Disclaimer: I don't own Alex Rider, but I do own Katie Harold and any other CIA worker you don't recognise (i.e. Troy and Turner.)

Los Angeles,

California,

United States of America

Somewhere on the lower levels of the CIA Headquarters in LA, a computer was on. It was the only source of light in the small room, lighting up the three walls in front of it. At the bottom of the screen it showed that it was past three A.M. A young girl, hardly any older than sixteen lay sleeping on the desk, right in between the keyboard, a cup of Coke, seeing as she despised coffee, and a million different sheets of paper, all of them with a Government stamp.

She was a computer programmer and 'hacker' for the CIA, and she was quite content with her job, even though she wasn't always treated with the same credibility as older agents. Two years ago, when the CIA and FBI wanted young teens to work as agents, she had been one of the first they asked, but turned them down. Field work wasn't her thing. She couldn't lie to save her own life.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

The girl stirred, the alarm from the computer waking her from her sleep. She squeezed her green blue eyes shut then opened them slightly, trying to adjust to the light in front of her. Her deep brown hair hanging loosely in front of her face she pushed away behind her ears. She reached over the desk and pressed the on button of a small table lamp. "Jesus fuck…" She muttered, noticing the fact that it was 3.15 in the morning. She kept blinking her eyes, trying to wake up to full consciousness, but was finding it harder than imagined.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She stared at the screen. Numbers, letter and odd signs put together in a way not usually used in sentences were flying down the screen. "What the..?" She pushed her glasses up from their position almost falling of her nose and scrolled down the screen. The strange sentences that would make no sense to most people confused her at the moment. Desperate to find a mistake, she looked over the pages again, but there was no one to find. She shook her head, and went over it again. And again, and again. There was no mistake to be found, but to her, that just couldn't be right…

'--

"Boss!" The girl pushed her way through a crowd of older agents, trying to get the attention of the chief of the division, Eric Avers. It was now 8.30 in the morning and she had spent a vast majority of the past hours trying to find something to prove the computer wrong or to see if there was some kind of flaw in her system. She had come to the conclusion though, that there wasn't anything wrong with the computer, nor had she found anything to prove the information she had received wrong either.
The elder man stopped in front of the coffee machine, grabbing himself a white mug with the writing 'I –heart- LA'. The girl grimaced as the loud noise of the coffeemaker reached her ears, she didn't see how people could drink that stuff, it tasted awful. If they needed caffeine, why not drink Coke or some other soda, hell, tea even, but coffee, that was just disgusting.

"What do you want kid?" he asked, bringing the coffee cup to his lips while looking up from the file he had just been handed by a senior agent. "Come on, walk with me, I haven't got all day." She followed him, almost jogging to keep up with him as he headed for his office.

"Well, sir, I need to" She paused, making her way through another group of people. "I need to talk to you about those files"

"Kid, we have a million files here, be more specific." She followed him into his office, and stood in the middle of the large room as he sat down behind his oak desk. "Well?" she frowned at the fact that he was still reading the other file while talking to her.

"The files, the ones we gave to MI6 on the mission Troy and Turner went on two years ago."

He hesitated a bit, obviously trying to remember what mission she was talking about. "Oh, yes, what about them?" He asked, looking back at the file in his hand.

"Well, someone's accessed them, that's what." The old man looked up from his file, an annoyed look on his slightly wrinkled face.

"People access those file's all the time." He said. "Was there a point to this?"

"Not these files sir." She protested. "These were the ones we made especially for the MI6, the ones that didn't contain more info than we were willing to give out."

"So, what's the problem then?"

"Well, sir, only four people had access to those files sir, me, Troy, Turner and Alex Rider." She pushed her glasses up again and continued. "Troy and Turner are dead, and I certainly didn't access them."

"What are you saying, kid?"

"Well, sir, I think Alex Rider may still be alive, and, well, accessing our files."

He sighed. The girl had quite an imagination, he realised. Dead agents accessing files, what would be next, Presidents cheating in elections? "Look, Katie," He stopped as the phone rang. "We'll talk about this later. Go see Wright in Counter-Terrorism, they need your help on something."

"But, sir"

"We will discuss this later, now go."

The girl sighed, pushing loose strands of hair behind her ear. "Yes sir." She muttered, realising defeat.

'—

The Counter-Terrorism offices where on the second from-the-top floor in the ten storey building, only eight of which were visible above ground level, in the outskirts of El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora la Reina de los Angeles de Porciuncula, or as most people knew it, Los Angeles. The office was to the outside world just another boring grey building that no one paid any particular amount of interest to. The CIA had another, smaller, office in the city, one that people not hired by the Central Intelligence Agency or the Government could come to if they had information, or if they needed protection.

