabric for art. Alex couldn't think of any other homework, so he pedalled on with a slight smile on his face.
When Alex arrived at Brookland, he found Tom in the library (Alex had nearly gagged with shock- he hadn't been aware that Tom had known what a library was), frantically scribbling in his English book, a slightly manic expression on his face.
"What's the matter?" Alex asked, curiosity colouring his tone.
If Tom hadn't done a homework, he generally gave one of his numerous excuses, ranging from the traditional 'My dog ate my homework', to Alex's personal favourite, 'I've got problems at home Sir', the latter normally accompanied by a few fake sobs.
"If I don't hand this flippin' essay in, Simpson's going to lock me up and throw away the chocolate!" Tom relied, panic rising in his voice with every word.
Alex sympathised, Tom normally had a very calm air around him, he must be very worried. Alex slapped his essay down on the table, about to tell him to change a word every so often when…
"ALEX RIDER! SIT DOWN OR GET OUT OF MY LIBRARY!" roared Mrs O'Neill, the school librarian, a tall thin woman who resembled a horse.
She could always be found prowling around the immaculate shelves, her beady eyes continually scanning the room for any unfortunate student who damaged her precious books.
She liked only a select few, girls who wore their hair in tight plaits and skirts down to their knees, generally with mousy brown hair, braces and pasty skin from the many hours they spent hunched over a thick book inside.
Alex hastily grabbed one of the hard plastic chairs and sat down quickly. Sighing slightly, he cast the idea of playing football out of his mind- many at time had Tom helped him scrawl something down on paper, whether it made sense or not.
Whilst Tom was copying his essay, Alex's mind began to drift away. He was just daydreaming about a large bar of Galaxy chocolate bar, when something flashed across his mind, putting all thoughts of chocolate far out of his mind, Galaxy or not.
Alex Rider smiled as he watched his best friend Tom single-handedly blow up a chemistry experiment, using only a rubber band and a piece of chewing-gum.
He smiled, not just because an now eyebrowless Tom –who was staring at the remains of the experiment with a look of horror – had managed to get him out of an English lesson, with his teacher Mr. Simpson, a man who practically lived in his room alone, and who was able to string a sentence together without referring to Shakespeare and the word 'Eugh' several thousand times, but because life was good.
Whilst sitting in the library, Alex had remembered that today marked the day six months ago when MI6 had decided to leave him alone, and he had finally been able to move on with his life and be as normal as a fifteen year old teenage boy could be.
He continued to beam all the way through French- quite an achievement as his teacher Miss Millar (who bared such a startling resemblance to a bird it was positively alarming), had given them a long-winded lecture on the correct use of the imperfect tense – a skill the pupils in the class who had brains larger than that of two gnats rubbed together had acquired weeks ago.
Finally after two periods of maths and a personal development class, Tom blurted out:
"What the heck is going on Alex? You haven't stopped grinning gormlessly for hours! What's going on? Are you ill? Has someone cloned the real Alex Rider and have forgotten to place a brain in one of the clones? Don't go over to the dark side Alex! Stay with me!"
Alex chuckled good-humorously, it was true that he was acting slightly strangely, but who cared?
Alex could very clearly recall Tom telling several students that it was cool to be different and forcing Alex to march around the school during fifth period, chanting the tongue-twister of a slogan, 'Individuality is a necessity', and Alex hadn't complained…
That much.
True, that was an attempt to be given a detention so that Tom didn't have to go to the theatre with his great aunt Beatrice, a slightly batty woman who smelled strongly of cheese, and was convinced Tom was a girl called Gwendolyn.
But this was only smiling for Heaven's sake! Not exactly a horrendous crime!
"Nothing Tom, just thinking." said Alex vaguely.
"You've met a girl haven't you!" exclaimed Tom excitedly. "Is she blonde? Is she pretty? Is her name Ali-Baba? Does she have a sister who you can set me up with?"
Alex sniggered, wondering why Tom had come up with such a ridiculous and far-fetched explanation for a bit grinning.
Tom continued to badger Alex all throughout Break and on the way to Art about Alex's 'girlfriend'.
At exactly one O'clock (Alex knew this because the girl who sat two seats in front of Alex had a digital watch which beeped loudly on the hour), someone rapped sharply on the door three times.
