Okay, um... I was kidnapped by Scorpia? No? I'm sorry for the long break, but I wasn't kidding when I said I would never abandon this,it just took me a while. Between school, gymnastics, choir and other stuff I've been really busy. My gymnastics season finished Sunday though( I'm the Prep opt advanced champion for my age group, woot woot! Yeah, I know I'm cool, just kidding. ) and I have my AP english exam tomorrow(eep!) so I'll hopefully have some more time. You can also blame this chapter on my discovering of A Game of Thrones, so much goodness!
I can't even begin to thank all of you who reviewed, making this my most reviewed story, but I'll try. So a huge thanks to: The Daughter of Artemis,Randomperson96, Phantom Lightning, Storage-Jar, SilverStar121,CHiKa-RoXy,ReillyScarecrowRocks,Phoenix Retribution,loulou flower power,Smoochynose, StrangelyPenned, double-oh-nothing, PartyPony2 (Yes, sarcasm does rock. It rocks my socks.), Banana Sultana,WrItnGthroughDarkness, ARFAN324,magicrazy101, , BlueberriesGoneBad,Fallenqueen2,starbuck2233, Lady cougar-Trombone (Hopefully the timeline is fine, I definitely looked it up beforehand but.. who knows?),Synchro lover,J'aime lire, Getsumen Kage no Mai, GracefulLikeAGazelle, ColorMyStarsYellow13,MsWolfProtector,brokenangelwings16,DarkAngel-N7(Thanks for the kick in the butt I needed. I take curses very seriously. ;))
Thanks for those who pointed out the problems with the bold/not bold. I took extra care this time so it should all be good.
Hopefully, this came out okay. I'm a bit rusty.
Disclaimer: Now I remember why I procrastinated so long. Having to tell you people over and over again that I DON'T OWN ALEX RIDER is frankly exhausting.
DOUBLE 0 NOTHING
FOR THE HUNDREDTH time, Alex cursed Alan Blunt, using language he hadn't even realized he
knew.
"Alex!" Helen admonished reflexively, though she agreed with him.
It was almost five o' clock in the evening, although it could have been five o' clock in the
morning; the sky had barely changed at all throughout the day. It was gray, cold, unforgiving.
"Sounds like someone we know," Ian said.
The rain was still falling, a thin drizzle that traveled horizontally in the wind, soaking through his
supposedly waterproof clothing, mixing with his sweat and his dirt, chilling him to the bone.
He unfolded his map and checked his position once again. He had to be close to the last RV of the
day-the last rendezvous point- but he could see nothing. He was standing on a narrow track made
up of loose gray pebbles that crunched under his combat boots when he walked. The track snaked
around the side of a mountain with a sheer drop to the right. He was somewhere in the Brecon
Beacons,and there should have been a view but it had been wiped out by the rain and the fading
light. A few trees twisted out of the side of the hill, with leaves as hard as thorns. Behind him,
below him, ahead of him, it was all the same. Nowhere Land.
"Nowhere man,please listen. You don't know what you're missing..." Helen stopped her singing of the Beatles classic upon seeing the looks John and Ian were giving her.
Alex hurt. The 22-pound bergen backpack that he had been forced to wear cut into his shoulders
and had rubbed blisters into his back. His right knee, where he had fallen earlier in the day,was no
longer bleeding but still stung. His shoulder was bruised and there was a gash along the side of his
neck. His camouflage outfit-he had swapped his Gap combat trousers for the real thing-fitted him
badly, cutting in between his legs and under his arms but hanging loose everywhere else. He was
close to exhaustion, he knew, almost too tired to know how much pain he was in.
John also began to curse Blunt, figuring Alex couldn't possibly know the amount of swear words in foreign languages that he did and, therefore, had left some out.
But for theglucose and caffeine tablets in his survival pack, he would have ground to a halt hours ago. He
knew that if he didn't find the RV soon he would be physically unable to continue. Then, he would
be thrown off the course, "Binned" as they called it. They would like that. Swallowing down
the taste of defeat, Alex folded the map and forced himself on.
It was his ninth- or maybe his tenth- day of training. Time had begun to dissolve into itself, as
shapeless as the rain.
At these depressing thoughts Helen stopped reading with a horrified look on her face. "What are they doing to him?"
After his lunch with Alan Blunt and Mrs. Jones he had been moved out of the
manor house and into a crude wooden hut a few miles away. There were nine huts in total, each
equipped with four metal beds and four metal lockers. A fifth had been squeezed into one of them
to accommodate Alex. Two more huts, painted a different color, stood side by side. One of these
was a kitchen and mess hall. The other contained toilets, sinks, and showers with not a single hot
faucet in sight.
