Note: SURPRISE! Wow, I never thought I'd update twice in one week... I feel quite accomplished(: I guess I was just getting so excited about what I have planned for this story that I couldn't help but double my daily hours I usually spend on a chapter. And here it is! You guys have also been amazing readers, another reason why I wanted to put up another chapter so soon. There are several things I'd like to go over though:

1) Reality check! I was stupid enough to disregard what the year would be if Alex were 18 years old.. 2005. The first iPhone wasn't released til 2007. So I had no choice but to go back and rewrite a few details- Alex now has a Sidekick instead of an iPhone. I know, I'm a perfectionist.

2) I had to do plenty of research for this particular chapter and I know I will have to do plenty more for future updates. I'm trying to keep it as realistic and unrealistic as possible, if that makes sense. I mean, as accurate as the AR series was, it was a great deal unrealistic, right? but that was the beauty of it! I loved reading the books because of that. Anyway, if you see anything that seems off, please let me know!

Sorry this chapter feels a bit long!

Chapter Nine – Absit Omen (Let This Not Be a Bad Omen)

-Alex-

I didn't know what was going to happen once we arrived at the CIA headquarters. Despite my uneasiness, I had to admit that I was curious; is it concealed within a building posing as a bank like MI6? I remembered clearly the times I'd been taken to various CIA branches. They had been disguised as well, one of them as a cartoon shop in Manhattan, New York.

When we arrived there though, the headquarters appeared to be completely ordinary. I gazed around as I followed David and Ben across the parking lot. The buildings are distinctly modern, built from the colors gray and light aqua. The office towers are four floors at most, the polished glass windows giving nothing away about the goings-on inside. Tall trees dot any space of grass (which was very green and healthy-looking) surrounding the compound and I wouldn't have been surprised if the purpose was both protection and presentation.

"Here. You'll need this." David handed me what looked to be an ID card attached to a lanyard. On it was a large orange V and underneath was the words "Visitor Escort Required." I noticed that Ben was wearing one as well. "I'm the escort for both of you," David explained. "You're only allowed in certain areas but as long as you're with me, no one will bother you. So don't leave my side."

"Why? What happens if I do?" I asked, more for the sake of it than out of actual curiosity.

Ben chuckled. It was the first sound I'd heard from him tonight. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

The first thing we encountered after entering through one of many sets of glass double doors was security check. A number of uniformed guards stood by, watching as people came and went. David put his ID card into a machine, punched in a few numbers, and walked through the gate stick. He verified Ben and me and we were through.

"Welcome to the Original Headquarters Building of the CIA," David said as he led the way into the lobby. I caught my breath, all my expectations and silly imaginations forgotten.

The main lobby was clean and polished and the color scheme was gray and white. Several people were walking about, too immersed in their tasks to notice the three of us. Thick square columns created a sort of aisle leading towards the wall opposite the entrance where I could make out a bust and American flag. Featured prominently before us was the CIA seal, laid out on the floor for everyone to see.

David caught me staring at it and asked, "Do you know what it stands for? The eagle, the star, or the shield?" When I shook my head, he answered, "The eagle is our national bird; it stands for strength. The sixteen points of the compass star refer to how our global intelligence data come together right here at headquarters. And the shield… well, it's obvious. It represents defense."

He ushered us forward, pointing out the different articles decorating the large lobby. Just next to the entrance a bible quote carved into the wall made a chill run down my spine:

"AND YE SHALL KNOW THE TRUTH AND THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE." – JOHN VIII-XXXII

On the north wall, the Memorial Wall was made of shiny white marble bearing almost one-hundred stars for the CIA officers who'd died in service. There was a bas-relief of Allen Dulles, the fifth Director of Central Intelligence and the longest-serving. Why was the one lobby of the CIA much more interesting than the whole of the Royal & General Bank of MI6?

Eventually we left the lobby and entered an elevator where a middle-aged man was holding open the door. "Thanks, Holden," David said as he went to stand beside him.

Holden nodded. I noticed that the three men were dressed similarly with dress shirts and pants. Briefly I felt out of place in my Rugby shirt, jeans, and Nikes.

We rode in silence until Holden said, "Have you gotten a lead yet on that Castillo case—" His eyes landed on me and his mouth clamped shut. He'd probably thought he was discussing business in front of an unsuspecting minor.

David laughed a bit and put a hand on my shoulder. "Holden, I'd like you to meet Alex Rider." Holden's eyes widened.

I extended a hand to shake his and nodded. "Nice to meet you, sir."

He smiled. "Dennis Holden. It's a pleasure to meet you, Alex Rider. I've heard a lot about you."

"I can't say I'm surprised," I muttered. Ben glanced at me but didn't say anything.

We all got out on the same floor. Holden and David had their heads bent together as Ben and I followed them down a white corridor. Several doors were set at intervals with different names and titles. I didn't bother to read all of them but instead stole a glance at Ben. He looked exhausted; there were dark circles under his eyes.

