Author's Note: I really apologize about the audacious gap between Chapter 1 and the long-awaited Chapter 2. I have been attacked by a bout of the infamous plauge of the creative; Writer's Block. The disease had affected me so severely, I actually asked my sister for advice shudders at the thought. Anyway, long story short, I've come back with a creative vengeance...so read on and enjoy!
The room was a small and dingy one, in sharp contrast with both its inhabitants and its surroundings. It was located in one of the most beautiful cities in the world; Paris. The city of lights seemed todim here however. There was a round table of seven, and a man seated in one chair before it. Alex Rider.
"Rider!" Levi Kroll roared. "What the devil happened?"
Alex sighed and rana handthrough his fair hair. "I was recognized. I had to abandon the mission."
Mr. Makato, looked at him, cleaning imaginary dirt from under his fingers. "By whom? If I am not mistaken, haven't we dissappeared you?"
"An old . . . friend," he finished lamely, unsure about what to call Sabina.
"Well, why didn't you blow the whole place up with a grenade and then have it blamed on spontaneous combustion or something of the sort?"
Alex took a breath. The members of Scorpia didn't deal well with failure. Not that he had any personal experience in the matter.
"What do you want me to do?" Alex said, looking the Scorpia council dead-on. He hoped he looked intimidating. Mr. Mikato smirked, his ebony skin glinting off the lamplight in the room.
"Well you will have to go back in there Rider. We've got too much money on the line to lose. And Rider . . . if anything, anything happens and you fail this time, do not bother coming to Malagosto.
As Alex rose to leave, Mr. Mikato called out suddenly. "Rider! Your phone. There are a few modifications."
Levi Kroll turned to the man from Australia, the man with the many names, as Alex handed his phone to a techie standing nearby, and then left the room. "Rider will become a liability if we allow him to stay involved in this mission."
"How so?" Dr. Three asked. "Everyone makes mistakes, and, since working for this agency, Rider has brought us a grand total of 85 million dollars. I see no reason to exterminate him."
Mikato sighed. This operation was in his control. "I did a little investigating beforehand. The person who recognized Rider, was more than an old friend. It was a girlfriend, whose prospects with Alex we ruined. And what's worse, Sabina Pleasure is going to marry Badeau. Rider was supposed to kill Badeau. I don't think he will be able to do that now. We cannot discredit the man if he is still alive after all, so we will have to think of another plan."
"And Rider? I'm not exactly sure where his loyalties lie."
"No doubt he will be contacted by MI6 after a report is filed. We'll just have to monitor any calls he receives. I've seen part of this organization destroyed by that family, and if Alex Rider . . . he will have to be watched."
Alex Rider exited the dingy coffee shop. A shop that read "Out of Order." Scorpia's members were secretive, if creative. They had a right to be suspicious he supposed. This was the first time he'd failed a mission before, and he felt almost like a little boy coming from the principals office.
He was woken from his thoughts by the shrill ringing of a cell phone. He pulled the phone out of his pocket and frowned as the number came up as unlisted.
"Hello?"
"Alex Rider, I'll cut to the chase. This is Mrs. Jones. I need you to come in. Liverpool Street, the bank. We'll be expecting you."
And the line went dead. Alex sighed. In two days, he'd met the love of his life for the first time in seven years, he'd had his first failure, and now he had been contacted by one of the most prominent woman in his past. He would go in of course. Perhaps to do what he had been too young and too afraid to do the last time. To kill Mrs. Jones. At any rate, he owed it to himself to go. And he wanted to abate his curiosity.
"Alex, I want you to know how very glad we are that you decided to come in." Mrs. Jones said earnestly, sucking on a peppermint. Alex had arrived a few minutes earlier. They had been expecting him, as promised. The entire fake bank had been frightened of the dangerous contract killer, of Scorpia's most feared and efficient operative; the mysterious Hunter. They had stripped him of his Heckler & Koch, and his commando knife. They had searched him extensively for any kind of bugging devices, so bold as to ask him to remove his undergarments, a request which he had quietly refused.
"I don't think your security staff seems to think so."
"What was Scorpia doing in Paris, what do they want with Badeau?" Arnold Blunt asked, true to his name.
"Blunt indeed," said Alex, halfway between a smile and a grimace. "So much for an ice breaker."
Blunt raised an eyebrow before saying, "Keep in mind, Alex, that you are in our control. You are on our territory. One call, one word into the intercom, and instead of three people in this room, we'll have two people and a corpse."
"That seems a bit dark for you, doesn't it Mr. Blunt?"
"We're prepared to go to any lengths to get what we need, Alex. Obviously a Scorpia operative would know that."
"And what makes you think I have any information on the mission? I was just sent to kill him, no questions asked. That was it . . . no strings," responded Alex, his hands spread in mock self-defense.
