Kristen was on her last day of SAS training. The two weeks had toughened her body, hardened her resolve, trained her mind and blessed her with agility.
Anticipation made her fingers tingle though, as her team faced one last challenge: Get through a hallway of fire-bombs and swinging guillotines, dismantle an unknown explosive and get the hell out of there in less than 15 minutes. Oh, and they had to dodge invisible lasers of security—if the alarm was sounded, they'd have less than 5 minutes left no matter where they were.
They stood in the start of the hallway, waiting for the buzzer to blare and for them to start. She and Hawk were supposed to be going second, after Raptor scouted. Eagle and Falcon would follow, after they hacked into the security to see what other surprises they had in store for them. In fact, that was what the two of them were doing now, while Kristen, Hawk and Raptor had surveyed the obstacles for at least four minutes.
It would be hard. The fireballs were thrown out of the walls at seemingly random intervals, and the guillotines were placed every five feet. Even from where she stood, the oscillating blades looked wicked sharp.
Raptor blinked as the puzzle clicked into place. Every three and a half seconds, a fireball would be thrown. But it was every 7 seconds that a guillotine would swing; due to the fact it was so heavy and broad.
He relayed the fact to Chick and Hawk, telling them to tell Falcon and Eagle. The clock on the wall told him he had a minute left.
"Falcon, Eagle, you have about 2 minutes before you have to bloody well be in the hallway at least. I'll be gone soon; Hawk will tell you the intervals of time you'll have to get past. Wish me luck."
"Bon chance," he vaguely heard Chick mutter before the buzzer drowned out every noise and he dove into the fray.
Raptor ducked one fireball and skidded, nearly running into a guillotine as another firebomb exploded and his pant leg caught on fire. Thank god Falcon had disabled the security lasers for this hall; it was already quite a challenge. Hastily, he jumped through the path of the guillotine to the other side and beat out the fire. Looking back, he saw Chick and Hawk coming through the haze of smoke and swearing, sped up.
Hawk had yanked Kristen out of the way of an incoming fireball just in time and they leaped through the guillotine's way to hit the ground as another firebomb detonated.
Kristen had landed on bottom, and, eyes widening, had pushed him up as another fireball flew just past where his head had been in between their bodies. As soon as that had exploded when it hit the wall, causing debris to fly everywhere, Hawk pulled her up and waited for the guillotine to reach the high point on the other side.
Falcon and Eagle had now also entered the deteriorating hall in the space of three and a half minutes since they'd started. Raptor was now already almost at the end of the hall—Hawk gestured to Kristen to hurry up from two guillotines ahead. Gritting her teeth and throwing herself down again to army crawl; she dodged more fireballs and timed the guillotines correctly so that she caught up with him and Raptor two more minutes later.
The last two computer savvies reached them in thirty more seconds, by which Kristen had found the explosives and Raptor starting in on disentangling the wires. Eagle took it over from there, checking the timer and the amount of time the bomb had left.
Taking out a pair of "snips", Falcon re-checked the wires one more time before easing the red one into the crossing of the snip blades. Kristen held her breath and he pressed down.
Thank god all that happened was the digital clock's numbers blinking out.
Two and a half more minutes had passed, and they still needed to get out the same way they'd gotten in. By now, they only had six and a half more minutes, with the seconds trickling away.
And the firebombs were still exploding, the guillotines still swinging. Glancing at the clock, Raptor took off and leapt across a blade's path. Behind him, Eagle accidentally tripped Kristen—surprisingly easy to push off balance, for all of her height— who went careering straight towards a swinging executioner. As Eagle tried to dive and help her, she turned a somersault and ducked a couple more bombs as she crossed the blade's path.
Catching up to her, Eagle muttered a quick apology.
"Its fine," she answered, checking both ways before crossing another guillotine.
They'd wasted a whole minute on the exchange, with only about five minutes left.
The other men slipped past and then it was all over with three minutes to spare. The buzzer blared again, stopping the time.
Kristen hesitantly turned to the men in her team, knowing it was probably the last time they'd ever see each other.
"Alright. It's been nice going out here, but I'm pretty sure that I have to leave either today or tomorrow. And I don't know when I'll be able to say goodbye, so I'll be doing that now. Thanks Raptor, Eagle, Hawk, Falcon," she turned to each of them as she named them. "You've all taught me a lot, even if you don't know it. Keep in touch—or not?" Kristen offered her hand, and shook all of theirs with a smile quirking at her lips.
"What if we want to contact you?" Hawk asked suddenly.
She blinked. "Special Operations should know."
Sergeant Nichols soon appeared.
"Good work. Now, just get to your new cabin—across the forest. You'll be assigned something else tomorrow. As for you, Chick, you'll have to come with me."
"Guess this is goodbye," she actually grinned at the four of them. "I'll be seeing you. Maybe."
The four of them murmured that she wasn't as bad as they'd originally thought—bloody Americans might be bat shit crazy but loyal—, shifting uneasily as they did so and soon headed for the forest.
Kristen couldn't stop smiling as she watched them walk away, and the Sergeant cut in her reverie.
"Come with me. You'll be heading back to London."
With that, she turned her back on her former comrades, followed Sergeant Nichols to his Jeep and was driven off to the nearest subway to be shuttled off to MI6.
Hopefully, the men might actually kind of miss her.
--
It wasn't the train ride that was so freaky. It was that pretty soon, she'd be briefed on the mission for Chad. And she'd meet back up with Shen. Nerves would be the end of her.
