Chapter 3—Clash of the Agencies

By Doomed but Over It

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Author's Notes: YAY! School's out! And we all know what that means…Doomed can update faster! Hooray! Please Review…or I will feel unloved and quit writing. Smiles evilly Right then, time for my muse to take over. Cheers all, and here it is; chapter 3!

Disclaimer—me no own, you no sue. Please? I don't mean anything with my horrid mangling of the Alex Rider series. Please don't kill me. Pretty please with cherries on top.

(KNSI enters)

Okay, everyone, you know the drill. Today, we have a generous supply of writer's block, and laziness (Oww! Sorry, Doomed! Gosh!) So please please please read and review, or else her supply of chocolate ice cream will run out and then what's to keep her writing?

Enjoy! Now, without further adieu, I give you…CHAPTER 3—the clash of the Agencies!

Alex stood in the elevator, nervously tapping his foot, his palms sweating. The flowers in his hand felt wilted and sad, and he was strung out like six pots of coffee. Why were first dates so awkward?

It's not a date. He reminded himself. Its just two good friends getting together for dinner. That's all.

He stepped out of the elevator, searching for room 512, where she would be waiting. Her parents were still recovering from the incident (A/N—this is either Scorpia or Ark Angel, think its Scorpia.) and thought it would be good for her to get out and have some fun, to stop worrying.

Even so, Alex reflected, her parents would have insisted she live in style, not something a 3 star hotel could offer. It must have been her own decision. Strange. That was unlike the Sabina he knew. What else was different? How much could she have changed in 6 months? Alex shook his head to clear his mind of these troublesome thoughts. She is exactly the same as I left her. Just the same old Sabina.

He knocked on the door, half hoping she'd spring out and say brightly, "Hey Alex, I missed you like mad! I'm so glad I get to see you again!" But, really, she just opened the door, and said demurely "Hi, Alex. It's nice to see you again. Shall we go?"

Alex nodded and offered his arm to her in an act of chivalry long forgotten by modern boyfriends. She took it, and smiled sweetly at him. He felt a little awkward in the face of this strange, ladylike creature. This is not the same old Sabina.

Blunt reclined in the briefing room. He allowed himself a brief moment of relaxation. Everything was going according to plan. And that was exactly how he preferred it. A buzzer beeped on his desk. He reached over and pressed the button.

"Yes, Marcy?"

"Agents Landez and Shores to see you, sir."

"Ah, yes. The CIA's men? Good, good. Send them in."

"Right away, sir. Do I need to send them in for a security check?"

"No, these men are our guests! That might make us seem….inhospitable."

"Yes sir."

Blunt was in a good enough mood, he didn't even mind the CIA poking their overlong noses in his business. Much.

I wonder what is bothering them now. I don't think we blew anything up in their territory recently, and we made amends with them by allowing them to borrowing Alex for a mission. It was a shame what happened to their agents, though. (A/N- Skeleton Key)

Blunt straightened up, and assumed his position at the head of the table. He wished Tulip was there with him. She always lent him some extra authority, not that he needed it. It just helped sometimes.

The door slid open silently and two men in suits stepped into the room. Blunt was forcibly reminded of an American film, one of those science fiction movies his daughter was so fond of, Men in Black.

The Hispanic agent was clearly the boss, and oozed authority and a "don't mess with me, I am so out of your league" attitude. Blunt was not impressed. Any fifth grader with an attitude could pull that off, and a few were more convincing than this clown.

The shorter one was the rookie. He was in his late twenties, a little younger than the Hispanic. He was slightly chubby, white as balloon bread, and nervous.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen, please sit down." Blunt said, sitting in his own spot at the head of the table. The agents sat a safe distance away, close together. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"No, we are fine." The taller one answered for both of them. Blunt was reminded forcefully of an over attentive mother ordering for her son at a restaurant. "I am Agent Landez, and my partner is Agent Shores." The chubbier one nodded a greeting."

"Pleased to meet you. Did you come for a particular reason, or is this just a, ah, social visit?"

"Actually, we needed to speak to you about an agent you currently employ." Landez said.

"An Alex Rider." Shores volunteered.

"What about him?" Blunt's eyes hardened at the mention of his "agent".

"It was brought to our attention that he is a minor and he may not be totally willing to-" Landez was cut off.

"He is also not an American. So I don't see how this concerns you."

"When a child is being put in peril, intentionally, it concerns the whole damn world."

"Is that a threat?" Blunt hissed. "Is that a THREAT?"

"Well….uh…. erm…." The agents blustered.

"GET OUT OF MY BUILDING!" Blunt roared. "OUT!"

The agents scrambled out, and Blunt watched them go. Bastards. He turned to the phone and dialed a number he had memorized over the years. One he had hoped he would never have to use: Tulip Jones' always on, Emergency with a capital E cell phone. She picked up on the first ring.

"Tulip. We have a situation."

Alex was feeling awkward. They had already ordered, and hadn't spoken except for small talk. Alex was growing desperate. He needed to break the ice.

"So….are you still a champion surfer?" he asked, hoping for a safe answer.

"No. The day after you left, I went surfing and got dragged under. I haven't been able to go near the water since." She took a sip of tea.

"Oh." Alex stared. The Sabina he knew would not be able to recount such a tale without emotion. Not for the first time he wondered, who is this girl?

"Would you quit that?" she snapped.

"Quit what?" Alex said blankly.

"Quit looking at me like I'm some kind of alien."

"I'm not! You're just….different than I remember."

"Naw, really? You can't leave a person, with them thinking you're dead, and expect them not to change."

"I had no choice!"

