Chapter 3 is here! Thankyou to T M A, RmfD and kitkat for reviews on chapter 2, its great to know people are enjoying it! More reviews will definately make me very happy indeed =] x
Chapter 3
Alex sat in the passenger seat of a sleek black Aston Martin, thinking to himself. The man who was driving the car hadn't spoken to him at all, and he hadn't looked at him since giving him a cursory glance as he got into the car at his home in Chelsea.
Alex was currently being driven to the sweat shop where he would be spending the next few days of his life pretending to be a street kid working there. He had just been disguised, by a woman MI6 said was the best in the trade, and he now looked, and felt, extremely dirty.
His clothes were stained and ripped, and smelt like they had been left in a skip for several years. He had been given a smelly pair of trainers, and his hair had been chopped to look like it had been cut by a 5 year old with a bowl and a blunt pair of scissors.
Along with his disguise, Alex had with him the gadgets Smithers had given him. He had an extra sharp knife in the bottom of his trainers, and a watch that had already had a tracking signal activated on it, along with a stun gun that Smithers had added himself as a bonus.
Finally, Alex had had his ear pierced again, with an earring that doubled as a powerful explosive. Despite smelling foul, and having a painful throbbing in his ear, Alex felt slightly safer with his gadgets. At least he wouldn't be going in there completely defenceless.
As Alex sat in the car, creating wild scenarios in his head of what mad invention Matthew Wilson might have up his sleeve, the car began to slow, and pulled to a stop outside a row of dilapidated flats. Alex had no idea where he was, but it looked pretty run down. He definitely wouldn't look out of place walking around here.
The driver turned to Alex, and spoke the first words of the journey.
"The sweat shop is a few streets down from here. You won't miss it; it's a large abandoned warehouse. Just go in there, find someone and tell them you want to work there. They won't suspect anything."
Alex climbed out of the car and the driver sped off without a second glance. With thoughts of just how kind and thoughtful the people of MI6 were, he headed off down the street in the direction of the sweat shop. He wondered what the living conditions were going to be like. Whatever it turned out to be like in there, it wasn't exactly going to be a five star hotel.
He sighed to himself. Trust MI6 to send him somewhere where he would be expected to work all day, and no doubt sleep in a dirty little room with no proper bed. How did MI6 expect him to have any energy left to go sneaking around?
With these cheerful thoughts in mind, Alex looked up and saw the unmistakable abandoned warehouse. It definitely fitted in with the surroundings; it was dirty, ugly, and looked like a strong wind would knock it down. Feeling his heart sink even more, Alex walked in through the door at the front and looked around, hoping to see someone soon so he wouldn't have to look like he was snooping around. That wouldn't exactly be a good start.
As Alex stood at the entrance, looking slightly nervous, a man walked up to him. He looked like a typical stupid criminal, with long straggly hair, missing teeth, and a large beer belly that was failing to be hidden by his dirty white t-shirt and ripped jeans. He looked at Alex as if he was a piece of dirt on the bottom of his shoe, and growled at him.
"I take it you're here to get a job."
Trying to hide the look of disgust on his face, Alex made himself look scared, and eager, and nodded quickly, looking at the floor. The man grabbed Alex by the arm, and dragged him into the building, not appearing to care whether he hurt him or not.
He took him to a corridor where there were rooms leading off the sides all the way down, and as Alex glanced in through the small dirty windows, he saw boys and girls, all of them children, sitting in tiny, smelly rooms, on disgusting stained mattresses. They finally reached a room near the end of the corridor, and the man threw him in, shutting the door behind him. So, this was where he was going to be staying. It certainly lived up to his expectations.
The room was only just big enough to fit a small mattress in, and there was nothing else in the room. The mattress itself looked like it had spent a couple of decades rotting in a tip, and Alex realised that it probably had. Alex didn't even want to guess what some of the stains were on it. However, it would have to do. He couldn't exactly go and ask for a nicer bed.
Alex gingerly sat on the mattress, hoping he wouldn't catch anything from it. It seemed there was nothing to do except sit and think until someone came to get him. He seriously hoped he wasn't going to have to do anything too bad, however he had the feeling it wasn't exactly going to be fun.
Alex didn't have long to wait. Before long, the same man that had dragged him in came and smashed open his door. Before he had the chance to even stand up, the man had grabbed him again and forced him along the corridor back the way he had come. After a minute or so, they came to a door, and as the man threw it open, Alex saw a sight that made him feel anger deep inside him.
Hundreds of children, some of them looking as young as 7 or 8, were sitting at small tables, fixing together pieces of mobile phones. Most of them looked half starved, and they all shared a look of desperation and anxiety. With a heavy heart, Alex sat at the table the man had dragged him to, and looked at what was on it.
It looked like he was going to be putting microchips in the phones; possibly the fiddliest thing they could have found for the children to do. Doing this all day, every day, would probably give the children problems with their hands for the rest of their lives, not to mention their eye sight. And all this for a tiny amount of money that would barely even buy them lunch. With a feeling of hate towards Matthew Wilson, Alex sat down to work and vowed to find out what Wilson was doing, and to bring him down, no matter what it took.
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Alex slowly walked back to his room. He had spent all day putting the microchips into the phones, and it was living hell. His neck was aching, his arms were aching, his fingers were aching and his eyes were aching. He prayed that he would find something out about Wilson soon, so he could get out of here, and help all of the other children that were working here too. No one deserved to be working in conditions like these.
Along with having to work with tiny pieces of technology, men had been prowling around next to them as they worked; all of them looking like clones of the man that had seen to Alex. The men had watched the children as they worked, and beaten them if they thought they were going too slowly. Alex had earned himself several smacks around the head for giving one of the men a glare as he hit a 7 year old girl for dropping one of the microchips on the floor.
As Alex dropped onto his mattress in exhaustion, his train of thought went to the children he had been working with. He had tried to be friendly, talking to them in their quick 5 minute lunch break and trying to start a conversation, but it became quickly apparent that all of the children were too scared to talk to him. He could only assume that they got beaten for talking as well.
Alex resigned himself to that fact that he would have to get through yet another mission all by himself. Although, Alex thought to himself, it's not like it had bothered him before, he was used to being alone. Being an outcast was another thing MI6 had guaranteed for him.
Lying down on his mattress, Alex turned over and tried to get to sleep. He was tired, cold, hungry, and his whole body ached. As he started drifting off to sleep, he wondered absently what he was going to find out about Matthew Wilson. How was he going to find anything out? From what he'd seen so far, Wilson wasn't even at the sweat shop, so how was he going to find out about him?
Deciding to think about it in the morning, Alex shifted to a more comfortable position, and drifted off into a fitful sleep. It was definitely going to be a long night.
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OK, hope you liked it! Please remember to review, I need them to stay alive =] xxxx
