A/N: I think I managed to cover a number of the requests. I had to cut one of the snippets – Kurst and Dr Three after the check of Alex's tracker – because it contained spoilers.

Also, uh, happy 200k anniversary? Thank you for still reading and for being patient with this beast!

Crux had heard whispers of Cossack's apprentice. Cossack himself was a cold man. Harsh and merciless; the best SCORPIA had ever trained. Any child that could meet his exacting standards would be worth keeping an eye on.

Alex Rider – the newly christened Orion – had arrived straight from his graduation assignment. With most operatives it was a turning point in their career, proof of their skills and place in the hierarchy. With Orion, graduation seemed more like an afterthought to SCORPIA. It was something to pass but nothing to linger on since the boy and his mentor had been assigned to the heart of a major operation on the brink of failure immediately after.

SCORPIA had never doubted his skills. They had already planned his next assignment before they ever knew if he would complete his first.

Crux wasn't sure what she had expected. She had little experience with children that young but he wasn't really one, anyway. More like a very young adult in a conveniently harmless-looking package.

The boy that greeted her was a little overwhelmed by the whole experience, though he hid it quite well, and he played his role without a single misstep. He listened attentively to her lessons, followed instructions, and never once complained about the workload they had been given. She was used to it, of course, as was Cossack. Malagosto kept to a harsh schedule, true, but real operations were simply not something that training could have prepared anyone for. Alex Rider was exhausted, that was plainly obvious to Crux, but he went about his day and did his job to the best of his ability, stressed and sleep-deprived and all. His young age and need for sleep worked against him, but he did what he could to work around it. A little squeamish about torture but that was really a minor issue, and he was a growing boy. He would learn.

A very young adult, indeed.

One evening she handed him a sleek, expensive gown and taught him the basics of tango to get him used to moving in heels. He picked it up easily and followed her lead, as swift and assured as she could reasonably expect from a teenage boy that was still in the awkward stage of reaching his adult height.

Alex Rider was a fast learner, curious and focused. Alex Rider was a gift, a blank slate to turn into a masterpiece, and Crux had no idea how MI6 had allowed such potential to slip through their fingers.

If SCORPIA had anything to say about it – if Crux had anything to say about it – Orion would be spoken of in the breath as Cossack and Hunter and Nile. A legend in his own time.

SCORPIA's executive board had unanimously agreed to put Alex Rider's fate in Zeljan Kurst's hands. As Rider's biggest detractor on the board, a fair verdict would be guaranteed. No concessions would be made based on lingering fondness for his father or as a reward for Cossack's good service.

Well, 'fair verdict' in SCORPIA terms. Brendan Chase knew the deck had been heavily stacked against the boy. For all of Rider's excellent reports, Chase was still mildly surprised when the boy graduated – and with such excellent results, too.

He had seen the boy's graduation assignment, of course, as they all had. Alex Rider's life had hung in the balance for long minutes afterwards until even Kurst had to reluctantly admit that the boy had surpassed every expectation of a new graduate. They had demanded the impossible of him and he had succeeded. For that alone, he deserved a chance.

Cossack had waited silently, patiently through it all for the final verdict. If he'd had any feelings one way or the other about the fact that he would be the one to settle matters in the case of a unfavourable decision, even the board couldn't tell.

Brendan Chase's first actual meeting with the boy – Orion, and how appropriate it was – came in the final days of Operation Damocles.

His first impression was that Alex Rider was far more aware of the precariousness of his situation than any other newly graduated operative that Chase had met. Perhaps it was something to bring to Malagosto. Orion did not have the overconfidence and unwarranted pride. He did not have the quiet calm of an experienced operative, either, but he had the obedience down pat. No questions, no arguments, no opinions. A healthy fear for his life seemed to have instilled in him the understanding that could take new graduates months or years to learn, for those that lived that long. SCORPIA did not pay him to have personal opinions. He was a weapon, an exceptionally skilled and expensive one, and the extended will of the board. Their will was his. His only job was to carry out his orders.

Chase suspected Cossack had beaten that fact into Orion. There would be few other ways to teach a teenage boy that sort of silent grace and humility, and Alex Rider understood perhaps a little too well to have picked it up on his own.

Orion arrived with Cossack and Crux in his female disguise and with no sign at all of any discomfort. Chase kept an eye on him the entire time, and while the boy moved like the trained operative he was and not at all like a normal teenage girl, he never fidgeted or looked uncomfortable.

He simply waited, silent and patient, until Chase finally focused on him. Cossack had worked wonders with the boy.

"Now, Orion ..."

Chase turned the boy's head to get a closer look at what Crux had managed to do with him. The boy didn't resist. He reminded Chase a little of the colts he had grown up with years ago. Still a little skittish but trained enough to yield to the whims of his owners.

Crux was an excellent teacher in more than just torture and pain, it seemed. Orion made for a tall girl but he still hadn't filled out the way an adult would. It would be a useful disguise for a good while yet. Perhaps they would send him back to Malagosto later for a few weeks of intensive tutoring in disguises. Hunter hadn't been quite right for it, but his son had been trained as a spy from birth. Orion would adapt in a way that Hunter wouldn't really have been able to.

Chase let go of Orion again. "That is very well done. Very, very well. And for a week and a half of short lessons? Exceptional work. I think Crux might be due for a bonus. Let me see your walk and body language."

