Hello, I thought, that I was dying
Because, I forgot to breath
It's night time now but the sun's not rising
I'm not sure where I am, but I want to leave
-Unknown, by Unknown
AFTERWARDS; Once upon a time there lived a boy called Alex Rider.
His parents died. His uncle died. A secret government agency recruited him and turned him into a weapon. And because kids aren't meant to be weapons, his mind broke, and he forgot to wonder why it had to be him.
His guardian died. A family took him in; for a precious month, he was normal. They threw him out, broke his heart, the secret government agency took him in again.
He made a friend then he lost that friend. His eyes grew cold, his gun was empty and his bullets resided in the still hearts of forgotten corpses. His soul broke. Nightmares stole his sleep, flashbacks stole his day, screams stole the silence he so desperately wished was his.
(Like a coward) he ran away. (Like a liar) he built a new life. (Like a fool) he watched it crash down around him, but with soul, heart and mind broken, he did nothing but watch it tumble and fall. And (like a selfish bastard) he didn't let go of the family he'd created until it was too late.
Just before the boy called Alex was gone, he'd look over the tale of his life and think maybe it was better that that boy went, because it was a tale of tragedy and stupidity, and he hated himself for doing the things he did. And afterwards, when he was but an empty husk, he'd be glad to forget about everything that happened.
Even if then was worse.
But that was later, much later, once everything had risen up and crashed down; all the heavens and the earth falling and burning in the pits of hell.
NOW; Alex unwrapped the small marble egg he'd bought in France (as a souvenir) and laid it on his bunk, then tipped the remainder of the bag onto the floor. He picked up the clothes without bloodstains and put them in one pile, too formal clothes in another, and clothes he was able to wear in the last; gathered up the last pile, stuffed it in a drawer, shoved the other two under the bunk- out of sight, out of mind- and sighed, because his unpacking was finished, and now he had to face his silently fuming team members.
He turned around and smiled at them pleasantly. "Hey, guys. How's stuff?"
This was rewarded with blank stares and Alex felt his smile falter a little.
Maybe they'd taken it worse then he'd thought...
"Um," he tried. "Would you stop staring? It's kinda freaky."
"Eel. Where were you for the past week?" Rat finally said, regarding him with a hard glare. This was, Alex thought rather sombrely, the Moment of Truth. He sat down on the floor, bit his lip and told them that- well, they knew he had worked for MI6, right? (This was met by tense nods and a promise to talk more about it later- something he wasn't looking forwards to). Well, um, he was working for them again. And, uh, that week? Away? It was a mission. In France. Did they like his tan?
They didn't answer the last question (Alex personally thought it suited him) and instead launched into a tirade asking why the hell he was working for an agency who 1) he'd run away from 2) had obviously made his life a misery and 3) well, they couldn't think of a three but why the hell was he working for them?
This prompted another Moment of Truth from Alex; to tell or not to tell?
He sat for a moment in silence, trying to figure out this complicated conundrum, then realised everyone was staring at him as if he was mentally ill.
(Which, ahem, he was.)
"Uh, well..." he winced, shrugged, went for the classic spy reply. "Classified." Because somehow he didn't think they'd take too well to him being blackmailed about them. And that might end them up in prison. Which was fine for people like Rat and Eagle, but which he'd feel bad about if it was any of the others...yes, he was joking.
"Come off it, Alex." Wolf growled. Alex winced at the name 'Alex'. They were really going hard core now. "We get enough of that classified shit from Fox. Just tell us why you agreed to work for MI6 when they drove you insane-" he winced again, "killed your family-" and again, "and then even you had the common sense to run away from them- and now you're going back!"
Alex just loved how Wolf said 'you', as if anyone else would've done so now but Alex was just so thick it was surprising that even he had thought to run away.
"So? Why is that, Alex?"
"Please stop calling me Alex." he winced (talking to Wolf seemed to have bought up a lot of wincing). "S'just Eel."
"Fine. Eel. Now- tell. Us."
