I was half-asleep, my mind wandering back to the scene at the flat. How would Tim be coping on his own now? It had been four days, I'd be lucky if he was still alive! I was disturbed from my thoughts as someone came into the room and drew the moth-eaten curtains.

"Come on N.D., you lazy layabout!" a voice said. I blinked for a while until my eyes had adjusted to the light and then I sat up and stretched.

"Five more minutes please Josh!" I begged.

"No! Come on Nick you promised you would help me out today!" Josh snapped. He pulled the sleeping bag off of me and I chucked a pillow at his head.

"I suppose I've got to go and feed Rider," I sighed, swinging my legs round and standing up.

"Well I'm not doing it… you could conveniently forget," Josh suggested, grinning.

"I'm gone," I said, standing up. I wandered into the kitchen, pulled two bits of bread out of the bag and made my way down to the cellar.

"Knock, knock," I said as I unbolted the cellar door. I made my way down the steps and threw the pieces of bread at Alex's feet. He glared at me hatefully. He was chained to an iron ring that was set in the wall down there.

"How much longer are you going to keep me down here?" Alex demanded.

"I dunno, what a stupid question, does it matter?" I shrugged.

"I thought you were Ok, Nick, now I've found out that you're scum of the lowest order, just like that Cray!" Alex spat.

"Yeah I love you too," I said sarcastically and started my way back upstairs. Alex swore at me and I turned round and smiled innocently at him.

"You're just precious aren't you?" I grinned and then went back into the kitchen; 'accidentally' leaning on the light switch as I went past it so Alex was left in the dark.

"What are you going to do with him?" I asked Joshua for about the fiftieth time.

"I told you I don't know, I thought I was going to kill him but I don't know if I can," Joshua said quietly. "I can't let him go because he'll kill me or worse, put me in prison."

"You can't leave him down there though, he's smart you know, works for MI6, he's bound to find a weakness sometime and he'll escape," I said reasonably.

"What else am I going to do?" Joshua asked.

"We could try talking to him," I suggested.

"Yeah, like that would work," Joshua laughed. "I mean, it's not that I don't want to kill him, it's just that I don't want to kill him."

"That makes so much sense," I said sarcastically.

"What I mean is that I don't want to be a murderer," Joshua sighed.

"Then hire someone, or find someone who really wants to kill him and won't mind pulling the trigger, there's bound to be somebody," I said.

"Nick… you're a genius!" Joshua said, his face lighting up.

"I try," I replied.

"No, when I was looking for Alex I found out about this group he got involved with a few months ago, it's a huge terrorist organisation and he agreed to work for them but then he betrayed them and gave them up to MI6," Joshua said excitedly. "They're called Scorpia, they're based in Venice and they are big, they seriously have it in for Rider and they'll pay us a fair bit for handing him over to them."

"We can't go wrong really can we," I agreed, grinning. "How do we get in touch with this Scorpia?"

"We need a computer, I'll write an e-mail, their secret web site was in the files and I've got the password so it will be easy enough," Joshua replied.

"Off to the library then," I announced and we started out of the door.

stared at Joshua in disbelief as he typed in the address.

"Are you trying to be funny?" I hissed.

"No, I'm being serious, this is the perfect cover, if you click on the right link it's easy enough," he assured me. A web page covered in pink petals and yellow ducklings appeared with the links 'competitions' 'bunny scramble' story time' 'fan art' 'animals' 'activities' and 'shop online'.

"You have got to be kidding," I muttered. Joshua clicked on the link that said 'bunny scramble' and a little pink rabbit appeared on the screen with a text box next to it. 'This is a site for special viewers only, please type in the magic word' it said. Joshua's fingers skimmed over the keyboard and he pressed 'enter'. A man wearing black appeared on the screen with a shotgun and blew the rabbits head off, when the red blood faded off of the screen the page had changed to a black background with blue writing. SCORPIA was printed in bold letters at the top of the page. Joshua pressed the 'contact' link and began to type his e-mail, giving Scorpia the address of the place we were staying in the and the situation we were in with Alex Rider. He left his mobile phone number at the bottom of the page and then shut down the web site. As soon as the internet connection had been disconnected thousands of animated scorpions appeared on the screen and covered it so the desktop couldn't be seen.

"What the hell…" I began.

"It's a virus," Joshua explained, "They must have put it on there so nobody could find them using the history on the computer."

"Clever!" I replied.