Chappie Eight

The recycled air in the plane was cold and stuffy as always. The seats were hard and there wasn't enough room for his legs. How they thought people could sleep was beyond him, but maybe Alex was just being picky, and, really, he had certainly slept in places much worse than this.

Beside him, a man only a few years older than him chatted to his friends sitting across the aisle. It appeared he'd drawn the short straw in terms of seating, because as he sat beside Alex, his mates teased him, saying what a lovely seat-mate he had, with flowing, golden hair and soft, pale skin.

Well, at least the man was unlikely to be as annoying as 'Soph', Alex's last seat-mate. After stowing his backpack under the seat in front of him, the man had taken some earphones from his pocket and plugged them into the hand-rest.

As Alex waited for take-off, the air-hostesses came round.

"That's the headphones with complimentary earplugs; complimentary blanket and pillow; complimentary juice pack; and complimentary peanuts. I must warn you some products may contain nuts."

A slender man in a brown pinstriped suit near Alex commented knowingly, "That'll be the peanuts."

The hostess did not seem to have much of a sense of humour and only gave a thin smile. "Enjoy your trip."

"Oh, I can't wait!" cried the man in false ecstasy. "Allons-y!"

Alex looked down at the juice, flavoured peach and clementine, and was struck with a dilemma. Drink it now, or later? If he drank it now it would quench the thirst from breakfast, but then he'd feel the plaque building up, and he'd have to stand up, go to the bathroom and brush his teeth… So much hassle for such small relief.

But against his instincts, he decided to succumb to peer pressure – and avoid any annoying questions – by following his seatmate's lead: the man showed no hesitation, ripping off the cover and throwing back the juice. He finished it in three gulps.

Alex plugged the earphones into the headset on his armrest, and turned the screen on. Instantly, his ears were assaulted with a cacophony of a woman singing 70s music and urging listeners to 'Do it, do it again'. He switched to cartoons, but all that was showing was Betty Boop. Sighing with regret, Alex chose to do something rather more useful than just watching movies: he clicked 'Learn Another Language' and waited for the screen to load.

xxx

After at least ten minutes his screen still hadn't loaded and when the plane took off a few minutes later, it flickered dangerously. Soon they were above the cloud line and the seatbelt lights dimmed. Alex gave up on his screen ever loading and let it be after fruitlessly slamming the menu button. He kept his headset on to block out all external noise (such as his enthusiastic seat-mate).

Once again, the air-hostesses came around, this time with trolleys of food. Alex's seat-mate chose sausages and mash; Alex chose the lamb and mashed pea pie. Along with the pie, he was given lychee juice, fruit salad, and a scone with butter, cream and strawberry jam; all in a nice little tray. Though he had already eaten, Alex decided to treat himself and eat it all.

Without warning, the headset resting on Alex's head burst to life and the panicked tones of a young British girl assaulted his ears: "My name's Cassie and I'm lost – lost after pirates attacked my father's sp–"

The voice cut off with the sound of digital vomit and Alex's screen froze on a sickly, barcode-like pattern of yellow and cerulean. Alex looked around at the other passengers, but no one seemed to have heard what he had and no one else's screen had had a strange fit.

He shrugged, turned off the screen, and tucked into his food. Maybe the screen shouldn't have been turned on before lift-off, like they said…

xxx

The man in the brown suit near Alex had lost his enthusiasm and good humour, and instead was reading a letter on posh stationery. Alex could hear his mutters as he read the message.

"The path has never seemed more… reason tells me that you… I shall not listen… inside your head…my love… lonely…"

Bored, Alex filled in the missing words with flowery phrases and overcomplicated verse.

"The path has never seemed more obvious. You need me more than I need you, and as it is giving that brings more joy than receiving, I shall enter a relationship with you. Reason tells me that the younger you are, the more likely you are to learn; we must be married upon your return." (It rhymed!)

"I shall not listen if you decide to spurn my tender affection because I know that the part of you that rejects me is the aberration inside your head that I shall strive to heal. My love, do not hesitate; instead embrace this stroke of fortune afforded us by fate. You must acknowledge that you are lonely and will only be complete once I join with you."

The man's look of utter sadness and resignation made absolute sense. Alex smiled in satisfaction and congratulated himself on a job well done. His English teacher would be proud. His football coach would have scowled.

As if applauding his translation, the food trolley came once more with 'refreshments': something called rendang, and a trio of biscuits. Alex drooled.

xxx

Alex's seat-mate was shifting in his seat, leaning from side to side with an intense look on his face. His focussed mastication of his peanuts made Alex shudder. Surreptitiously, Alex bent towards his neighbour and peered at the screen darkened by whatever it was that caused it to be able to be seen only from the front. On the screen, a rainbow ball spun on a platform suspended in the virtual air of a world with ultra-saturated colours and a cyan sky.

