AN: SORRY! I tried to update this last night but was unable to due to unfortunate weather conditions. A severe thunderstorm knocked the power out all acroos the town I live and I did not get it back until recently. Here is chapter 5 for you. I did not mean for this to be late. Also, I HATE having to type "New POV" into my stories. To me, it looks less professional, but FanFiction is not letting me use the triple stars to show the new points of views. Sorry about that if it bothers you as well. If you know how to fix that, then please let me know. If not, the please dont comment on that.

Disclaimer: I do not own the character Alex Rider nor the series itself. That belongs to Anthony Horowitz. However, I do own this fanfiction and will not tolerate plajourism of any sort. If you want to use part of my story, then please email me with all the information about it.

~ Little-Dhamphir-

Chapter 5!

Alex got what he finally wanted for so long - a dreamless night. It was the first time in months since he slept through a single night; dream not a single dream; a wake up feeling energized. Alex felt much better.

Normally, Alex awoke feeling more tired than he had felt when he first went to bed. What made Alex's day shockingly better was a cloudy, constant rain. Just like the ones he grew up with while living in London. When it rained, it helped to alleviate some of his homesickness. Too bad the rest of San Francisco would be in a bad mood.

The Pleasures were also in a equally good mood. The rain reminded them of home as well. Liz Pleasure even saw it fitting to cook a good breakfast this morning - as a testament of laid ahead later that day. She cooked scrambled eggs (which tasted nothing like Jack's did, but still tasted just as great), bacon,, toast, oatmeal, and a fruit puree for each of the family members. Normally, Liz was too busy to cook at all during the weekdays.

Alex decided that it would be best to go into the karate studio to teach some of Sensei Ricardi's classes to alleviate some of the Sensei's stress. Tomorrow, Alex would be teaching another two classes as well as attending one of his private sessions with his psychologist - whom Alex hated so much.

Alex thought about all of that as he and Sabina left the house. They both got into their shared car and drove to school. As Alex was driving, he wasn't paying enough attention to his surroundings. A young man was stationed near one of the parked cars accross the street in the massive subdivision that Alex was currently living in. This was Alex's first mistake that he had made in a long time. The young man snapped photos of both Alex and Sabina. Smiling to himself. He knew that he was doing a good job so far. Even pleasing his superiors. The camera he held in his hand was a top of the line waterproof camera: a Fuji Finepix z33wp. Or at least, what he thought was the top of the line. Satisified with himself, the young man walked down the street and got into his car that was parked a short distance away. His next task was to log all the pertinent information about what he had seen.

First period passed by in a slow blur. Everyone was tired because of the rain - except for Alex, who did not show his excitment. Even Herr Braun was tired as well. Herr Braun popped in the movie called Mulan into his classroom television while telling his students to write down any German words that they did not know. This was just in case the principal or one of the vice-principals decided to walk in - to create the appearance of learning.

In art class, we completed evaluations of everyone's artwork. Once when the students finished evaluating. They sat off to the side of the classroom. In one corner, sat Sabina, Tom and Alex. They were quietly talking about all the sports practices and games that would be cancelled later today and which ones were already cancelled. Sure enough, the intercom buzzed once again to deliever some news:

"Teachers, please pardon the interruption. All soccer, lacrosse, baseball, and softball practices have been cancelled. Thank you."

Around the room, various groans and cheers erupted among the large class.

"Sweet!" Shouted Tom. "Now Alex can't torture us with suicide soccer drills!" Sabina and Alex laughed at this.

"You know Tom, suicide drills are not that bad. I only make us do 6. In this SAS, I had to complete 20 suicide drills in one hour at three different times in the day. All the men had to do 35 in a single hour. Not to mention we're just kicking a ball back and forth accross the soccer field. Not running with 30 pound backpacks."

"But still Alex, they're suicide! And I'm always sore afterwards for two days or more!"

"But..." Came Alex's retort back to Tom. "If it wasn't for them, most of us wouldn't be able to run as fast accross the field and score amazing goals. You have to admit, we've won more games this year than the last two combined."

"True." Tom Sighed. "Does that mean we're running 12 suicide drills during the next soccer practice?" Tom looked terrified for the next answer.

"Oh god no!" Alex laughed. "THAT would be real suicide. Even I could barely manage that right now."

Third period was ridiculously slow. The whole period, Alex ran errands, or finished typing up the 83 book questions for chapter nine. The class itself had it much worse than Alex did today. They took 90 detailed slides on chapters 7, 8, and 9 (AN: THIS IS suicide. I actually had to do this before and my hand litterally ached for three days afterwards and I always write a lot.) as well as drawing multiple diagrams into their notebooks. Alex pitied them.

Fourth period ended Alex's day off in a similar fashions as first and second periods did. He completed a chapter of cascades. The remaining period, was spendt texting to all of Alex's friends. For Alex, this was an easy day. It was not slow, nor too demanding and it didn't bother him at all. Even his schedule opened up a little more with the cancellation of soccer practice. Homework was light as well. He had no AP German assignments due tomorrow, and no marine biology work to complete that night. Only one chapter of Biology - Honors of cascades to complete and a painting to paint for art class.