"We have come, over the course of twenty-five years, to understand how Scorpia has worked. Your father himself told us that Scorpia operatives were briefed, at least to a certain degree, on the long term objectives of their mission." Mrs. Jones said cooly. "You know at least something about what Scorpia is planning. Alex, we're offering you a chance at redemption. Please, tell us what you know."
Alex stared back stonily. "I don't know anything."
"Alex, you heard Badeau's speech. You know how odd it was. Communism, rising again in the West? It's unthinkable, impossible. If there is anything going on with Badeau, we need to now. He's poised to become the next president of France, and if he's--"
"I told you. I don't know anything." Alex said, cutting her off.
Blunt sighed. Somehow, he looked even more bland and gray than Alex had ever seen him. He picked up a phone, pressed an intercom button and said, "Bring him in."
A man arrived. He wore a dark suit and tie, and was carrying a small black box, from which two wires trailed. Alex looked into the man's eyes and saw his own reflection in the mirrored sunglasses. He wore white gloves. He set the box down on the table, and beckoned to someone outside. Two more men, dressed identically, rushed in and stood by side, near the door.
"Alex, inside that box are batteries capable of charging up to 500 volts of raw electric energy. Of course we won't be that harsh, but if you don't tell us what we need to know, we will use it. Perhaps, not up 'till its full extent, but enough so that you tell us all that you know. Are you prepared to submit before we use it?"
Alex ran his tongue over suddenly dry lips. So that was it. He had walked into a trap, and a clever one at that. Alex didn't know why he'd come. Maybe for closure. But now, he was caught between a rock and a hard place.
Scorpia knew MI6 would contact me, he thought, too late. They must have bugged my phone. They'll know I've been here, and if anything out of the ordinary happens. . . .
But he didn't want to think about what would happen then. He only knew that he had to get out of here, and fast. That must be why they had brought three men with them. Alex knew they would be suspecting an attack. Better to lash out at them like a wounded lion; attack when they think you're most weak.
"I don't know anything," repeated Alex, a third time. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the two other guards relax very slightly. The first of the men, the one who had brought the box, prepared it for use. He turned on the machine, set the charge, and readied the wire. And then he raised them and placed them on both of Alex's temples. . . .
"Aaarrrgghhh!" Alex screamed. The pain was intense. He felt the forceful electric current course through his entire skeletal system, rattling him severely. Just when he thought he would die of pain, it stopped, suddenley. Any man of lesser training and experience would have taken that moment to regain his breath. Alex Rider, however, knew very well that this was his moment, his time to strike.
He had stood suddenly, and with a furious back kick, had smashed his chair into the forehead of the man who had tortured him. He sank to the ground in a heap. Alex caught the black box and somersaulted backwards in mid-air until he was right behind Blunt, the two wires just grazing the soft hollow behind his ears.
"Drop your weapons!" Alex cried. Funny how he kept getting in this situation. He saw Blunt's head move to the left and then back right ever so slightly. So that was it. After seven years, he still thought Alex was incapable. In less-than-eloquent terms, he didn't think Alex had the balls. Grinding his teeth in anger, Alex touched the two wires to the back of Blunt's neck, savoring the scream with a kind of savage pleasure. Almost reluctantly, he released.
"What do you reckon?" Alex said to one of the guards, his tone of voice suggesting a conversational, everyday topic, like the weather. "How many volts would kill him? Let me just find out how to work this dial, do I move it to the right d'you think?"
"Alright!" shouted a guard desperately.
"Glad to see someone at MI6 has some sense." Alex said pleasantley. "Now your guns if you please. Drop them immediately and, on your hands and knees I want you to slide them to my feet. If you come closer than three inches, I will kill him. If I see either of you hold your weapons in a threatening way, I will kill him. Understood?"
The unlucky men nodded, their faces suddenly white. They followed his instructions. Alex dropped the torturing device, knelt, and picked up both of the hand guns. He slapped Blunt across the temple with the barrel of one, and grunted as his head drooped into unconsciousness. Then he did the same to both of the guards, who seemed content to join the other two men in the room. He looked at Mrs. Jones, and, with a grin at her, left the room.
"Well, do you think that he told them anything of value?" Levi Kroll asked, for once, a bit nervous.
"Why else would he have gone in when they asked?" Mr Mikato replied, almost immediately. "And he came in and went out relatively quickly. MI6 and Scorpia are different in their methods, but MI6, no matter how quiet the keep it, are not above torture, whether physchological or otherwise. Rider would have been forced to reveal any information he knows about Operation: Mind Bomb, and that is a considerable amount. A lot of money is on the line. We cannot afford any loose ends."
"Well it is settled then," Dr. Three replied. "Alex Rider is oficially a rouge agent."
>insert dramatic-sounding music here>