"Well," he hesitated. "How much did Mrs Jones tell you? About me, I mean?"
"Why'd ya want to know that? So you can figure out what subjects not to talk about?" Rat said shrewdly. Alex shrugged.
"That you were recruited at fourteen." Leopard said in monotone. "You went on a number of successful missions. You were captured by the enemy; mentally tortured; escaped back to MI6 psychologically broken. They put you in a mental institute, in which you suffered flashbacks and nightmares, like you have now. You escaped, got some illegal documents, entered SAS."
"Huh," Alex mulled over this. "They told you less then I thought." But they knew the basics, and there was no reason to hide secrets any more. "'Kay, I'll fill you in."
They looked at him expectantly. "You might wanna sit down. This will take a while."
He took a deep breath. "Er, right. Well, when I was really young my parents died, my uncle took care of me, he died, then my guardian was taking care of me, MI6 hired me to complete a mission, I did, then another; I didn't want to, they threatened to deport my guardian, I didn't want that, I did a load more missions, my guardian died, I went to live in America, stuff happened, I came back, I went to MI6 of my own will and got them to hire me again, did a few more missions, made friends with some agents, got captured, tortured; agents died trying to rescue me, and the only other one I was friends with dragged me to a mental institute. I escaped, came here, then just now Mrs Jones hired me again so, um, I went on a mission in France, it was basically okay, and, yeah."
He paused. "That didn't take that long. Any questions?" Near everyone opened their mouths to say something and he rushed on. "No? Good. Okay. Well, I'm going for dinner now."
All moved as one to block his way to the door and he was then forced to answer the questions.
"How much did you get paid?"
"Really? That's what you wanted to ask?"
Eagle shrugged and grinned.
"Um, well, I didn't really get paid. Because it wasn't legal or anything. So they didn't have to pay me."
"WHAT? But I thought that's the reason you're working for them now?"
"Um, no."
A pause. Alex gave in.
"Fine. I'm working for them because theysaidthey'ddostufftoyouifIdidn't and anyway Monkey's got a criminal record!" He pointed at a now open mouthed Monkey, pleased his trick had worked to distract the attention from his garbled mess.
"Eel, Fox has used that trick on us loads of times." Snake said dismissively. "We know about Monkey. He told us."
Aw, shucks, Alex thought.
"We didn't know that!" Lion said. Everyone shrugged and turned to Alex.
"What was that thing you said, Eel? We didn't catch that."
He frowned, decided to get it over with, and told them. "They'd do stuff. To you guys. If I didn't."
"Blackmail?!" Leopard said, aghast. Rat turned to him, eyebrows raised.
"No shit Sherlock."
Leopard scowled.
"Yeah." Alex said uncomfortably. "I really don't want to talk about this any more. There's nothing we can do, so there's no point shouting or anything about it, and if you don't mind I'm really hungry right now. Bye."
Elbowing past the horde of muscled SAS men, Alex strode off.
Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider Alex Riderr Rider Alex Alex Rider etc., etc.
The next few days had a seemingly ethereal feel to them, and a taste of nostalgia. It was unanimously agreed to obey Eel and not mention any of the spy business- they were happy to live in this muffled state of drifting from task to task (in the faintest sense of drifting there could be, since this was, after all, Brecon Beacons), treating Eel once more as an adult an trying desperately to pretend they weren't living in the past.
And so; they played poker, they trained on the assault course. Eel and Rat placed bets on the smallest of things and they complained of the food at mealtimes. Days passed without a flashback, Eel swallowed his dreamless pills without complaint, they bickered amongst each-other, they went on cold, wet hikes with little in the way of supplies; they talked with the other units, attended dreary lectures, worked on skills with weapons, tried not to comment when Eel was a little bit slower, a little bit weaker, because now they knew the reason.
And some weight was added to the phrase 'ignorance is a blessing'.