The ball fell through a hole, landing on a spring which sent it flying up, through the hole, through another hole and then the ball rolled forwards, onto a giant button where it froze as fireworks exploded from underneath.

Sighing in relief, Alex's seat-mate dropped the controller and slumped backwards, still chewing the peanuts ponderously. His friends from across the aisle swore – or at least that was what it sounded like – and hailed him as the marble king. Alex decided to mind his own business or have his head explode from perplexion.

xxx

The couple in front of Alex had been at it for a while. Originally, due to the boy's appearance as, well, a boy and so still under the age of consent; and the woman's grey hair and subtle wrinkles lending her an image of maturity past middle age, Alex had assumed that they were mother and son.

Apparently not. After a complex boarding ritual, involving the woman checking the boy's face for dirt, then spitting daintily on a handkerchief and rubbing vigorously at his face, they seated themselves and began another long process, this time with the stowing of bags, fastening of seatbelts and unwrapping of blanket and pillow.

Strangely enough, the male had refused any and all meals. The woman, in contrast, consumed all with fascinatingly voracious gusto. At one point, it seemed the boy was as disgusted as Alex, and rose to go to the bathroom with a pale face. As he passed Alex, he glanced over with weirdly dark eyes ringed by purplish bruises.

Now he had returned, and greeted his… partner? with a long and passionate kiss that continued with neither partner gasping for air as the boy (?) seated himself.

Fortunately, the food trolley arrived, bringing a meal eagerly accepted by the woman. Alex's stomach, undeterred by the displays forced upon him earlier, growled at the smells wafting over.

He checked the menu: char siu with cucumber slices as an appetiser; oriental broth with lotus seeds, water chestnuts, straw mushrooms, baby corn and bamboo shoots; roast duck on ramen noodles with a sweet sauce; and a blueberry and custard Danish to round the whole meal off.

The woman wiped her mouth on the tip of the towel that was draped around the boy's neck, and excused herself with a "Why don't you email that trio of yours? I'm sure they'd like to hear from us. Make sure to ask about Eve."

xxx

Another strange couple had caught Alex's attention. He didn't know what it was about them, but something screamed juvenile criminal. Maybe it was the tattoo on the man's neck, or his scruffy and general don't mess with me look.

Or maybe it was the… overly endowed girl (to put it lightly), with a scowl on her face and scruffy yet somehow fitting attire that characterised her immediately with her bling and heavy make-up. Whatever it was, it came as a surprise when the girl started explaining to her boyfriend, 'Seth', about the plane's engine in relation to a rocket's during a bout of turbulence.

Her boyfriend smiled with a slightly bored expression and broke in to crack what seemed like some sort of inside joke about the plane being in a storm. Smirks spread across their faces and they glanced around the plane nonchalantly. Alex shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep.

xxx

Alex was feeling guilty about all the food he was consuming. Call him paranoid, but he felt as if he was sinking further into the chair under his weight with every bite.

His football coach would be disappointed. The man often lectured the team on not just eating a healthy and balanced diet, but also exercising to keep up cardiovascular and muscular fitness. Apparently, he'd trained as a nutritionist before moving onto football, and even at parties would stick to salads – without dressing, of course – and tiny portions of steak, followed by a fruit brought from home and a large glass of water. His favourite fruit was the orange, but he had sometimes been heard to extol the virtues of exotic fruits. He favoured pomegranates and pomelos for their 'anti-oxidant properties' and vitamin C.

Perhaps when he got to Singapore, Alex could buy some fruit for his coach and send it – somehow – as a bribe and compensation for missing so many games.

Maybe not. It was probably illegal.

Thinking all of this took a lot of effort for Alex's brain, which was already numb from the tedium of the plane ride. How long had it been? Nine hours already, with about fourteen more to go. Only food could rid him of the pain. Any type of food.

Like angels sent from heaven, the air-hostesses descended – or rather, wheeled the food trolleys – to him, bearing a tray of goodies including a Tim Tam, some crackers and cheese, three mingy pieces of sushi, a melon ball fruit salad and watermelon juice.

Alex dismissed his phantom coach urging him to spurn temptation, and welcomed the tray with a hungry grin.

xxx

In the relative quiet of the plane, unmarred by teenage girls and their music, Alex found himself in a reflective mood. He wasn't one to be content with a passive role against his nemeses.

