Chapter 2: MI6

By: Wolfern

"They have a point."

Mrs. Jones narrowed her eyes at the lawyer. "What do you mean, they have a point? We paid you to make sure they don't have a point."

"They do, though. And I'm doing this pro bono."

"Where's your passion then, if you're pro bono?"

"Non-consensual pro bono. The cuts to legal aid went through last Friday."

That silenced Mrs. Jones. "Well," she said eventually, "What are our points, then?"

"We don't really have any."

"None?"

"Well, it's mainly because of Mr. Blunt, Ma'am."

"Just because he's Blunt doesn't make him actually blunt; surely he had some point."

"We can't really expect to gain custody when Blunt – with your approval – blackmailed an underage child into working with no payment – much like myself, I might add – in dangerous situations, and, knowingly, on several occasions, did not provide help when he subsequently required it."

"I did feel bad about it."

The lawyer sighed. She really looked as though she'd much rather be taking one of those all-in-one island resort packages Mrs. Jones had seen advertised on the corner. Did she really own nothing more…lawyer-ish…than the pink Hawaiian shirt she was sporting?

"And he tried to shoot me. Well, there was bulletproof glass and he would have missed anyway, but I think that makes us even."

"He only tried to shoot you because he thought you'd ordered his father's death."

"Which was a lie he was told by a terrorist agency," Mrs. Jones refused to turn her gaze to the aforementioned agency, sitting sharp and Hugo Bossed on the other side of the court. Even ASIS in the back had matching RM Williams. "Which he only got involved with because an assassin told him to." There. That was a point against Gregorovich, no? She straightened her jacket and entwined her hands in front of herself.

"He wouldn't have even heard of the assassin had you not used him in the first place."

"But we needed him!"

The inexorable gavel banged. "No private conversation!"

Mrs. Jones flinched her gaze towards the judge at the head of the room. She was reminded of the one time she had tried passing notes in class and been caught.

"Mrs. Jones, I understand you are currently representing the British foreign intelligence service, otherwise known as MI6?"

She sat up straight. "That would be correct. Our Chief is currently away –" hiding "– on urgent business, so for the time being Mr. Smithers, our Head of Technology, and I are managing the fort, as it were. And, um, this is our lawyer." She utterly, utterly refused to look at the heads of SCORPIA, who were snickering like she was back in primary school again for show-and-tell, with her holey tartan umbrella that had nothing on their brand-spanking-new electric toy car that even had flashing lights and made sounds. "Having had Alex with us the longest, we represent the most stable and supportive option for Alex's future guardians."

Her lawyer sighed again and checked her phone, and Mr. Smithers gave Mrs. Jones a reassuring smile, as though there was anything he could do about it. She wished he could. Switch off the power in the building, or set off all the alarms. But the fact of the matter was that this was about as escapable as an atom bomb exploding point-blank.

At least death from a bomb in close proximity would be quick.

"…Mrs. Jones?"

"Yes?" she startled.

"Is this true?"

Their lawyer had been speaking to the judge. Mrs. Jones hadn't listened to anything they'd said, and now the judge was looking at her with all the force of her secondary school teachers, combined. The wig wasn't just for show, it seemed. From across the room, she registered the SCORPIA representatives sitting entirely unmoved, waiting for her to dig her own grave.

She decided to hazard a guess. "…Yes, it's true." Lawyers didn't lie, did they? They only twisted the truth, much like Blunt did when trying to convince Mrs. Jones how necessary Alex was.

"You knowingly ignored calls for help from Mr. Rider, and blackmailed him into working for you?"

Well, that was exactly what the lawyer had said to her earlier. She didn't know why she had expected anything different. "That's… true, but –"

"Hardly stable and supportive," said Ethan Brooke. She pursed her lips at him with such vigor that had anyone reached in they might have expected to find a few coins.

"While it is true that we did not provide Mr. Rider with any method of calling for help on his first mission, we did provide him with such on his second mission." Smithers was finally demonstrating why he'd been invited to the meeting. Mrs. Jones smiled at the gadget master in relief.

"And yet when he did signal for help, you deliberately waited more than twenty-four hours in which to send help – despite having your personnel already stationed nearby."

Mrs. Jones could have cried. There was a sour taste at the back of a throat, so she took out a peppermint and placed it neatly on her tongue, savoring the cool burn as it trickled to the back of her mouth. It wasn't even her fault – she'd wanted to send the troops in immediately until Blunt had stopped her! It was all just so unfair.

"Still," the judge's throat cleared, "I understand that you were the one to give Mr. Rider his only weapon for that mission – the…exploding earring?"

"That would be correct," said Smithers.

"And this was under no orders from Mr. Blunt, and in fact, going against his direction?"

"Not directly. He didn't specify that I wasn't to give Mr. Rider such a… gadget. I merely did not gain approval when reviewing the other gadgets for the mission."

A certified genius. She knew it.

"And in future, of course, we intend to take all appropriate precautions with our assets." He cleared his throat and gave her an almost apologetic glance. "So long as our superiors allow it."

Mrs. Jones twitched. Well, if she was going down, then she'd go down fighting, on her own, just like in the sixth form against the monster known as Veronica.

