First in Kaleidoscope of Spies, which has been a work in progress for a few years now. I have so many plans. Sooo many.

Really Scarin' the Hell Outta Me

Kaleidoscope of Spies #1

[March 2001]

Alex Rider was exhausted.

Between the harsh training, the RTI catastrophe—which he was still in trouble for—and the other soldiers in his unit ragging on him, he wasn't sure if he could continue to sit down and take it. Sitting down and taking it, he reflected, wouldn't be so bad if he didn't have to get back up again afterwards.

Ian would have scolded him for even thinking of giving up, but Ian was dead. And a spy. His uncle was a dead spy—an MI6 agent who'd managed to get himself killed. And now Special Operations was basically blackmailing Alex into finishing his uncle's job.

Not much made sense anymore, Alex thought tiredly, and what did practically terrified him out of his senses.

Not only did he have to face four brawny, scowling SAS soldiers who hated his guts, and try to look unafraid, he had to do it every day. And he had to do it with the knowledge that when he was finally free from them, he had to go and try to finish a mission that his uncle, an adult, could not.

"If you waste time being afraid of everything, then you'll never get anything done, Alex. Be afraid of the things that are worth fearing, and forget the monsters under your bed," Ian's voice scolded. "Do what you have to. You're a Rider, and Riders always do."

Easier said than done. Alex collapsed onto his bunk miserably, half-soaked and fully worn out.

"Better take off your boots, or you'll regret it later, Cub," a Scottish tenor advised him sharply. Since the trick with the matches, Snake had ignored Alex less, usually to give him advice that the soldier thought should have been obvious. Alex often thought he heard a tone of 'dear god save me from this stupidity' in Snake's voice.

He wasn't not nice, not even a little bit—none of them were—but he didn't call Alex 'Double 'O Nothing' anymore. Wolf still seemed pretty set on making his life absolute hell most of the time, but not one of them had snapped at him for a whole day after his stunt with the RTI incident and the Green Jackets.

Alex wondered if, besides his interest in medicine, that was why Snake was the unit medic. Because he was a people person? Or at least the SAS equivalent?

Alex sat up just long enough to take off his boots. They were coated thick with mud, he noted absently. Snake was right; he would've regretted his stiff, sore ankles, damp feet, and the extra chore of cleaning the mud off his bunk later.

How many stupid, amateur things was he still going to do? A darker thought entered his mind, not for the first time: What if he got himself killed on the mission, just like Ian? What if he made another rookie mistake and paid for it with more than aching ankles and a muddy bed?

If Ian, an experienced spy of many years, a capable agent, couldn't do it, how could Alex?

He pushed the thought away. He might have been scared as hell—oh, and he was—but he would do what he had to.

Riders always did.