No arguments and no hesitation. Orion obeyed easily. He didn't have the practice or the grace of someone properly trained, but he did quite well, anyway. A little cautious but the potential was certainly there. Chase felt a flicker of annoyance that Crux already had a new assignment. If she had been given a month to teach the boy, and not just a week and a half -

- but it was no matter. They could handle that later. The boy was SCORPIA's for at least the next five years. Perhaps not a future Cossack, he did not have the personality for it, but he could easily become an exceptional operative on his own. Five years could change a lot. Cossack seemed determined to remove any lingering morals the child had left.

"Exceptional work, indeed," Chase repeated, referring as much to Cossack as to Crux. "All you need now is enough practice to make it second nature."

"Thank you, sir," the boy said, speaking for the first time.

His eyes looked red, and he couldn't quite hide his exhaustion, but his voice was calm and even. The adult the executive board had judged him as and not the harmless child that MI6 had seen.

MI6 had never understood the sort of prize they had been given, but SCORPIA did, and they would make good use of it.

MI6 easily got the surveillance records from Singapore. They weren't the only ones that wanted a positive ID on the teenage operative. Alexander Owen was hard to recognise, but not to the people who had already used him as an agent several times.

Alex Rider had been in Singapore. The surveillance photos of Daniel Owen revealed what was clearly a disguised Yassen Gregorovich. MI6 had worked with several theories regarding Alex Rider's place with SCORPIA. It started to appear like Cossack had decided to shape Hunter's son into a replacement for the man who had betrayed him. With Cossack as the mentor rather than the student this time around, but a Gregorovich-Rider partnership again.

Given the calibre of assassin the last such partnership had resulted in, it was no surprise to anyone in the know when Alex Rider got moved quite a few places up on the various wanted lists in circulation.

The newly-dubbed team Sagitta's first meeting with their boss for the Miami mission was … unusual. They had wondered a little on the flight. It was the first time they had been called in for a large-scale operation, and certainly the first time one of SCORPIA's assassins had requested them specifically. They had worked with operatives before, but that was coincidence. Marcus' team happened to have been in the area and available.

They knew of Cossack. Everyone did. The fact that the man ran the Miami mission was both reassuring and mildly worrying for the same reason. Cossack had a reputation for brutal competence. He also didn't have much patience with those who did not share that same competence.

Orion was an unknown. They knew nothing but his – her? - name, and they had been busy in the Sandbox for long enough that they were mostly out of the gossip loop. Any news they got were late at best and flat-out wrong more often than not.

The moment they connected the name 'Orion' with the young teenager in front of them – fifteen years old, fucking hell – was … something.

Marcus had been surprised, distrustful of his age … and then he had taken the time to really consider it. Orion was young, absolutely. He was also confident and his motions were graceful in a way that didn't have Cossack's unnatural ease but definitely had echoes of the same.

Not all operatives were trained at Malagosto, far from all of them were, but the graduates tended to have those minor tells. Warning signs to those who cared to pay attention.

Those were the tells that Marcus recognised now – that unnatural grace in a teenager, the name, the ease with which he worked with Cossack …

Orion was one of Malagosto's. They had put a fourteen-year-old through Malagosto. And he had graduated.

That was the moment Marcus knew. The mission was either going to go spectacularly wrong, or it was going to be the potential start of a profitable partnership. And right there and then, it really could have gone either way.

Joe Byrne got the joy of getting to update his people again when the FBI approached him for a favour in May. They didn't quite put it that way but that was the translation, beneath all the politics.

Alex Rider had been in the United States. Most likely Yassen Gregorovich had been with him. Because the FBI had resorted to SCORPIA to sort out their problems with a minor drug lord. They had no real proof of his identity, of course, but there was no one else it could have been. Not that young or entrusted with that much responsibility. It had not been one of SCORPIA's usual teenage employees, mostly untrained and expendable if they became a problem. That left very few other options.

Rider had passed his graduation assignment and obviously proven his worth in Singapore. Enough so that they trusted him with more important assignments now.

The FBI wanted the boy's identity confirmed if at all possible. The odds were good that SCORPIA would use Rider for the exchange, as a way to show off their new prize. It would fit with their usual methods, and certainly given Rider's history. The number of people in the intelligence community that had actual first-hand experience with Alex Rider was small, and once you removed MI6 from the equation – because the FBI would never go to them, and Joe really didn't blame them – it was really down to Joe himself. The only one in the CIA still alive who had enough experience with the boy to have a realistic chance to see through a deception and make a positive ID.

And so Joe Byrne found himself in Riyadh. It was not a bad place. A little warm for his tastes, a little too dusty sometimes, but nice enough. The air conditioning worked fine and he had stayed in far worse places. Nobody was trying to shoot him, at least. Well, more than usual, anyway.

The hotel chosen for the exchange was a high-end one that knew to ask no questions, and both sides of the exchange could work with that.

Joe was not surprised when Alex Rider stepped into the room. He had expected it. Rider looked like himself, Joe noticed, but not entirely. He was older, for one; almost a year older than when Joe had last seen him. The images from Singapore had been in disguise. This was the real Alex Rider. Taller and with broader shoulders, less the harmless schoolboy Joe had met but still very obviously just a child.

He moved with an echo of the same grace that Joe had seen in several other of SCORPIA's elite operatives. Not with the same lethal grace of Cossack or Nile, but he would get there in time, of that Joe had no doubt. The foundation was already there. He just had to survive long enough.