"We're discussing Mr. Rider's custody, not his future missions," she said, squaring her shoulders.

"I should hope not."

"Look, Mr. Rider is a British citizen. As the only British applicants, in this case, we, therefore, have priority over Mr. Rider's custody."

A snort from the back of the room. "Didn't stop you loaning him out to us. Seemed like a pisser at the time."

Mrs. Jones had to stop herself rolling her eyes at Ethan Brooke. "As I recall, at the time it was 'recruit first, ask permission later'."

"Okay," Brooke held his hands up. "Don't get crook at me. So, we used him without asking. But that was because he landed in our waters after your mission sent him into space."

"Now you're just being obtuse. That was the CIA."

"Stop with the pissing match."

All heads turned towards the boy they were fighting over. "You're all the bloody same, anyway," he growled.

"Well that's not true," Mrs. Jones finally managed to say. "You've been with us much longer and I'd like to believe we have somewhat of a rapport now. After all, we are the good guys!"

"What – I work for you, and you don't deport me?"

"No –"

"I'm on my own unless you want something done?"

The judge spoke again. "Ah, that's right. As I understand, Mr. Rider also came to you for support when his friend's father was attacked at the behest of Mr. Damian Cray?"

That sour taste was back. Mrs. Jones took another peppermint. "That would be correct."

"And after disavowing him –"

"That was a matter of national security –"

"After disavowing him, you then dismissed him, knowing that he was going to investigate Mr. Cray himself?"

"That's true, but –"

"Ignoring the fact that he'd met the assassin, Mr. Gregorovich, who, as far as you knew, had a personal history with Mr. Rider's father and uncle, and did not have Mr. Rider's best interests at heart at the time?"

Mrs. Jones longed to scratch away the apologetic look the judge sent towards Gregorovich. "To be fair," she said instead, "We knew Gregorovich didn't harm him when they met again." It was that damned detective finding dirt on them, she just knew it. MI6 had hired a detective to investigate the other agencies for possible dirt to gain an advantage in the court, only to find that they were doing the same thing. Naturally, the next course of action was to hire a third detective to investigate the opposing dirt detectives but somewhere along the line the paperwork had been confused and their detective had only found dirt on the first detective. It was really all rather embarrassing when you untangled all the red tape.

Was that a smirk on Gregorovich's stone-like visage? How she longed to hate him. "The point of the matter is that MI6 represents Alex's own country, so we're as good as home to him –"

"I've moved around a lot," muttered Alex.

"And," she said, raising her voice, "as his first and longest employers, we represent a source of stability for Alex." As Deputy Head of MI6, Mrs. Jones was well aware that eye contact was vital for conveying sincerity, but she couldn't bring herself to look into Alex's eyes.

"Ah, stability," he said, nodding. "I can depend on you to consistently, reliably put my life in danger."

All the peppermint in the world could not erase this feeling.

The boy had no parents. His family had been taken from him. MI6 would grind him into dust… had they not already.

Tulip Jones made a decision – the Tulip Jones who had chosen to study a dual degree of Law and Engineering, after being told that Engineering was a man's job and that the best she could expect of Law was as a legal secretary; the Tulip Jones who had called Derek Smithers out on his disguise while recruiting him, who had agreed to keep it from Blunt, just in case. Tulip Jones who had independently arranged Jack Starbright's visa documents to be ready in an instant, should they be needed, who had compiled all the documents on everything MI6 had done relating to Alex Rider, to be sent to COBRA, or anyone else she chose.

"Well, then. As you feel that way… As Deputy Head of MI6, I'd like to rescind our offer of guardianship."

Well, that certainly put the blood before the leeches.

"Don't you want him?"

"He's your problem!"

"For God's sake, don't let Gregorovich have him!"

Tulip rolled her eyes. "Gregorovich is hardly the obvious choice here."

"What, you think Gregorovich isn't good enough?" Ash had stood.

"I think some of his decisions may be questionable, yes," she answered. "Why did he not harm Alex when he had the chance to? Why did he send Alex to SCORPIA? Because he thought they would be good guardians?"

"We do not appreciate your insinuation," hissed Dr. Three.

Gregorovich was frowning faintly.

Tulip looked towards her lawyer. "Do you think you'd be able to make sure Blunt doesn't find out what I've done in the records?" she whispered.

"Er…"

"I'll see what I can do to repeal the recent tax cuts?"

"…In that case, yes."

Meanwhile, the room had deteriorated into a mixture of hissed threats and loud overtures of civilized politeness that veiled much the same as the explicit threats, just much more obnoxious. The judge had taken to banging the gavel intermittently, as though attempting some sort of regular rhythm would restore order. Finally, they were startled into momentary quiet by the bellowing roar of "Silence!" The judge stared at them all, not a hair out of place in the wig, and continued. "The matter of Mr. Blunt's parentage is irrelevant to this court. Please remain focused on the matter at hand – namely, Mr. Rider's future custodian."

Ethan Brooke raised his arms. "Well for fuck's sake why don't we ask him who he wants, then?!"

With the eyes of some of the most powerful agencies on the world on him, the teen shrugged.

"You're the adults."