"Ben." He looked at me. "Listen, about yesterday…"

Before I could continue, David called back to us. "We're here." As we approached him, he trained his gaze on me. "Alex, I'm going to trust that you won't do anything stupid while you're here."

"That may depend on your definition of stupid," I said but no one heard me as we went through a thick, heavy door… and stared.

We had entered a massive central room of some sort. Everywhere I looked it was busy, busy, and even busier. CIA agents and officers were bustling about at the dozens of desks with computers—they were doing things like discussing files or making calls. They were dressed in formal work clothes and I spotted several guns. Some people kept them within their jackets. Others had them promptly featured at their waist or beside them on their desk. My ears were filled with chatter and telephones ringing. I glanced up and saw a huge television screen several yards across hanging on the wall. It was displaying a range of information using charts, maps, and files, much of which looked confusing and complicated. Even at eight o' clock in the evening, these people were hard at work.

"Alex, keep up, will you?" David waved me over. He was at the foot of the stairs leading to a metal balcony opposite the giant TV. Snapping back into focus, I went after him, trying to ignore the business around me. A door on the balcony led to a small conference room complete with a long table, chairs, and a projector screen. Accompanying the chairs were small tablets, almost the size of a laptop. James and Stark were there along with Holden and two other men.

Introductions were made. The older man was Mr. Garcia, Director of the CIA. He seemed to be in his fifties with salt-and-pepper hair and was shorter than me by a few inches. According to him, he'd made it his "personal obligation" to attend my briefing (so that's what I was here for) and congratulate me on my accomplishments. The second man, closer to his thirties, was Anthony Payne, Deputy and second to Mr. Garcia. "Please, call me Anthony," he told me. A glint in his eye and his body posture gave him an air of cool confidence.

Once we were all seated at the table, I examined the tablet sitting before me. It took me a moment to recognize Windows XP's latest release of the Tablet PC. I played a bit with the swiveling screen, stopping when I saw that Stark was watching me disapprovingly. I resorted to the stylus pen, twirling it between my fingers.

The lights were dimmed and David switched on the projector so that files of information were fading onto the screen. A picture of a scruffy man appeared, the same as the one on all of the tablets.

"This… is Henry Mather," he began and then I was lost to the rest of the meeting. I was the only one who needed the briefing; everyone else was filled in on the situation concerning Addie. As I learned more and more about what we were up against, it dawned on me that while my duty was to protect her, I really didn't even know that much. Apparently they had dispatched a double agent just after the gas station incident to infiltrate Castillo's men. He had been there on the inside, pretending to assist Mather in getting rid of Addie. The number of men working with Mather was undetermined but one of them had been Samuel Webb, the man from the beach. A few days ago, David's unit had received Intel from the double agent.

"Johnson managed to send us a message when Mather wasn't looking," Julia explained to me. "Unfortunately, the message was intercepted by one of Mather's other men, but not before we received part of it. He warned us that Mather keeps changing his plans on how to capture Addie… but we never got the information about what some of those were. Since that message was intercepted, we haven't heard from Johnson."

Briefly my mind flashed towards the conversation Addie and I had yesterday. The same horrific thing had happened to her brother.

"I'm surprised they're not moving any faster," I thought aloud. "How come Castillo doesn't just hire an assassin to do the job? He's got men that are indecisive and—"

"Castillo doesn't care how it's done." It was Anthony now that spoke. Pointing to the picture of Mather, he continued, "Castillo had originally employed him as a torture expert. Knowing this and the fact that it's Mather's job to take Daniels out…"

"His indecision comes from wanting to inflict as much pain as possible," Ben finished in a soft voice. "He's a sadist, Alex."

I felt my stomach lurch. This man was looking for ways to die painfully and slowly. The thought made my head spin and an unpleasant taste fill my mouth.

"But they'll be moving fast," Brian added. For once I saw the haughtiness absent on his face, replaced by seriousness. "They've found out that a CIA agent had been spying on them; they'll be watching their backs and they even might have moved their due date."

"Due date?" I asked.

"That's what they call the day Addie's supposed to die," Anthony explained, staring at me. I shut my eyes. Mather and his men were sick.

I turned to the tablet and used the stylus to sift through its contents. "Do you have any idea where they are? Do they have a base of some sort?"

David shook his head. "All we know is that they're somewhere very hot with little vegetation. Mather made sure his men had no idea where they are."

"And what about Webb? How come he was employed if he's such an amateur?"

Ben answered this time. "He's known to be very... desperate. I'm guessing Mather let him in on the job on a whim. I don't wanna say that he has a soft side."

"How kind of him," I mumbled. "So what now? We obviously can't move in on them if we don't have a location. We don't have details on their plan, leaving us to expect almost anything to happen." I sighed, sitting back in my chair. "We have nothing." I couldn't imagine how it could get any worse.