Alex was happy enough to continue as if nothing had changed for as long as possible, and so put off the fact that he was doing an assassination that weekend and forgot to tell them a few times more than he could afford. Thankfully, his conscience was there with a plan; the hour before he left, blurt it out, and run off before they could react. The time spent doing the mission in question would give them time to cool off, and when he'd came back everything would be fine and rainbows would glow and birds would sing and little candy love hearts would fall from the heavens.
(And pigs, of course, would fly.)
The day of the assassination dawned.
He woke up a little earlier, trembling with nerves (not for the assassination, but for telling his unit mates of that fact) then (he was not a coward) backed down and decided to leave them a note.
Doing another mission, he scribbled. Back soon. Don't worry about me. Have fun doing whatever you're doing. Please don't be (that) mad.
Ale Eel.
He tore off a strip of duct tape from his handy supply (duct tape cures everything) and taped it to Rat's forehead. There was a good chance the man wouldn't notice it but hopefully everyone else would. Alex packed a few meagre supplies- unsure how long an assassination would take- shouldered his backpack and told the sergeant he was leaving for '6 business.
A black car picked him up (they were always black) and drove him to MI6 headquarters. "Hello." he said to the driver. "I'm Alex."
A moment of silence.
"It's polite to offer your name in return, you know."
No movement but the changing of gears.
"And rude not to speak."
A slight clenching of the driver's fingers on the wheel.
"Are you MI6? Or ex-MI6? Mean of them to put you on the job like this. I thought all ex-agents got killed. But then, I suppose you're still useful. A bit. I guess they'll kill you after."
The driver swung round, his mouth opened; seeing Alex's gleeful smile, he turned back to the front and continued driving, a muscle twitching in his jaw.
"Ah, well. Anyway. Did you know that the sky is sky-blue? I only just realised that. I always thought it was more a kind of turquoise, you know? But then I realised that sky-blue must be the colour of the sky, because it has sky in it. Strange, because sky-blue is nowhere near the colour turquoise."
This failed to procure further reaction.
"If you could be any animal, what would you be? I think I'd be a poodle. Because people like poodles and take care of them. No one's ever taken care of me." he inserted a puppy dog impression but it was wasted on the stoic driver, so he moved on. "And they never suspect them. They think they're all, you know, poodly and stuff, but inside they're actually tigers- ROAR!" He shouted the last bit, rearing up on his seat, an inch away from the driver's face.
He burst out laughing when the driver flinched back and pulled out a gun, putting it hurriedly back in his suit when he realised there was no threat.
"I knew you had a gun!" Alex said, amidst laughter. "I so knew it! They never give me guns, you know. Only SAS give me a gun. And then it's only on the shooting range. You'd think '6 would give me a gun for missions, but noooo, Mrs Jones said it's completely not important, that I can use much better things like, I don't know, my biceps. Which I admit is a pretty good idea, since my biceps are to die for." he flexed the said muscles. "Men turn gay for these rock hard pretties."
The driver's eyebrow twitched.
"Oh, are you gay? Sorry. These are probably doing a lot of harm to your inner self control. I expect you're trying immensely hard to stop yourself pouncing on me and doing totally unspeakable things. I'll just cover them then." He pulled his shirt arms down and burst into a fresh wave of laughter when a scowl appeared momentarily on the driver's face.
"Anyway," he said, when he'd regained control. "I have this brother called Ben. He has pink hair and a blue eyeball and is gay as well, so I can hook you guys up. Oh wait, he's made up. Shame. I have a lot of made up friends. I had a very desolate childhood, you know. Secluded by my cruel classmates. Isolated by my cruel teacher. Shunned by my parents. Dammit, that's a lie as well. I was actually very popular and my parents are dead." he laughed again, because this was amazingly funny, and the driver took an unnecessarily harsh turn round the corner. "You probably think I'm a compulsive liar or something. I'm actually not; it's just around you, because you're so hsirevird, which for your information is 'driverish', because you seem a lot like a driver when-"
"Thank god!" the driver shouted as the car slid to a stop. Alex looked up disappointedly; they were parked in front of Royal and General bank.
