Elliot jerked awake as the door to the tiny room closed. It took a moment for him to remember what was happening. And then he did. His heart began racing again as he thought about the night before. How much time had passed? His mother must be going out of her mind with worry!

"Good morning, Elliot."

Morning? Had he really slept for the entire night? It was the same man as yesterday - the one he knew as Yassen from his dream. He had brought a bowl of porridge and a cup of tea in one of those ridiculously small styrofoam cups. He set it down on the table in front of him.

"I thought you might be hungry."

Elliot had been, but seeing the man again had quashed his appetite.

"Not really," he said as nonchalantly as he could. "I do need the toilet though."

The man said nothing, but uncuffed both of Elliot's hands, and gestured for him to stand up. Elliot was confused that the man didn't recuff them, but he wasn't complaining. He allowed himself to be directed down corridors which all looked the same until eventually they came to the toilet. It had been disconcerting to walk with the man behind him, where he couldn't see what he was doing. He got the uncomfortable impression that the reason he hadn't had his hands cuffed again was because this man would be able to stop him extremely quickly (and probably very painfully) if he tried to escape.

The toilet itself was a small room with just a toilet and a sink. There were no windows and no other way out… which must have been why Elliot had been left to use the facilities in private, although he had no doubt that the man would be waiting just outside the room for him. When he came out a couple of minutes later, he saw that he was right. Once again, the man directed him through the maze of corridors from behind until they reached the same room where he had been held overnight.

"Breakfast," the man said, almost as an order as they sat down. He made no attempt to put the handcuffs back on.

"I don't really like porridge," Elliot countered. It was a feeble excuse and wasn't true, but it was all he could think of. The man didn't say anything, but looked pointedly at him. Elliot shuffled uncomfortably in his seat, grateful for the lack of handcuffs, and finally decided to compromise by drinking the tea. He didn't think that the man would poison him. Well, at least not yet; the file was back on the table, so presumably there would be more questions. The man looked satisfied as Elliot took a sip of the tea. He tried not to read too much into the man's expression, or the fact that the tea was just how he liked it.

"I'm going to say some words. They may sound familiar to you. They may not. Tell me if any of them resonate with you."

"Okay," Elliot said, a little warily.

"Starbright. Harris. Hunter."

"Well I know what a hunter is," Elliot said in the pause that the man left between the words.

"Does it mean anything else to you?"

"I don't think so. Should it?"

The man didn't answer his question, but continued listing words, leaving a pause between each one. "Scorpia. Orion."

"The man yesterday called me 'Orion'."

"What man?" The man spoke with no emotion in his voice or showing on his face. He could have been a robot for the feelings he was displaying.

"The one who…" Elliot took a deep shuddering breath as he remembered what he had done to the man. "He pulled a gun on me. Said he was going to bring me in and then… and then I think I knocked him out. I was on my knees one moment, with my hands on my head and the next, I was back on my feet and the man was on the floor next to me. And then your people showed up and shoved me into a van!"

"Interesting. Describe him."

"What?"

"The man who pulled a gun on you. Describe him to me."

"Umm…" Elliot said as he tried to think back. "I think he was from Liverpool. And he had dark hair. To be honest, I didn't really look at him. I was more focused on the gun that he was pointing at my head!" The man just nodded in response.

"Cossack. Ben Daniels. Alan Blunt."

Something flashed in Elliot's mind, but it came and went so quickly that he couldn't identify what it was. The man paused, looking expectantly at him. It was the most expressive his face had been for a while.

"I don't know. It's like there's something there, but it was gone too quickly to make out what it was."

The man just nodded again, as though he had expected it. "Malagosto. Brecon Beacons."

"I presume you don't just want me to tell you that's in Wales?"

"No. Do you have any specific memories?"

"I don't think so. I don't think I've ever been there."

Again, the man just nodded. "Sagitta. Stormbreaker. Herod Sayle. Doctor Three."

There was another flash in Elliot's mind. But once again it was gone too quickly for him to make any sense of it. The fear that had settled in the pit of his stomach did not leave him so quickly. The man looked at him expectantly again, so Elliot told him.

"Hugo Grief. Smithers. Ian Rider."

"Yesterday, one of your men called me 'Alex Rider'?"

"Does the name mean anything to you?"

Elliot paused, pretending to think. In reality, he was deciding whether to tell the man that 'Alex' was the name from his dream. The man just raised an eyebrow as though he knew exactly what was going through Elliot's mind. He took a deep breath.

"In the dream…" he began, staring at a spot on the table and refusing to look at the man sitting opposite him. "In the dream, you call me Alex."

"And 'Ian Rider'?"

"Doesn't mean anything to me other than that."

"Murmansk. Point Blanc. Brookland. Sabina Pleasure. Cheyne Walk."

"Look, I don't know. I've never heard of most of these people or places or things! I'm just Elliot Jones. From Pentonville. I've never been anywhere. I've never done anything. I just want to go home." His last words seemed to echo around the small room and Elliot realised that he wasn't speaking English. In fact, he hadn't been for a while. But he didn't know any other languages, other than some rudimentary French for GCSE.

"It's Russian," the man explained.