Ian had a reminiscent look on his face. "Ah, Brecon Beacons. Good times."
Helen looked at him questioningly. "Really?"
"No." He deadpanned.
On his first day there Alex had been introduced to his training officer, an incredibly fit, black
Sergeant. He was the sort of man who thought he'd seen everything. Until he saw Alex.
John snorted. "That should bring him down a notch."
And he had examined the new arrival for a long minute before he had spoken. "It's not my job to ask
questions," he had said. "But if it was I'd want to know what they're thinking of sending me
you have any idea where you are, boy? This isn't a holiday camp. This isn't
Disneyland."
"Maybe not." John corrected himself.
"It's not like he was given much choice." Helen spat at the sergeant in the book angrily.
He cut the word into its three syllables and spat them out. "I have you for twelve days
and they expect me to give you the sort of training that should take fourteen weeks. That's not just
mad. That's suicidal."
"Yes, yes it is." Ian agreed.
"I didn't ask to be here," Alex said.
Suddenly the sergeant was furious. "You don't speak to me unless I give you permission," he
shouted. "And when you speak to me you address me as sir. Do you understand?"
"Bipolar." Ian said in a sort of sing-song voice.
Yes, sir." Alex had already decided that the man was even worse than his geography teacher.
"There are five units operational here at the moment," the officer went on. "You'll join K Unit. We
don't use names. I have no name. You have no name. If anyone asks you what you're doing you
tell them nothing. Some of the men may be hard on you. Some of them may resent you being here.
"No? You think? All of them will be totally cool with training with a 14 year old." Helen said sarcastically.
That's too bad. You'll just have to live with it. And there's something else you need to know. I can
make allowances for you. You're a boy, not a man. But if you complain you'll be binned. If you cry,
"Riders do not cry!" Ian insisted.
"Except that one time you..." John began slyly before Ian hit him upside the head.
you'll be binned. If you can't keep up you'll be binned. Between you and me boy, this is a mistake
and I want to bin you."
After that, Alex joined K Unit. As the sergeant had predicted they weren't exactly overjoyed to see
him.
There were four of them. As Alex was soon to discover, the Special Operations Division of MI6 sent
its agents to the same training center used by the Special Air Service- the SAS. Much of the training
was based on SAS methods and this included the numbers and makeup of each team. So there
were four men, each with their own special skills. And one boy seemingly with none.
"That's not true, Alex." Helen said reassuringly, as though Alex was sitting right next to her and in need of a boost in self-esteem.
They were all in their mid-twenties, spread out over the bunks in companionable silence. Two of
them were smoking. One was dismantling and reassembling his gun- a 9 mm Browning High Power
pistol. Each of them had been given a code name: Wolf, Fox, Eagle, and Snake. From now on Alex
would be known as Cub.
"As much as I hate to admit it, that's kinda cute." Ian said.
The leader, Wolf, was the one with the gun. He was short and muscular
with square shoulders and black, close-cropped hair. He had a handsome face, made slightly
uneven by his nose, which had been broken at some time in the past.
He was the first to speak. Putting the gun down, he examined Alex with cold, dark brown eyes. "So
who the hell do you think you are?" he demanded.
"Cub," Alex replied.
" A bloody schoolboy!" Wolf spoke with a strange, slightly foreign accent. "I don't believe it. Are you
with Special Operations?"
"Unfortunately."
"I'm not allowed to tell you that." Alex went over to his bunk and sat down. The mattress felt as
solid as the frame. Despite the cold, there was only one blanket.
Ian and John both grimaced.
Wolf shook his head and smiled humorlessly. "Look what they've sent us," he muttered. "Double 0
Seven? Double Nothing's more like it."
"Wow, really clever. Jackass. What kind of respectable soldier picks on kids?"
After that, the name stuck. Double 0 Nothing was what they called him.
In the days that followed Alex shadowed the group, not quite part of it but never far away. Almost
everything they did, he did. He learned map reading, radio communication and first aid. He took
part in an unarmed combat class and was knocked to the ground so often that it took all his nerve
to persuade himself to get up again.
John muttered something about who he was going to knock to the ground.
And then there was the assault course. Five times he was shouted and bullied across the nightmare
of nets and ladders, tunnels and ditches, towering walls and swinging tightropes that stretched out
for almost a quarter of a mile, in and over the woodland beside the huts. Alex thought of it as the
adventure playground from hell.
That received various snorts of laughter from the readers.
The first time he tried it he fell off a rope and into a pit filled with
freezing slime. Half drowned and filthy, he had been sent back to the start by the sergeant.