A shiver of foreboding ran across his spine and he forced his fingers to stop gripping the sides of his seat.
Ah well, that drive had been fun. "You can get out now." the driver said through gritted teeth.
"Yay! You're speaking!" Alex said, delighted. "Well, I'm not going out until you tell me your name."
"What? Get out, you-"
"Language." Alex tutted. "I said, I'm not getting out until you tell me your name."
"Fuck off and get out of my fucking car!"
Alex shrugged nonchalantly. "Fine. Well, about the 'driverish' thing, I'm pretty sure 'driverish' isn't a word. But that's just relative, isn't it? You can add 'ish' to anything and I think it becomes a word. I think. Because of my abused childhood I had little education so I don't know much about grammar and stuff, so-"
"Thomas!" interrupted the driver. "Thomas Radeling. Now GET OUT!"
Alex smiled, shouldered his backpack and stepped out of the car.
The drive had most definitely been fun, he mused. A perfect distraction for what was forthcoming- the assassination.
He hadn't really bothered about it until it was right in front of him, and now he was panicking. He had to kill someone. Ok, he'd done that plenty of times before, but he had to actually go out and kill someone- before it had been receive information, capture someone, infiltrate this, take down that. Kill a load of people, injure a load more. But not go out with the intent to get someone- and- and kill them.
They hadn't done anything to him. Chances were they wouldn't meet if it wasn't for this mission. For all he knew, they were being blackmailed to do whatever it was that had put them on the '6 hit-list. Maybe (a cruel echo of what he'd taunted Thomas with in the car) it was an old agent, who no longer had any use but knew too much. He shivered and pretended to himself that it was the wave of air conditioning that hit him when he stepped inside the bank.
He felt out of place in his military overalls, in this posh, starkly empty lobby, with glass doors and fake leaflets of the 'Royal and General bank' in stylish stacks on polished wood tables.
Alex spotted a secretary lounging uninterestedly at her desk and strode over, biting the edge of his lip and trying to appear confident. "Um." he said, to get her attention. "Could I see Mrs Jones?" She gazed at him, and looked down, scanning the list in front of her.
"Thomas Smith?" she asked. He hesitated, and realised this was a sort of sign from Mrs Jones; help us, we'll secure you in your position at SAS. This is Our Reward for good behaviour, and you will accept like a Good Little Dog.
"Yeah. Thomas Smith." he agreed.
"Go straight up. Lift's round the back-" she jerked her head to the direction. "And it's the first door on your right."
He shrugged, smiled at her, and ten minutes later was sitting opposite Mrs Jones and being debriefed.
Mrs Jones. Maybe once he'd thought her okay, but now he was clenching his fists to stop himself launching forwards and wrapping his hands round her neck because how dare she-
"-Alex, are you listening?" she said. He smiled blandly and nodded. "Okay, so we'll be driving you near to the safe-house where the target is stored. You'll enter the sewers and follow the map-" she slid a sheet of paper over to him, which was a map- "And crawl up a pipe to the house. Which comes to the reason why you are the one completing this assassination instead of one of our selective assassins; the pipe is too small to allow anyone but a child like you up it. Obviously you are the only one with the skills, so that is why you are completing this mission. Anyway- back on subject- you'll enter the house and comb all rooms for the target. Our sources tell us he'll be alone but expect the unexpected." she smiled wryly. "We'll provide you with a gun, to perform the killing. Doesn't matter if it's messy, but try and avoid identification; it doesn't matter, though, if you do leave something. Leave the body wherever you kill it."
Alex nodded as he took in the facts cleanly and efficiently, determining the best course of action.
"Go to Mr Jacobs- that's Mr Smithers replacement, by the way- to receive all the things you need for the mission. He'll then direct you to the agent who will show you the target's profile and then you will leave."
"What happened to Smithers?" Alex asked, before leaving. Mrs Jones regarded him coldly.
"He turned out to be a mole. He was accordingly dealt with."