Finally, the train skidded to a stop in London, and she got off, feeling vaguely apprehensive. There was supposed to be someone waiting for her, but she didn't have any more details than that.
Her eyes swept the crowd, looking for….anything really. Anything MI6 looking-ish. A man in a black suit caught her eye. It wasn't that the suit was out of the ordinary, it was just that—the ordinariness. His hair was a muddy shade of brown, and his sunglasses were so generic, his appearance so inconspicuous that it was conspicuous. Definetly MI6, Kristen thought.
She started making her way towards him, effectively cutting through the crowd to the corner where the man was. Formerly inactive, leaning against the wall, he straightened and seemed to watch her as she headed towards him,
When Kristen finally reached him, he asked, "Ms. Chang?"
"That would be me," she responded dryly.
"I'm your escort. Please follow me."
With that, he turned and she did indeed follow him outside to a black car. Again, the model looked like any of thousands in London, with no license plates.
Opening the door of the four-seater, the escort let her into the backseat, shut it firmly and got into the driver's seat to get them to MI6.
The ride there was silent, Kristen mainly looking out the window. Now, she had to prepare herself for Chad, hoping to death that Shen would be able to come with her. That would be the first step to revenge.
The driver parallel parked the car in front of Royal & General bank, coming to her side to open the door for her and she stepped out. The day was an overcast one, the sun a sort of pale light peeking from between gray clouds, she noted as she pulled open the glass doors of Royal & General and walked in.
It was exactly how she remembered it, and Kristen kept walking towards the glass offices of Mrs. Jones and Alan Blunt.
"Kristen!" Blunt greeted her satisfactorily. "I see that you've survived SAS training. You should feel proud in yourself—that's one of the highest levels of preparation in the United Kingdom. And I think only Alex and yourself are the only people of your age to go through it."
Great, because she totally needed to be reminded of Alex at the moment.
"Where's Shen?" Kristen asked, by way of answering.
"He should be here soon," Mrs. Jones answered. "How was your training?"
Why are they being so friendly?
"Decent. Do you have any new information on Chad?'
"I'm assuming you know of their president, Idriss Déby?"
"Yes." No, she didn't, but to show any weakness was deadly. And she could always read up on him later.
"He's been the subject of numerous coup attempts since 1990. He really does have a fragile hold on power. And he's paranoid that he will be overthrown—which he does have good reason too, there was a coup attempt that would have been successful only a few years ago—and the country is not in that great shape. That's why Scorpia expects their help to be strictly under the table, covertly felicitous and minimal. Therefore, they've put less than half their normal effort in."
Is this supposed to reassure me?
When Kristen didn't reply, Blunt's gaze hardened and he glanced at the newcomer closing the door behind him.
"Ah, Shen," he smiled widely. But it was still a smile without feeling.
Shen barely acknowledged him, his eyes analyzing Kristen to see if she was alright.
If there was anyone else in the room, they wouldn't have noticed anything different in her reaction.
But Mrs. Jones and Alan Blunt weren't "anyone else". They noticed the slight relaxation of her posture, the half degree's warmth in her eyes.
Now they could begin making real progress.
"You'll be flown to Chad today," Blunt continued as if nothing had happened. "And, since the coup is scheduled for October 29th, you'll have about a week and a half to observe, and let us know of the ones who would carry out the coup. If you take down Levi Kroll, that would be so much the better."
"You want us to protect their President, keep tabs on all the people who could, or would want to kill him." Shen repeated slowly, making sure he got it right. The insolent glare he added was just to let them know, that even with pretty much zero funds, he didn't jump for anyone.
Even the heads of MI6 Special Operations.
"Yes," Mrs. Jones met his eyes. "I'm sure that you'll agree with that."
"We accept," Kristen said calmly, her voice softer than the others' voices, yet just clear.
"Good. Head up to the 5th floor. Smithers will give you all the equipment you need."
The two dark-haired teens stood, not bothering to push in their chairs, and left the room.
Blunt asked his second in command, "Well? What d'you think? Do we have a success on our hands?"
Mrs. Jone's eyes still lingered on Kristen's retreating back.
"That Kristen Chang is a loose cannon."
Blunt almost looked impatient. "So is Alex Rider. And we know his success rate."
"She and Shen are valuable to us."
"As is Alex."
"What I'm saying is that those two are even more precious because they don't realize how much in demand they are," Mrs. Jones responded almost tartly. "For all their knowledge, for their skills, and that they've trained in China and here."
"We still don't know the girl's real motives."
"And couldn't we find out?"
A satisfied expression came across Blunt's face. "They've worked together well before. It should work."
"When do we send him in?"
"When there's two days left. Any earlier, they could abandon the original plan. Any later, he risks not being in top form."
"Then it's decided?"
"Yes. It's decided. We'll brief him after they've flown."
"What makes you think he'll say yes?"
Blunt glanced at Mrs. Jones strangely. "Haven't you noticed the way he's looked at Chang?"
Understanding dawned and she simply smiled.
--
Another chapter! And I'll be gone for like 1 ½ weeks, so I can't read all your reviews (sad face).
Hey guys, check out my brand-new homepage! It's in my profile page, just click on my name and it'll have "homepage" and a link. Let me know what you think. Also, should I put pictures of how I think my characters should look like?
Review Replies:
noIdon'twanttogivemynamehahaha: Hi! Thanks : ) Actually Kristen only thinks that it's a skyscraper because she's so intimidated by it, but it's really not. It's just a building in their camp!
AC a Reader and Mellorocx: Thanks, lol : )
SheWeapon1: You probably know where I'm going with this fic now xD! Do you like this chapter?