After all, they would only keep attacking him until he was dead, although even then who was to say they wouldn't attack his corpse and dance on his grave? And so he sat, The Thinker on a plane seat, contemplating his options regarding the destruction of his foes. All the while, his seat-mate beside him bobbed his head in time to the basketballs on the screen.

One of the ideas he rejected almost immediately was to get rid of the head of the organisation. There were a couple of problems with this path: one, icy, a complete stranger, was hidden in a country with a population of more than five million; and two, even if he somehow managed to find and destroy icy, who was to say icy was the head, anyway? Perhaps he was simply another pawn in some other person's game. Or perhaps it was an entire organisation against him, like SCORPIA. If so, he was not up against a snake, but a hydra. Perhaps rushing off to Singapore hadn't been the wisest course of action.

And so he considered the destruction of the entire operation against him. However, this multiplied the problems as icy and the other attackers were all unknown to him. Finding all of them and stopping them would undoubtedly be incredibly difficult. It was just too difficult exterminating the entire group.

What other options did he have?

The only one that leaped out at him was from his apathetic side, the small part of him that hated the adventure and mysteries of spy-work and wished for sleep, nibbles and a sofa placed directly to the front of a large television.

This part of his mind suggested that he simply go back to Britain and his house, get several packets of crisps and laze about watching TV. This part of Alex's mind suggested that even if the organisation killed him, he'd die happy, and besides, with that lifestyle he would die of a heart attack in forty years anyway.

Promptly squashing that part of his mind, he decided he could think more later. Maybe when he wasn't so numbed by this horrible long plane flight.

xxx

Dinner came in the form of some steamed vegetable in oyster sauce; salmon pan-fried in a blend of soy-sauce, ginger, sherry, sugar and sesame oil – or at least that's what some passenger claiming to be a chef loudly announced to his friend – mango juice; and an ice-cream in a cone with whipped cream, chocolate fudge sauce and chopped nuts. The cone was lined with chocolate.

The man beside Alex noticeably ate only the vegetables and half the main meal. One of his friends only ate the ice-cream and the juice.

Alex ate it all. It was delicious.

xxx

Brightness woke him up. The lights had turned on, just as they had turned off hours earlier (as if the flight-crew were passively-aggressively telling passengers to go to bed, dammit! and stop asking them for a glass of water!).

Alex hadn't meant to fall asleep; at first he had merely pretended, at eight o' clock, when his seat-mate had grown sick of watching movies and started an avid conversation with his friends. He had reasoned that the man might be considerate and speak quieter in order not to 'disturb' his younger seat-mate. It hadn't worked.

Even so, Alex had fallen asleep, and now it was morning and the sun was shining through the windows and the air-hostesses were coming round with steamed towels for passengers to wipe their faces. Or at least, that was what he assumed they were for. The tongs the hostesses used to take them back were inordinately successful in making Alex feel unclean.

xxx

The crowd from the plane made their way at various speeds to the bag retrieval area. Some, like the chef, the man in the brown suit and the couple with the seemingly large age gap, took the travelator – or magic carpet as Tom had taught Alex to call it. Others, like the criminal couple and Alex's seat-mate and friends decided to take the healthier option and walk.

Alex himself, in a compromise between impatience and guilt, rode the magic carpet and walked as well. As he whizzed past walkers, he felt the superiority and power that only speed can bring. The air blew his hair back, and for a moment, he felt as though he really was on a magic carpet ride. It was an indescribable feeling.

Unfortunately, the ride soon ended and Alex was forced to move at a human pace. He was whisked through Customs with such haste that he didn't have time to feel terrified and found himself walking through the exit with almost no recollection of having travelled through the airport. Perhaps he'd been too tired to take much note.

A sign nearby told him that, should he choose to ride in a taxi, a Benz or maxi-taxi or other more expensive types would have a surcharge. After noting this, he walked outside and was – just as hurriedly as his airport experience had seemingly been – directed towards the only free taxi. It was a Merc.

He wandered back to the person who had ushered him towards the car and asked him whether he would incur a surcharge if he rode in the Benz.

"No, no surcharge," the man reassured him. "When they come to airport, they are all normal taxis. No surcharge."

"Ah," responded Alex. He'd heard that Singaporeans were always looking to scam money off tourists. Was this the case here?

Smiling his thanks to the director person, he ambled to the Benz and asked the driver whether he would incur a surcharge.

"No," the driver smiled toothily. "See, we become the normal taxis in the airport."

Alex nodded. Well, it wasn't as if there were any other taxis around to take him, and he didn't want to start his trip in Singapore being rude, so he helped the driver load his luggage into the car then relaxed into the front seat and the peculiar feeling of professionalism, comfort and subtle dodginess that only a Mercedes Benz taxi could provide.