Katharine 'Katie' Harold was currently walking the many flights of stairs it took to get from the second floor to the seventh, seeing as the elevator didn't seem to be on her side this morning. She frowned as she reached the last few steps. At the moment she really couldn't care less about what Counter-Terrorism needed help with, what she wanted to know was how the late MI6 agent Alex Rider could have accessed her files, especially since said agent had, supposedly, been dead for the past two years.

She pushed open the heavy, bullet-proof metal door entering into the CT offices, immediately being met by the loud chatter, phones ringing of the hooks and the computer beeping that was normal in the offices, had it not been like this, she would have easily thought something was very, very wrong. Half way inside the offices she was met by John Wright, who was basiclly the one responsible for the upkeep of the Counter-Terrorism computers.

"Please explain to me why I am helping you with the computers that are your responsibilities? I have things to do you know." She asked him as she followed him through the room.

John, a young man in his early twenties, with short brown-red hair that just covered the tip of his ears and grey-green eyes, laughed at her comment. He stood a good 190 centimetres above the ground, which meant that when ever he was to talk directly to her, he was looking down at her. "You are helping me, because your boss told you too." He paused. "Plus, you don't have anything better to do, and you know it Harold."

"Don't call me that! Call me Katie, hell, you can even call me Katharine, just not Harold!" She glared at him. She hated when people called her Harold, it made her sound like a guy. "And I so have better things to do. I'm on to something John, and it's something big, I just know it."

"Oh? You found the cave Bin Laden's hiding in?" He asked sarcastically, as he sat down at his desk, with Katie standing behind him.

"No…" She answered uncertainly, not really sure what he meant by that question.

"Then you're not on to something big."

"Screw you." She muttered, turning her attention to the computer screen. "So, what's the problem here?" Looking at the screen she couldn't find anything that stood out as wrong. John dragged the mouse to the upper left corner, clicking and closing the current window, revealing a black and red world map, which was also featured on the big screen on the wall, which had obvious flaws. She looked over the picture, mentally analyzing the situation. Coming to a solution she hit the Escape button, F6, F11 and then the Delete button. A small window opened on the middle of the screen and she typed in a username and password before hitting Enter. The window closed and the map went back to its usual green and blue colours.

"You couldn't fix that by yourself?" She asked angrily, mad that they would bother her with something so simple.
"I live to annoy you Harold." He shouted after her as she stomped away towards the stairs. She hurried down, muttering various curses to herself. People had no respect for her around here, hell, they had no respect for any of the junior members, not even the agents. She was starting to understand how Alex Rider must have felt while working for the MI6. But she was going to gain respect, she didn't know just how, but she had a pretty good feeling that if she was right about those files, she might just be able to get it.
--'---
The California sun shone brightly that afternoon. Every citizen of L.A. was used to the incredible heat that was basiclly a trademark for their region, most people walking around with water bottles in their hands, others using newspapers and magazines as fans. The Hollywood sign was clearly visible, the white contrasting against the amazing blueness of the sky. The sidewalks were filled with tourists and shoppers, the streets with endless lines of cars honking at each other for being too slow, or just because the drivers needed a way to release their pent up anger.
To Katie Harold, who spent most of her time in her small office in the CIA headquarters, walking down Melrose alone in the scorching temperature was quite foreign. Sure, she had done it before, but over the past years she had been working for the CIA, her social life had been, well, non-existing. Her family life, even more non-existing.
Her mother left her when she was still an infant and she had been raised alone by her father, a simple man who had his own business, where he helped people who needed it. It was quite interesting how she got her job. As a thirteen year old she spent most of her spare time helping her dad in his store or being on the computer 'doing her homework'. One day she had come over classified information the Government certainly wouldn't want out, and used that to get a job in the CIA when at fourteen the Government had her father's business was closed. She had walked straight into the smaller CIA office and told them it to them like it was and exactly what she planned on doing if they didn't give her a job that paid as much as her father used to earn.
She had been very surprised when they told her yes. She had been certain that they would just laugh at her at first, and then later try to arrest her or sue her for trying to black mail them. But then again, she had always been told by her teachers that she could be extremely convincing if she wanted something.

