AN: I just started reading "Ark Angel" the sixth book in the series, and it better be DAMN GOOD. Seriously, I liked how Horowitz killed off Alex 'cos it was so unexpected and kind of original in a children's series. –hmph-
Reviews:
SpeedyGonzales1: Thanks, that's nice to hear.
MzHissyFits: Eeek! Don't sue me! LoL, sorry. I actually have no idea what LA looks like myself, I've never been there, only seen it on TV and the likes.
Hm, you're probably right about the Katie thing, I never thought about how confusing it might be for others, seeing as I'm the one writing it and already know that, but yeah, you're probably right.
Did he? Or didn't he? I'll never te-ell… LoL, sorry, damn, now I've forgotten what movie that's from…
Honey Nut Loop: Thanks. Really, you think so? I never thought about the fact that it might be similar to how he writes…you might have a point though.
Note: There is a lot of jumping between countries and locations, so know that the time difference between London, England and Los Angeles, USA is EIGHT hours, just so you won't get too confused.
Chelsea,
London,
United Kingdom of Great Britain
Jack Starbright, her tousled red hair blowing in the chilling morning breeze, headed back towards the front door of her home with bills and letters in hand. Her home, once owned by the deceased MI6 agent Ian Rider, was know hers as it was to be left in her care should anything ever happen to him. Once inside, she stopped in the entrance hall, going through each letter carefully not to miss anything important. In the stack was the usual; Water bills, electricity bills, a letter or two, mostly from her family, and the newspaper.
The cheerful American grabbed a letter-opener, ripping an envelope addressed to her, in her mothers writing, open with little care. She took the thin paper in her hands, reading it silently.
Dear Jackie!
How is everything in England? Status in the Motherland is A-okay!
Jack chuckled softly. Her mother was a funny person, always happy and smiling. She and her mother shared a lot of similarities, most notably their shade of hair. When Jack had first come to Law school in England she had been told that colour hair was called ginger…And she has immediately thought about a friend back home and felt home sick. Law school never really did work out for her.
Hunny, when are you going to come visit us? Or call? Or even write?
The past two years you've been so distant.
Jack stopped there. The past two years had not exactly been the best of her life. The tragic death of one of the best friends she had ever had, even if he was just fourteen, had made her close herself off from most of the outside world. Walking into the kitchen she sighed softly. She remembered cooking for him, even if cooking to her meant simple recepies that hardly took anymore than ten minutes.
She grabbed a juice carton from the rather empty fridge and poured herself a glass. This house just wasn't the same without him here. She sipped the orange juice, not fully indulging herself in the day's news headlines. Apparently, another football star had cheated on his already famous wife with some singer-slash-actress-slash-designer. Not exactly breaking news compared to the news ten days ago.
A bomb had gone of in the Russian city St.Petersburg, which was formerly named Leningrad during the USSR (1) era, killing over 20 civilians and some members of the democratic Government during a meeting. They still hadn't found out who was responsible.
The phone rang. This came as a surprise to the twenty-something year old, causing her to almost choke on her drink. No one usually called at eight thirty in the morning. Then a thought struck her. Hesitantly she reached for the phone, she had a pretty good idea of who it was already…
/Meanwhile/
Los Angeles,
California,
United States of America.
You know, most normal people are already asleep on weekdays when it's past 12.30 P.M., even in Los Angeles, but at 12.37 P.M. CIA employee Katie Harold was being driven home. Then again, there wasn't a lot of things about Katie Harold which were normal, apart from her average appearance.
She walked up the dimly lit front steps of the porch, feeling as awake as she usually was. She was used to coming home this late, hell, she even ended up sleeping in her office sometimes. She pulled out the keys from her bag, not wanting to wake her dad, who was presumably already asleep, by ringing the doorbell.
She turned the keys, and grasped the cold steel handle of the door, opening it slowly. It creaked as she did this, and she made a mental note of oiling it on her next day off. She entered, quickly taking off her shoes and jacket, and placing her keys on a small table.
"Katie, is that you!" A voice called. She flinched, startled by the voice calling out to her. She hit the lights on, walking cautiously through the hall.
"Dad, are you up?" She asked. Even though she already knew the answer, she was quite surprised that he was still up, and -she caught the smell of food- was he cooking? She walked into the kitchen, to find her father taking a pizza out of the microwave.