"Enter," called Mrs Smythe, Alex's dozy art teacher.
The door swung open and a man walked swiftly up to Mrs Smythe's desk, which was covered in a combination of chewing gum wrappers, screwed up pieces of paper and pencils with broken leads.
He wore a plain grey suit and a spotless white shirt. His tie was a dull navy blue and was tied in a perfect knot. His handlebar moustache was black, streaked with grey and his hair was styled most unfortunately in a side-parting.
When he spoke, his voice was hushed and Alex had to strain his ears to catch what was being said.
"…his great-aunt Bertha is most distressed and demands to speak with him, they are very close… feels that only he can comfort her in this most unfortunate of times." The strange man's voice was monotonous, the pitch never varying.
"Oh alright," Mrs Smythe replied, vaguely, "Alex, come here." Her boredom was blaringly obvious.
Alex got up, worry quickly rising up in him like vomit. Alex had no living relatives that he knew of whatsoever, certainly none named Bertha.
Alarm bells were ringing in his head, the only person who would pull him out of school was Alan Blunt, and Alex had no desire to see him, in fact, Alex would rather walk around school in a pink bikini than be in the same building as Blunt, let alone talk to him.
Wait, breathe. Maybe he was slightly over-reacting.
Perhaps Blunt had nothing to do with this. Alex tried to reassure himself, but he had a feeling that after six months, MI6 were about to catapult themselves back into Alex's life.
Alex chewed his lip nervously as he watched Brookland become further and further away.
A black BWM had been waiting outside; with dark tinted windows and a number plate which read JJZ 920, a number plate which Alex knew was most likely to be false.
The driver, a surly man with dark sunglasses and closely cropped jet black hair, had barely spoken a word, only briefly murmuring to the man who had pulled Alex out of class.
This man had introduced himself as Fredrick Stirling. Alex had noted that both men, as expected of MI6 employees, were armed.
Casting his gaze around the car, Alex wondered what MI6 wanted him to do this time.
After the Snakehead operation, Blunt had told him that MI6 weren't going to call upon him again.
Alex had doubted it at the time, but then again after seeing things which most fully grown men had never seen, let alone teenage boys, Alex didn't trust anything that Blunt said.
Alex recalled how much he had aged through his work with MI6, mentally. But, even if Alex hadn't believed what Blunt had said, he had promised himself that never again would he work for MI6 and Alex was determined to keep this promise.
Not just for himself, but for Jack and Tom, the two people who he was closest too, and the people who would be affected if Alex simply disappeared again without a moment's notice, perhaps never to come back.
Tom would loose a best friend and Jack would loose the one person who cared about her here in England. No, he would refuse and would go back to Brookland and become a normal teenage boy.
One who wasn't looking over his shoulder every second of the day, one who didn't sub-consciously search strangers for weapons, or anything which may be of the slightest threat.
As Alex had suspected, when the car stopped, it was right outside the Royal and General. He took a deep breath, ignoring his sinking heart and steeped out of the car.
Without looking back at the car, Alex walked slowly to the door of the 'bank', pushed firmly on the door and entered.
Mrs Jones was standing in a corner of the front foyer, beside the lifts. She smiled slightly, and walked swiftly over to meet him.
Alex could smell peppermint faintly of her breath, and Alex smiled inwardly to himself, there were few memories of MI6 which Alex looked back fondly on, but this had to be one of them.
They went over to the lifts in an uneasy silence and Alex watched as she pressed the button for the eleventh floor.
As a cool woman's voice told them to stand back from the doors, his stomach tightened uncomfortably, nerves welling up inside his chest like a balloon.
Alex counted thirty-three seconds before the same woman's voice announced their arrival at the eleventh floor, and the lift doors glided open.
Mrs. Jones briskly strode down a long straight corridor and came to an abrupt stop outside the shiny wooden door which hid the office belonging to Alan Blunt, head of Special Operations.
Mrs Jones rapped sharply on the door three times, and immediately the monotonous, slightly stern voice of Blunt replied,
"Enter."
Alex swallowed, turned the gleaming brass doorknob and swung the door open. Those few actions marked the start of a journey which would once again, turn Alex's world upside down.