Disclaimer: If I say, 'I do believe I own Alex Rider, I do, I do!" a thousand times, will that make it true? *sigh* Yeah, didn't think so.

Chapter 4: Legal Deceptions

There were very few things that made Jack mad; she was generally a very easygoing person by nature. True, many things made her angry, such as being lied to, being called a spaz, and wasting perfectly good food. Only a select number of things, however, ever managed to incur her complete and utter wrath. Alex being forced to do an adult's job was one. Being pushed into a corner with no way out was another. And now she had one more to add to the growing list.

To her credit though, she did not lose her temper right there and then. She did not yell at the monotone voice drilling into her eardrums over the phone. Nor did she curse at him using her very profound vocabulary like she so desperately wished to. No, she very calmly took the phone away from her ear and hung up.

Then she, still calmly, walked over to the pale green sofa, picked up a soft, worn out cushion, and screamed with all her might into it. Once she got that out of her system, she collapsed onto the sofa, and hugged the cushion to her chest as she completed her options. Unfortunately, any options that she did have were very few in number, and any new ones that she could come up with were quite farfetched.

Great, just great, she grumbled mentally. As if trying to raise a teenage spy wasn't bad enough. As if just barely managing to pay the bills each month wasn't enough. As if keeping their financial issues hidden from Alex wasn't enough. No, someone up there had decided that Jack was having it too easy. They just had to throw one more thorn into the already too spiky rosebush.

Jack sighed and closed her eyes. She took a deep breath, counted to ten in Japanese just for the heck of it, and then stood up, her eyes brimming with renewed determination.

She was not going to sit around and mope, no way. She was going to get up and fix this before Alex got home. She didn't care how many people she had to threaten; she would make them change their minds and give Alex his allowance back. She had half a mind to head down to the Bank right now, order them to let her see Blunt, and then proceed with chewing his mind into very, very small pieces and feeding them to the neighbor's dog. The only thing stopping her from actually going through with the plan though was the fact that she would surely be evicted from the country. Normally she wouldn't care a whit about that fact, but if she left, then there was nothing to keep the Bank from sending Alex on one mission after another. She couldn't risk it.

She started pacing as she went over her options once again. She could try and contact the government and appeal to them. But if MI6 really was behind this, and there was no doubt in her mind that suggested otherwise, then it would just be a waste of time that she really didn't have.

And she couldn't for the life of her imagine why they would stop their only source of income. Maybe it was for another mission? But it wasn't as though they had actually paid Alex for any of his past missions, so the prospect of money would not be sending Alex into their waiting clutches anytime soon.

She unconsciously tugged at a strand of her red hair, frowning. Well, there was always the option of waiting the sixty days for the paperwork to be cleared. A frown appeared on her face as she recalled the bored, uncaring voice that had broken the bad news to her ten minutes ago. No, that would be admitting defeat and Jack never admitted defeat. Never. The word simply wasn't in her vocabulary.

Reaching a decision, she marched purposely up the stairs to the computer in Alex's room. She was going to find a way to get out of this, even if she had to read every single article about the government on the net. And she was going to do it before Alex got home from school.

*~~ͽͼ~~*

Wolf scowled heavily at the pastel yellow envelope on his coffee table. Perhaps if he stared at it long enough, its contents would somehow appear in his mind and he wouldn't have to wait for the rest of his team to show up in order to find out the details of their next mission. All he knew was that they would be tracking some kid. All of the details were in that putrid yellow flimsy paper that he was not allowed to open until the rest of his team arrived.

Wolf abruptly broke the one way staring contest to glance at the clock. They were two minutes late. Tardiness costs lives. He'd have to put more emphasis on punctuality; he couldn't have his team arrive too late at a very crucial moment. He wouldn't be much of a leader if he did that.

Two knocks followed by a faint thud at the door interrupted his thoughts before they grew anymore morbid. He stood up with a grimace, stubbornly ignoring the sharp pain in his right leg. The last mission had left him with a badly bruised, though not broken leg, much to his extreme aggravation. It would be healed in a few days, but it hurt something awful in the meantime. Not that Wolf would willingly admit it.