"Alex Rider." He couldn't keep the resignation from his voice. He had expected it but it still felt a little like a failure to see the kid there, with the distinct tells of a Malagosto-trained operative and as the representative of SCORPIA.

"Deputy Director Byrne. You weren't FBI last I heard."

A flicker of the boy's old personality. Alex Rider had been grudgingly respectful when Joe had met him that one time, a little resentful of the position he had been put in and a bit of a smartass, but a good kid.

Joe smiled. Faint and wry but genuine. "God forbid. I'm still not. I'm here as a favour. We thought it might be you. SCORPIA doesn't have too many teenagers employed, and certainly not ones they would trust with something that valuable. And that young to boot … that narrows it down to just one."

"And since we've met in person before, they sent you to confirm, just in case I was the contact."

If it bothered the kid, it didn't show. Then again, he would have been trained to hide any unwanted emotions. The CIA had a pretty decent idea of Malagosto's curriculum and could make a fair guess of Gregorovich's lessons as well.

"Well, your employers certainly left enough hints about you. It was worth it if we could confirm your identity." Anvil-sized hints in some cases. SCORPIA wanted the FBI to know that their teenage agent had managed what the FBI's couldn't. Petty little games. Joe hated them. And where Alex Rider went ... "I assume your presence means we've played host to Yassen Gregorovich as well."

The kid shrugged. "I can neither confirm nor deny SCORPIA business, sir."

A line that he had obviously been drilled in beforehand. Joe wasn't surprised. "I didn't expect you to. You're a lot more respectful than I remember."

He probably shouldn't have added the last part, shouldn't have let himself get caught up in SCORPIA's games, but Alex just shrugged a little again.

"You do represent our client, sir."

Fair point. Given his mentor, though, Joe had a second theory as well. "And Gregorovich doesn't tolerate backtalk, I imagine."

The Alex Rider Joe had met would have snapped back with something, orders and respectful behaviour be damned. As it was, all Joe got was a carefully bland look. "If you say so, sir. Should we get on with business before one of the snipers get an itchy trigger finger and sets off a major international incident?"

One of which was undoubtedly Gregorovich himself. Joe shook his head. "Might as well. You have the floor, Rider."

The boy nodded. "The FBI, as our client, paid for the retrieval and faked death of the target, any evidence in his home, and the deaths of his closest underlings. They offered a bonus should the deaths and general destruction of the target's business be blamed on a competitor. As of this morning, the current theory with the Miami police was still that a rival had successfully eliminated the target."

It sounded to Joe like he went through a check-list. Considering the briefing Joe himself had been given about the objectives, he probably did.

The heavy bag that the kid had brought with him was dumped on the table. There was something about the way he moved when he picked it up that caught Joe's attention. Injury? Possibly. Their analysts would be able to tell for sure.

"As agreed upon, the evidence found in the target's home, both physical and electronic. The death certificates and photographic evidence of his second and third in command's demise should fulfil that part of the request."

And there were another several items checked off on the list. Joe nodded. "Can't say I agree with their way to handle it, but at least they hired professionals. Ramos?"

The last item on the list. The kid opened the laptop he had brought as well and placed it in front of Joe. The image on the screen was a live feed of Ramos in a perfectly anonymous room. To Joe's trained eye, it could have been anywhere in half the world. There weren't even windows to give an idea of the time zone.

"At an undisclosed location in good condition," the kid replied. "The address will be given upon my safe return. Any attempt to hinder me will result in his execution."

"Of course it will." Standard SCORPIA procedure. Joe was a little surprised they hadn't sent in someone expendable like they preferred, but then, they seemed to want to show off their most recent prize. That would make it worth the risk to Alex Rider's life.

"My employers assume you have the necessary expertise to handle the interrogation. If not, an expert can be made available at the standard rate." The kid's voice was perfectly steady. Part of Joe was impressed. Part of him wondered just what methods they had used to train the boy. The CIA was well aware of what sort of RTI Malagosto's students went through, and Alex Rider would have been no exception. The fact that he could speak so calmly about it was more than Joe would have expected from a fifteen-year-old.

"I'm sure." Joe agreed dryly. SCORPIA knew what methods the CIA used on occasion. The CIA knew SCORPIA knew. Petty insults.

Alex took a breath, the first hint of unease, however slight, that Joe had seen from him. The kid was unnerved. Joe couldn't blame him. He was caught up in politics of the deadliest sort and he knew it. "I trust everything is to the client's satisfaction, then."

Joe glanced at one of the cameras in a silent question.

"Everything checks out. The transfer has been made," the voice in his earpiece spoke.

Joe's attention returned to Alex. "Everything seems to be in order. One half of the remaining payment has been transferred. The other half will follow once we have Ramos in custody."

Alex nodded a heartbeat later. Probably got his own instructions through his earpiece as well. "The money has been received, sir. If that was all ..."

The kid looked a little unnerved. Tense. He obviously wanted to get out of there and Joe couldn't blame him for that, either. Still, no one knew if they would ever get a chance like this again. The FBI analysts wanted something to work with. "You have quite a criminal record already."

"Wanted for the murder of Laurence Wright and for the bombing of an apartment in Singapore, wanted as a person of interest in a number of suspicious deaths in Singapore, and wanted for terrorist activities as a known member of a terrorist organisation," the kid summarised without missing a beat. "That last one would be SCORPIA, not MI6. I know sometimes I get those two confused. It's an easy mistake to make."

