Sorry if it's sort of annoying the way I'm posting so many chapters so quickly, but I want to get as much of this chapter up as possible before I leave tomorrow for the coast with my sister...

Chapter Three, Second Sighting?

Alex was not happy about being back at the Royal and General for a second time in as many days. He had no choice though, the admin lady from school had been quite clear that she wanted a note detailing Alex's injury before he came back to school. Jack had already called to say that although he was going to be late, Alex would be attending today and with a note.

The girl behind the reception desk eyed him unhappily as he walked in.

"Oh, you again." She didn't bother with formalities, "I'll buzz upstairs."

Alex smiled, trying to make up a little for his behaviour the previous day. He wasn't usually rude to people.

"Yeah, thanks. And sorry about yesterday."

The girl sniffed and tried to ignore him, but Alex saw the mollified expression on her face. He shook his head; he didn't have the energy or willpower to deal with the girl's problems.

"Mrs. Jones says you can come up," the girl said eventually. Alex noticed she wore a name badge. 'Clarisse Hopkins'. He smiled again at her, figuring that if he had to come back here in the near future, it would be best to have a good relationship with her.

"Thanks Clarisse," Alex said as nicely as he could, "And I like your shirt."

As Alex walked into the elevator, he was amused to see Clarisse blushing just before the lift doors shut.

"Not be rude," Mrs. Jones said, frowning at him, "But what are you here for?"

Alex shrugged.

"My school needs a signed note for yesterday from a doctor. So I came to see if Della would take care of that for me, considering she's the one who patched me up."

Mrs. Jones' expression cleared; it was obvious she'd thought that Alex had come to continue the argument from before.

"Oh yes, I forgot," She said cheerfully, "You've been back at school for so long now; I would have thought they would have dispensed with their suspicions."

Alex tried to look nonchalant.

"Well, I guess not. Where's Della?"

Mrs. Jones pointed down the hallway. It was L-shaped; Alex wasn't able to see around the corner.

"She's near the end," Mrs. Jones said helpfully, "On the right, second last. Not all the way down; if you end up in a room that looks like a security booth, you've gone too far."

"Thanks."

Alex didn't go to Della's office. He'd changed his mind about that the instant Mrs. Jones had mentioned the room that looked like a security booth.

So, instead of knocking on Della's office door, Alex quietly let himself into the other room, careful to shut the door and lock it behind him. At least now he'd have advance warning if someone tried to get in.

Thankfully, the room was empty. Alex moved forward past a bank of monitors; the flickering grey light from the TV's providing the only illumination in the room. There were no windows.

As he walked forward, Alex saw what he'd been looking for: a stout, metal cabinet. It was one of several in the small room. There was a note pinned to a cork board. 'For older tapes, ask Records'. To his surprise, the drawers were unlocked. He guessed that MI6 had taken it for granted that no one would be able or daring enough to make it this far without being caught.

The drawers were filled with exactly what Alex had suspected: video discs all marked with a date and time. To make things even more helpful, they were in chronological order. Alex felt a little like he was in an OCD sufferer's room. Alex grinned at that thought and flicked through the discs. Eventually, he found one that caught his attention. It looked to be around the right time frame for when he'd been in the building.

Pulling the tape out, Alex moved a couple of steps to where a smaller TV was hooked up to a DVD machine. Alex fed the disc he'd selected in and waited. After a few minutes of clumsy fast-forwarding and pausing, Alex saw what he'd been looking for: him following Jack out. Satisfied, Alex turned away and began searching another drawer in the cabinet marked 'City CCTV'.

Because he was turned away from the TV, Alex missed a sequence in the tape where a man wearing an expensive black bomber jacket entered the lobby. The man seemed to talk to the receptionist briefly (the video had no sound), pointing to the point where Alex and Jack had been a moment ago. The receptionist nodded and went back to work whilst the man took the elevator up to the same floor Alex had just been on. After that, the disc ended.

As he searched through the 'CCTV' section, Alex found what he'd been looking for. A shot of the street he'd nearly been killed on with the right time frame. Taking the other, ended disc out of the DVD player, Alex put the new one in and began to watch.

Mrs. Jones had been working for a few minutes before she decided to go downstairs to see someone about a report they'd filed late. As she walked down the hallway, she caught sight of Della leaving her office.

"Alex gone then?" Mrs. Jones asked casually, more for the sake of conversation then actual curiosity.

Della looked at Mrs. Jones with a frown.

"Sorry, what?"

