Note: this takes place after Crocodile Tears, but it still has a couple spoilers from Scorpia Rising. Just to give you a warning.

"We don't want any trouble from you, Julius. On this mission, every movement of yours will be tracked. If you fail, you will be sent back to prison."

"Who said I agreed to this anyway? I want to go back."

"We need your cooperation. The Gemini Project has gotten too suspicious."

"Gemini… as in twins?"

"For a psycho killer, you catch on pretty fast."

"No… God no… Not Alex Rider…"

"The very same."

"I have to pretend he's my brother?"

"Yes."

"… Do I get to kill him?"

"No. Absolutely not."

"_ you."

Alex stared at the two people standing outside his home. Jack stared over his shoulder at them with a more ticked-off countenance.

"Alex… Miss Starbright… we don't normally take our meetings to such an exposed area, but this is very important to us. And seeing as you wouldn't come to us…" Blunt began.

"We decided to come to you," Mrs. Jones finished.

"Not. Interested," Jack said curtly. She moved to the door to slam it but Alex held firm. "What mission are we talking about?" he said in spite of himself. Jack blinked a few times, trying to make sense of him.

"May we come in?"

Alex grudgingly stepped aside. All four sat down on the couch.

"Yesterday one of our agents reported mysterious happenings at a facility in America," Blunt said. "A camp of sorts."

"What happened?"

"The teenagers who attend this… camp… have just started acting odd," Jones continued. "They do everything simultaneously. Eating, walking, even sports, down to the way they dress."

"Sounds like school to me," Alex remarked.

"What happened was that one of the students was reported dead. Her name was Kelly Sandino. She wasn't murdered. She just died, all of a sudden. But the one thing we're startled about," Mrs. Jones said, "is that no one at the camp seemed to care about her death. In fact, it almost seemed like they were expecting it."

"It's very strange."

"Indeed."

Alex did not like where this was going, but felt sucked into their plans.

Sure enough, he was not surprised when he wound up on a helicopter headed for America.

"Oh, and by the way," Blunt had said at the hangar, "the camp is a research facility for twins."

And when he had boarded the helicopter, a hauntingly familiar face had greeted him.

For the hours that followed, Julius entertained himself by flipping Alex off whenever the pilot's head was turned. Alex ignored his burning resentment toward the boy and instead concentrated on the flecks swirling around in his cheap water bottle.

Julius did it one more time but happened to have the misfortune of the pilot's full attention on him that time. For the rest of the ride, he remained manacled to the chair.