And so help him, but Rider sounded genuinely helpful. Joe almost wanted to smile. He had missed that bit of sass in the kid. A small bit of the kid that SCORPIA hadn't managed to destroy. SCORPIA and MI6, because it had become painfully clear that Blunt had to have left out a number of things in Rider's file as a minimum, not to mention severely messed up their management of a priceless asset.

Joe quite abruptly agreed with Rider. He wanted out of there, too. The analysts could make do with what they had. He wasn't about to keep the kid there any longer just because they wanted a fancy report from the shrinks. Alex Rider was already at the beck and call of a number of powerful people that used him with no regards to his own safety and well-being. Joe had been one of them before. He couldn't bring himself to do it again.

Joe shook his head. "Yes, Rider. That would be all."

The kid nodded. If he was relieved, he didn't show it, but he packed away the laptop with quick, efficient movements. Only when he was almost at the door did Joe speak again, a moment of impulse he couldn't quite stop and wasn't sure he wanted to.

"Alex."

The kid stopped by the door and turned to look back at him. Joe wondered what the odds were that they would ever meet again. Probably small. The life expectancy of a SCORPIA operative wasn't impressive and Rider was a hunted man. Child.

Fifteen years old. Jesus.

"You're a SCORPIA operative, a rogue MI6 agent, and Gregorovich's apprentice. You will be given no quarter." That warning was all Joe could do to help him, and maybe it was enough.

Alex nodded. "I know, sir."

Joe heard the underlying 'Thank you' and shrugged. It was the least he could do. The kid deserved a medal for what happened with Sarov, a medal and a normal damn life. Not this. Joe wasn't sure if the fact that the kid seemed to be pretty clear on his position and the danger he was in made it better or just that much worse.

The kid left. Closed the door behind him.

And for a long time Joe Byrne remained where he was, mentally calling Blunt and MI6 and the FBI every damn word in the book for pulling a fifteen-year-old child into that sort of game.

MI6 got a copy of the recording from Riyadh. A week after the actual meeting and with some reluctance on behalf of the FBI, but they got it.

It made for unsettling watching for Tulip Jones. "He takes after John."

Alex at fourteen had looked like a younger, smaller John Rider. Alex at fifteen, three inches taller, and far better trained … the similarities were startling. He moved very different than he had the last time Jones had seen him in person, too. He didn't quite have the cat-like grace of Gregorovich or Nile, but the influence was clear.

Calm. Confident. Secure enough in his position to walk into a potential trap, though that was likely on SCORPIA's command.

Respectful and obedient, too. A world away from the Alex Rider that Mrs Jones had come to know. Whatever Gregorovich and SCORPIA had done, they had him firmly under control.

She wondered what Ian Rider would have thought of that. What John would have thought. It was not the sort of life he had ever wanted for his son. Neither was MI6, for that matter. Would he have considered it the lesser of two evils, his son under Gregorovich's protection? She preferred not to think about it. Personal feelings had no place in intelligence work but even then, John Rider had always had a soft spot for his teenage apprentice. He had thought for a while that he had been able to sway the boy from his path. No one knew what had changed, but something obviously had, and Gregorovich had turned into a terribly efficient killer along the way.

Now those same hands were moulding John Rider's only child into a potentially just as efficient killer.

Alex Rider wasn't a killer. He certainly wasn't an assassin. Ian Rider had trained him as a spy, never as a killer. But even Tulip Jones found it hard to argue with the blood on the boy's hands.

Fifteen years old. SCORPIA would consider him a remarkable asset for his age alone. John Rider had been twenty when he had killed in the line of duty, and that had certainly been young enough. The psychological evaluations all agreed. Alex Rider was not a killer. The psychological damage caused by SCORPIA forcing him to become one would be lifelong and severe. Tulip Jones was just as aware that with the child's current position, he was unlikely to live long enough for that to ever become a serious problem.

Perhaps she had helped lay the foundations for that when she stood by and watched him forced into intelligence work by Blunt. Alex had come back a changed boy every time. A little colder. A little wearier. A little less innocent.

Blunt watched the proceedings just as carefully, though Jones suspected he didn't feel a flicker of emotions for it. "He's injured."

It was slight, barely there. Just a slight shift of someone expecting pain when he put the heavy bag on the table and working to minimize it.

"Bullet into ballistic fabric," Jones replied. "Based on the calibre and circumstances, our analysts say bruised ribs but not broken."

The FBI had not wanted to share their interrogation of the man they had paid SCORPIA to retrieve, but they had at least passed on the fact that Alex Rider had potentially been injured in the process, along with the child's codename. Orion. The hunter.

"A few weeks of lighter work, then."

A week by now, Jones knew. SCORPIA took care of injured agents, but Alex Rider would be cleared for active duty again soon and they had no idea of where to start the search.

Nice, Singapore, Miami … there was no pattern to his assignments so far. None but Yassen Gregorovich's presence, and that man was a ghost.

The recording ended. Mrs Jones was silent.

Finally Blunt spoke. "Initiate Operation Grief."

It was … unnerving to see Alex Rider once more seated in Alan Blunt's office. Tulip Jones would be the first to admit that. Save for Grief's self-inflicted scars, the similarities had been startling already, even a year down the line. With MI6's assistance … the scars were hidden, Grief's haircut and features subtly changed based on the recording from Riyadh, and for all intents and purposes, Alex Rider was back with MI6.

