Disclaimer: *thinks of something clever* I own all nine books but I don't own the rights to them :(
Alex quickly learned all the soldiers' names. Good, he thought, that saves me the trouble of making up nicknames for them. (Also, Alex had not yet opened up his new unit's files. He was too busy being lost.)
Zebra, the blond, was the unit leader, specializing in leading people ("I lead all you dumbasses on and off the battlefield and if you're still alive, then that counts for something!").
The brunette was Lion. Lion is the guy you find when you need something or someone blown up or gunned down. Zebra said that, once, Lion accidentally blew up part of the mess hall when he was fiddling around with a match and a plastic spoon.
The black-haired man is Lizard. Lizard is the medic, and quite good friends with Snake, from K-Unit. The last man, the redhead Shark, was the unit's language expert.
Alex wondered why the unit didn't say anything about his age yet.
His bed was once again squished into a corner, looking out of place. Alex sat on his bed and examined his schedule for tomorrow.
First thing after breakfast, which started at 5:30 AM, Alex had French class. After French, he had weapons training. Then there were two free hours until lunch, so Alex had tutoring with Ben during that time. Alex had all his physical classes after lunch: physical combat, shooting, running the assault course, a trip to the Killing House once every week, running the assault course some more…
Alex was so sure that he was going to have a fuckin' blast here.
(LINE BREAK)
After Alex went to go take a shower, the four men immediately gathered together and began whispering.
"What do you think of the kid, Shark?" Zebra asked.
"I think he's bloody insane, if that's what you're asking!" Shark hissed back. "Who in their right mind sends a bloody kid to a bloody SAS training camp? I thought we were supposed to have a secret agent, not a teenager!"
Lion tapped both their shoulders. "Guys, I think you should look at the agent's file… And his picture." He held out the sheet with the agent's picture.
It was the blond teenager Lion glomped earlier.
"Well, fuck." Lizard couldn't have phrased it any better.
(LINE BREAK)
The next morning, four men plus a teenage spy, looking like the living dead, rose from their slabs of rock disguised as beds. Silence reigned in the hut, broken only by the occasional grunt or stomp, while they got dressed. They trooped out into the rain that was steadily falling from the sky. Everyone was too tired to even bring up the subject of Alex's arrival.
Already dripping wet before the day even started. Wonderful. Alex made his way into the mess hall and got in line for breakfast which consisted of a bowl of… toxic waste trying to be passed off as oatmeal. The "bacon" looked more normal, but the… Alex thought they were scrambled eggs. He couldn't really tell with all the greenish, reddish, orangey stuff mixed into it. There were soldiers all over the place eating the same slop and none of them dropped dead yet, so Alex assumed the food was relatively safe to eat. He sat at an empty table in the corner of the mess and tentatively dug in. His meal would've been perfectly peaceful. One cocky soldier ruined all that.
"What's a kid like that doing here?" the soldier asked loudly, purposely drawing attention to both him and Alex. Alex looked up from his meal.
He set down his fork and stared at the soldier straight in the eye. "What that kid does is none of your business."
The soldier got up and stalked over to where Alex was sitting. He sneered at Alex, disdainfully looking down at the spy. "Kids don't belong here, brat. This is the big boy's world," the man spat.
"Funny, a man said that to me once. Now he's dead." Alex turned his hand over, checking his fingernails with cool indifference.
The soldier went red in the face. He sputtered, "See here, you little-" Alex abruptly stood up and dumped his mostly untouched food in the trash.
"What would you know about being a big boy?" Alex asked the soldier. "You probably got into the army straight out of high school, and then applied for the SAS after a couple years in service. You probably haven't even begun your PFT or CFT yet." The spy turned on his heel and walked out of the room, head held high, unlike the recruit that had a face purple with humiliation.
(LINE BREAK)
Lion just got his breakfast and sat down when he saw Cougar glaring at Alex. Cougar proceeded to announce to the entire mess hall that a kid was there. Lion mused about what Cougar said; it was true, kids don't belong in the SAS, yet here he was, a blonde boy appearing out of nowhere. What really surprised him was the boy's retaliation. How was a soldier more than three years his senior a child? Sure, maybe maturity-wise, Lion thought, but how else could a teenager be older than an adult? Also, who was the man that died?
Next to him, Lizard was thinking the exact same things. He was also thinking of the teenager's psyche. What kind of mindset does a boy like that have that makes him see an experienced soldier as a child? Zebra and Shark were quietly talking about what just happened, especially after the kid walked out the door. His tread wasn't natural. Too graceful, too smooth. Too closely resembled the stalk of a panther in the undergrowth.
The rest of the mess hall also broke out into loud whispers, already spreading rumors about the mysterious blonde boy like a bunch of gossip-mongers.
(LINE BREAK)
Alex sighed as he meandered towards the French classroom. Just barely into day one and he gets someone pissed off. Ah, well, they'll remember him better that way. Leave a nice, big imprint where Alex Rider used to be.
He pushed open the door and sat down at a desk farthest to the back. Of course, by trying to remain inconspicuous, the teacher immediately took notice of him. "Qui es-tu?" Who are you?
"Je suis Cub, monsieur," Alex quietly replied. I am Cub.
"Que fais-tu ici?" the teacher sharply asked. What are you doing here?
"C'est confidential." Classified.
The teacher grunted and turned away, focusing instead on his lesson plans. More soldiers trickled into the class, each giving Alex their own stare.
It was six in the morning and class started.
"MAGGOTS!" the teacher shouted. The soldiers immediately sat up straight in their seats. "Où est les devoirs je vous ai donné hier?" What assignment? Alex had no idea what the teacher was talking about. Everyone else pulled out some papers with writing scrawled across them.
"Read your paragraphs aloud at the front of the room. Beaver! You go up first!" the teacher commanded, this time in English. Beaver got up and read his paragraph about weather in the desert. The rest of the class proceeded in a similar fashion, until Alex got called up.
"CUB! Get up here and read your paragraph!"
Alex stood up and walked up to the teacher. "I'm sorry, I just arrived last night," he said. "Apparently, I don't have telepathy and couldn't read your mind to get the assignment."
"Don't give me cheek, boy! Now, go up there and say something!"
Alex slowly turned around to face the rest of the class. He said, "Je m'appelle Cub, le garçon de la cafeteria, si vous ne me reconnaissez pas. Je ne vais pas vous raconter ma vie personelle. Soit dit en passant, vous êtes tous nuls en français" (1)
After Alex finished, the hour for French class was up, so Alex quickly vacated the room.
(LINE BREAK)
Weapons training was a joke.
It was partially weapons history and partially weapon ID, both of which he had a thorough lesson in at Malagosto. Finally, Alex got to see Ben. He went back to the cabin where Ben was waiting.
"Hey, Ben," Alex greeted.
"Same to you, Cub. Now let's get started on that Pre-Calculus!" Alex groaned and resigned himself to a miserable couple hours.
(LINE BREAK)
"Oh, come on, Cub, Pre-Calc isn't that bad, is it?" Ben asked. The glare he received was answer enough.
Alex grumbled about stupid numbers and how they should all fuck themselves. He sat down at a table and began to eat the gruel that was supposed to be a bowl of porridge with a glass of a protein shake. Food here was truly disgusting, Alex mused. The probability of the food actually being real food was very low, maybe a ten percent chance? Alex realized what he was thinking about and growled into his protein shake.
Alex swore that whoever invented math was going to die a long and painful death.
(1) I am Cub, the boy in the cafeteria, if you don't recognize me. I will not tell you my personal life. By the way, all of your French is terrible.
R&R plzzzz :P