Alex thought he would never get to the end, but the second time he finished it in twenty-five minutes,
which he had cut to seventeen minutes by the end of the week. Bruised and exhausted though he
was, he was quietly pleased with himself. Even Wolf only managed it in twelve.
"Ha, take that you stupid bully." Helen smiled proudly.
Wolf remained actively hostile toward Alex. The other three men simply ignored him, but Wolf did
everything to taunt or humiliate him. It was as if Alex had somehow insulted him by being placed in
the group. Once, crawling under the nets, Wolf lashed out with his foot, missing Alex's face by an
inch.
"That's outrageous! I'm going to stick my foot up his-" John began.
Helen gave him a look.
"But of course violence isn't the answer...?" He finished uncertainly as though not quite sure what she wanted him to say.
She smirked. "Nah, I say go for it."
Of course he would have said it was an accident if the boot had connected. Another time he
was more successful, tripping Alex up in the mess hall and sending him flying, along with his tray,
cutlery, and steaming plate of stew. And every time he spoke to Alex he used the same, sneering
tone of voice.
"Good night, Double 0 Nothing. Don't wet the bed."
"He's 14 not 5. At this point I would say that you,with your shocking amount of immaturity, would be the more likely bed-wetter." John scoffed.
Alex bit his lip and said nothing. But he was glad when the four men were sent off for a day's
jungle survival course- this wasn't part of his own training. Even though the sergeant worked him
twice as hard once they were gone, Alex preferred to be on his own.
"I can't imagine why." Ian said, his voice heavily laced with sarcasm.
But on the tenth day, Wolf did come close to finishing him altogether. It happened in the Killing
House.
The Killing House was a fake- a mock up of an embassy -used to train the SAS in the art of hostage
release. Alex had twice watched K Unit go into the house, the first time swinging down from the
roof, and had followed their progress on closed-circuit TV. All four men were armed, Alex himself
didn't take part because someone, somewhere had decided he shouldn't carry a gun.
"Well, thank god for that at least," Helen said, trying to eject the image of her 14 year old son shooting a gun form her mind.
Ian bit his lip. "I don't know, that does give him less protection."
Helen looked at him, her eyes slightly wild. "But he's just doing surveillance, right? Easy stuff, remotely safe."
"You're probably right." Ian agreed, though she noticed he didn't fully answer her question.
Inside the Killing House, mannequins had been arranged as terrorists and hostages. Smashing down the doors
and using stun grenades to clear the rooms with deafening, multiple, blasts, Wolf, Fox, Eagle and
Snake had successfully completed their mission both times.
This time Alex had joined them. The Killing House had been booby-trapped. They weren't told how.
"Of course not. What would be the fun in that?"
"Shut up Ian."
"Shutting up."
All five of them were unarmed. Their job was simply to get from one end of the house to the other
without being "killed."
They almost made it.
"That doesn't sound good."
In the first room, made up to look like a huge dining room, they found the
pressure pads under the carpet and the infrared beams across the doors. For Alex it was an eerie
experience, tiptoeing behind the other four men, watching as they dismantled the two devices,
using cigarette smoke to expose the otherwise invisible beam. It was strange to be afraid of
everything and yet to see nothing.
Helen felt a sort of naseau in her stomach that told her fear would probably be a common theme in this book, for her and her son.
In the hallway there was a motion detector, which would have activated a machine gun (Alex assumed it was loaded with blanks), behind a Japanese screen. The
third room was empty. The fourth was a living room with the exit, a pair of French windows, on the
other side. There was a trip wire, barely thicker than a human hair, running the entire width of the
room, and the French windows were alarmed. While Snake dealt with the alarm, Fox and Eagle
prepared to neutralize the trip wire, unclipping an electronic circuit board and a variety of
tools from their belts.
Helen stopped reading to let out a snort of laughter. John and Ian gave her odd looks.
"Sorry, for some reason my mind automatically jumped to fanny pack." She let out a bout of laughter that the men bemusedly joined in.
Wolf stopped them. "Leave it. We're out of here." At the same moment, Snake signaled.
He had deactivated the alarm. The French windows were open.
Snake was the first out. Then Fox and Eagle. Alex would have been the last to leave the room but
just as he reached the exit, he found Wolf blocking his way.
"What the hell is he doing?" Ian asked.
"This guy has serious issues." Helen said as if that was all the explanation needed.
"Tough luck, Double 0 Nothing," Wolf said. His voice was soft, almost kind.
"There is nothing remotely kind about this guy. What he needs is anger management." John stated.
