Chapter 9

Alex absorbed what the receptionist told him quietly, glow of afternoon sun making his hair look golden. The inhabitants of room 567 had already gone, without so much as a goodbye. But they had been here only yesterday! Could it be that in the time he went to sleep, and school, they hatched a plan and left? Plan…MI6. They were sure to be keeping tabs on Kristen.

Saying thanks to the lady, Alex dashed out the door to call a cab. It wouldn't do to have two of his guests disappear in London. And somehow, he thought MI6 would know where they'd gone.

--

Kristen shouldered her pack determinedly. It was the first day of training, and she was determined not to look bad in front of the other SAS (whatever that was). Shen had been reverted to the hackers division since it was obvious he was better with technology that with action itself.

Today, they had to hike across the harsh, wet terrain and then swim across a pool designed to fit into the backround, have extreme, freezing, oceanlike waves, more than twenty-feet deep, and then monkey bar across a huge pit of freezing slime in less than an hour. Kristen had a feeling that Alex had endured something like this when he had been in training.

It had already been something like twenty minutes, and the only way Kristen could keep up with them was by sheer determination. She would not be called inferior to them, not be inferior to Alex. So it was this that drove her.

Finally, she dropped into the pool, watching the rest of the group pull away. They were: Hawk, Eagle, Falcon, and Raptor. She was christened 'Chick', due to her age and because she was female.

The waves pushed at her, pushing so hard she almost went straight back to where she had dropped in. Kristen grunted, and then pushed out with her arms, and kicked with her legs. She made some progress, and then studied the waves, continuing forward. There seemed to be a break, roughly two seconds maybe, where the waves wouldn't be as hard as they would normally be. Taking advantage of that should be simple.

Eight minutes later she was hauling herself out of the freezing water, every muscle screaming in protest, to trek a short route towards the pit of slime. The wind blew hard, flipping her hair around crazily and making her speed up until she again caught sight of the group in front of her. Increasing her pace, she pushed herself harder, and eventually, another nine minutes later, caught up with them.

They had started already, and Kristen was the last climbing up to the monkey bars. Panting, she began to get into the swing, catch the bar, and swing again rhythm. Fuck-! She almost lost her grip swinging to the next slippery bar and looked down. The pale green slime oozed far below her and she hesitated before desperately dragging her eyes back up to the next bar. I can do this. I can outdo Alex, can make Shen and my family proud. I can succeed, and destroy Scorpia, I can do this.

Her muscles burned like fire, and somehow it gave her even more energy. She completed five bars in a row quickly, but there were another 30 to go. Agonizingly, she swung, swung and swung and finally reached the end. Kristen slid off the last bar onto soggy earth gratefully a mere eleven minutes later. After pausing for a minute to catch her breath, she raced towards the finish line, where Sergeant Nichols stood, with a timer.

He nodded at her. "Nice Chick, 49 minutes twenty four seconds. Go on ahead."

She reached the shack where they were going to stay for the night where they were divvying up rations. Raptor, the one whom she perceived was head of the group, was already in bed while Hawk handed her the amount of food they were allowed. Shivering, she ate it all and was the first to fall asleep.

--

"What d'you mean, they're gone?" Alex demanded, after he shoved his way through security, not knowing that MI6 was expecting him and ready.

Blunt almost raised his eyebrows. Why exactly did Rider care about two people MI6 had picked up? "They left; she wanted to get back to the US and I can't say I blame her. Shen went with her."

"We're keeping tabs on them Alex," Mrs. Jones cut in firmly. "I don't expect someone who drops into Britain—much less, someone who could damage us severely—to fly off scot free. I expect the CIA will recruit her, if they get over the abnormalties of recruiting a teen."

"They didn't even tell me," Alex narrowed his eyes suspiciously. MI6 would definetly lie to him if they got the better end of it.

"Didn't want to say goodbye, I expect," Blunt said briskly. "I'll have you know though she's headed back to her native Chicago, in the Midwest, if that eases your mind."

"It doesn't, but thanks anyways." Scooting back his chair and not bothering to push it back in, Alex flung open the door and left.

--

At SAS Hacker headquarters, Shen concentrated on infiltrating an MI6 made program. Mrs. Jones and Alan Blunt had figured that Kristen would probably have to endure more than a few high security systems, and as Shen was better with technology than physical stuff, he was chosen to help.

He tapped a few keys on his Macbook Air. It was the laptop given to the hackers who would be traveling everywhere, fast. Anyways, they had added an extra harddrive that he was using.

A firewall popped up. Frowning, he hit 6699, the number he was using to override technical commands. The firewall died down, and he guessed a number of passwords before burrowing into the system. A small smile lit his face. Success, sweet success.

Just then, a defensive virus latched itself onto the hard drive, a few seconds after which a warning message appeared on the screen.

"Fuck," he muttered, now desperately tapping keys to get rid of the virus.

"Don't get too excited," his teacher droned. After a few more minutes, he had destroyed the virus and implanted software into the system that would keep him updated on its progress.