"How the hell am I speaking and understanding Russian? I've never learnt Russian or been to Russia!" He was speaking English again now.

"If Russian upsets you, how about Spanish? Or French? German? Arabic?" With each new suggestion, the man switched into that language, and Elliot found that he was able to understand all of them without even trying.

"Stop it!" he shouted eventually, cradling his head in his hands, overwhelmed by everything that was happening. "Just tell me what is going on," he said after a few moments focusing on his breathing and bringing himself back under control.

"The truth?"

"Yes!"

"Very well. Your name is Alex Rider. You work for a criminal organisation called Scorpia. Your uncle, Ian Rider, was a spy who worked for MI6 and when he died, Alan Blunt and Tulip Jones used you as his replacement to finish his last mission. They used you twice more, the third time sending you to the CIA to help them with one of their operations. I knew that they would never stop using you, so I gave you a choice. To come with me and be taught the skills that you needed to survive and be safe from MI6, or stay at home and probably die within months as they sent you on more and more missions. You chose the former. That was two years ago. Six weeks ago, you were on an assignment that went wrong. It was a trap, laid by MI6 specifically to ensnare you. They succeeded. They took you to one of their facilities and managed to wipe your memory so that they could replace it with an entirely new reality. That dream you keep having? It is not a dream - it is a memory. I broke into the facility, but they found us before we could both escape. I have been searching for you ever since, and trying to find a way to get you back. In the meantime, you have been living with Mrs Jones, thinking that she is your mother, while she has been trying to get information out of you - the little things that bled through your subconscious, like the dream, so that they could use it to their advantage."

The man said all of this with no expression on his face or any emotion in his voice; it was as though he were recounting facts for an exam. He seemed to have finished his crazy monologue - he had stopped talking at least and Elliot just stared in disbelief. Then he began to laugh.

"You can't honestly expect me to believe that?"

"It is the truth whether you believe it or not."

"Well I don't believe you. That's the most ridiculous story I've ever heard!"

"It explains why you know Russian."

"I don't care."

"You asked."

Elliot didn't reply. How could this man expect him to believe that his story was true? Was it even possible? To remove someone's memories and replace them with an entirely different life? He was brought back to the present by the sound of the door opening and closing again. Twisting his upper body around in his seat, he looked at the person who had just entered the room. He didn't know the face, but the terror that filled his stomach told him that he should.

"Orion!" the man snapped, and Elliot froze like a deer in the headlights. He thought he was going to be sick. He couldn't speak. He couldn't think. He could barely breathe. His lungs were on fire. He was dying. His hands gripped the metal bar that had secured him to the table with the handcuffs, knuckles white with the force he was exerting. The room swirled around him, black spots dancing behind his eyes. Dimly, he registered that the new man had left, closing the door behind him. He sat completely still for a long while, breathing shakily and hardly daring to think when his brain finally began functioning again. Eventually, he turned back to face the man who was examining him interestedly. Concern flashed in his eyes too, but Elliot decided that it must just have been his imagination.

"What. The. Hell. Just. Happened?" he asked in a voice barely above a whisper.

"That was Doctor Three," the man explained calmly. "He is one of the board members of Scorpia and is an expert in torture and interrogation. He was one of your instructors when you joined us. Which you clearly, subconsciously, remember."

"I've never seen that man before in my life! And if he was a teacher, why am I terrified? Why did I feel like I was dying? Why would I want to go back to that when I have a life with my mum and my friends?"

"Because your life as you know it at the moment is a lie. And deep down, you know that. You could go back but you would constantly wonder about how your life should be."

"You would let me go back?"

"Yes. If that was your decision."

"And if I decide that I believe you and choose to stay? What happens if you can't get my memories back?"

"If you want us to try, then we will do everything that we can to get them back."

"Why do you care so much?"

"I have my reasons."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because you know instinctively that you should."

"That's not an answer."

"Am I wrong?"

Elliot paused and thought about his answer. Did he trust this man? He had kidnapped him, or at the very least arranged for him to be kidnapped. He had held him in this tiny room, essentially interrogated him and turned his life upside down. Even if the man was lying (although Elliot had to admit that he didn't think that he was), his life would never be the same again. However, believing this man was telling the truth wasn't the same as trusting him. Did he trust him? The more he thought about it, the more he decided that he did. And the only real basis for it was his dream; he trusted the man in the dream and this was the same man, he was sure of it. Was that why, when he had first come into the room, Elliot had instinctively felt like he could trust him? Because of his dream? And that would make sense with some of the things the man had told him. Like why his memories didn't seem to make sense. He shifted uncomfortably under the man's intense stare.

"I trusted you in the dream," Elliot conceded eventually.

The man continued to look pointedly at him. Elliot knew that he was expecting an answer. He was expecting Elliot to decide his future here and now.

"So what happens next?"

"That depends. Either we return you to your 'home' and your 'mother', or we work on restoring your memories."

"How?"

"That would be up to the good doctor to decide. He has the most experience with matters of the mind."

Just the thought of spending time with that man made Elliot feel sick to his stomach… again. He gulped and took a deep breath. He had made his decision.