MY LIFE IN NINE BOOKS
PART ONE: STORMBREAKER
CHAPTER 3
A/N: I can't thank you all enough! It took me all day yesterday to write that last chapter but it was completely worth it for all of your reviews! I am writing this because no matter how hard I look I cannot find a completed Alex Rider reading fic so I thought I would change that :) If any of you start writing one please tell me as I would love to read it! It's okay to read your own fic but a lot more fun to read someone else's! So, another chapter awaits…!
Disclaimer:
Yandere Kirkland chan: Do I own you, Alex?
Julius: I'M JULIUS YOU USELESS EXCUSE FOR A WRITER!
Yandere Kirkland chan: Pft I knew that! Wanna go kidnap Alex and bring him to our ;) torture chamber?
Julius: Sounds like fun! But aren't you forgetting something?
Yandere Kirkland chan: Whaaaa? Nooooo!
Julius: (brings out torture weapons)
Yandere Kirkland chan: ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT! IdontownAlexRiderorthestoryoranycharactersjustthisideawichhasbeendoneloadsoftimesbefore! Happy now?
Julius: Yeah, so let's go kidnap Alex now?
Yandere Kirkland chan: I THOUGHT YOU'D NEVER ASK!
(They skip off into the distance hand in hand)
Mr Bray, finding new courage, volunteered. "Chapter 2," he read Heaven For Cars…
Aiden snorted a laugh "Who named these chapters?" Eagle looked wistful "Cars go to heaven? Oh, that means I'll get to see that awesome black one Wolf crashed when we were 18!" Wolf looked like he was about to kill Eagle. "I highly doubt cars go to heaven, Eagle, but the title will make sense soon enough." Alex intervened, probably saving Eagle's life. Heaven for cars… for some reason that rang a bell for Miss Bedfordshire. "Well there's no point in guessing when we could just read the chapter and find out what it's about!"
With Hammersmith Bridge just ahead of him, Alex left the river and swung his bike through the lights and down the hill towards Brookland School.
The teachers perked up, finally being familiar with something.
The bike was a Condor Junior Roadracer, custom-built for him on his twelfth birthday. It was a teenager's bike with a cut-down Reynolds 531 frame, but the wheels were full-sized so he could ride at speed with hardly any rolling resistance.
The SAS soldiers listened intently, looking in awe. It sounded like an amazing bike. Jack rolled her eyes at them, smiling. I guess SAS men are pretty much the same as normal ones, she thought.
He spun past a Mini and cut through the school gates. He would be sorry when he grew out of the bike. For two years now it had almost been part of him.
Candi smiled nicely "I remember your bike, Alex, you drove it everywhere." Alex looked at her in surprise. Was she being…nice? Her eyes widened and she backtracked, correcting herself "Haha, you weirdo, I'm pretty sure it's illegal to have sex with a bike." Aiden chipped in "Yeah, you could at least crush on cars like us REAL men."
He double-locked it in the shed and went into, the yard.
"Alex! So young and already turning to the dark world of S & M!" Tom said, faking shock, attempting to put a lighter spin on Candi and Aiden's earlier remarks. The two in question stared blankly at him, trying to understand what the hell he had just said.
Brookland was a new comprehensive, red brick and glass, modern and ugly.
Alex slipped lower in his chair, hiding. "Did I say ugly? I meant uniform! Pft easy typo to make, they both start with 'U' both describing words. Maybe it was a translation error or something!" The teachers stared at him unimpressed. "Alex it's okay. I didn't make the school, even if I do look old." Mr Bray said, smiling slightly at the uncomfortable looking boy.
Alex could have gone to any of the smart private schools around Chelsea, but Ian Rider had decided to send him here. He had said it would be more of a challenge.
"Aw, poor baby Alex. Did big bad uncle force you to go to peasant school? Don't worry in university I'm sure you'll have maids to carry your books!" Aiden said in a fake comforting voice. Alex snarled audibly. Having been mainly fending for himself until Jack had come, he had done more work in his fourteen years than Aiden would ever do in his life.
The first lesson of the day was maths. When Alex came into the classroom, the teacher, Mr Donovan, was already chalking up a complicated equation on the board.
Said man blushed at being mentioned.