Mrs. Jones felt suspicion spark into life in the back of her mind.

"Alex. I asked if Alex was gone. He came for you to sign a note for his school?"

Della looked puzzled as she shook her head.

"Sorry, but I'm not sure what you're talking about; I haven't seen Alex at all today."

Mrs. Jones stopped dead in her tracks.

"You're sure about that?"

"100 percent. I saw him yesterday, but not today."

"Alright, thank you Della," Mrs. Jones said offhandedly before striding back to her office. Once there, she picked up the phone on her desk and dialled the lobby receptionist.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Clarisse. It's Mrs. Jones."

"Oh, hello. What can I do for you?" Clarisse sounded startled. Usually she called upstairs, not the other way around. After all, Mrs. Jones had a personal secretary.

"Has Alex left the building?"

"No," Clarisse sounded surprised now, as if she didn't understand why Mrs. Jones didn't know this already, "I sent him up to you, remember? I haven't seen him come back down yet."

"Alright, thankyou anyway Clarisse." Mrs. Jones said, before putting the phone down and thinking hard. She tried to think where Alex might have gone without telling or asking her. After a minute or so, she was still drawing blanks, so she dialled building security.

"George here." The head of building security picked up on the first ring.

"George, its Mrs. Jones. I have a favour to ask you. I need a full building search done, but I need it done quietly. Can you do that for me?"

"Certainly," George didn't hesitate. He'd had stranger requests in his time, "What am I searching for?"

"A fourteen year old boy. He shouldn't be too hard to find, should he?"

"Actually, I have access to the entire building's security camera network from my office," George said, "I'll have a quick look now for you. Just hold on a tick."

Mrs. Jones did as she was asked, feeling her impatience grow. After awhile, she heard a muttered curse and George returned to the line.

"Looks like that search is still on," he grunted, "The entire network just got turned off."

Mrs. Jones frowned at the phone in her hand and tried to dredge up what knowledge she had about the building's camera network.

"That can only be done from two rooms in the entire building right?"

"Yes," George replied, "My office and the security booth on your level and I can tell you now, the brat isn't hiding in my office. I've already got two of my guys heading up there to your level. Do you want to go in with them?"

"Yes, I'll be waiting for them." Mrs. Jones replied before hanging up again. As she headed out the door of her office and down the long hallway, she thought to herself,

'What's he doing in the security booth?'

Alex leaned in close to the TV screen, turning away from the switch he'd thrown to turn off the building's camera network, watching as the small image of him on the phone to Tom came into view. He watched as he walked into the screen, looked up at the approaching car and-

There!

Alex quickly pressed pause on the DVD player and looked at the frozen scene. There was him, sprawled out clumsily on the street. And there was…

Alex frowned. Where Yassen's (or whoever's it was) face was meant to be, was a blur. Like on the news when a person wanted their identity concealed, the network put a haze over their face. Alex couldn't see what or who he was looking at. Utterly confused, Alex ejected the DVD and was going to put in his pocket and leave the room when the door gave a rattle. Someone was trying to get in, but was being beaten by the lock.

"Alex!" It was Mrs. Jones, "I know you're in there. I've got security coming, so just come out now and avoid making a big deal out of this."

"No way," Alex muttered, pocketing the DVD and quickly returning the room to the way he'd found it, "Not a chance in hell."

Alex looked around the room, trying to decide on his next course of action. Although the room offered a multitude of hiding spots, he knew he couldn't use any of them; he'd be found quickly and have the DVD taken off of him. Alex grimaced and continued searching, painfully aware that he maybe had seconds before security arrived and either unlocked the door or broke it down and dragged him out of here, kicking and screaming.

There were no windows to escape through. Alex hadn't been especially taken with that option anyway; he wasn't a huge fan of heights. Growing desperate, Alex was about to admit defeat as the room seemed to offer no method of escape when he saw that roof was made of easily removable plaster panels. Outside, Mrs. Jones seemed to be speaking to someone.

Heart racing in his chest, Alex hurried over to the largest metal cabinet in the room. Acting as fast as he could, Alex climbed up on it and tried to move the panel with his hand. The panel moved easily, showering him with plaster dust and musty air. Alex, using all of his upper body strength, reached up and pulled himself into the purpose made crawl space. Once up there, he slid the panel back into position. Now he was hidden and it would take the security guards awhile to figure out what he had done because he hadn't broken the roof panel.