There were still differences, even if they were only noticeable to those familiar with the child in question. Grief's expression was hard, unhinged, mad. Rider had been calm and confident in Riyadh. Grief took after his biological … source … and even physical training wasn't enough to change that. Orion took after Hunter; he had a soldier's build and was trained to Malagosto standards on top of that. Grief would never have the same muscular build, and every month that passed would make those difference all the more obvious.

MI6 was running out of time fast if they wanted to make use of Grief's startling similarity to Alex Rider.

If the plan worked, Alex Rider would be dead; killed by SCORPIA as a suspected double agent. Julius Grief would likely be returned to the prison in Gibraltar if he survived, though Tulip Jones knew the odds of that were slim. She strongly suspected that Alan Blunt had contingency plans in place, should Grief survive. His survival was simply too inconvenient for too many powerful people.

If the plan failed, Alex Rider would live. He would remain one of SCORPIA's rising assets.

As Tulip Jones watched the unnerving boy in the chair, she couldn't deny the small part of her that hoped this would be one of the rare times when Blunt's plans failed.

Even knowing what Alex Rider had done, what his allegiance now was, what MI6 had ultimately pushed him into, there was a part of Tulip that remembered another boy in that same chair, a year younger and far more human, and wanted him to live.

Samantha Graff had lost patience with her husband's choice of staff shortly after the second security company in a year arrived on the island. She wasn't surprised when only fortunate circumstances and sheer dumb luck let them catch the CIA agent before he could report back to his superiors.

When Iohannes finally agreed that they were a waste of money, Samantha had long since found a suitable replacement.

SCORPIA had an exceptional reputation. Expensive, of course, and security wasn't their primary business, but they were professionals. If a client paid enough, they would provide whatever was required. Samantha Graff wanted the best and they had the money for it. Her husband hadn't been convinced but with two disastrous hiding decisions under his belt, he had agreed to give her suggestion a try.

It wasn't like having wanted criminals on the island would be something new, and SCORPIA would be represented as a potential customer, anyway. Samantha had thrown enough money at the problem and SCORPIA had provided. Enough money to provide her with one of the best assassins in the world as well as his young protégé that was quickly making a name for himself.

Iohannes had been impressed with Yassen Gregorovich, if less so with Alex Rider. A teenager wasn't much use, certainly not one quite that young, and the child was terribly expensive for someone that he had no use for.

Samantha would be the first to admit her husband was a bit short-sighted sometimes. Alex Rider was startling expensive for his age and experience because SCORPIA, like Samantha herself, understood potential.

If Iohannes considered Alex Rider useless, so much the better. Samantha would be delighted to make use of him. A hardened killer at the age of fifteen, an exceptionally skilled graduate of the best school of murder on the planet, sharp and adaptable, and by all accounts absolutely loyal to SCORPIA and Yassen Gregorovich.

SCORPIA knew who had hired them. Iohannes might pay the bills, but SCORPIA was very clear on the fact that Samantha had hired them in the first place.

It was an expensive arrangement, but there was something to be said for having two hired killers at her beck and call, and Samantha planned to make full use of that.

Ben Daniels wasn't sure what he had expected from his first long-term deep cover mission. His job as Hart's bodyguard turned out to be a lot more interesting than he had expected. The man had been under MI6's thumb for three months by the time Ben had arrived on the scene. Hart and MI6 had reached an uneasy agreement and Ben was the compromise. A handler and additional security.

Seven months later, Ben had been on three continents and a myriad of countries at Hart's side. The invitation to Graff's island hideaway had been well received. There were whispers that something was going on there, but no one had managed to get an agent in place. Through sheer luck, MI6 found themselves with an actual invitation.

Hart's yacht had been taken over by MI6 and completely rewired when they had put Ben in place as his handler. The crew wasn't all MI6, but most were former military and all of them knew to keep their mouths shut. That investment came to good use now.

Whatever security Graff had hired might take a closer look at Ben – Ben and any other 'security' brought along for the meeting – but they were unlikely to do the same to Hart. The man was ruthless and well-connected, and exceptionally dangerous for it. People respected him.

The simple solution was to let Hart handle the actual bugging.

They worked with several possibilities, ranging from pretty much no security and all the way up to the sort of precautions that would block even MI6's surveillance.

The former would be easy. The latter … the Graffs wouldn't keep up that sort of security forever. It was a nightmare for everyone involved. All Ben and Hart had to do was get the bugs in place and wait for the security level to be lowered again. They would miss out on some things, of course, but the bugs would work just fine again the moment MI6 sent them the signal to wake back up.

MI6 also made sure reinforcements were in place. A full SAS troop would be ready on a ship well beyond what anyone would consider suspicious. They would prefer to have surveillance in place and find out as much as they could first, but they also wanted backup for Ben. Sometimes things happened. They might not have the luxury of waiting if his cover was blown.

The first real complication appeared when the Boudicca arrived and was greeted by Yassen Gregorovich. MI6 had expected some degree of security. They hadn't expected Graff to hire SCORPIA for it, much less to pay the rather large salary someone like Gregorovich would demand.

Ben spotted the second complication as Hart and Gregorovich finished their greetings. He glanced towards the beach where another figure was waiting. Young, in SCORPIA uniform, but only a teenager. Fifteen, sixteen, maybe? And familiar. It clicked few seconds later.

Cub. Alex Rider, Gregorovich's apprentice according to the files, but that was not the name Ben had come to know him under.