"You know what? I'm sick of it. You have a choice. And so do I. Good bye, Alex. Don't call. Don't email. Just don't. I don't want to see you again. I'm leaving tomorrow. Don't try to find me. Now, you have no choice."

She slapped a twenty dollar bill down on the table, gathered her purse and walked to the bus stop. Alex didn't follow her. His head rested against the back of the booth. He didn't know whether to feel angry, relieved or depressed. He dialed on his mobile a familiar number.

"Jack? Come take me home."

He stepped out of the restaurant after leaving a twenty of his own on the table, but the car that greeted him wasn't Jack's.

"Get in, Alex." said Ms. Jones.

Twenty Minutes later, at the briefing room, MI6 Headquarters

"Alex, we have a vague idea of where your corpses came from." Ms. Jones began. "A vague idea."

"After 9/11, whole new waves of terrorists were discovered. Most of them were still in the infancy stages, but some rocked the world. The terrorists were such a threat that we let the existing ones that we knew about slide. They laid low for a few months and the idiots at the CIA took them for gone. Now, they decide to strike back, but not at the U.S., but here, in England. You were the one that was to stop them." Blunt said.

"Were?" Alex asked, the relief evident in his voice.

"Yes, were. They found out what we meant to do. The plan to strike before them. They also found the agent we planned to send in. You. They weren't sure if you had been briefed yet, and so they sent a warning, just to be safe. If they killed you and you weren't on the case because their intelligence was wrong, they would have MI6 to contend to, as well as the entirety of Britain. "

"The corpses?" Alex asked, "but why corpses? And why 14? Who were they? Wouldn't knives be easier? They get the point across." Inwardly, Alex smiled at his own pun.

"Do you ever stop asking questions? Yes, the corpses. We identified the remains as been dead for quite some time. It obviously was a clue towards the identity that they expected us to know. That's why only corpses would work. We went back into the files before 9/11. The golden gangs' era.

These guys were the ones that could survive the three year wait before they made an encore appearance. They were strong before, and big enough that they could survive, even as more and more of the members tried to break off to join the more active gangs.

I say tried because none of them got that far. They were always killed, or paralyzed, or driven mad. And those were the lucky ones.

These were the gangs the CIA neglected. We kept a close tab, because it was not unusual for gangs to switch countries when it got to close for comfort." Blunt paused.

"We just ran a few simple searches with the keywords, corpse 14 gangs America. The search returned a hundred or so results. By narrowing it down to the biggest ones, we found the most likely match. They call themselves Silent Strife, and their sole objective seems to be making everyone miserable. They were one of the top ten gangs to hope you never ran into in '02, but they stopped making racket and now they have faded into the has-been list. Or, at least, that's what the want you think.

Their latest scheme was to blow up a bomb at the U.N. meeting, but they had a leak and we busted them. You were supposed to do it, but we got a phone call to say a kid would be too conspicuous, so we sent in Agent Knott instead. We believe we have a mole and that mole had faulty information. Silent Strife was suspicious of the information too, and so you only got a warning. You are lucky to be alive. They didn't think we'd sink to the level of using a kid to save the world."

"Neither did I," Alex muttered.

"Which brings us to the point of our little get together." Ms. Jones interjected, ending the glaring fest between Alex and Blunt. "Silent Strife is now reconsidering their decision to murder you. You have gotten to famous, and they pinpointed where all those busts came from…you. So, you got to get as far away from Britain and the States as you can. And fast. Where would you like to go? Think far, think south."

"Aruba?" Alex guessed.

"Wrong! Do you think we have the funds for that? No, you're going to St. Maarten/ Martin. Your pick."

"What's the difference?" Alex asked.

"What do they teach kids in school today?" Blunt interjected.

"St. Martin is half the island that is French." Ms. Jones said, ending yet another glaring war. Men! She thought. "The other half, St. Maarten's is Dutch. Its one island. "

"Oh." They both said.

Author's Notes—Yay! It's done! Finally, I figured out some answers. I kind of started just trying to get your attention, and thought I'd make sense of it later. At least this time it worked! My friends are slowly getting on the net. I'll introduce them as they join. My BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WIDE WORLD, just posted her first fan fic!. The path is….

Books into the forests of the night Black Roses by Giggle Monkey

Anyway, she is my best friend and a really good authoress. I love her forever and ever. Check out her stuff, k? It'll make her feel loved.

Moving right along, You are all DOOMEDMy daddy bought me more ice cream, so I will continue this series until you people tell me that it sucks so bad, if I write another chapter, you will find me and rip my fingers off. Or until I need more ice cream.

Please read and review…I won't know what you think unless you do.

Read please,

I'm on my metaphorical knees

Hugging metaphorical trees

So please

Just review, dammit.

Was it good, bad, awful, I'm dying, beautiful, why me?

I won't know unless you press that little purple button.

"KNSI! DO YOUR THING!"

Okay, okay. Doomed is such a baby. Can't even do her own coming soon without me. sigh it's good to be needed, but its better not to be. Anyway, if I do it good, I get a bite of ice cream! Mmmm…ice cream. GELATO! What was I doing again? Oh, yeah.

Coming Around Next Week…

Alex learns the wonders of Hawaiian kettle crisps

We're going to St. Maarten…or St. Martins?

The CIA—round 2

Jack develops maternal instinct

More Silent Strife!

No, really…what the f. is with the corpses?

I really wrote a long chapter today, didn't I? I'm so happy. Please read and review. And remember to check out my bff's 1st story!

Books into the forests of the night Black Roses by Giggle Monkey

Woot Woot! READ AND REVIEW PLEASE!

Love,

Doomed (and Kiki Nalani Saraphina Isabel)