He smiled as he noticed that she had entered the room. "Hey kiddo!" He greeted. "You're just in time for" He trailed off, looking down at the pizza he was holding on a large plate. "Well, it's dinner time somewhere." He said cheerfully, though she easily noticed he wasn't as happy as he was pretending to be. Katie knew her dad didn't like her working the hours she did, even less did he like the fact that she, a sixteen year old who should still be in High School, was working for the Central Intelligence Agency.
"You shouldn't have waited up for me, you know." She said quietly as she sat down opposite to him at the small kitchen table.
"Don't worry about me, kiddo. I just want to spend as much time as possible with you. You're growing up you know. In a couple of years, you're not going to be living here even."
She snorted. "Oh? Dad, I'm not going to move from L.A. anytime soon, my job is here, remember?"
A distressed look crossed his face as she said this. He quickly covered it and began talking again. "Oh, that reminds me, Eve called today."
"Eve?" She looked quizzically at him, while raking her memory to see if she could remember who this 'Eve' was.
"Eve." He said, as if the answer was obvious.
"Nope, doesn't ring a bell." She replied, taking a large bite of her pizza slice.
"She was one of your closest friends when you were in school." He said, sounding sad almost. Peter Harold didn't like the fact that his daughter's job deprived her of a normal life. He had a job now, Katie didn't need to work for the CIA anymore. Unfortunately for Mr.Harold, quitting a job in the CIA isn't very easy, no matter what age. You've had access to classified information, they can't just let you back on the street.
Katie Harold remembered now who he was talking about, and her father wasn't the only one who felt sad at that moment. "Oh…Eve." Came her quiet reply.
Chelsea,
London,
United Kingdom of Great Britain
Jack Starbright pressed the phone against the ear, hoping the caller was someone other than who she expected it to be.
"Hello?" She said quietly, waiting for a response.
"Hello, this is the Royal and General bank calling." The voice was that of a woman, perky and slightly high pitched. Jack assumed she must have been quite young. She knew that this was in fact not the Royal & General Bank calling, she knew all about how it was just a cover up by the MI6.
"We were wondering if you were interested"
"I'm not." Jack interrupted the woman. Ever since the death of Alex Rider two years ago, the MI6 had not once been in contact with Jack Starbright. She didn't know if it was because they knew she blamed them for Alex's death, or if it was because she simply meant nothing to them.
Strangely though, over the past few days, they had called the house more often than she could ever remember. She didn't know what they wanted from her, but whatever it was, she still wanted nothing to do with the bastards. "Goodbye." She said firmly, basically slamming the phone down again.
She couldn't stand those people, Mrs.Jones, Alan Blunt, who ever they were, she wanted them to stay as far away as possible. SCORPIA, sabotage, corruption, intelligence and assassination, she knew they were the one's who hired the assassin that shot Alex, but it was still in her mind, the MI6's fault. Alex Rider never wanted to be a spy. God knows how many times he nearly escaped death while working for them. God knows how many times he tried to get out of working for them, but still, they never back down. Maybe, on some level, Alex was better off dead. Jack ran a hand through her tangled hair, trying to keep her cool, though she was tempted to a) call up the MI6 and yell at them for bothering her or b) simply plug out the phone. Though if she did the later, she might miss an important call.
She sighed. Somehow, having lived with two MI6 agents, meant that she was to be hassled by their former employees. Jack turned and looked out the window. She could barely make out were the Thames was, but could see people were already busy opening their shops on King's Road. Maybe she'd go out shopping today. The fridge certainly needed some filling up, and she wanted to check out if they had anything new at some of the clothe stores.
She walked back into the entrance hall, grabbed her coat and purse and was out the door in a matter of moments.
Los Angeles,
California,
United States of America
Katharine Harold walked up the stairs to her room. Eating four slices of pizza seemed to have the same effect on her milk had on some people; she suddenly felt very, very sleepy. She dragged herself towards her room, her bag feeling a lot heavier than it actually was, seeing as it only contained a book and a computer disk.
He room was one of the three rooms on the second floor, along with her fathers and a bathroom. Her house wasn't big, but just the size for the two people who lived their. Her room, which she hardly spent anytime in, was painted white with nothing on the walls except a few photos. Other than that there was a dresser, a desk, a bookshelf and her bed. Nothing more, nothing less. She liked it simple.