Immensely satisfied with himself, Alex began to wriggle along the narrow crawlspace, looking for an empty room he could drop down into and leave the building undetected.

In the end, the two security guards had to break the door down. Bursting into the room, one of them called back to Mrs. Jones.

"It's clear."

Trying not to remain calm, Mrs. Jones walked into the room. It looked empty, but she knew Alex was cunning and skilled at concealing himself.

"Look under all the chairs and desks," she said sharply, "Look anywhere that's big enough to hide a person."

Looking a little unhappy at their job, the guards never the less did as they were told. Starting to worry after they still hadn't found Alex after a few minutes, Mrs. Jones walked further into the room, trying to see if there was anything they were missing. It didn't take long for her sharp eyes to notice the layer of powdered plaster and dust that coated the top of the largest cabinet. She looked up and saw that the roof panel directly above her was sitting crooked.

"He's in the roof!" She gasped, turning to the guards who were looking at her dumbfounded, "He's using the roof crawlspace! Quick, call downstairs and get them to lock down the front entrance! Alex can't be allowed to leave this building!"

With a speed born of several years service to building security, the taller guard promptly began barking out orders on his radio. However, after a long minute, the dreaded reply came.

"Sorry ma'am," The guard said simply, "We're too late; Alex Rider has left the building."

Mrs. Jones, in a rare moment of poor temper control, muttered a curse under her mint scented breath.

Alex was careful to avoid drawing attention to himself as he hurried away from the Royal and General. Inside his school uniform's pocket, the disc dug into his side. Alex wasn't sure why he'd pocketed the disc; after all, he couldn't see the face he was looking for. The only thing that stopped him from throwing the disc away now was his friend Michael Davies.

As Alex entered the office of his school, one of the ladies looked up at him with raised brows.

"You're a mess." She said bluntly. Surprised, Alex looked down at himself. His uniform was covered in dust from the crawlspace. Blushing, he quickly brushed himself off, drawing more contempt from the office woman when he caused the dust to end up embedded in the carpet.

"Do you have your doctor's note Mr. Rider?" The woman asked eventually, looking at him distastefully, like he was a tramp who'd turned up on her doorstep, begging for money.

Alex reached into his pocket to produce the note, but then stopped. With a wince, he remembered he'd never had the chance to ask Della to sign it. Damn, Jack would eat him alive when she heard.

"Um, I forgot…"

The woman looked maliciously delighted by these turn of events.

"Well Mr. Rider, I suppose I have to let you into class regardless, but I believe that you will most probably end up with a detention for this."

Alex managed not to share several of the highly explicit responses that came to mind. That, he supposed, was advantage missions had over school: there was no one to throw a tantrum at you if you happened to be prone to bad language.

"Okay, fine." Alex said instead, glaring at the woman sourly, before turning around and walking to class.

As he'd expected, the teacher was less then thrilled as Alex walked into the classroom.

"Oh, decided to join us have you?" She asked snidely, amidst giggles from her students, "Not too good for us suddenly?"

Alex blushed, mumbled a cursory excuse and quickly looked for a seat. To his relief, he found one next to his only other friend besides Tom, Michael Davies. As soon as he was seated, the teacher resumed her droning lecture on the definition of an 'ecosystem'.

"Hey mate," Michael greeted him easily, "Decided not to bunk off after all?"

Unlike with the teacher, this question was teasing and gentle coming from the black haired boy. Alex grinned at him.

"Yeah," he replied, "I figured I'd give the whole school thing a shot; I mean, there's only so much amusement you can get out of tropical beaches and women in tiny bikinis."

Michael dissolved into a poorly contained laughing fit, obviously amused by Alex's joking explanation for his whereabouts.

"Tell me?" Michael asked, "How many of these women are imaginary?"

Alex thumped Michael good-naturedly in the shoulder, stopping when the teacher's shrill voice cut in on their conversation.

"Mr. Rider, judging by the manner in which you're not taking notes, you obviously already have an extensive knowledge of the class material. Perhaps you'd like to define an ecosystem using my lecture?"

Alex froze, mouth falling open. He had no clue what the definition of an ecosystem was, much less according to Ms. Harris' standards.

Fortunately, Michael had been taking notes. The boy pretended to cough, jostling Alex in the process. Subtly glancing at the notes, Alex promptly spat out,

"A system of existence formed by both living organisms and their inanimate environmental surroundings."

Obviously disappointed that she wouldn't have a chance to gripe at Alex further, Ms. Harris turned back to the board, allowing Alex to continue his conversation unbothered.