It was hot in the room, the sunlight streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows put in by the architects who should have known better.
"Because ickle Cub knows better than trained professionals." Wolf muttered. Alex glared at the man. No matter how old you were or where you go there would always be bullies. The teachers, oblivious to the soldier and spy, were silently agreeing with the book's description, the room really was way too hot.
As Alex took his place near the back, he wondered how he was going to get through the lesson. How could he possibly think about algebra when he had so many other questions churning through his mind?
The teachers looked at the boy pityingly. If he hadn't felt up to the lessons he could have just said so. Maybe if the boy had taken a longer time to recover after losing his uncle he wouldn't have had to spend so much time with a therapist or resorted to drugs and violence.
The gun at the funeral. The way Mr Blunt had looked at him. The van with STRYKER & SON written on the side. The empty office. And the biggest question of all, the one detail that had refused to go away. The seat belt. Ian Rider hadn't been wearing a seat-belt.
Aiden sighed dramatically "Again with the seat-belt! Just go marry it for fucks sake! As long as you shut up!" though they disapproved of the boy's choice of words, the others in the room had to agree with the general message.
But of course he had.
"What?" the majority of the room exclaimed, having been taken off guard. "Alex, honey, the first step to recovery is acceptance. It's not healthy to cling to elusions." Miss Bedfordshire said slowly to Alex, in that voice people use to talk to children or sick people. Alex frowned to himself, they'll see soon enough. He caught himself, did he just say he actually wanted them to hear his life story?
Ian Rider had never been one to give lectures. He had always said that Alex should make up his own mind about things. But he'd had this thing about seat-belts. The more Alex thought about it, the less he believed it. A collision at a roundabout. Suddenly he wished he could see the car. At least the wreck would tell him that the accident had really happened, that Ian Rider really had died that way.
"Whatever gives you closure." Miss Bedfordshire insisted. She had always liked the boy and was concerned at the dark path he had been on for the past year.
"Alex?"
Alex looked up and realised that everyone was staring at him. Mr Donovan had just asked him something.
"Oh I HATE it when that happens!" Eagle exclaimed. "Dang that happened like every day when I was at school." Wolf glared at him "It wouldn't happen if you payed attention!" he snapped.
He quickly scanned the blackboard, taking in the figures. "Yes, sir," he said "x equals seven and y is fifteen."
The maths teacher sighed. "Yes, Alex. You're absolutely right. But actually I was just asking you to open the window."
Everyone in the room (well not Blunt or Alex, once again) burst into laughter. "Oh snap!" Sabina exclaimed, choking with laughter.
Somehow he managed to get through the rest of the day, but by the time the final bell rang, his mind was made up. While everyone else streamed out, he made his way to the secretary's office and borrowed a copy of the Yellow Pages.
"What are you looking for?" the secretary asked. Jane Bedfordshire was a young woman in her twenties, and she'd always had a soft spot for Alex.
"What that's preposterous! Teachers don't have soft spots! And even if I did I'm a secretary so it doesn't count!" Miss Bedfordshire defended. For a second Alex saw her as a person not a staff at his school, it was horrible and disturbing and just wrong like with any teacher.
"Breakers' yards…"Alex flicked through the pages. "If a car got smashed up near Old Street they'd take it somewhere nearby. Wouldn't they?
"I suppose so."
"Here…" Alex had found the yards listed under "Car Dismantlers". But there were dozens of them fighting for attention over four pages.
"Is this for a school project?" the secretary asked. She knew Alex had lost a relative, but not how.
But now she did she was glad to have been a help to giving Alex some closure.
"Sort of…" Alex was reading the addresses but they told him nothing.
"This one's quite near Old Street." Miss Bedfordshire pointed at the corner of the page.
"Wait!" Alex tugged the book towards him and looked at the entry underneath the one the secretary had chosen:
JB STRYKER
Heaven for cars…
JB Stryker, Auto Breakers
Lambeth Walk, LONDON
Tel: 020 7123 5392
…call us today!
A chorus of "Oh" sounded throughout the room. "Hehe that moment when the title suddenly makes sense." Tom added. At least now Jane knew where she had heard 'Heaven for cars' before, it had been nagging at the back of her head.
"That's in Vauxhall," Miss Bedfordshire said. "Not too far from here."
