Chapter Nine – "To Blame"
He was floating, he realised belatedly, as he stared vacantly at first the insides of his eyelids and later the ceiling, which appeared to be glowing. A figure edged its way into his line of sight and he stretched luxuriantly before acknowledging them.
"Ben," he addressed the man from his resting place on, once again, the floor. "You're beautiful." The aforementioned man spluttered before the surrounding area burst into laughter. The sound was like a melody; the different timbres of each man's separate laugh harmonised to create a beautiful cacophony of sound. He wanted to hug himself.
"Uh, Alex?" Fox asked him. "Codenames, remember?"
Alex smiled at him beatifically.
"Nope."
Fox looked down at him, concerned. "Are you feeling all right, Alex?"
Alex grinned.
"Indubitably. I feel great. Better than ever. On top of the world, you might say!" As if to prove this, he jumped up from his position splayed on the floor into a grand pose. "This is my kingdom and you are my subjects!"
Snake and Fox exchanged glances.
"…He's been doped." Snake ground out. "Again." He looked over to where Alex appeared to be knighting a highly amused Eagle in one of the corners of their cell. He called out to him.
"Alex."
"Yes?"
"What actually happened out there?"
Alex turned and walked over towards him, beckoning Eagle to follow him across the two-meter trek to Fox's side.
"One took a taser to the heart. 'Twas but a flesh wound."
Silence overcame the room; Wolf, as he was wont to do, broke it.
"Sorry- you what?"
Alex looked at him; hands nestled in Eagle's hair, which he had started plaiting in the absence of conversation.
"I what?"
"You- wait, what?"
Fox shook his head.
"I'm confused."
"As am I," Eagle contributed, gently batting Alex's hands away from his hair that was too short to plait anyway. "As. Am. I."
They stared at Alex as one; his attention, however, had moved on to other, more important, things, such as the crack on the wall from which a certain type of moss grew. Snake sighed.
"I guess we're not getting anything more out of him until that wears off then."
Wolf shook his head, angry at the helplessness he felt.
"What do you reckon it is?"
"I don't know," Snake shrugged. "Painkillers? Morphine maybe." He didn't mention that Alex's attitude was nothing like what was brought on by morphine. He didn't want to imagine what other drugs they could have given him. He carded a hand through greasy hair, cursing MI6 to the seventh circle of hell for involving a sixteen-year-old child in their foolish machinations.
ARARARARAR
Alan Blunt was currently taking afternoon tea in the MI6 headquarters when he was interrupted, rather rudely in his opinion, by a knock on the door signalling an end to the modicum of peace he had found in his daily ritual. He sighed, and placed the delicate bone china teacup he had been nursing out of harm's way before calling for whoever was on the other side of the door to enter. It was Mrs Jones. Her hair was pulled back into an elegant bun which did nothing to flatter her face; she wore a drab brown pantsuit that had been carefully tailored to bring as little attention as possible to her womanly assets; her shoes were flat as opposed to the towering heels favoured by some of the desk jockeys and personal assistants she had seen in the building. In other words, Mrs Jones had carefully constructed her appearance to look plain. She looked neither attractive nor unattractive nor did she appear threatening. This was the look of a former field agent – a former spy. As such, she should have been able to hide her expressions more carefully, but as it was her lips were set in a small frown, worry etched across her forehead, reminding the world that she was not as inhuman as she – as MI6 – would make us believe.
"Tulip." Alan acknowledged her curtly, yet not unkindly. He reached for the delicate teapot, wordlessly offering her a cup – a peace offering. She had not approved of his letting Alex run himself into the ground nor their prior treatment of him.
"Alan." She nodded, and a cup of tea was passed to her post-haste, its pleasant aroma jarring with the harsh scent of the peppermints she chewed compulsively to keep down other habits. It was, she realised absently as she sipped at it demurely, Darjeeling – a delicate, floral tea which was incongruous with Alan Blunt's personality. They sat in silence for a precious few moments.
"I take it," Blunt said, finally setting his tea to the side, "That you're here for more than just to catch up."
