A/N: This is me, trying to give the Alex Rider section something more than just a few drabbles.
As a small explanation to anyone who might find the length lacking: Don't worry, the chapters get longer. It just seemed the best place to cut it, really.
Karmic Balance
Chapter One
Ian Rider lived a complicated life. If you asked him about it, he would tell you that it wasn't worth boring you with the details. Not that the details themselves were boring, but there were many, many details. (Not that an agent such as him would be so inclined as to tell you all of those details, anyhow.)
But as there were so many details, Ian figured that no one would have the time to look through them, and one would need quite a strong will to really want to get through to them and read the whole damn thing – far more than just one manila folder was needed. And if a nosey someone had the will, well… All the details of his life were secure, and if anyone tried to pry, they would either find themselves at gunpoint, or trapped behind bars as they tripped a trap surrounding the many private files of MI6 agents.
Ian Rider drove to work each and every day secure with this knowledge. Unfortunately for him, on a particular April day, a group of people wanting very much so to know the details of his life with more will than usual, had all the time they needed, and at nine o'clock of a Monday morning actually had a way; for the knowledge on Ian Rider, so usefully bound in several thin, beige paper folders, was not so secure – for only a few minutes, anyway.
A few miles away, in the bowels of a large, well-known bank, a man looking rather bored with life heaved as he lugged one of the largest, non-descript file cabinets he had ever seen before down an equally plain corridor. He didn't know why the files needed moving, only that he didn't question the orders of his superiors.
What he also didn't know, but would have been very helpful in prolonging his life if he did, was that the many security cameras surrounding that section of the so-called 'bank' were running a loop of footage, and the alarms had been re-wired. What he also didn't know was that at the next turn of the corridor, a dark-clad man would break his neck, dump his body in the nearest closet, and make way with one particular file.
And what he didn't know, really would hurt him.