"I know." But Alex had recognized the name. JB Stryker. He thought back to the van he had seen outside the house on the day of the funeral. STRYKER & SON. Of course it might just be a coincidence, but it was still somewhere to start.
"There's no such thing as coincidences." Fox, Alex, Mrs Jones and Mr Blunt recited. Everyone stared at them, more than slightly creeped out.
He closed the book. "I'll see you Miss Bedfordshire."
"Be careful how you go." The secretary watched Alex leave, wondering why she had said that. Maybe it was his eyes. Dark and serious, there was something dangerous there.
They all had to agree and it had gotten a lot worse in the last year.
Then the telephone rang and she forgot about him as she went back to work.
Miss Bedfordshire blushed, she felt as if she was being accused of something. But why? Helping Alex find his uncle's car wasn't a crime. So why did she feel like she had done something awful?
JB Stryker's was a square of wasteland behind the railway tracks running out of Waterloo Station. The area was enclosed by a high brick wall topped with broken glass and razor wire. Two wooden gates hung open, and from the other side of the road Alex could see a shed with a security window and beyond it the tottering piles of dead and broken cars. Everything of any value had been stripped away and only the rusting carcasses remained, heaped one on top of the other, waiting to be fed into the crusher.
"Those places have always given me the creeps." Tom shivered "They are like grave yards except the cars get executed there too."
There was a guard sitting in the shed, reading the Sun. In the distance, a crane coughed into life, then roared down on a battered Ford Mondeo, its metal claw smashing through the window to scoop up the vehicle and carry it away. A telephone rang somewhere in the shed and the guard turned to answer it. That was enough for Alex. Holding his bike and wheeling it along besides him, he sprinted through the gates.
Mr Bray frowned "Alex I don't think you are allowed to go in there." Alex didn't respond. No shit Sherlock, he thought. Jack smiled sugar-sweetly at Alex, gritting her teeth "Alex," She laughed "You never told me about this." Alex laughed nervously under her death-glare, edging away from her.
He found himself surrounded by dirt and debris. The smell of diesel was thick in the air and the roar of the engines was deafening. Alex watched as the crane swooped down on another of the cars, seized it in a metallic grip and dropped it into the crusher. For a moment the car rested on a pair of shelves. Then the shelves lifted up, toppling the car over and down into the trough. The operator-sitting in a glass cabin at one end of the crusher-pressed a button and there was a great belch of black smoke. The shelves closed in on the car like a monster insect folding in its wings. There was a grinding sound as the car was crushed until it was no bigger than a rolled up carpet. Then the operator threw a gear and the car was squeezed out, metallic toothpaste being chopped up by a hidden blade. The slices tumbled onto the ground.
Snake winced "Those things are deadly. Damn these places should have better security. Imagine if a toddler wondered in there by accident and fell asleep in a car, or a family pet." Wolf looked at him "Well they probably assume that no one is stupid enough to sit inside the death trap. Alex blushed.
Leaving his bike propped against the wall, Alex ran further into the yard, crouching down behind the wrecks. With the din from the machines, there was no chance that anyone would hear him, but he was still afraid of being seen.
Mr Bray frowned, if Alex had to hide then he probably shouldn't be where he is. Were they reading about how Alex had gotten involved in a gang?
He stopped to catch his breath, drawing a grimy hand across his face. His eyes were watering from the diesel fumes. The air was as filthy as the ground beneath him.
He was beginning to regret coming-but then he saw it. His uncles BMW was parked a few metres away, separated from the other cars. At first glance it looked absolutely fine, the metallic silver bodywork not even scratched. Certainly there was no way this car could have been involved in a fatal collision with a lorry or anything else. But it was his uncle's car. Alex recognized the number plate. He hurried closer, and it was then he saw that the car was damaged after all. The windscreen had been smashed, along with all the windows on one side.
"Great, Alex, you've seen the accident really happened now GET THE HELL OUT OF THERE!" Jack shouted, panicked. Alex put an arm around her and reminded her that it was a book and this had already happened.
Alex made his way round the bonnet. He reached the other side and froze.
Everyone leaned forward, listening, puzzled.