"Of course." Mrs Jones nodded and set her cup down as well, smoothing out her trousers in a nervous gesture. "Alan, we recently got a distress signal from one of Smithers' devices."
"Oh?"
"It was from Alex."
A heavy pause weighed down the room.
"You don't think-"
"Gosh no, Alan. The boy may be a risk-taker but he's not suicidal."
"Of course."
Silence once again reigned as Blunt fumbled with a pack of rich tea biscuits.
"Alan." Mrs Jones was rapidly losing patience. "Alex?"
"Yes, I suppose you're right. The snacks can wait until later. Now let's just pull up the tracking system."
A few minutes passed as Blunt's computer fired up some programme or other that would allow them to track the signal being made by Alex's pacemaker.
"Now let's just…" He paused again. "Hm. Tulip, are you sure you saw Alex's distress signal?"
"Of course I did," replied Mrs Jones, indignant.
"Of course, of course. Well, whatever it was, it's gone now." He swivelled around the monitor so she could look at the screen.
"But I-"
"Now, Tulip," he said, placating. "I'm sure you did. However, the pacemaker only tells us if Alex's heart needs help. The boy is, after all, operating under extreme stress, at an SAS training camp no less."
"But-"
"Tulip. We shan't discuss this."
Mrs Jones pursed her lips yet looked away, resigned.
"Sir."
This was standard practice. That, Mrs Jones knew. However, it didn't stop a pit of worry from settling uncomfortably in the bottom of her stomach, a place where it would remain for far longer than she could have foreseen, gnawing relentlessly at her psyche. She dismissed it as unfounded, explaining away her doubts and overall ignoring the warning they call 'gut instinct'.
Unbeknownst to her, and indeed most of the rest of MI6, a group of the desk jockeys in their skyscraper heels and low-cut tops had just returned from a night out on the lash and a raging hangover, plus their usual incompetence, led to them completing paperwork at an even slower rate than usual. Lying, swamped, in an in-tray was a memo detailing the disappearance of K-Unit in military code, as more and more documents and files and forms awaiting signatures were piled on. Had Alan Blunt known this he would have been a lot more receptive to the idea of heading out to the coordinates Alex's tracker had given them. As it was, he refused to acknowledge that there was any problem internally. His department worked impeccably, and he wouldn't hear any different.
Besides, what's the point in being the head of an organisation if you can't hire some eye candy?
ARARARARAR
A protracted moan broke Wolf from his near-catatonic state of slumber.
"Fuuuuck." The same voice groaned. "Why… Dear lord, why did you let me move about like that?"
Wolf sniggered.
"Because we like seeing you make an ass out of yourself."
The lights in the room had been dimmed to allow them to sleep; apparently Alex's antics had been annoying the guards enough that the chance of peace and quiet outweighed any desire to torture them with sleep deprivation. A shuffling sound could be heard, and then a sudden intake of breath.
"Shit," Alex muttered. "I do not remember that." Wolf could see more movement, and as he attempted to focus more on Alex he could see the boy laying on the floor with his head in Eagle's lap, who was sitting cross-legged, propped up against the wall. He was fiddling with his shirt or something from what he could tell. Suddenly, Alex cried out. "Oh god. Shitting fucking cock-sucking cum-gargling wank-face."
Wolf paled.
"What?"
Alex was panting heavily, his face scrunched up in pain.
"Wake up Snake." He groaned out breathily. Wolf scrambled to do so, shaking Snake, who lashed out at him half-heartedly, none-too-gently to wake him up. Snake was not pleased.
"Wolf," he growled out. "This is the first bit of sleep I've gotten in three days. If this isn't for a really good reason, I'm going to kill you."
"Alex is hurt."
Snake heaved out a long-suffering sigh, before moving to Alex's side.
"Of course you are," he sighed again. "You took a taser to the heart, you can't expect to be up to par right now." He looked at him inquisitively. "Frankly, I'm surprised you're still alive."