"Hey Mike," Alex said, "Your Mum is a photographer, right?"

Michael raised a brow quizzically.

"Yeah, why do you ask?"

Alex hesitated, wondering if he had the right to bring his friend into all of this. Then, he shook himself. It was a simple favour, not dangerous at all.

"I have a video clip," Alex said slowly, "And there's a scene that when I freeze it, this guy's face gets all covered up in that fuzz stuff they use on the news to preserve people's privacy. You know what I mean?"

Michael nodded, still not understanding where this was going.

"What's that got to do with my Mum being a photographer?"

Alex shrugged.

"I figured she might have the knowledge or software to be able to take the blur off."

"Yeah, she might," Michael thought about it, "And she's working today, so if you don't mind bunking off the rest of the day, we could go see her at lunch."

"What about you?" Alex asked, "Won't your Mum mind you skipping school?"

Michael grinned widely.

"Nope. My Mum says that she doesn't care about my school attendance, so long as my academic performance stays as high as it is."

"Cool," Alex had to grin as well, "Let's go see her then."

"I have a question though," Michael said suddenly, giving Alex a suspicious, enquiring look. "Why do you need to know this guy's identity? And what's the video of?"

Alex squirmed in his seat uncomfortably.

"That's more then one question."

Michael wasn't impressed.

"Look mate, either you answer all my questions or I don't take you to see my Mum. I'm only asking because…"

Alex raised a brow.

"Because?"

Michael sighed and threw his hands up in defeat.

"Well, you know about your reputation as a crook. I trust you, but just in case, I don't want to give my Mum a clip of you robbing a shop or something. She has no problems bending the rules a little to do favours for people, but not modifying police tapes or anything like that."

Alex gave Michael a sour look.

"So basically, it's I trust you, but not really?"

"Aw come on mate," Michael complained, "Don't be like that. I'm just saying is all."

Alex sighed and gave in.

"Okay, I am in the clip, but it's not me robbing a shop. It's from yesterday; I was nearly hit by a car."

Michael nodded encouragingly, idly scribbling on a sheet of paper.

"And?"

Alex considered his next words carefully. He knew he had to make this next bit convincing without revealing the truth.

"Well, some guy pushed me out of the way. I think I know who it was already, but the guy I'm thinking of is…well, anti-social to say the least. He's an old...associate of my Uncle's."

Michael considered Alex's words.

"So, what, you want to see if it is him to…I dunno, thank him?"

Alex nodded, grateful Michael had provided the excuse himself.

"Yeah, exactly."

"Why don't you just call him?"

Alex resisted the urge to groan. As much as Michael was his friend, he had a tendency to make things complicated very quickly with his questions that always hit just a little too close to home.

"He doesn't like me much," Alex admitted, "I sort of got him into trouble awhile back with his boss… I got him fired."

Michael didn't notice it, but Alex couldn't help but cringe at his own poor choice of words. They echoed Cray's words too much for his liking.

"Oh," Michael nodded, "Yeah, I can see why he wouldn't like you very much then."

"But I really want to make sure it was him," Alex said, steering the conversation back to his main point, "So that if it was, I can thank him."

Michael shrugged.

"Fair enough. We'll go see my Mum then."

It was a simple enough matter to sneak out of the school grounds through a hole in the chain fence and catch the tube to the office Michael's Mum worked in. As they walked into the very upscale looking lobby, Michael waved to the receptionist.

"Hey Troy, we're going to see my Mum!"

Troy, a balding middle aged man, just smiled indulgently and waved them on.

"I'll call and tell her you're coming up."

"Cheers."

Alex's first impression of Michael's mother was that she didn't look like a mother. Tall, glamorous and wearing designer clothing, she looked like a impassive model posing as a businesswoman.

That illusion was lost however as Mrs. Davies saw her son. Her face broke into a wide, beautiful smile that displayed infinite love for her son. Alex was glad for Michael; he'd had it tough lately between his Father running off to Spain without a word and being picked on at school for his good marks.

"I didn't realise school go out so early these days." She said teasingly, raising a brow. Michael smirked and shrugged.

"Half days to those who know the secret ways." He said in a slightly sing-song voice.

"You snuck out through the fence?"

Michael laughed, knowing he'd told his Mother about that particular trick.

"Yep."

Mrs. Davies gave a mocking frown and turned to Alex.

"Hello, he didn't drag you out of school too did he?" She asked, offering her hand. Alex shook it.