New POV

14:15:33 pm:

'Alex is still in school. According to his file, he is a sophomore currently taking an Advanced Placement class (AP), an honors level class, a teacher assisting period and an easy class. I am posing as a substitute teacher: Mr. Burns. This helps me to get a better evaluation on Alex - who he is now and what has he been doing this past year while living in San Francisco. According to the psychologist Mrs. Jones hired for Alex, the psychologist states that: "Alex is slowly overcomming the remaining trigger symptoms of PTSD - which was brought on the murder of his deceased housekeeper and guardian, but still struggles badly in overcomming his nightmares." Ben knew that this is the main reason that Alex still went to therapy twice a week. One on Wednesday and the other session on Sunday. It wasn't the PTSD symptoms that Alex experienced that still made him come to therapy. It was the nightmares themselves. '...

Ben sighed to himself. He sucked at writing evaluations. He preferred the more "action - intense" missions. Not the missions where you simply gathered information on. What made Ben situation more depressing was that he could not speak to Alex directly either - under direct orders from Mrs. Jones. At least Ben knew the day would be over soon. Ben looked at his watch once again, it said that it was 14:36:15 now.

Michael Strome arrived a little earlier that day. Flying in the company jet that was worth millions of dollars. Or, a pretty penny as some would say. He bypassed customs by using the VIP line - a luxury, he recently acquired through this multiple successful achievements in the Tribal Regimen's organization.

At the entrance to the airpost's main lobby stood Rebecca lyell. She was clearly pissed and the varoius wolf whistling did not help at all either. Michael chuckled to himself. The men whistling at her had no clue what they were doing and he knew that the men would not make it out unscathed either. Michael felt sorry for the men, but that didn't matter now. His current job did.

"Liz! You look great honey. How's the family?" Michael asked Rebecca. He played the part of the loving husband very well.

"Family's doing well. Finally settled in and working now. Katherine is just kicking to see you, my dear." Rebecca into her character effortlessly from the murderous looks she was giving a moment ago to a concerned and loving mother. All the guys who had wolf whistled finally saw the "ring" she wore, amist the crowded entrance, now moved quickly away as possible. No one wanted to piss off the supermodel's heavyset husband who clearly worked for security. Even his deep navy blue suit and grey tie that screamed: "Watch out! I'm lethal!"

"Well honey, that is great news indeed." Michael Strome spokewhile kissing his wife's cheek - and never missing a beat, spoke: "let's go home."

Both Michael and Rebecca turned to walk away. Rebecca's high heels, serious business skirt and her striking blue blouse tucked neatly away into the skirt itself showed people that the husband and wife had serious money, holding hands along the way to their private limo.

New POV

Across the city of San Francisco, the young man compiled hundreds of photos into a large document. All of these photographs were images of children and teenagers. Each child unique and all had a shine to their eyes, except for one teenage boy. His eyes showed too much. It didn't matter though. Each child had two pages in the document. One containing basic information about them: eye, skin and hair color; estimated height; relative age; home address etc. The other page had 4-6 photos of each child doing various things. The young man knew what would happen to every child and teenager he photogreaphed. Starting tomorrow, the kidnappings would begin until the last child was kidnapped - in January of the following year. Spacing the kidnappings would make it harder for the Tribal Regimen to be traced back to - but it also meant that they would have to be more creative as the time went on.

At 18:30:12 pm, this evening, the young man would produce and present his results to the two exectutive Tribal Regimen leaders. If the man was sucessful, then he would become an inductee into the organization itself. Going to the secret, underground, basic boot camp held in the Ivory Coast. If the man failed, it would be a permenant end to his current career. The man was not afraid.

In one of the old three warehouses (that had been purchased recently) construction was underway. Prison cells were designed and the three hired interior designers worked hard to design the individual male, female, and coed group cells. Not to mention the kitchen, living quarters for the employees and guards, as well as the library, gym and fully operational security and medical offices. Nothing was to be left to chance. All the supplies was ready to be brought into the almost refurbished warehouse. Over 500 people worked around the clock to finish it. They were tight on time as it was. The first warehouse had to be finished before 7 pm the next evening. Everything had to be perfect.

At the current rate that had all the workers working, the warehouse had be projected to be finished around three pmthe next day. They had 4 hours to fall back on if something happened. Fiver kids were due to arrive afterwards before 2am. Even now, the auctions began for all five kids. The total net worth at the moment was $6.2 million dollars. Each warehouse costed $40 million, the bids were still increasing all the same. What was about to unfold for the first five kids would be highly unpleasant. No one who was employed in this project gave this a second thought. For fear that they may change their minds. When that happened, hope would be lost for the male and female employee's that had been hired already. One mistake, and Rebecca Lyell would play with them. This terrified the employees more than the crimes comitted alone.