Ian Rider hadn't died in any accident. What had killed him was plain to see-even to someone who had never seen such a thing before. A spray of bullets had caught the car full on the driver's side, shattering the front tyre, then smashing the windscreen and side panels.
There was a collective gasp in the room (apart from Alex, Mrs Jones and Mr Blunt). Mrs Pleasure looked like she was going to faint. Most of the people in the room looked confused, as well as disturbed. "So that's where you got it from, eh druggie? Your uncle was in a gang and when it killed him, you were left to take on the family business?" although he said it as an insult, Aiden was now genuinely curious. The teachers and Candi were thinking the same thing. K unit looked at them blankly. Was Cub in some trouble with a gang? Is that why he had come to Brecon Beacons?
Alex ran his fingers over the holes. The metal felt cold against his flesh. He opened the door and looked inside. The front seats, pale grey leather, were strewn with fragments of broken glass and stained with patches of dark brown. He didn't need to ask what the stains were. He could see everything. The flash of the machine-gun ripping into the car, Ian Rider jerking in the driver's seat…
"Alex you're such a morbid child!" Fox cringed. They were all pretty disturbed by the detail Alex had gone into. "Well you would have a good carrier as a detective!" Mr Bray tried to put a lighter spin on it.
But why? Why kill a bank manager? And why had the murder been covered up? It was the police who had brought the news, so they must be part of it. Had they deliberately lied? None of it made sense.
Because your uncle's in a gang, you idiot, Aiden thought. The questions Alex had thought were what most of those in the room were thinking too.
"You should have got rid of it two days ago. Do it now."
The machines must have stopped for a moment. If there hadn't been a sudden lull, Alex would never had heard the men coming. Quickly he looked across the steering wheel and out the other side. There were two of them, both dressed in loose fitting overalls. Alex had a feeling he'd seen them before. At the funeral. One of them was the driver, the man he had seen with the gun. He was sure of it.
There was a tension building up in the room as everyone started getting into the story, waiting for what was going to happen.
Whoever they were, they were only a few paces away from the car, talking in low voices. Another few steps and they would be there. Without thinking, Alex threw himself into the only hiding place available, inside the car itself.
Good thinking, was the general thought in the room as they heard about Alex's quick thinking hiding. It was natural to agree with a character when you are hearing things from their perspective, however those who were trained against such things (the MI6 workers) took a sharp intake of breath as Alex sealed his doom.
Using his foot, he hooked the door and closed it. At the same time, he became aware that the machines had started again and he could no longer hear the men. He didn't dare look up. A shadow fell across the window as the two men passed. But then they were gone. He was safe.
A relieved sigh sounded.
And then something hit the BMW with such force that Alex cried out, his whole body caught a massive shock wave that tore him away from the steering wheel and threw him helplessly into the back.
Jack yelped and others looked just as startled.
At the same time, the roof buckled and three huge metal fingers tore through the skin of the car live a fork through an eggshell, trailing dust and sunlight. One of the fingers grazed the side of his head-any closer and it would have cracked his skull.
Jack whimpered, she couldn't stand hearing about Alex getting hurt or in danger. Alex grimaced at how she would react to the rest of it.
Alex yelled as blood trickled over his eye.
People gagged. Why did Alex have to be so descriptive?
He tried to move, then was jerked back a second time as the car was yanked off the ground and titled high up in the air.
He couldn't see. He couldn't move. But his stomach lurched as the car was swung in an arc, the metal grinding and the light spinning. It had been picked up by the crane. It was going to be put inside the crusher. With him inside.
By that point everyone was clinging to their chairs or the person next to them, waiting to see the outcome. For once the room was silent and no one dared speak.
He tried to raise himself up, to punch through the windows. But the claw of the crane had already flattened the roof, pinning his left leg, perhaps even breaking it. He could feel nothing. He lifted a hand and managed to pound on the back window, but he couldn't break the glass, and even if the works men were staring at the BMW, they would never see anything moving inside.
"Did you die?!" Eagle gasped, looking at Alex. The boy looked at the supposedly full grown man incredulously. This man was responsible for the protection of the country? Wolf elbowed Eagle and they went back to silence.
His short flight across the breaker's yard ended with a bone-shattering crash as the crane deposited the car on the iron shelves of the crusher. Alex tried to fight back his sickness and despair and think of what to do.
