Six months ago, France.

Syrai watched Alex got on a train to Russia. The blonde was getting onto the train speaking to someone she couldn't see. Her telephoto lens let her get a good shot of him from the top of a building two blocks away. Alex was still his blonde haired, brown eyed, "I need protection or someone is going to bend me back wards over a table" self. She was just glad to know he was being protected. SH egave him a once over to see how beign burned had affected him.

"Well, my dear, you filled out very nicely."

Five months ago, Syria.

Syrai was glad to finally visit her name sake. The best part of this was she blamed her father for everything. Shje would have expected the CIA agent to have better spelling. Somehow, he had botched it up and told her mother to name her "Syrai" rather than Syria, the war ridden country he was visiting at the time. Then he got himself promptly shot by Japanese ninjas. Because: was there any other nationality of ninja?

Alex's last mission had been to this location. The CIA was that up to date that way. Still, she bided her time. Her best hunts were always the ones when she wasn't really trying. And, making her handler send her all around the world to exotic places was the best way to annoy them.

Someone needed to mess with the CIA, who better than an agent? And right now she was enjoying a vacation on a war ridden country. Yep, some things didn't change.

Her phone ringed playing the unaltered company tune.

"Archer?" There was a tentative sound on the other end of the line, Sabina.

Syrai sighed. "Hello, Sab. What's up?"

"I just got a post card…" Syrai imagined that Sabina was freaking out right now and the only relay way to get her to talk was to slap her. That wasn't possible so Syrai went on to recount the past five failure boyfriends.

"That last one was not a twink!" Syrai recalled seeing that one getting bent over backwards in a way the spine just shouldn't go. At least, anyone with a normal spine shouldn't go.

"Uh, yeah, he was. You picked him because he looked like Al.

Sabina conceded, "Fine, he did. But, that's not it." She huffed. "I got a post from Al the other day."

Syrai choked on her soda. "What?"

Three months ago, Canada.

"Would you like that sent up?" Syrai snapped back to the sommelier and his sweet smile. If only he wasn't gay and his ex wasn't an abusive bastard.

She gave him her kindest smile in return. "No, I'll take it up myself."

One month ago, Australia.

"How have you had thirteen narrow misses in the past three months?" The phone was on speaker letting Syrai lounge in a hot tub and enjoy he clear weather.

Syrai sipped her wine. Ugh… to fruity. "I did?"

Ms. Turner seemed very unhappy. Her divorce was going roughly if her attitude was any indication. "Well, don't lose him this time."

Five months of non-stop nagging. Didn't it occur to them that Alex Rider didn't have to be eliminated?

No it never occurred to them. Unlike, Tulip, who Syrai had taken an immediate liking to, Turner didn't care too much about what became of their ex-school kid agent. That project had failed and was banned. That didn't stop paratroopers from storming Sabina's apartment looking for her a week after she turned eighteen. Why waste good meat?

"Need I remind you: it took the combined forces of all of you ten years to find Osama? I'm one girl up against the world." She didn't smoke but she wished she did. One more way to annoy the higher ups was to die of cancer.

"You're supposed to be the best."

Syrai took a long sip. "So my ex's say." Not that she had any ex's to vouch.

"Just stop screwing around get it done." Turner hung up.

Syrai really did wish she smoked.

"Who said I was screwing around?" She asked her wine glass.

WALL IS UP. Syrai's appearance in this fiction. She likes to keep to the shadows ijn this and anyone who has been on my LJ will know she doesn't shy away from certain language.

It was a pain to type since HT was practically epileptic over the coarser language and Syrai wasn't really caring. Mimi just ingored them and pointed out my time line errors.

Thanks to Emmy1000. I can't reply because you weren't signed in, so I offer you an imaginary cupcake!

Yeah, I just confirmed I should never ever bake and there aren't any bakeries that make colorful cupcakes.

Frankly, I think that's discrimnation. What about the poor little girls and all their glitter and unicorns? What if they wanted a rainbow cupcake? I'll stop rambling now and get you the next part.