Katie turned away from the window of the fourth floor kitchen, the largest one and the one with the best view of the city she so rarely got to see up close. She took another sip of her Coke and a bite from her doughnut. Yes, she ate doughnuts. Screw the fact that they were cliché, she liked them, and obviously the fourth floor team did as well. She looked at the wall clock hanging on the wall in front of her. It was now 4.30 P.M. and she knew Eric Avers would be having a break around now. As she stood there, leaning against the windowsill, she couldn't help but wonder what she would be doing if she hadn't had this job. She would have been in school, no doubt, like every other normal sixteen year old, worried about looks, and clothes and boys instead of national security. But then again, she really wouldn't want it any other way.

'--
With new found courage and determination, Katie Harold walked, shoulders straight, head held up high into the second floor offices to speak to Eric Avers, her boss.

"Sir, we still haven't properly discussed the Alex Rider situation." She said quickly, cutting into the conversation he was currently having with one of the leading field-ops agents, Amir Araz. Eric Avers turned and looked sternly at her, his jaw clenched.
"What's she talking about?" The other agent asked. Avers features softened as he turned back to the dark skinned, dark haired agent in his late thirties. Amir Araz had been working for the CIA for ten years now, and before that he had been working for the army and the police. In all his years working for the Government, all his years anywhere even, he had never met anyone quite like Katharine Harold, an incredibly bright girl, especially for her age.
"Katie here is convinced the Alex Rider, a dead MI6 agents, who's been dead for two years" He emphasized the word 'two' heavily. "Is still alive, and has been hacking into our files."
The other agent looked from Eric to Katie and back again, looking for any kind of sign that this was some kind of strange inside joke between the two, or any kind of joke for that matter. The dead don't walk, they say, and they certainly don'thack into restricted CIA files. "Are you serious?" He finally asked the girl.
"A hundred and ten percent serious. It's the only explanation to how they were accessed. Alex Rider was the only person other than Troy, Turner and me who had the passwords to those files." She stated matter-of-factly.
"Well, when you put it like that…" He trailed off, studying the seriousness in the girl's eyes. She did make a very good point. No one knew much about Alex Rider's death, not even Alan Blunt, head of MI6 knew the specifics. And Alex Rider never did like being an agent, faking his death would have been an easy way for the teen to get out of it.
"You don't actually believe this Amir?" Eric questioned incredulously.
"She does make an interesting point, Eric. And even if it wasn't Alex Rider, someone did access those files, illegally. We should not choose to take this lightly, it could turn out to be a fatal mistake."
Eric Avers did not look pleased. Agent Araz was right, it could be serious, and he had treated it like nothing, and if it turned out to be critical, it would not look too good with his superiors. He sighed, a sign of his defeat. "Fine. Katie, I want you to look properly into this. But if I hear the name Alex Rider again, without it being relevant…" he finished there, not really knowing what exactly he could threaten the sixteen year old girl with.
"Yes sir!" She said, eyes showing clear signs of joy. "I promise I'll get to the bottom of this." She started walking and then stopped, looking over her shoulder. "Oh, and sir,…Alex Rider." She grinned and took off running down the hall towards the stairs, but could still hear her boss half yell a series of curses directed at her.

'—

Katie Harold spent the next week helping different units with small computer problems and the likes, and devoted the rest of her time to find out who had accessed file SKLTNKY2. And she had 'accidentally' come over the fact, that with the 8 or so hour time difference between L.A. and London, the files would have been accessed around 5 P.M. She had for the past seven days been trying to pick up were the hackers signal had been coming from, but because it had been amaturely scrambled and combining that with the fact that the CIA computers were loaded with more in progress computer work than usual, the trace was taking an agonizingly long time to lock onto the hackers position.

"Hey there Harold." She felt a heavy hand on her shoulder. She turned her neck around, looking into familiar eyes.

"What do you want, Wright?" She asked exasperated. She didn't need to be bothered right now. The computers working slow plus the fact that she really wanted the answers to her question already made her want to scream, she didn't need him to bother her.

"Can't a guy check up his friend? See how she's doing?" He glanced over her shoulder, trying to look at what she was doing. She quickly noticed and put down that window. "Aww, come on! I just wanna see what this 'big thing' your working on is. You've had your nose buried in it for a week!"

"You didn't believe me when I first told you about it. I'm not telling you now." She knew she was being childish, but at the moment didn't really care. She sat there for a moment, starring at the blank screen. "Could you leave now? I have work to do."

"Okay Harold, but I'm gonna figure it out sooner or later." He said, more like a promise than a threat as he walked out the door. She sighed. It seemed elevators weren't the only things working against her today.

So, what do ya think? Please review!