'No, I was the one who suggested coming to see you," He said, "My name's Alex Rider."

Mrs. Davies looked delighted.

"The Alex Rider?" She asked, "As in the one who manages to be in therapy, a crook and overseas BASE jumping all at the same time?"

Alex blushed; he hadn't realised that Michael had told his Mum all of the school rumours.

"Um, yeah."

"Well, it's a definite pleasure then," Mrs. Davies smiled, showing her million dollar toothpaste ad smile, "What can I do for you?"

Alex pulled the DVD disc from his pocket and passed it to her.

"It's a video," he said, a tad unnecessarily, "And there's a scene that has a man on it with his face covered by the blur they use to hide people's identities."

Mrs. Davies laughed dryly.

"I am familiar with what you're talking about," she said, "After studying media and photography for five years. So let me guess, you'd like me to try and remove said blur from said man's face?"

Alex nodded, waiting for Michael's Mum to pass judgement on his request.

"Hmm," She looked pensive, weighing the disc in her hand, "I hope this isn't invading anyone's privacy? Not to be used for extortion purposes?"

"No," Alex shook his head quickly, "I think I know the man already, he stopped me from being hit by a car. I just want to make sure it is him."

"He can't just ask the guy because he got him fired awhile back and there's a bit of bad air between them now." Michael supplied helpfully.

Mrs. Davies shot Alex an unfathomable look from her emerald coloured eyes.

"Understandable." She murmured before sighing and slotting the disc into her computer, "Alright, let's have a look at this. I'll see what I can do."

As soon as the video loaded, Mrs. Davies hesitated, a shocked expression crossing her face.

"This is a CCTV video!" She said in surprise, before levelling an immensely suspicious look in Alex's direction, "Where did you get this?"

Alex squirmed for a split-second before an excuse came to mind.

"Um, I know this sounds bad, but I'm sort a really good hacker and…"

Mrs. Davies didn't look one hundred percent convinced; she drummed her manicured nails against her desk thoughtfully.

"Alright then…Let me just double check here that you are not invading anyone's privacy here? You're using this purely to see if this man is the one you should thank for saving your life?"

Alex nodded and tried to look as innocent as possible. Due to having to tell a lot of lies over the last year or so, he pulled the expression off with surprising skill and ease. Mrs. Davies looked a little less tense and began typing into her computer.

"I'll trust you on this one," she muttered, "Just a warning though, the software I'm going to try and download isn't strictly legal and it takes a good twenty minutes to upload to my system. I suggest you boys make yourself comfortable."

Mrs. Jones was sitting at her desk, trying to figure out exactly what she was going to say to Blunt by way of explanation when there was a frantic knock at her office door. Thinking sullenly that this day couldn't really get any worse, she called out for them to come in.

It was a skinny, brown haired man by the name of Henry LaGrise. He was one of her tech people, also a friend of Smithers'. Mrs. Jones frowned at him.

"Yes?" She was in too bad a mood to bother with niceties.

"We just got a hit on one of our remotely traceable web lures," He said, speaking computer nerd like no other, "We did a search along the IP address…It's coming from a computer belong to a woman named Marylyn Davies, a famous photojournalist. She's trying to download one of our photo editing programs."

Mrs. Jones resisted the urge to sigh.

"And this is a problem for me because?"

Henry looked Mrs. Jones in the eye.

"Mrs. Davies' son, Michael Davies is one of Alex Rider's best school friends. Knowing this, I took the liberty of investigating a little further. Alex's school has reported both Alex and Michael truant as of this lunchtime; Michael often goes to his Mother's office during school hours."

Slowly starting to realise the chance she was being presented with, Mrs. Jones started double checking everything. She couldn't afford to miss this chance to grab Alex; not if she wanted to avoid Alan Blunt's wrath.

"Did you check to make sure they were with Mrs. Davies?"

Henry nodded.

"Yes. The office's receptionist reported letting both Michael and a boy that meets Alex's description up to see Marylyn."

Mrs. Jones thought about it. They'd done a search of the security booth Alex had been hiding in and found one CCTV disc missing. Mrs. Jones hadn't known exactly what was on it herself, but she had a good guess and besides, Blunt had demanded she recover it immediately. That was indication enough that this was important.

"Alright," she said aloud, "Here's what I want you to do…"

As you may (or may not have) guessed, this story is meant to be sort of like a TV show, with episodes and stuff...I dunno how well I did at emphasising that though...

Anyway, tell me what you think :)