"You're late." He said in form of welcome as he opened his door to reveal the three tardy members of his team.

"No we're not." Eagle protested, striding into the room as though it was his own. "We're five minutes early."

"You can't be late until you arrive," Fox said walking in closely followed by Snake who nodded once in acknowledgment to Wolf.

"You're here now." Wolf replied, walking back to his sofa, taking care not to limp. "And you're late. Explain."

Fox and Snake simultaneously turned towards Eagle. "He was driving."

Eagle frowned at how quickly he had been sold out. "But we aren't even late." He protested once again. "When I checked my watch ten minutes ago, we still had five minutes to get here."

Wolf didn't answer; he just subjected Eagle to his best Leader Stare. The poor K-unit member held out for ten seconds before cracking.

"Alright, an old lady stole my parking spot. I swear, they're the real threat in this nation."

Wolf sighed and resolved to lecture them on the importance of promptness later. Right now he just wanted to get this meeting over with and drink some coffee. Maybe relax with a good war documentary. Anything but listen to lame excuses.

"Is this it?" Snake asked, indicating the envelope on the table.

Wolf nodded as he picked it up and finally tore it open.

"Our lives for the next several months are to be decided by that?" Fox said, eyeing the yellow color with distaste. "How anticlimactic."

"Did they really just hand it to you and then kick you out?" Eagle asked, curiosity getting the better of his good sense.

To everyone's surprise, Wolf did not react as expected by the comment. He actually answered without any sort of sarcastic remark. "Yes. Something big is going on."

"Something's always going on," Snake replied, watching the envelope in Wolf's hands with narrowed eyes. "That's why it's MI6 and not a soap drama.'"

"It took them ten minutes to find the right folder and give it to me," Wolf continued as though he had not heard the oh-so-helpful commentary or Eagle's muffled snickers. "And the only briefing I received was to never lose sight of the subject. The whole mission depends on us watching his every move."

No one spoke after that revelation; Wolf swiftly pulled out all of the papers and moved to spread them over the table. Unfortunately, he had to lean forward a bit to do so, and in the process, accidently knocked a leg against the edge of the table. It was just his luck that the leg he bumped was his injured one. The papers slipped from his slack grip as he struggled to keep the pain from showing on his face.

"You okay?" Snake asked having not missed anything.

"Fine." Wolf grunted, annoyed at having lost control, if even for a brief second. Then he heard Fox's sharp intake of breath and Eagle's whispered oath. He looked down sharply and his own eyes widened in surprise.

The four members of K-unit stared rather stunned at the papers scattered on top of Wolf's dining table. Or, more specifically, they stared at the photo of their target, which lay at the very top of the small pile. They had been expecting to see some posh rich kid, or some angst-ridden, world hating teen. They were not expecting to see a slim, athletic looking blond fourteen year old. And they certainly were not expecting it to be a kid they knew.

Snake was the first to break the silence.

"Cub?" he asked, disbelief evident in his voice. "Am I going crazy, or is that Cub?"

"It's him." Fox confirmed, picking up the snap shot for a closer look. "Not unless I'm mental as well. Never thought we'd see him again."

"Aw," Eagle said, snatching the picture from Fox. "Cub's all grown up and a terrorist!"

"He's not a terrorist." Snake said, wearily, holding out a hand. Eagle sheepishly handed over the snapshot. "He's…well, I have no idea what he is."

"He's our mission for the time being," Wolf said, taking the picture that Snake offered him. His eye twitched involuntarily as his gaze fell on the boy that his unit had been forced to train with a while back. "Protect if innocent, apprehend if not."

"Innocent of what?" Eagle asked, leaning back in his chair. "Protect from who? Why all the missing blanks?"

"Classified," Snake said exasperated, holding up a paper so that the words 'CLASSIFIED' that was stamped in dark red across it was clearly visible. "They aren't telling us a thing."

"Not that surprising since it is Cub." Fox said, shifting through the other papers littering the table. "The kid's got more mysteries surrounding him than a dog's got fleas."

Wolf gave him an exasperated look. "Nice analogy."

"I try." Fox said stretching his arms as grin like his namesake spread across his face. "Would have been an English major if the army hadn't called my name."