Jack let out a stifled sob, clinging to Alex in horror. Alex couldn't breathe but decided that it probably wasn't the best time to bring that up.
He had seen a car being processed only a few minutes before. Any minute know, the operator would send the car tipping into the coffin shaped through.
Good use of English, Mr Bray thought faintly.
The machine was a Lefort Shear, a slow-motion guillotine. At the press of a button, the two wings would close on the car with a joint pressure of five hundred tonnes. The car, with Alex inside it, would be crushed beyond recognition. And the broken metal-and flesh
Jack was practically sobbing hysterically and the others in the room had ranging reactions but they were all green.
-would then be chopped into sections. Nobody would ever know what had happened.
The SAS men looked disturbed. It was because of children like Alex that they fought for the country and the thought of something so horrific happening without it ever being noticed disturbed them. He would have just become another one of the lost children of the world, supposedly a run away. "Well I hope you leave a fossil, mate." Tom said.
He tried with all his strength to free himself. But the roof was too low. His leg and part of his back was trapped.
Aside from the horror of what was happening, everyone was thinking one thing: How the hell had Alex escaped?
Then his whole world tilted and he felt himself falling into darkness. The shelves had lifted. The BMW slid to one side and fell a few inches into the trough. Alex felt the metalwork collapsing all around him. The back window exploded and glass showered around his head, dust and diesel fumes punching into his nose and eyes
Jack wanted nothing more than to run out of that room, watch tv and forget about this but she didn't. That wouldn't be fair, Alex had gone through all of this himself and she was too afraid to just hear it? What was the point in worrying about the boy when she was too weak to hear what he was going through and comfort him?
There was hardly any daylight now, but looking out of the back he could see the huge steel head of the piston that would push what was left of the car through the exit hole on the other side.
The engine tone of the Lefort Shear changed as it prepared for the final act. The metal wings shuddered. In a few seconds' time, the two of them would meet, crumpling the BMW like a paper bag.
"Did you have to go into so much detail, Alex?" Sabina questioned. Alex shrugged "Sorry, I didn't realise my thoughts were being recorded, next time I'll censor them." He replied sarcastically. Sabina huffed "You know what I mean!"
Alex pulled with all his strength and was astonished when his leg came free. It took him perhaps a second-one precious second-to figure out what had happened. When the car had fallen into the trough, it had landed on its side. The roof had buckled again… enough to free him.
The luck of the devil, Mrs Jones chuckled.
His hand scrabbled for the door-but of course that was useless. The doors were too bent. They would never open. The back window! With the glass gone, he could crawl through the frame, but only if he moved fast…
The wings began to move. The BMW screamed as two walls of solid steel relentlessly crushed it. Glass shattered. One of the wheel axles snapped with the sound of a thunderbolt.
"Hurry, Alex!" Miss Bedfordshire gasped. Alex looked at them all, did they even realise that they were talking to a book?
The darkness closed in. Alex grabbed hold of what was left of the back seat. Ahead of him he could see a single triangle of light, shrinking faster and faster. With all of his strength, he surged forward, finding some sort of purchase on the gear column. He could feel the weight of the two walls pressing down on him. Behind him the car was no longer a car, but the fist of some hideous monster snatching at the insect he had become.
Aiden and Candi sniggered, couldn't have put it better themselves. Though secretly Candi was horrified and really hoped Alex didn't get too hurt.
His shoulders passed through the triangle, out into the light. But his legs were still inside. If his foot snagged on something he would be squeezed into two pieces. Alex yelled out loud and jerked his knee forward. His leg came clear, then his feet,
"YES!"
but at the last moment his shoe caught on the closing triangle
"NO!"
and disappeared back into the car. Alex imagined he heard the sound of the leather being squashed but that was impossible. Clinging to the black, oily surface of the observation platform at the back of the crusher, he dragged himself clear and managed to stand up.
Everyone sighed in relief.
He found himself face to face with a man so fat that he could barely fit into the small cabin of the crusher. The man's stomach as pressed against the glass, his shoulders squeezed into the corners.
"Yeah, we get it, he's fat." Aiden rolled his eyes.
A cigarette dangled on his lower lip as his mouth fell open and his eyes stared. In front of him was a boy in the rags of what had once been a school uniform. A whole sleeve had been torn off and his arm, streaked with blood and oil, hung limply by his side.
