Sorry I haven't updated in a while, been a bit busy with work experience and stuff. So, Chapter 8. A lot of things are pulled together and there's a suprise regarding the virus. I'm now planning a great chapter called Fjord and Farrari with a good fight scene. So, here's chapter 8, Going Underground.

Elliot Charge was coming to the end of his journey. A tired fifty-year-old man, Elliot was, as the name suggested, English. He had come to work for Inkheart at the age of twenty, and had never looked back. The money was good, and he didn't mind working long hours. He had no family, nothing to go home to. "Home" was a small flat on the other side of town. Inkheart had paid for the flat, and it was good enough. Satellite TV and a bed; good enough for him.

Elliot smiled, glad that the motorway was empty. He pulled off, and headed to a group of warehouses half a mile away. It took him less than five minutes to reach them. He drove the van onto a rectangle of paint. The paint was new, but by the time morning came, it would be gone. That was how efficient Inkheart was. That was why no secret service could best them. Elliot opened the van window and waved his pass at the tiny button camera set into the wall. A minute later, the platform began to descend. Elliot waited, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel in time to the quiet music coming out of the radio. Once the platform had stopped moving, he opened the door into the familiar garage area. A black clad man looked at him. He was standing behind a glass window in a tiny office. Elliot walked over, taking his pass out of his pocket. It proclaimed the owner to be working for Depth Electronics in Japan, which of course didn't exist. The man placed the pass onto a piece of equipment and slid it across. The screen on a computer flashed green. The man handed the pass back. No smile, no greeting. No directions either. Elliot knew where to go. He had an appointment with Fjord. Neither Elliot nor the man noticed a slim length of rope fall from the road. By the time the man pressed the button to raise the platform back up to the road again, it was already too late. Alex Rider slid softly to the ground and darted into the shadow beside the office window. His hands had deep welts in them from the rope. He stole across after Elliot down a corridor. Elliot walked purposefully until he came to a door about halfway along the corridor. He walked in and shut it. Alex slipped into another door with the brass number "19" on it. He pulled out a radio and whispered to Tamara.

"I'm in," he said.

"Good. Check around some of the rooms. See if you can find anything interesting."

Alex nodded. He felt in one of the pockets the memory stick Smithers had given to him. He checked around the room he was in. It was some kind of office. Alex walked over to the desk. There were no personal items, no photos. Just a computer and a phone. There was also a sheet of paper, and scrawled across it, there were several notes. A name and a phone number, then further down a sentence that caught Alex's eye.

"Chimera – complete. Insert and detonate June 20, 2005, 10:00 hours.

Alex swore under his breath. It was already ten past ten. They were too late. It was the 20th today, He looked around desperately, then muttered into the mike under his chin.

"Tamara, we're too late!"

"What?"

"The virus is already in the system! It's already detonated. Tamara swore.

"I'll make contact with control, see what's happened."

Alex heard a momentary burst of static. A minute later, Tamara's voice rang through the ear piece again.

"Alex?"

"What's happened?"

"Not good. I can't get a line."

"You're joking."

"The lines only go down if there's a problem with the system and the satellites rearrange."

"Let me try the laptop."

Alex opened his back pack and whipped open the laptop. He set it up, double-clicking the Internet icon. The view screen came up, but there was nothing on it. Just black. Alex swore again, then updated Tamara.

"We're in trouble now." She said. "There's only one thing we can do."

"Deactivate the virus," Alex said. He was already looking through the folders in the drawers of the desk in the hope of finding a weakness in Chimera. He whipped out a folder.

"Alex?" Tamara said. "I'm coming in."

"What? No, give me a bit more time."

"No way. Alex, may I remind you that this operation is under the command of the CIA," she said, a hard tone in her voice. She suddenly sounded like Alan Blunt. Alex swallowed a reply, and instead concentrated on the folder.

"OK," he said his voice dull.

"Good. Where are you?"

"In an office. Office nineteen."

"Don't move," Tamara said, the steely tone still in her voice. "I'll come and meet you." She cut the line. Alex went over the contents of the folder again.

Chimera: Virus

Project Start 21st August 1999

Estimated project end: 2005

Project leader: P. Fjord

Chimera virus – facts

Joe Brace defeated Inkheart's project Chimera, 1996. Brace was curious about Chimera and began to develop, in secret, another form of Chimera software. Chimera – perfect weapon but couldn't be detonated. Software was faulted. Brace developed software and Chimera.

1999 – Project start

Acquired information regarding Brace

2000 – Acquired information concerning the fact that all CIA files were still infected with Chimera

2001 – Began developing detonation software

2003 – detonation software reached a fault – project put on hold

2005 – agents dispatched to Joe Brace's location to acquire the final information needed to complete detonation software.

Alex continued reading the report with horror. This mysterious cult had humiliated Brace and had bought down the CIA. He was disturbed, suddenly, by shouting. As quickly as it had started, it stopped. Alex stood, tense, watching the door. It opened, and Alex dived forward. But it was only Tamara. There was a cut above her eye. She was dragging something behind her. It was an Inkheart agent. He was knocked out.

Alex leaped forward and shut the door. Tamara dragged the unconscious man to the back of the room and dumped him into a corner. Only then did she turn away to talk to Alex.

"Well?" he said.

"Objectives remain the same," she grunted. "I signaled the soldiers on the plane. They'll be here soon. That'll give us a diversion so we can search for a weakness."

Alex nodded.

"Lets get out there"

Just like to thank all people who review this story.