Ben had expected deep cover operations to be a little dicey sometimes, to demand those unpleasant choices, but staring at the fifteen-year-old assassin he had once known as Cub, Ben Daniels knew the operation had just got a lot more complicated.

Tom Harris spent three weeks of his summer holiday in Washington, D.C. with Jack Starbright. It was the first time he had been in the States. He was excited and a little nervous, but mostly he was relieved. Three weeks away from home. Three weeks with someone he could actually talk to.

His parents' arguments had turned into an even messier divorce over the autumn. London property was expensive, and no one could quite agree on anything, and as a result they still lived together. Separate bedrooms, separate lives, but ... together. And fighting. A lot. Sometimes they would ignore each other entirely, but that never lasted long.

His brother was working, busy all summer, and when Jack had offered he could come visit, he hadn't even bothered to ask his parents first. It was a given they would agree, if only so they could fight without making an effort to get along 'for our son'. They never paid much attention anymore. They hadn't noticed that Tom's best friend was gone, hadn't noticed their son had grown quiet and distrustful over the year. Well, except when they were looking for something to fight about. Then his mood was because the other parent hadn't made enough of an effort to be there for him.

Tom couldn't talk to them. He wasn't allowed to. He had signed a ton of papers and he knew that nothing good would come from going against them. MI6 would find out, he was sure of it. He wasn't allowed to talk to his parents or his brother or his friends. Tom Harris had learned at the tender age of fourteen that his own government was not above blackmailing Alex Rider - his best friend, someone his own age - into life-threatening missions. He had quite abruptly gone from ignoring the news from the most part to wondering what went on behind the scenes. If MI6 would do that sort of thing, what else of the sort went on in the world?

The only person Tom could talk to was Jack. Then she had moved back to the US, and emails had to be kept in the vaguest of terms.

The invitation to come visit was a relief. Tom got no updates on Alex's situation other than 'If he contacts you, let us know', but he suspected that Jack did. Jack had warned him that she was under surveillance. Tom didn't mind; he suspected he was, too. Sometimes he would catch a glimpse of someone who didn't quite fit in and who'd be gone when he looked again.

It was another of those things he couldn't tell his parents.

Tom arrived in mid-July, the very day after school let out. Jack waited for him at the airport. He spotted her immediately, with her red hair and the way she lit up when she saw him. She also wasn't alone. There was a man around Jack's age with her. It was no one that Tom recognised and it definitely wasn't someone Jack seemed to care about all that much.

She ignored the man completely to give Tom a tight hug when he reached her. Tom let teenage dignity be teenage dignity and hugged her right back, not caring in the least what the man might think.

Judging by the hug, she had missed him just as much as he had missed her. He hadn't realised until he was all alone, with Jack in the States and Alex … somewhere, just how much time he had spent with them.

The man led them outside to a large, dark car. Jack didn't seem to think it was anything unusual, so Tom went along with it.

It was only when the doors were closed and the car took off that she introduced him. "Tom, this is Smith, our CIA shadow for the day. I told them that if they were going to follow us, anyway, they could at least be useful."

Huh. Tom took a closer look at Smith. It probably wasn't his real name but it was a lot nicer than what Jack might have called him instead. He looked … bland. Boring. Like he'd fit right in with the sort of wallpaper hotels liked. The perfect person to put on surveillance.

He was probably safe to talk around, then, too. Tom ignored the city beyond the dark windows and focused on Jack instead.

"Have you heard anything? Nobody tells me a thing."

It had been more than a year. Tom hoped someone would at least have told him if Alex had died. Jack would have, if they had told her.

Jack's expression darkened, though the glare was aimed at the CIA agent-turned-cabbie. The man kept his attention on the road and pointedly ignored her. It looked like an old argument to Tom. The CIA probably didn't want him to know anything, either. Jack didn't seem to care. She also didn't ask Tom if he was sure he wanted to know, though her expression told him that it was probably bad news.

"He's Yassen Gregorovich's apprentice. That's the assassin that killed Ian Rider, Alex's uncle."

Oh. Oh.

Tom took a sharp breath. Assassin. Apprentice. Tom wasn't stupid, he could fill in the blanks just fine.

His best friend was a killer at fifteen. While Tom had been at school, playing sports, listening to his parents fight, and wishing he could be anywhere else, Alex Rider had been somewhere, learning to kill. That explained why the INTERPOL alert had done nothing.

Tom couldn't imagine Alex as a killer. Based on Jack's glare, she blamed the CIA. Well, probably MI6, but the cabbie-agent was a convenient scapegoat.

They hunted assassins, didn't they? Almost as much as terrorists.

Tom nodded numbly.

"... Okay," he said, then repeated it a little stronger. "Okay."

"I'll tell you the full story when we get home," Jack said softly. "You deserve to know."

Whatever the CIA or MI6 might think. Tom nodded again. Part of him didn't want to know. A much bigger part of him knew that it was still Alex, still his friend, and he deserved to have someone who might understand and not just write him off as a killer.

Alex Rider had saved the world. Alex Rider was his friend. Tom owed it to him to listen.

Doped up on some strong painkillers and planted in a seat with strict instructions not to do anything stupid, Adams spent most of the flight asleep. Not all of it, though. Sometimes he woke up, from the broken ribs or stiff muscles or the weird dreams he always got when he was on the really strong stuff.

