Alex pulled the baseball cap down over his head, making it appear as if he wasn't paying attention. But he was on full alert, his body buzzing with adrenaline. He would never again even come close to underestimating what lengths Scorpia would do to him. Even though new people came into power after the main leaders and most important players of Scorpia were either arrested or killed, the name still made Alex's heart pound.

After Razim was killed and Kurst was arrested, Scorpia was broken. Some lowly Scorpia agent, however, raised them up as martyrs and started it back up. It started off as just a few rebellious souls who wanted revenge for what happened to their 'heroes', but eventually grew larger, into something that might cause problems. Even so, it needed something big to get it off the ground, and Alex was going to provide that opportunity.

Alex was going to start a fight with a Dimitri Yosovo, a recently graduated recruit. He was in his early twenties and, from the rumors MI6 had heard, the leading graduate from Scorpia. If Alex beat him, it would be a sure way to get a high-ranking spot, and to be cleared to hear some very interesting things such as the location of A.I.T. Scorpia had to get their recruits somewhere, and Alex and MI6 were pretty sure that they didn't get them from their secret, underground meetings where they ranted about the evils done by the government to their predecessors.

Alex was sitting on a bench, across from Yosovo's presumed hideout. According to MI6's sources, when Yosovo was not on a mission for Scorpia, he hung out at a church-run halfway house for run away teens. Barely older than a teen himself, Yosovo passed as a runaway.

He certainly looked the part, Alex noted as he saw the man enter the building. He was greeted by a wild-looking girl dressed in all black. The girl squealed when she saw him, "Dima! What have you brought me this time?" She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Yosovo closed the door before Alex heard anything else.

Alex tapped his foot on the pavement worriedly. The girl might prove a problem if he couldn't get Yosovo alone. Also, he had no idea how to get in the building without tipping Yosovo off. His whole plan hinged on his surprising Yosovo. Well, his working plan. Right now, his plan was to surprise the man and then beat the crap out of him. Which, if Alex was skilled enough to pull it off, was a pretty good plan. It, however, left no backup plan if Yosovo was better than he had led Alex to believe from his profile.

"Excuse me, dear boy?" asked an old, frail voice.

Alex looked up into the concerned face of an old lady peering at him through large glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. "Yes ma'am?" He said, remembering his manners.

"Are you all alone? Where are your parents, child?" She asked, sitting down next to him on the bench.

Alex took his cap off, "They're umm..."

The lady interrupted him, crying, "Oh, my dear boy, you're one of those poor children who've run away from their home!" She reached over, patting him on the head, "You must come with me, poor child. God knows what they feed you in that dirty house over there! Their intentions are good, but a house with a bunch of teens in it is no substitute for a mother and a father and brothers and sisters and good food and good sense. Come with me, and I'll get you all straightened out." She stood, tugging on Alex's sleeve.

Alex smiled. The old lady had given him the perfect idea to infiltrate the house. He was a teen, after all. And he had run away from his home. A pang of grief and guilt flashed through him as memories of Jack and the Pleasures surfaced, but he forced them down. Crying never helped anyone. But action did. And it will. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't go with you. We aren't supposed to leave with anyone without notifying our supervisor. I have to go back, now."

Alex stood to leave, but the lady's grip on his shirt had turned to iron, "No, no, no, Alex. You have to come with me."

Alex tore his shirt from her grasp, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but I can't."

Then something quite peculiar happened. The old lady seemed to age backward. Her face seemed to become smoother and her eyes less droopy as she took off her glasses. Her back straightened, making her quite tall, and she took her hair out of its bun, letting it flow down her back. When her transformation was complete, she seemed to be a woman of maybe thirty years of age, with striking green eyes and thick, flowing grey hair that, as Alex noticed the roots showing through, was actually black. Then she, in a voice that was quite possibly the polar opposite of old and frail, said, "You were supposed to come with me, Alex. I'll give you one more chance now."

"Yeah, I think I'll pass on that," Alex said, then bolted. He raced down the street, dodging people and bikes alike. He needed to get to some place where he could lose the lady. His first thought was the coffee shop where Fletcher had knocked him out, but it was too far away for him to make her chase him. His second was an alley, but he didn't think there were any alleys that had more than one exit and no security near him. He was not in a part of the city that he knew.

In the end, his pursuer made the decision for him. Somehow, she had gotten in front of him. She was waiting for him around the corner of the block. He had barely had enough time to register her presence before she pulled a taser out of her handbag and tased him.

~O~O~O~O~

Jacquelyn was trying to hail a cab in London. "Taxi! Taxi, please! Thank you. Finally, someone saw me." She piled her bags into the backseat, telling the driver her destination. Sighing, she looked at the note in her hand. She had found it in her luggage at the airport when she picked it up. All it had on it was a phone number and a note that said: Call this number if you remember. Remember? Remember what? What had she forgotten? She knew it was something to do with the boy, Alex Rider. Alex, she thought. She was close to him; she felt it.

The taxi let her off at the house. Standing in front of it, she had a strong sense of deja vu. There was something frustratingly familiar about the place. She felt as if she was looking at a puzzle with all the important pieces missing. Alex, London, the house, the number were all little details, but she was missing the crucial piece; the one that connected them all together.

She took a deep breath, shaking her head clear of her thoughts. If she went inside the house, surely the missing piece will fall into place. She knocked three times on the door, but it felt wrong, as if she shouldn't be knocking. She felt as if this was her house. But that was ridiculous. She lived in America. She pretty much had to sell everything she owned just to pay for tickets to London. She couldn't afford to have a house in the city. Her thoughts were broken by a woman answering the door, "Hello?"

"Hi, my name is Jacquelyn Smith. I'm..."

She was interrupted by two little girls crying, "Mommy, mommy, look what we found!"

The lady turned to her two daughters, saying, "Girls, go show your father. I'm talking right now." Then she turned back to Jacquelyn, "Sorry about that. They're at that age, you know."

Jacquelyn smiled, "Yeah. I was.. I was wondering. Does a boy live here? His name is Alex..."

Once again, Jacquelyn was cut off, but this time from a woman in the street, "Jackie! Jacquelyn, come down from there." The woman ran up the steps, taking hold of Jacquelyn's arm, saying to the woman in the doorway, "I'm so terribly sorry about this. Was she bothering you?"

The woman shook her head, confused, "No, no. What is this all about?"

"I'm so sorry. I left her unattended for just a couple of minutes while I made some tea for our guests, and, well, you can see what happened. Whatever she told you, don't believe a word of it. After our parents died, she, you know, just never recovered, and now she sometimes goes off thinking who knows what in that little head of hers. One time, for a whole week, she thought she was miss America. I mean, we are in the U.K.," the woman said, pulling Jacquelyn down the steps.

Resisting, Jacquelyn said, "No! I don't know you! What are you talking about? Let go of me!" Her attempts were futile, and she was forced in the back of an old sedan.

"I'm really sorry about all of this," the woman said one last time before getting in the sedan herself. Jacquelyn made one last ditch attempt to force her way out of the car, but the woman pulled out a syringe and injected her with a sedative, whispering, "We can't have you finding him, yet, Jack."

As those words echoed in her head, Jacquelyn noticed a faint smell of peppermint before everything faded to black.