The next thing Alex knew, the heel of Wolf's palm had rammed into his chest, pushing him back
with astonishing force. Taken by surprise he lost his balance, and fell, remembered the trip wire,
and tried to twist his body to avoid it. But it was hopeless. His flailing left hand caught the wire.
Dammit. This is child abuse!
He actually felt it against his wrist. He hit the floor, pulling the wire with him.
The trip wire activated a stun grenade- a small device filled with a mixture of magnesium powder
and mercury fulminate. The blast didn't just deafen Alex, it shuddered right through him as if trying
to rip out his heart.
None of the people present even wanted to imagine Alex's heart being ripped out.
The light from the ignited mercury burned for a full five seconds. It was so blinding that even closing his eyes made no difference. Alex lay there with his face against the hard,
wooden floor, his hands scrabbling against his head unable to move, waiting for it to end.
They waited with baited breath, besides Helen who continued reading.
But even then it wasn't over. When the flare finally died down, it was as if all the light in the room
had burned out with it. Alex stumbled to his feet, unable to see or hear, not even sure anymore
where he was.
"When I get my hands around that sick bastard's neck-" John made violent motions with his hands as though strangling someone so Helen, though also furious, decided to continue reading before her husband murdered someone.
He felt sick to his stomach. The room swayed around him. The heavy smell of chemicals hung in the air.
Ten minutes later he staggered out, into the open. Wolf was waiting for him with the others, his
face blank. He had slipped out before Alex hit the ground.
"Darn, I was really hoping he'd get caught in it. He deserves it. He should be binned."
The unit's training officer walked angrily over to him. Alex hadn't expected to see a shred of concern in the
man's face and he wasn't disappointed.
"Do you want to tell me what happened in there, Cub?" he demanded. When Alex didn't answer he
went on. "You ruined the exercise.
"He ruined the exercise?" Helen asked incredulously.
You fouled up. You could get the whole unit binned. So you'd
better start telling me what went wrong."
"What's wrong is that someone let Wolf into camp." John said emphatically.
Alex glanced at Wolf. Wolf looked the other way. What should he say? Should he even try to tell
the truth?
"I guess it would be a bit hypocritical of me to try and say the truth is always best, considering my job." John said.
Helen narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes, yes it would."
"Okay, I get it. Just trying to instill some good moral values in my son." John held his hands up in defeat.
Ian smirked. "It's okay John. It's obvious that all Alex's good traits come from Helen."
John smacked him.
"Well ?" The sergeant was waiting.
"Nothing happened, sir," Alex said. "I just wasn't looking where I was going. I stepped on something
and there was an explosion."
John sighed. "Well, on the bright side he's not a tattletale."
"If that was real life you'd be dead,"
They all flinched.
the sergeant said. "What did I tell you? Sending me a child was a mistake!
"Well, at least we're in agreement on that." Helen nodded stubbornly.
And a stupid, clumsy child who doesn't look where he's going, that's even worse."
"But on that we're not." John growled. "My son is neither stupid nor clumsy. He's probably more intelligent than all your soldiers combined."
Alex stood where he was. He knew he was blushing.
Though this wasn't actually a good thing Helen couldn't help half-smiling at the thought of a miniature John with her eyes and a rosy blush across his cheeks.
Half of him wanted to answer back but he bit his tongue.
"Good, talking back to the sergeant never ends well." John knew from experience.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Wolf half- smiling.
They all scowled and John let out a low, almost-growl.
The sergeant had seen it too. "You think it's so funny, Wolf? You can go clean up in there.
"Justice." Ian hissed.
And tonight you'd better get some rest. All of you. Because tomorrow you've got a thirty-mile hike. No
rations. No lighters. No fire. This is a survival course. And if you do survive then maybe you'll have
a reason to smile."
"Well, that's going to suck."
Alex remembered the words now, exactly twenty-four hours later. He had spent the last eleven of
them on his feet, following the trail that the sergeant had set out for him on the map. The exercise
had begun at six o' clock in the morning, after a gray-lit breakfast of sausages and beans. Wolf and
the others had disappeared into the distance ahead of him a long time ago, even though they had
been given 55 -pound backpacks to carry. They had also been given only eight hours to complete
the course. Allowing for his age, Alex had been given twelve.
"That's still ridiculous. Especially since he's practically on his own out there!" Helen exclaimed.
He rounded a corner, his feet scrunching on the gravel. There was someone standing ahead of him.
It was the sergeant. He had just lit a cigarette and Alex watched him slide the matches back into
his pocket. Seeing him there brought back the shame and the anger of the day before and at the
same time sapped the last of his strength. Suddenly, Alex had had enough of Blunt, Mrs. Jones,
Wolf... the whole stupid thing.
