Miss(ter) Congeniality Chapter 3: The Gadgets
Dedicated to my gorgeous puddy cat, Willow, who sadly had to be put down on 02/02/10 after a happy 13 years. Goodbye, my precious baby, and I hope you have a cosy rug in front of a fire and plenty of dogs to glare at.
Disclaimer: I do not own Alex Rider or any recognisable trademarks, brand names, et cetera.
"Ok Alex, Smithers will see you now"
"Thanks Lisa. Do you guys want to come in with me or wait out here?" questioned Alex, rising from his chair.
"Um, come in with you" answered Snake.
"Yeah, 'cause taking Eagle into a room full of expensive, highly experimental technology is a really smart plan" sneered Wolf.
"Hey I'm not that bad" cried Eagle,who walked away after Alex.
"Yes you are" retorted Fox.
Smithers office looks like an explosion in technological paradise, as per usual thought Alex with a grin. K-Unit were staring around in 'tech geek' awe (I). At that point Smithers appeared with a ripped suit sleeve (II) and what looked like engine grease all over his hands and face.
"Alex old bean, how are you keeping? I've got lots of new things for you today, oh yes lots of stuff" smiled Smithers.
He picked up what looked like an ordinary iPhone™©.
"Now this, my boy, is top of the range, complete with an integrated photo copier and secure email program, which sends any useful little titbits to Blunt, Mrs. Jones and myself; also it has world wide signal and, of course, unlimited internet access" he finished with a proud flourish.
"Cool, so can I play games on it?" enquired Alex.
"Yes, I suppose if you wanted to abuse this wonderful creation, you could play 'Robot Rage' or whatever the latest craze is" replied Smithers rather scornfully, before holding up his next creation.
"Now this may look like an ordinary MP3 player, but I've added an extra feature for you. It has a high quality microphone with a 50 meter recording and listening radius. Oh, and I upgraded the internal memory so it can now hold over 10,000 songs and jazzed the battery so it'll last for 7 days non-stop play."
"Okay... do you think this will be particularly vital on this assignment?"
"Of course! How else are you going to get through a week long road trip with that lot?"
Alex let out an undignified snort at that and ignored Wolf's death glare with ease.
"Moving on; this compact mirror is an x-ray machine and motion detector" Smithers continued.
"But it has Hello Kitty™ on it. And the bottom half has strawberry lip gloss in it."
"Yes, I was hoping you'd like it. It's so hard knowing what teenagers are in to these days."
"Um, Smithers..."
"Anyway, mustn't get side tracked. You have a plane to catch you know. That brings me rather neatly to our fifth item; these sunglasses have nightvision and heat detection."
"...What's the point of sunglasses having nightvision? Why excuse would I have for wearing them at night?" Alex reasoned.
"You would wear them at night, my dear boy, because you are masquerading as a model and as such must maintain the illusion that those sunglasses are super-glued to your head." replied Smithers, who was, at that moment, half way a large closet.
"Okaaaaaaaaaaaay. Someone needs to stop watching the lifestyle channels." murmured Alex, whilst trying not to look scared at the man's apparent teen model fixation.
"This camera" Smithers continued "is the latest Nikon™, which has been upgraded to shoot super HD stills and videos and have 25X optical zoom." he finished his sentence as he finished disentangling himself from the cupboard.
"And finally, we have this; skin cream which is actually low power plastic explosive. It comes with twenty application sticks in two-tone red; you spread the 'cream' on the area or item you wish to 'dispose' of, snap one of the sticks in half, stick the light end into the cream then hold the dark end in your fingertips for a few seconds. Your body heat will cause a spark inside that end, which will travel down the connecting wire fuse to the other end and eventually ignite the explosive. You'll have approximately 25 seconds between the spark ignition and the explosion. It will only be good for padlocks and small safes, etc. I thought it would be helpful all the same."
"Thanks Smithers, you've really... outdone yourself" Alex said. "*whispering* and creeped the hell out us in the process."
"Now K-Unit," began Smithers, "you will also be getting iPhones and wide range, secure walkie-talkies. You will also be issued with firearms JFK."
"That's all I think, you can go and start preparing for your trip now. The nurse wants to see you I believe, just to give you some booster shots." finished Smithers.
Alex and company turned to leave when Smithers called out,
"Oh, and here's a new tube of that zit cream I gave you for your SB assignment." Smithers threw the tube to Alex, who caught it deftly.
"Thanks."
"Hey Smithers, what happens when you press this?" asked Eagle, pointing to a huge red button on the wall.
"NO, NO, DO NOT PRESS THAT!" yelled Smithers, whilst running at them, arms flailing wildly.
"For Brecon's sake, Eagle, what have you done now?!" coughed Wolf, trying to see through the billowing smoke cloud that had erupted.
In the foyer of the Royal and General Bank
"Well, I think it's safe to say that we're never coming here again." murmured Snake, dusting some fire extinguisher foam off his sleeve.
"Ya think?" glared Fox, who was trying to get the ash out of his hair.
Eagle was just about to chip in when one of the secretaries approached them.
"Agent Rider, K-Unit, your car is ready to take you to the airport now."
A.N. Well hi there! Anyone miss me? Sorry this is soooooooo abysmally late, I have no excuse, as you can tell by the dedication how long this has been reposing on my hard drive. The dedication, however, is as true now as it was two years ago. I miss that cat every day and I hope she's happy where she is.
So, in other news, in the last few years I've had a close relative go literally crazy in love, seen two siblings propose to their significant others, started college, met some awesome new friends, waved off a very dear old friend as she starts her university adventures, discovered Charmed and Gilmore Girls and taken some GCSE's, the results of which I got today. I'm deliriously happy to tell anyone who's read this far that I got a C in Maths, an A in Science, a Distinction in double ICT and an A in Latin. That last one could not have come as more of a curve-ball if they'd given me a degree in the language. Congratulations to anyone else who's had results recently and good luck and solidarity to anyone still waiting or who didn't get what they were hoping for. I hope to be updating this a lot more regularly from now on and I'm so sorry for this monster of an author's note.