An Uncommon Cold
"I AM DOCTOR XAVIER GAITER!"
Alex was currently tied to a chair. Well, this was an unexpected development. He continued staring at the man. "Okay? Dude, I failed out of school so if you did anything impor-"
The man started bawling.
Alex was just sitting there. Awkwardly. Tied to a chair. I mean, he already knew Xavier wasn't okay, given the whole idea of infecting the world with a whole virus thing, but it was different seeing it in action. "Um, was it something I said?"
Look, if someone had a mental breakdown it sometimes made his job easier. Usually, because they forked over stuff without a fight. A few people had even let him go while sniffling.
"NOOO! I have spent my life studying one specific kind of cold."
The man inhaled dramatically. Alex almost felt sorry for Xavier. It sounded awful. Maybe the burnout brochure would-
"I was planning to cure it! I was only a few months away from entering a special vaccine into the first round of clinical trials."
Xavier paused and took a few giant gulps of water. Alex leaned back into the chair he was tied to. He folded his arms. "I was on the cusp of a cure! And, do you know what happened?!"
Alex stared at the man with no small amount of exasperation. Did he look like he had a degree in virology? Honestly, he had no idea. People just seemed to like confessing their evil plots to him. "COVID-19 DESTROYED MY LIFE'S WORK! THE MASKING WIPED OUT ALL THE CASES!"
Alex paused. Wait, that didn't even make sense. Shouldn't he be glad that was all it took? "Can't you publish that?"
Xavier scoffed. And then continued plowing through his speech. "Why would I want to do that? I will NOW TAKE MY REVENGE by UNLEASHING THE VIRUS UPON THE WORLD!"
Alex leaned back in his chair. There it was. This guy was batshit. It was time to try to escape. And here Alex had been about to feel sorry for him. "Well, before you doubtlessly murder me in some gruesome way, why don't you tell me about your research?"
Alex began slowly sawing through the rope with a nail as the man perked up. Suddenly, any signs of madness abruptly vanished. Xavier seemed perfectly normal all of a sudden. He twirled his mustache thoughtfully. "Well, I suppose you can hear the press release I prepared about the vaccine. And my fifteen-minute poster presentation. We do have some time."
Alex couldn't fucking believe that worked. He'd swear that all professors were just feral research pets. He began sawing harder as Xavier pulled up some admittedly attractive-looking slides. "The Xavier Vaccine…"
Alex watched the press release with some interest. He was mostly interested in where the man had stashed his vaccine research. MI6 would probably know what to do with that. Not to mention, he said he was a few months away from a potential cure, so it would be a good backup in case he succeeded.
"...Thus, with my novel vaccine targeting the…"
Alex continued sawing through the ropes. He was almost done by the time Xavier got through his press presentation. Someone needed to tell the guy to keep things snappier. The public had hilariously short attention spans. Not to mention, that had gone on for like forty-five minutes. Alex looked at him. "Is the information secure?"
Xavier gave him a scathing look. Alex put on his most innocent face. "What? I'm doing my best impression of the general public."
Xavier snorted. Alex grinned inwardly. Score one for Team Rider. "All of it is stored securely on my private server with the most modern encryption. I do have a copy on my laptop. However, the patent…"
Alex finished sawing through the rope just as Xavier continued to yack through some probable questions. Xavier turned towards him. "Any other questions?"
Alex let out a sigh. He held the ropes so that they didn't fall off. Xavier probably wasn't that inobservant. At least his research was distracting enough for Alex to get away with that. "None that I can think of."
Xavier clasped his hands. Alex watched as he whipped out a USB and plugged it into the screen. "Excellent! Now, the slides are a work in progress, but I think I have the protein structures down. It's almost a shame I have to kill you after you listened to my research presentations. Anyway…"
Alex felt a little bad for the guy. He was just going to let the man finish his presentation.
Alex waited for the acknowledgments to pop up before he slid out of his chair and silently stepped behind Xavier. He pulled the man into a chokehold. Alex held him in place as he gasped for breath. "It's almost a shame to kill you. You seem like a decent scientist."
Alex wasn't going to kill him, but Xavier didn't know that. Xavier dropped unconscious. Alex gently set him down and grabbed his laptop. He grabbed his shirt and the devices Xavier had confiscated to look at personally.
Alex found all of the exploding coins intact. He stuck one on the desk and set it to blow up. It was time to head back to the bank and drop the computer off. There was a cure to find and a secure cloud server to either destroy or hack. The cloud had complicated his job immensely.
Alex began to merrily stroll out of the building. "Wait, didn't the boss have you tied up?"
Alex grinned. This was the perfect opportunity. "It was a sex thing, dude. Do I look like an actual spy?"
The guard looked him up and down. Alex knew he had the disorganized look down pat. "You know what? Nah. Erm, did it go o-OOF! WHY DID YOU ELBOW ME, SHALE?! IT WAS A GENUINE QUESTION! SEX WORKERS DESERVE BETTER!"
Alex quietly walked out as the two coworkers began bickering. He barely held his laugh in as he finished walking out of the building. After he got into his car, he laughed as he pulled out of the parking lot.
Fin
Based on a prompt by mediaboy (see story summary). This is the 337th work in the Winds of Change 2022 Alex Rider Prompt event, where a new prompt (plus a short 1-3K work) is posted every day. For more details, see the AO3 collection. We have an index of all the prompts used in this event so far and going forwards - join the discord to get access to the online index (and to take part in our events, chat about everything and anything, and meet a load of awesome people!