In a strange way, the smell of stale cigarette smoke pervading the interior of the car and the soft sound of the radio set to a popular station made him feel quite somnolent. Maybe all taxi drivers were taught to give their passengers the same treatment the world over, with slight differences according to location and price. As it was, the leather seats, wood panelling and vaguely cheerful but indifferent driver made him feel as if he were being driven to the Bank.

Singapore was a city in two minds. On the one hand, towering buildings were clustered in blocks, cold metal structures that were constantly being knocked down to be replaced by taller, stronger and even deader buildings.

But even as the buildings rose, so did trees of great sizes. Serpent-like, green ropy branches snaked around each other in twisting patterns, mimicking ropey roots that dived into the ground and attacked cracks in the footpath. It was a sharp contrast to Chelsea, a place of old stately homes and prim gardens. Here was a distant future where humans inhabited shelters and plants reclaimed the world. The only sign of human existence outside of the buildings were cranes, scattered like strangely graceful birdlike creatures. Yet despite their indication of human life, they did not exude any humanity, or life. Just more metal structures in a metal city standing amongst the trees.

As they drove down the winding streets barely lit by the rising Monday-morning sun, Alex caught sight of the Singapore Flyer, the South-East Asian version of the London Eye. Lights twinkling in the pre-dawn darkness, it did not seem to quite fit in with the clinical seriousness of the city, though it did brighten the mood just a little.

Next to the big wheel existed structures like giant flat-topped trees devoid of leaves. The trunks glowed yellow and pink while the branches radiated purple. From within the centre of the faux trees' growth, a white spherical light gently brought a sense of life to the great, oddly beautiful constructions. Behind the trees loomed a dome like the spine of some ancient mythical water-creature emerging from the bay.

The taxi passed the business district, a surprisingly quiet place for a Monday, although street cleaners were already up and about, cleaning the ghost city. It finally pulled up at the hotel Alex had booked.

Alex pushed the glass doors open in a double-door entrance and was assaulted immediately with a wall of cold, saturated with air-freshener. His eyes, still used to the darkness of outside, automatically squinted to adjust to the overwhelming goldenness of the lighting and furnishings.

In contrast, the walls were white, though the wooden pillars and mezzanine were also of a yellow-hued wood. Or perhaps they were painted. Behind the front desk hung white sheer drapes, lit from above with yellow incandescent lights. To the right was a luggage-trolley, guarded by a porter, and around the room were several swirly sculptures of silver and blue, accentuating the colour scheme.

A receptionist with bright white teeth to match the sheer brilliance of the place greeted him. Alex plastered a look of polite interest on his tired face.

"Hello, I've got a booking here, under the name of Le Châtelier?"

The man typed rapidly on his keyboard. "Ah, yes, Sir. Room 713. Here is your key."

Alex took the card, and asked if he would be able to check in straight away.

Apparently the normal check in time was not until three o'clock in the afternoon – nine hours he would have had to wait – but since the room had been unoccupied previously, they were able to make an exception. Perhaps it was the dark circles ringing Alex's eyes that persuaded them.

Dragging his leaden feet, he took the lift to his room, noting with amusement the excited tone the lift put on as it announced, "Doors opening!" He could almost imagine little wavy lines and hearts emitting from the speakers.

Room 713 was of average size, with a single bed in the middle. Like all hotel rooms, it was carpeted – though not with as nice a carpet as he had left behind in Chelsea – and featured a wide-screen TV, a wooden bench, some chairs, a wardrobe, a bathroom and a safe. Nothing really of note.

After dumping his luggage onto the bed, he checked out the safe. While these were not infallible, at least he could store some valuables in it, which he did, as well as in several hiding places scattered about the room.

An envelope sitting innocuously on the bedside table caught his attention as he flipped through the other items left there – a menu, some sort of operating instructions for the television, some other stuff that wasn't interesting…

But this envelope was unmarked. He couldn't think of any hotel purpose it might have, which left him thinking that it had come from the outside. Obviously someone had paid the hotel staff to leave it there for him to find.

Who had sent it? An enemy or a friend? He'd heard stories of anthrax being sent in the mail, and he couldn't afford the risk. Not when he was so tired, and not when he didn't want to draw attention to himself. But what if it was important? What if MI6 was contacting him with some very important information and this was the only way to reach him?

He picked up the envelope, frowning.

AN:

To thegirlwhosawerewolf: Thanks for reviewing so much! It's nice to know that people care enough to bother :) Late is better than never.

To Niamh x: Thank you for your review! It really made my day :) To answer your questions, it is not Yassen who is after Alex (he is, sadly, still dead); Eagle was not the man from number 4, but you're close…