He had survived his first day of training.

--

Alex paced around in his room after leaving MI6 HQ. It wasn't that he felt Kristen and Shen would leave without saying goodbye—Kristen would do that without a thought—it was that the situation felt odd. MI6 would know exactly where they were headed, where they were now, and why. But they didn't.

Unless they did, and just weren't telling him. But then, what would be their motive? It just didn't make any sense.

Alex groaned and flopped down on his bed to contemplate the situation yet again.

--

I'm not a princess, this ain't a fairy tale
I'm not the one you sweep off her feet,
Lead her up the stairwell,
This ain't Hollywood, this is a small town,
I was a dreamer before you went and let me down,
Now it's too late for you,
And your white horse, to come around…

It's too late for you and your white horse, to catch me now…

Kristen woke with a start, the lyrics pounding into her head. For some reason, it had popped into her dreams, defining them. What the hell? She looked around and realized that it was still dark out, but getting lighter. She stretched, and then winced sharply as a dull pain in her arms and stomach area protested.

Her hazy mind screamed at her to go back to sleep, but she could not. The gears in her mind were turning, gaining speed and, shivering; she pulled off the thin blanket and lightly dropped down from the bunk.

Begging for forgiveness, begging for me
Just like I always wanted but I'm sooo sorry
Cause I'm not your princess, this ain't a fairytale…

The lyrics floated on, and she shook her head hard to get them out of her head. Any moment now and they could be called to another obstacle course, or worse. She had to be on guard.

Kristen's thoughts turned to Alex. How would he be taking the fact that they were gone? Angry? Good riddance? Happy? While she was sure that her feelings towards him was just of friends, anything could change at anytime. Especially when living in her world.

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa
Try and catch me now
Oh, it's too late
To catch me now…

Those damn lyrics! What the hell! It was like they were trying to tell her something, but no; a heartbroken song didn't apply to her at the time. She was going to blame it on exhaustion, from those damn exercises.

Kristen pulled on her wind-breaker, padding lightly outside to see the weather. It was a bleak, clear gray day, with harsh winds blowing hard. The sky still had streaks of pink and gold across it—a testament to the early hour. She leaned against the wooden outside wall, her thoughts trailing to her team. Hawk was the one who was slim, black haired, and more of the technology man. Kristen had seen him hack into the heating system earlier that night to turn it up. Eagle was the powerful, brown haired, wiry one who could break your face in one punch. Falcon was fair lean runner, who could eat up meters with just a few lopes; cunning, too. And Raptor. She thought he was the most dangerous, with his smooth talking, hardened body and quick instincts. It fit him well, that he was the leader.

The door creaked open and she whipped around, already in a ready stance when Hawk appeared in sight. Relaxing, she returned to her original position and sunk to the wooden steps.

Hawk spoke. "And why're you here, Chick?" he asked, with no real emotion. "You look about, 16, 17 years old? Why're you here instead of learning how to drive or something? What is Special Operations playing at?"

Kristen resisted the urge to laugh. "You want to ask them. I'm not close to 17 by the way. I'm 14."

The content in her sentence, and her boldly American accent made him reel.

"Why are you here then? Instead of fooling around like some other teenager?"

At his words, a faint, old song started to play in her head, as she was transported back in time to the suburbs of Chicago.

Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer
Do you know you're unlike any other?
You'll always be my thunder, and I said
Your eyes are the brightest of all the colors
I don't wanna ever love another

Bright blue summer days, shopping trips in cool, air conditioned malls, watching movies at the local AMC, lingerings of crushes, stressing over homework; it all flashed past her eyes in some sort of misty veil. It was like a past life.

You'll always be my thunder
So bring on the rain
And bring on the thunder, and I said
Your voice was the soundtrack of my summer
Do you know you're unlike any other?
You'll always be my thunder
So bring on the rain
Oh baby bring on the pain
And listen to the thunder

Why was she here? Why couldn't she just go back home—but she already knew the answer to that. Her family was gone, her friends thought she was dead. She had nothing to go back to.

"Alex Rider," she said finally. "Because of him."

Hawk searched his mind for the faint recollective spark the name had on him. Rider? He knew it was something important…but no, he would ask the squad later. It was obvious Chick had said enough and wouldn't tell him any more now. She was staring at the grey clouds, with an unreadable expression on her face.

She did seem well-suited for this work though.

--

I do not own the two songs whose lyrics are depicted in this chapter (White Horse: Taylor Swift and Thunder: Boys Like Girls) Enjoy this chapter? :D How was it? Do you like where this fic is going? I'm asking for two reviews before I update the next chapter please! I hope this is reasonable since I have at least 14 readers : )

Review replies:

Kiss rocks god of thunder: Thank you!!

Sheweapon1: Thanks! Wow lol I think I am very predictable, you guessed correct; this is the SAS! I hope the rest of what I'm planning to do with this story isn't as easily predicted as this was lol. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!