He'd had a moment when he thought he was done for. When he felt the impact in his chest and the blinding pain that followed. It was the closest call he'd had so far. He woke up from that memory, too. He doubted it would go away any time soon.

One of the times he opened his eyes, sluggish and a little confused, the plane was dark, the lights off. Most were asleep. The seats had been placed in clusters of four, two and two facing each other with a table in the middle, and left plenty of leg room to stretch out in. He thought he heard Aranda's snore in the next row. In the two seats across from him, Mace and Ivey were both asleep. On his right side, Jarek was deep asleep as well, favouring his injured arm. On his left was the wide aisle between the clusters of seats, and across from that …

… Cossack was at work, reading something on a laptop and occasionally typing a short string of something. And Orion was asleep against him, curled up in his own seat and using Yassen Gregorovich's shoulder as his pillow.

He looked his age at that moment. Orion was going to grow into a tall adult if he lived that long – and right now that was definitely not a certainty – but right there and then, he looked his fifteen years. It wasn't until then that Adams really noticed how tense the kid looked when he was awake. He hadn't slept much in the two days they had spent going to Dubai and back for that meeting with the board, and Adams couldn't blame him.

Cossack didn't seem to pay his shoulder decoration any notice.

The plane trembled slightly and levelled out again. Orion stirred.

Cossack's attention shifted from the laptop and to the teenager resting against him. He spoke in a low voice, the murmur swallowed by engine sounds. Moved slightly and ran a hand through Orion's hair in a soothing motion, and something in Adams' chest that had nothing to do with his cracked ribs twisted.

He had wondered if the board would consider the whole damn mess as big of a failure as he suspected. Cossack's brief gesture of comfort told him yes.

The man's lips moved again, the words so low that no sound reached beyond their seats. Orion said something back. Another brief sentence from Cossack, and the boy closed his eyes again.

Cossack glanced over. Adams managed to close his eyes the instant before Cossack spotted him. He wasn't supposed to have seen that. That had been for the two of them alone.

Adams did the sensible thing. He decided there and then that he had seen absolutely nothing and went back to sleep.

Two days after the attack on Santa Catarina Island, Ben Daniels found himself in London at the Royal & General for debriefing.

"... He let me go, sir," Ben finished up his summary of his encounter with Alex Rider. With Cub. Blunt and Jones knew everything, but they had taken a particular interest in Rider. "I saw him again briefly when we captured him but not after that."

I don't plan on going back into Blunt's hands alive.

Cub's words remained in Ben's mind, vicious and bitter. Ben didn't like his boss as a person – he doubted anyone knew Blunt well enough to get an idea of him as a person, much less take a liking to him – but it made him wonder about the kid's experiences with MI6. He had seen the official file. He wondered how much wasn't there. Alex Rider had no lost love for Blunt or MI6.

"Missing, presumed dead until we see evidence of his survival, then," Blunt concluded. Mrs Jones hesitated for just a moment before she made a note in her papers. "The boy has the luck of the devil. We can't afford to write him off yet."

Presumed dead. Cub.

Ben took a slow breath. "Sir?"

There was no emotion in Blunt's eyes, none at all. They were discussing the possible death of a fifteen-year-old, but they could have been talking about paperwork for all of the emotion the man showed. "SCORPIA does not take kindly to failure. They take a particularly dim view of treason. Rider is an intelligent child. MI6 used him for a reason. Don't look so unsettled, Agent Daniels. Rider knew the cost when he let you go. I suppose he felt the likely price was worth it. Even if SCORPIA does not discover his treason, the amount of intel you managed to retrieve shows a serious failure in security. Security that Rider was responsible for in Gregorovich's place."

Ben thought back to the kid, to the slight tremor in his hand and the moment Ben knew he wouldn't shoot, and he wondered if he had been wrong. If it hadn't been unwillingness to shoot but the knowledge that he was about to sign his own death warrant. Gregorovich had been a harsh mentor from what Ben had seen. He would not have been forgiving.

"He's a child, sir."

"He is a Malagosto graduate. You yourself treated him like an adult. If you hadn't, he would have killed you to escape. Don't allow his moment of weakness to deceive you. That would be all."

That was a clear dismissal. Ben wasn't done. It wasn't a good idea to argue with Blunt but he had to know.

"He told me he had been blackmailed into doing those missions for MI6." For you, he didn't say.

Blunt's eyes were grey and emotionless. There wasn't a shred of humanity in them. It was like watching a granite wall. "Rider always had a tendency towards exaggeration. He needed to be convinced of the importance of the missions, to be reminded of what was at stake, but in the end he always went willingly."

"He made it pretty clear he would die before he went back under your control." He had meant it, too, Ben had no doubt about that. Kids shouldn't talk about death so casually, much less be so obviously ready to carry through with the threat.

"Teenage dramatics," Blunt dismissed coldly. "Or perhaps he worried that someone might listen in on the confrontation. Rider is a trained killer. Gregorovich's apprentice. He has murdered at least five people in cold blood in the past four and a half month. Do you believe lying to be beyond him?"

"I believe he told the truth," Ben replied and continued before common sense could stop him. "I don't think he wanted to be at Brecon, either, and we never got an explanation about why he was there. If MI6 is blackmailing fourteen-year-olds into being spies -"

"Then what, Agent Daniels?" Blunt's words cut through Ben's tirade before it could start, pure, inhuman ice and utter disregard for a single thing Ben had said. "Rider was trained for the task from the moment he could walk. Ian Rider was one of our best agents. MI6 exists to protect British interests. That requires unpleasant decisions. The mission records will show that the use of Rider was worth every risk we took. The life one of agent, even a schoolboy, matters little against plans that could kill millions."