"'snot the taser that's the problem," Alex ground out around his clenched teeth. Breathing was difficult for him at the moment. After a long break filled with the rasping of his breathing, he spat out, with difficulty, "Cracked m'ribs." He caught his breath again. "Bastards must've laid into me while I was out. Think one of them's proper broken."
Snake's face set into a grimace as he slid the hem of Alex's shirt up over his torso, forgoing his compilation of brutal scars to touch his ribs gingerly, pressing down on each one awaiting response.
"One… two, three…" He worked his way downward, away from the bullet wound and its weird scar flesh that felt taut and unnatural under his fingers. "Seven… eight…"
Alex let out a pained hiss at his touch.
"Eight?" Snake enquired, pressing down on it again, harder this time.
"Oh god, that's the one." Alex's face contorted into a pained grimace as he replied, voice straining with the effort of coherent speech. Snake sighed and moved away from him, pulling the boy's shirt down as he went.
"It's definitely broken. There's nothing I can do though."
Alex cursed colourfully.
"You were wrong, though. It's not entirely broken. Just feels like a bad fracture. So yeah. Small mercies and such."
Alex looked very much like he wanted to tell Snake exactly where he could shove his small mercies.
"Well, fuck you all for letting me gallivant around in my fragile state." Wolf once again sniggered, and Alex scowled at him. "I probably did half of this myself."
Eagle and Fox were still asleep, and Snake told Alex as much.
"The best thing you can do right now is get some sleep, really. Who knows how much longer we'll be allowed to?"
Alex nodded, accepting this easily.
"Wait," he said suddenly. "How long was I out?"
Wolf answered him.
"Well I got taken away for about two hours, as did all the other guys here so in total you've been asleep at least eight hours? More likely nine."
"Oh."
He settled down, as if to sleep, before realisation suddenly hit him.
"Wait, you were taken in?"
"Yeah. Are you surprised?"
"What? No. Just… tired, is all."
He realised with a jolt that his 'escape attempt' had jeopardised K-Unit's safety. The shame and fury over what he'd pointlessly sacrificed weighed heavily on him, and the injustice he felt burnt through his veins, lancing him with ferocity to match, if not surpass, the pain of a few measly cracked ribs. He shuddered inwardly, a chill racing up his spine, and turned to face the wall as well as he could without getting a face-full of Eagle-crotch. His face burnt with outrage. K-Unit could never know.
ARARARARAR
Once again, four thousand miles away in Cuba, Yassen Gregorovich was not happy. In fact, the usually composed man was incensed, seething, incandescent with rage. The device implanted in the skull of every SCORPIA member had recently exposed to him a rather disturbing fact, namely that Alex Rider's heart had stopped and could somebody please come and drop by to clean up the mess, thanks? His hands shook with barely concealed fury as he opened his laptop to write a strongly worded email to SCORPIA's heads.
Yassen knew that MI6 would have their own way of tracking the boy – whom he severely doubted was dead – and it was now, officially, a race against time. His hands flew over the keyboard making countless errors in their haste, which he uncharacteristically ignored. Alex Rider's life was at stake, and if Yassen Gregorovich would own Alex Rider even if he had to personally assassinate Alan Blunt himself.
WOW has it EVER been a long time? Betcha thought I wasn't gonna upload anything, huh. But don't worry. I'm totally continuing, but MAN A2-level Art is some intensive shit. We've got this concertina book and I've gotta go at the rate of like 4 pages of sketches and paintings and shit A DAY so that's taking up a lot of my time. But excuses aside, here's the chapter!
Before anyone's like "why's Alex such a retard in the first bit? wtf dude" on me, have you ever been hopped up on too many drugs? Not even illegal stuff but stuff that's legal, like accidentally *cough* overdosing on codeine or something like that. Trust me, when you've done that you really do act like that. I accidentally took like double dosage in Physics this one time and I was bouncing off the walls. And that, my friends, is why my physics teacher thought I was a druggie. But yeah.
Uh, that aside... Sorry it's late again, hope you like it, and hopefully the jailbreak will be soon!
Love from (funnily enough) Little Miss Lover, AKA Nya~