She placed the contence of her bag on her desk, putting the book back in its shelf, and grabbing the disk before crouching down on the floor. She pulled away the carpet and, with some difficulty, loosened one of the floor boards, under which she hid the disk.
This may sound weird. In fact, it is kind of weird. How ever, Katie Harold liked knowing where she kept her things, and even more, she liked no one else knowing where she kept her things.
She stood up again, straightening out her shirt and dusting off her pants. Her eyes began to feel very heavy, and she let out a loud yawn…
/(Next Day)/
As Katie Harold once again sat at her desk in the CIA building, waiting for the results of her week long search for the 'mysterious' hacker, she had managed to get a hold of Alex Rider's file. She had found information on his legal guardian, one Jack Starbright, an American, which could prove to be useful information in the future.
She cracked her fingers, waiting and waiting. She was certain the results would come today, they just had to. She scrolled through the rest of Rider's file. He had quite a resumee for only having worked for the MI6 for less than a year, having saved the world on more occasions than one. She couldn't help wonder what would happen to him if they, or more like she, proved that he was the one hacking into the CIA files. Even if he had the password, he wasn't working for the MI6 any more, which made accessing them illegal for him as well.
"Katie!" A voice called her from the door way. She turned her chair around, pushing up her glasses in the process. In the doorway stood one of her co-workers, a middle-aged woman with grey-brown hair and deep green eyes.
"Can I help you Ann?" She asked.
"Meeting on the second floor. Avers wants you there, too." She said, her tone sympathetic.
Katie groaned, getting a laugh from the woman in response. "Can't it wait? I'm kinda busy right now."
"He says you have to be there, now." Ann sighed. "Look, I can cover for you for a couple of minutes but that's it."
Beep. Beep. Beep.
The familiar sound of the strange alarm on Katie's computer went off. "Look's like I might not have to." Ann said, looking over her young co-workers shoulder. "What is that you've been working on?"
"Someone hacked into a couple of files." Katie replied absentmindedly, while going over her results. "Someone who might or might not be dead."
"Dead?" Ann asked, sounding almost worried. Katie dismissed her tone of voice, going over different papers she had printed out, comparing them to each other. "You found something?"
"Come look at this, Ann." She showed her the different papers. Ann's eyebrows narrowed as she went over the different sheets with extreme presicioin, not wanting to miss anything. There were addresses, names, codes, numbers, the likes, but even though it could be confusing, Ann Cofler was sure about one thing:
"That's definently the same."
Royal & General Bank/MI6 Offices,
London,
United Kingdom of Great Britain
The afternoon sun was setting over London, the cloud clad skies looking red-ish. A man in his late twenties bleached blond hair sat in front of a computer in the back of the front counter in the Royal & General Bank. At least, that's what it was to the outside world. Anyone who was employed there, or anyone in the Government for that matter, knew that this was the MI6 offices.
The man, whose name was Ralph Mayer, a slightly chubby man with dark eyes, was staring incredulously at the screen in front of him. This needed to be reported to Mrs.Jones and Mr.Blunt immediately. He pressed the print button, making himself a copy of the information on the screen. Grabbing the A4 sheet of recycled paper he hurried towards the elevator, important or not, he was not running up the stairs to Mr.Blunt's office on the sixteenth floor.
The elevator was taking it fair share of time, dragging it out agonizingly long. Ralph tapped his foot impatiently, others waiting for the elevator glancing oddly at him. The arrival of the elevator was signalled by a 'ding' and he pushed his way past all the others waiting.
He pressed his finger against the round button reading '16' and then pressed the button with the sign for closing the doors. He could hear the cursing of people who didn't manage to get inn in time, though their voices were muffled by the thick metal doors.
The other people in the elevator, though this went by unnoticed by Ralph Mayer, were looking oddly at him, then at each other, their eyes asking what on earth could be so important and why he was in such a rush.
Once the elevator stopped on his floor, he practically ran towards office 1605, pushing open the door even though Alan Blunts secretary made it clear that he was not to be interrupted at the moment.
The thick, glazed glass door was flung open, and had you been there you probably would be surprised that it didn't break as it made impact with the wall. Ralph Mayer stood in the doorway, panting as he tried to re-catch his breath, Alan Blunt looking at him from behind his desk, an annoyed look on his face.
"Sir," came Ralph's voice. "You should see this…"
AN: Okay, there you have it. Second chappie, hope you like.
(1) USSR stands for "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" and is another name used for the old Soviet Union.