Snake, the unit medic, grimaced. That didn't sound good. AND Alex was in a filthy, bacteria filled junk yard. He really hoped Cub had got that checked.
By the time the operator had taken all this in, come to his senses and turned the machine off, Alex had gone.
He clambered down the side of the crusher, landing on the one foot that still had a shoe. He was aware now of the pieces of jagged metal lying everywhere. If he wasn't careful, he would cut the other foot open.
The more squeamish in the room gagged a bit.
His bicycle was where he had left it, leaning against the wall, and gingerly, half-hopping, he made for it. Behind him he heard the cabin of the crusher open and a man's voice call out, raising the alarm.
"Does it ever end?" Fox exclaimed.
At the same time, a second man ran forward, stopping between Alex and his bike. It was the driver, the man he had seen at the funeral. His face, twisted into a hostile frown, was curiously ugly; greasy hair, watery eyes, pale, lifeless skin.
"What do you think…!" he began. His hand slid into his jacket. Alex remembered the gun and instantly, without even thinking, swung into action.
He had started learning karate when he was six years old. One afternoon, with no explanation, Ian Rider had taken him to a local club for his first lesson and he had been going there, once a week, ever since.
And know I know why, Alex thought spitefully. He wondered for the first time if the whole 'his uncle training him' thing had been another lie from MI6. Had Ian just wanted Alex to be safe? Alex suddenly became confused.
Over the years he had passed through the various Kyu-student-grades. But it was only the year before that he had become a first grade Dan, a black belt. When he had arrived at Brookland School, his looks and accent had quickly brought him to the attention of the school bullies; three hulking sixteen-year-olds. They had cornered him once behind the bikes shed. The encounter had lasted less than a minute, and after it one of the bullies had left Brookland and the other two had never troubled anyone again.
Three sixteen year olds bullying a smaller child? The teachers had had no idea. Aiden had and had begrudgingly accepted that he couldn't hurt Alex physically or he faced a certain death. But that still left mentally, something that was so very fun to do. It was amazing to see the stoic Alex Rider crumbling without Aiden having to lay a single finger on him.
Now Alex brought up one leg, twisted his body round and lashed out. The back kick-Ushiro-geri-is said to be the most lethal in karate.
Impressive, Sabina whistled staring admiringly at Alex.
His foot powered into the man's abdomen with such force that he didn't even have time to cry out. His eyes bulged and his mouth half-opened in surprise. Then, with his hand still half way into his jacket, he crumbled to the ground.
Everyone in the room had to admit that Alex was pretty skilled at fighting for a 14 year old.
Alex jumped over him, snatched up his bike and swung himself onto it. In the distance, a third man was running towards him. He heard the single word "Stop!" called out. Then there was a crack and a bullet whipped past.
The civilians in the room yelped. Even K unit looked shaken. Why the hell was someone shooting at a teenager? This wasn't America so Alex's breaking and entering wasn't an excuse.
Alex gripped the handlebars and pedalled as hard as he could. The bike shot forward, over the rubble and out through the gates. He took one look over his shoulder. Nobody had followed him.
With one shoe and one shoe off, his clothes in rags and his body streaked with blood and oil, Alex knew he must look a strange sight. But then he thought back to his last seconds inside the crusher and sighed with relief. He could have been looking a lot worse.
"Mr Bray closed the book and set it down in relief. "Mrs Jones I think that's enough for today." Fox reasoned. Everyone agreed. Mrs Jones flicked a switch on the paradox box (Smithers had instructed her to do so every time they left or entered the room) then opened the doors. A laugh made Alex look up "Alex," Jack smiled in a very creepy way "Why haven't I heard of this before?" Alex laughed nervously and legged it out the door closely followed by an angry looking Jack. "Good luck mate!" Tom shouted after them.
A/N: Soooooo, third chapters finished! What did you think? Thank you to absolutely EVERYONE who reviewed, they really put a smile on my face and just completely made my day! If you have any specific reactions you want to see more of then say so in the reviews and I will try my best to include them! I tried to include more Brookland students and teachers' reactions in this chapter like I was asked to, did I do a good job? Yes? No? I dunno.