"Wow, it took him that long? I had enough of them the second they started talking." John scowled.
With a final effort he stumbled forward the last hundred yards and came to a halt. Rain and sweat trickled down the side of his face. His hair, dark now with grime, was glued across his forehead.
The sergeant looked at his watch. "Eleven hours, five minutes. That's not bad, Cub. But the others
were here three hours ago."
"The others were grown men who volunteered to be here." Helen retorted.
Bully for them, Alex thought. He didn't say anything.
"Anyway, you should just make it to the first RV," the sergeant went on. It's up there."
He pointed to a wall. Not a sloping wall. A sheer one. Solid rock, rising two or three hundred feet up
without a handhold or a foothold in sight. Even looking at it Alex felt his stomach shrink. Ian Rider
Ian jerked at the sound of his name. Frowning a little at the fact that, even in his head, Alex felt the need to use his full name. What did that say about their relationship?
had taken him climbing in Scotland, in France, all over Europe...But he had never attempted
anything as difficult as this. Not on his own. Not when he was so tired.
Helen bit her lip worriedly before continuing.
"I can't," he said.
Ian flinched. "Not good word choice."
In the end the two words came out easily.
John thought he was frowning so much his face would begin to stay that way.
"I didn't hear that," the sergeant said.
"I said, I can't do it, sir."
"At least he's sticking with it." John muttered.
"Can't isn't a word we use around here."
"I don't care. I've had enough. I've just had- " Alex's voice cracked. He didn't trust himself to go on.
There was a somber silence as Helen read.
He stood there, cold and empty, waiting for the ax to fall.
But it didn't. The sergeant gazed at him for a long minute. He nodded his head slowly. "Listen to
me, Cub," he said. "I know what happened in the Killing House."
"What?" Helen demanded, outraged. "And he didn't do anything?"
Alex glanced up.
"Wolf forgot about the closed-circuit TV. We've got it all on film."
"Then why-?" Alex began.
"Did you make a complaint against him, Cub?"
"No, sir."
"Do you want to make a complaint against him, Cub?"
A pause. Then... "No, sir."
John gave a small smile. "He's tougher than he thinks."
"Good." The sergeant pointed at the rock face, suggesting a path up with his finger. "It's not as
difficult as it looks," he said. "And they're waiting for you just over the top. You've got a nice cold
dinner. Survival rations. You don't want to miss that."
"Yum," Helen agreed sarcastically.
Alex drew a deep breath and started forward. As he passed the sergeant, he stumbled and put out
a hand to steady himself, brushing against him. "Sorry, sir," he said.
It took him twenty minutes to reach the top and sure enough K Unit was already there, crouching
around three small tents that they must have pitched earlier in the afternoon. Two just large
enough for sharing. One, the smallest, for Alex.
"That's good. With these upstanding citizens you can never be quite sure which one is going to stab you in your sleep." Helen said, only half joking.
Snake, a thin, fair-haired man who spoke with a Scottish accent, looked up at Alex. He had a tin of
cold stew in one hand, a teaspoon in the other. "I didn't think you'd make it," he said. Alex couldn't
help but notice a certain warmth in the man's voice. And for the first time he hadn't called him
Double 0 Nothing.
John gave a grudging nod of approval.
"Nor did I," Alex said.
Wolf was squatting over what he hoped would become a campfire, trying to get it started with two
flint stones while Fox and Eagle watched. He was getting nowhere. The stones only produced the
smallest of sparks and the scraps of newspaper and leaves that he had collected were already far
too wet. Wolf struck at the stones again and again. The others watched, their faces glum.
Alex held out the box of matches that he had pickpocketed from the sergeant
when he had pretended to stumble at the foot of the rock face.
Ian and John began to laugh at Alex's antics but Helen glared at them. "You two are turning my son into some sort of criminal. You, with your stupid genetics and you, you probably taught him how to do that!" She said pointing to each John and Ian in turn.
Their faces turned serious. "Not a criminal- a spy." John said quietly.
Helen didn't have a response to that, and so continued.
"These might help," he said. He threw the matches down, then went into his tent.
Well, the attitude is definitely from you." John said to Helen, attempting to lighten the mood a bit. She glared, trying to look unamused.
CONGRATS, you have enough of an attention span to read to the bottom of this page! Joking aside, I'm hoping not to leave you guys hanging that long again. Please leave any comments you have, unless you're a hater, then, go away. :)
Next Chapter: TOYS AREN'T US