There was a knock on the door. We all turned to see a woman with pin straight black hair come in with a distraught look on her face. "Reyes, Mr. Garcia…"

Mr. Garcia stood up, urgency overtaking him. "What is it, Connors?"

"We've got something on Mather. It's urgent."

The agents hurried from their seats and David took me by my elbow. The woman, Connors, saw and hesitated. "Sir… The boy." I could tell she wanted to say more, but not with me in the room.

Everyone's eyes were on me. David seemed to think hard for a few seconds before coming to a decision. "Alright. Alex, you stay here in this room. Wait for me and don't go anywhere." I watched them all leave and go down the stairs and thought back to what Connors had said. The boy. I was eighteen years old, a legal adult in their country. When was I going to be treated my age?

Connors was explaining something at a desk when I caught up to them, gesturing towards the documents in her hands. "… came in just a few minutes ago. I guess we saw it coming but there's almost nothing more we can do. If both of them are in danger…"

"What's happened?"

They all whirled around. Ben frowned while David looked flustered. "Alex, I told you to stay up there—"

"I'm not staying anywhere when your business involves me," I replied, glancing at the papers Connors was trying to shield from me. "Tell me what's going on."

Ben blew out a sigh. "Just tell him. He's part of this as much as we are." I tried to give him a grateful smile but I was sure it more closely resembled a grimace. He simply nodded.

David ran a hand through his hair before saying, "It's Mather. It seems that his plans have… well, not changed, but gotten more complicated." He took the files from Connors and handed them to me. "We'd seen this coming and this is the proof." There was a photo attached to the first page and I did a double take.

There were the dark grim eyes and the unsmiling mouth. Behind them was a painful, cruel history, making the face look older. Older and beaten. He looked like he'd been through hell and back.

It was me.

As I tried to get a hold of the meaning of the documents, David continued to speak. "Mather is an extremely dangerous man, Alex, a torture expert. He'll stop at nothing to get what he wants."

"He wants Addie dead, I know."

He shook his head. "Not just her… he wants something more."

"Which is…?" I raised a brow and watched him and Ben exchange glances. My stomach churned in anticipation. Even the other agents around me looked uneasy; Mr. Garcia's eyes were softened with concern.

David looked me directly in the eye. "You, Alex. He wants you."


-Addie-

It happened Friday at lunch.

I was sitting with Kylie, Arianna, Derek, and other friends at a table inside the cafeteria. It was cloudy today and no one was in the mood to go outside. All our food was laid out before us under the scrutiny of our gazes. It was one of those times when we piled our grub together and traded. My Twix bar was safely tucked into the pocket of my sweater; no one was allowed to touch my chocolate.

"This sucks," Kylie pouted, her chin in one hand and the other rolling an orange back and forth. "All we have is healthy stuff. How come no one brought any candy? Someone always brings candy."

"I think we all know who did," Derek replied, raising a brow at me. "She just doesn't wanna share." I stuck my tongue out and he grinned.

Arianna slid a yogurt across the table. "Try this. At least it tastes good." She'd always been the healthiest eater out of all of us.

Derek's eyes widened. "Hey, you said I could have that!"

"You already have Addie's Vitamin Water, you moron! It's Kylie's turn to take something."

I stopped paying attention as Arianna and Derek bickered over the yogurt and Kylie protested that she wasn't even going to eat it anyway. Instead my eyes were trained on Alex who sat a few people away from me, laughing at someone's joke. We still hadn't really spoken since Wednesday night's fight and I had to be honest with myself: I missed him. It had been such a relief coming clean about Joshua; I'd felt like I was another step closer to something… until we'd decided to yell at each other. I didn't know how or why things had gone wrong but after thinking it all through, I felt that I really needed to apologize. I was just too embarrassed to.

Someone nudged my elbow and I realized it was Kylie. She asked me a question and I was too lost in my thoughts to tell her to repeat it, so I vaguely nodded my head. I turned back to look at Alex. I remembered when he'd come home last night from headquarters. There'd been nothing alarmingly off about him but something had to have happened… I could feel it in the way he carried himself.

Sighing, I decided I needed a good dose of chocolate to ease my mind. I reached into my pocket… and then reached into the other. Where was it? Had it fallen? I looked under the table. There were Derek's boots and my Converse, but no Twix bar. Then I realized what had happened.

Bringing my head up, I scowled. "Kylie! I told you no one could touch…"

I broke off. She had gotten up from the table to throw something away but was now frozen stiff like someone had thrown a switch. Her blue eyes glazed over and she appeared to be confused.

Then she fell to the ground and I watched in horror as she started twitching.

She was having a seizure.


Note: Cliffie! Hahaha, originally I didn't stop here; I kept writing but then I realized it might end up too long. Hopefully it pays off. Again, I'd love to see reviews! That's what keeps me going. Maybe I'll keep up this rapid updating...