Then what, indeed.

Ben didn't speak. There wasn't anything he could say. He could curse out his boss who had all but admitted to blackmailing a schoolboy into a life-threatening mission, but that would do nothing. He could tell no one. He had no proof. And the boy in question wasn't even there anymore. That was the sort of people he worked for now, then. The sort willing to sacrifice a child for potential intel without blinking. He didn't like what that said about him.

And for the first time since Ben Daniels had seen Alex Rider's photo in a file of SCORPIA operatives, he understood why a fourteen-year-old kid had chosen to take his chances with Yassen Gregorovich.

The bar was called the Basement by most people familiar with it, mainly because of its location in a thoroughly-soundproofed basement. It was by invitation only and a little expensive, but Marcus assumed they had a lot of bribes to pay to keep it under the radar, too.

No one looked twice at Orion. He was fifteen, but he was in the company of Marcus and his men and that was all that mattered.

Marcus took Yassen's instructions of alcohol 'in moderation' to mean two drinks only, just to play it safe, and he passed those instructions on to his team. They would listen, too. Nobody wanted to risk drawing Cossack's displeasure, and definitely not after the end to that mission.

Someone had been sensible, because Jarek still had his arm in a sling. Adams looked a little groggy but not about to go anywhere. He was very careful with his ribs, though, and so was everyone else.

Marcus watched as most of his team headed straight for the bar and dragged Orion with them. Adams lingered for a little longer. He would need to stay clear of alcohol, anyway.

"Good to see you, boss," he said, just loud enough to be heard over the crowd and background music. It wasn't crowded but there was still plenty of noise.

Marcus could read between the lines just fine. His team hadn't been sure they would actually see him again. They had all heard stories of the board's punishment for failure when it came to the really important missions, and Santa Catarina had definitely counted.

Marcus' attention stayed focused on Orion's figure as he said something to Mace and the man laughed. "I can't take the credit for that. I just saw Orion – fifteen-year-old Orion – stand up to Zeljan Kurst and take full blame for the island fuck-up."

"Ballsy," Adams remarked. "Or really stupid."

"Maybe a bit of both," Marcus admitted. Kurst was a vicious bastard, the size of a bull and half as friendly. Marcus would go a long way to stay on the man's good side. He had expected Orion to be shot just for talking back, never mind the utter disaster that had been the MI6 agent.

"He didn't expect to get out alive," Marcus eventually continued. "I guess he figured that if he was dead, anyway, he had nothing to lose."

Adams was silent for a while. Up ahead, their team had started to look for a table. "He's got history with the board. That complicated family history he mentioned. Kurst was pretty harsh when they checked his tracker. If he handled the debriefing, I'm not surprised if Orion expected to be shot for that disaster."

Marcus considered his own observations and made a sound of agreement. It fit with what he had seen himself. They talked like they were familiar with each other, Kurst and Orion, and not like it was on good terms, either. An operative that drew the displeasure of a member of the board had to be lucky or skilled to stay alive. Based on what Marcus had seen so far, Orion counted as both.

"I don't think he read the part in the assassin's handbook where you're supposed to let the grunts take the blame," Adams continued. "Hell, he's just a kid. Can we keep him?"

Marcus' lips twitched slightly. "Well, to be fair, I think he already decided to keep us."

Marcus could live with that. There were a lot worse things than to be the go-to combat team of an operative willing to stand up to the board for them.

Yassen deliberately hadn't checked the passenger list for Alex's flight to Abu Dhabi. According to plans, Alex should have spent the night at a hotel in Abu Dhabi, but Yassen had just as deliberately not checked up on that, either. He had ordered a car and driver to be ready that morning, but he deliberately hadn't asked if Alex had checked in.

The fact that Alex had gone to visit Sagitta's two injured members gave him a fairly good idea of Alex's choice – to stay or to run – but he wouldn't know for sure until Alex reported at Malagosto … or failed to do so.

If Alex ran, the fallout would not be pleasant for either of them. Common sense told Yassen he should have kept an eye on the boy and been ready to act, should he have picked the wrong option.

Still, Yassen had chosen to stay out of it. If Alex Rider had enough, if he chose a life on the run, then so be it. Yassen would weather the consequences, as he had done before. He would not blame the child if that was the case, and he had wanted Alex to have the choice.

Alex Rider – not Orion, because that had been uniquely Alex – had risked his life to protect Marcus and his men. If necessary, he would have done the same for Yassen.

Yassen had plans, plans that were now swiftly changing and adapting with each new facet of Alex he saw. There had been a few options before. Now, with loyalty like that … several other options had just become available to him. To both of them.

If Alex Rider reported like he was supposed to, at least. If he chose to stay and not to run. Yassen would still need to test him, to be sure he would be reliable when it counted, but that was a minor thing.

The first thing Yassen Gregorovich spotted when he stepped into Malagosto's large dining hall was Alex Rider at d'Arc's side, brown eyes immediately focusing on him across the hall, and the almost instant flicker of relief that crossed the boy's features.

Yassen didn't smile. He wasn't about to show that kind of emotion in front of that many people. But for a moment, he was tempted.

Next: Alex adds another continent to his mission-count.