A stab of betrayal hit Alex with the words, and a shiver at the words 'accordingly dealt with'; he let none of this show on his face, nodded to Mrs Jones, and exited (palming her tin of peppermints on the way out because he couldn't help himself.)
Mr Jacobs handed him a gun (Glock 17), a gun holster, a roll of ammunition, sewer overalls and boots, both dispensable, a special black clothing that would help him blend in more (like Harry Potter's invisibility cloak? He'd asked and was ignored) and a phone, used solely to communicate with MI6. Alex had attempted conversation and was ignored. Jacobs sent him to the next office along, to see the man who would brief him about the target.
He entered the room, closed the door, sat down and reared back- not unlocking his horrified eyes from the green ones of the man in front of him. "Robin?" he said, a harsh whisper.
Robin was twenty seven years old, MI6 agent and Alex's former friend.
When the boy had come back from America Robin, along with some others, had grudgingly been sent on a mission with him. When he proved to be on par with the rumours, they'd formed a tentative relationship which had grown stronger with each mission, until they could call each-other 'friends' and applied to be partners.
And then.
A mission gone wrong; Alex captured, tortured; Robin had been the one to drag him to the mental asylum. Robin had been the one to threaten the staff into silence, and to help secure Alex to the bed. And he'd been the one to walk away without so much as a goodbye.
To see the child again was... surprising, in the least. Robin nodded at him. "Hello, Alex." he said, voice cold, for their friendship was most definitely over and they should now proceed with business.
"It's Thomas." Alex said, just as coldly, and bit his lips and clenched his fists under the desk and they Proceeded To Business.
The target was a tanned, handsome man of thirty two years. His name was James (surname unknown) and he had no family other than a long time lover, Jenna Restarrar (why was that name so familiar?) who he was currently in an argument with.
Reason for termination order; classified.
Crimes; classified.
Part of group - (classified.)
Never had Alex hated the word so much.
He departed from the office (not able to resist a quick, filthy glare) and collapsed into the back-seat of a black car, whose driver was unfortunately not Thomas Radeling, but- "Mrs Jones? You're driving me?"
"Evidently." she said, and drove off.
Three minutes into the drive and she started talking. "Alex, I have to talk to you. You have to understand that everything I do is for the greater good and-"
He was pretty tired, and figured that since the drive was two hours it would help if he had a quick nap in the car.
What is it with me and making Alex fall asleep? This story, my other story; can't get away from it.
Hmm...
Anyway, my 'm' button isn't working properly. It has a crumb underneath it (this is a shared laptop) and every time I press it I have to press it extra hard, which is not natural and slows down my typing and is really annoying and you will not believe how many 'm's are in this story. More than any other letter, I think. It's so annoying!
And. My bike just got stolen. Yes, stolen. It was a good bike- and- sniffle- now, it's- it's gone- because I left it out that one time...so I am bike-less. For a year.
Okay, so this story two OC's were introduced- (well, three if you count Mr Jacobs, but he's not really important) and Thomas Radeling may be included ore in the story (depending on reader's requests- did you like him/Alex's attitude towards him? Want to hear more of that poor driver?) and Robin. Who is not important, will not be included any more (unless you really want me to, but I doubt you will) and was only to, like, demonstrate how many times Alex is betrayed. Poor kid :( and his troubles are not over...
That bit at the beginning? All will become clear soon...
In other news, I have finally laid out a plan for this story. I think it's gonna be about thirty chapters (give or take fifteen or so XD ) and I can say safely that there will be a sequel. Because the ending is something everyone will hate which I can't wait to write but leaves lots of loose ends so it needs a sequel.
More news on the sequel (what genre, crossover or not etc.) coming soon.
And- can't remember if I've said this already- thanks everyone who went over to Cruel, Hard World! I was so happy recognising pen names from this story on reviews for that one. Really supportive of you guys thank you so much! (Chapter three is up of that story, making it UNIQUE!)
Um, next chapter in five days. Will document assassination, and the aftermath...