"You heard the voice too?" Eagle asked, in a falsely astonished voice. "I knew those posters were expelling subliminal messages!"

Fortunately for Wolf, he was spared from having to answer that by the doorbell. Normally he would have ignored any unannounced visitors that he received, but he really wouldn't mind a chance to regroup away from the others. Plus, whoever was at the door had yet to stop ringing. He stood up, ignoring the pain, and resolved to chew out whoever was at the door. His doorbell was not a toy.

He walked, not limped, to the door, and wrenched it open, ready to relieve some of the tension that had sprung up once he saw just who they had to follow around for the next month. Unfortunately, the person at the door was the landlord's black-clad, sullen-eyed, gum-chewing sixteen year old niece. Wolf hated gum and teens of all ages. The niece hated adults and authority of any sort. Needless to say, they did not get along well.

"What?" he snapped with a glare that could, and had on many an occasion, scare a grown man.

The girl just blew a big purple bubble, popped it in the most disturbingly loud manner possible, and shoved a white envelope in Wolf's face. Without another world, she turned around and stomped to the next door and started pounding on the doorbell there. Wolf sent her one last glare before shutting the door. He really disliked kids.

"The rest of these outline the assignment," Snake said absently as Wolf walked back into the room. "But nothing too interesting about Cub aside from the usual basics: name, address, school."

"What's that?" Fox asked, noticing the letter in Wolf's hand.

Wolf didn't bother to answer since he hadn't even opened the letter yet. So Eagle, being a good friend, decided to help his pal out. In one swift move, he snatched the letter out of Wolf's hands and scanned it, ignoring Wolf's irritated exclamation.

"According to this," He said, dancing out of Wolf's reach. "Wolfy here has…lice."

All of the occupants in the room stared at him in disbelief.

"…what?" Snake finally asked. He eyed Wolf's extremely short black hair warily. "You have lice?"

"No, can't you read?" Wolf barked, kicking Eagle hard in the shin with his left leg and taking back the letter as the man doubled over in pain. "I just have termites."

"Termites?" Fox asked, his lips twitching. "I didn't know you were made of wood."

"Though your heart certainly is," Eagle grumbled, rubbing his leg.

"What heart?" Snake put in, amused.

"The building has termites." Wolf snapped, hitting Eagle's head with the letter. "I've got to get out of here in two days."

"Tough luck," Snake said, yawning. He froze in mid-yawn when he caught the look in Wolf's eye and added hurriedly. "Sorry, I live in a one bedroom apartment. No room."

"Renting a tiny room." Fox put in as Wolf scowled as Snake. "Already on the verge of being kicked out, sorry, can't risk it."

He attempted to offer an apologetic grin but it was swiftly extinguished by the glare Wolf sent his way. He didn't really blame their leader though, he was sure he wouldn't be happy if he had nowhere to stay and all his teammates had to offer were bad excuses.

Though he really couldn't blame them either. None of them, for very good reasons, wanted to put up with Wolf any more than necessary right now. Not that he was difficult to get along with; it was more of the fact that he clearly did not like this mission and was not going to get through it with a good attitude that put everyone off. If nothing else, they could just blame the termites, those bloody tree killing bugs.

"Aren't you going to ask me?" Eagle asked, a false look of hurt on his features. He was renting a room in a house that was also occupied with two six year old demons. There was no way Wolf would want to stay with him and that was precisely why he was asking.

Wolf gave him a dark look and didn't bother to answer

"I think Wolf values whatever sanity he has left." Snake replied, looking amused.

Wolf glared at his teammates, who ignored him in turn by focusing all their attention on the papers outlining their assignment. Wonderful, not only did he have to follow around Double O Nothing, but he also had no place to stay while doing so. He hadn't even met the kid and already, trouble was brewing. He knew he hated that kid.

"Uh, Wolf? You better take a look at this." Fox said, offering him a paper.

Wolf took it, noting the amused glint in his teammate's eye warily. He scanned the paper and nearly crushed it as his mind processed the information it presented to him.

Scratch that. He loathed that kid. Utterly and completely loathed him.

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