A/N: Erm... Hi. No, I'm not dead. I am in my final year of uni, so I think I'd rather be dead, but still. Not dead, so probably no good excuse. On the other hand, inspiration hit last night, maybe the night before, and I now have this entire story planned out. Considering that I had no idea what was going on at all, this is quite an achievement.
Upshot, I have a new chapter for you. Whether or not this is related to my pressing need to revise (read: learn) my modules, and/or my new laptop (She is shiny and sleek and isn't falling to pieces. The screen on my old laptop literally fell off the keyboard. There was one wire holding it together.)
But anyway. Enjoy...
DISCLAIMER: I own nothing that you recognize.
-o-O-o-
Dr Cranmer didn't look up as a cotton ball swabbed against his brow. The surgery was simple, but close enough to the cervical spinal nerves that he didn't want to risk any distraction.
He made the incision and carefully reached in with the tweezers. A quick x-ray had revealed a small triangle of metal at the top of one of the cuts, and chances were that it was the tip of a knife, given how the kid had said he had received the cut. That should make it easy to remove, but he didn't want to risk further injury when removing it.
Making sure his grip was good, he slowly drew it out.
It wasn't a knife blade. It wasn't even a triangle. Instead, he dropped a small cone of metal into the tray.
He frowned at it, then began to close up. Maybe Alex would know what it was.
-o-O-o-
Alex hated anaesthetic. He'd tried to persuade the doctor that a local would be enough, but the man had said something about immobilisation and involuntary movement and had insisted on the general anaesthetic. Privately, Alex thought the man had just wanted an excuse to keep him in hospital, under his watchful eye.
He scowled and tried to force the desire to sleep back. He wasn't going to stay here for longer than it took to talk to Dr Cranmer.
Speak of the devil and he shall appear, thought Alex, as Dr Cranmer appeared at his door.
"It went okay?" the teen asked.
"The surgery went fine," commented Dr Cranmer. "But I was hoping you could identify something for me."
He held out a small metal dish and Alex, curious as always, took it. Inside was a small conical piece of metal. It could easily have been the end of a needle, albeit one slightly thicker than normal.
Cautiously, he picked it up. "This was inside me?" he asked, throwing a questioning glance at Cranmer, who nodded. "Well, it's too well designed to be accidental," he commented. "This could simply have been injected - although I imagine it would be rather painful. They must have utilised a sleeping agent."
He shivered at the thought. Someone had been there while he slept and he'd never known about it.
"As to what it's for... It could be anything. I know you can get implants to release hormones and affect brain function, or to release poison on command..."
"And you think these are likely?" asked Cranmer, worriedly. He would get a blood panel done.
But Alex shook his head. "No. If someone wanted me dead, or wanted to control me, there are more efficient ways. I think it's a tracker. I need to get out of here."
-o-O-o-
The argument with the doctor had been predictable, but this time Alex had the winning card. No matter how Cranmer or the soldiers span it, the fact remained that someone, most likely with malicious intentions, knew exactly where he was.
He's already linked it to the man who had tracked him here and pointed out that it was unlikely to be over nothing.
And so that led to him climbing through the window of F-Unit's house alone. In the end, he'd given them the slip. He was fairly sure they knew he would head back here, but he may have given the impression that he would stay here.
He wasn't planning on it. Instead, he slipped over to the case that Smithers had left and pulled it open. Inside, was a small, lightweight backpack, which, in various hidden compartments, apparently had a first aid kit, fake IDs, a rather large sum of money, a kit to allow him to disguise himself as pretty much anyone he felt like and, Smithers' Pièce de resistance, a hidden parachute, set to support his weight.
Alex couldn't help but grin and shoved into the main compartment a pack of boiled sweets, two flavours of chewing gum, a length of rope and an inhaler, along with the manual explaining how to use them.
Left in the bag was, well, Alex would have to call it a ninja-suit, no matter how ridiculous it made him feel. There were shoes (cushioned heel and un-cushioned toe, perfect for running and climbing), gloves (definitely something weird about the fabric there, but he could work that out later), glasses (He'd look like a douche walking around in sunglasses all the time. Not exactly easy to blend in with. Oh, apparently they adjusted to the light. Cool.), and a full one piece suit that Alex couldn't name the material of but would bet anything he owned that it was bullet proof.
He pulled on the clothes and eyed the glasses dubiously. What if they fell off if he began running? Finally, he shrugged and slipped them on. Surely Smithers would have thought of that?
Apparently, he had, because they felt as secure as any goggles, and after a moment the room lit up in an eerie green that Alex recognised as night-vision.
"I have no idea what you expect me to do with all this, Smithers," he whispered to the empty room, "But man, this is awesome."
He eyed the half empty backpack, before sliding in a change of clothes. Ninja suits were cool, but not exactly inconspicuous in a city in broad daylight.
And okay, maybe he had a slightly warped idea of what was cool, but he was hardly going to turn down something that could save his life.
He eyed the door behind him, then shook his head and grinned. What sort of self-respecting ninja left by the door?
-o-O-o-
He was trying to read. This file did not have all the information he required, and so he was forced to piece together what was there and what he had managed to glean from other sources. Bach's Cello Suite has just started playing, and was enough to block out the noise from the street, although he had alarms on the corridor. Anything less would be unconscionably careless.
But the subject of alarms brought him back around to what had been distracting him. An alarm had been triggered earlier, by the removal of a tracking device in someone he wanted to keep a particularly close eye on.
He had chosen this flat deliberately, for its proximity to the place where the target had been most in the last twenty-four hours. The true owner was passed out behind a pub somewhere a few streets away. Given that he often drank there, he would no doubt invent his own reasons for being there. The man did not like leaving a trail if at all possible, and no trail would be more likely to be followed than one of bodies.
He frowned and glanced out of the window again. He could see the house from here. He may have more luck studying the file if he moved location, he mused briefly, before once again scanning the street, just in time to see a figure slide out of a window. Oh. Well. That was... oddly convenient. For him at any rate.
-o-O-o-
Okay, decided Alex after twenty minutes. This? This was more than awesome. This was… insane. He'd discovered that if he twisted his wrists like so and spread his arms out, some sort of membrane would hook onto him and give him temporary wings. He couldn't fly, but he could glide a metre or two, like in a wing suit. And the twist back and release and tumble down and roll and spring up again and run and run and run.
He hadn't felt this alive without someone shooting at him since, well, ever, really. The glasses picked up people and danger zones and pointed out unstable ground and, hell, even had GPS, apparently, given the soft voice in his ear that had asked him if he would like to use the navigation function. A quick shake of the head had helped get rid of that. He knew where he was going.
He popped out of his latest roll and paused on the edge of the building, looking at the three story town-house, now converted to flats, opposite him. Suddenly, he really didn't want to do this.
It must be too late, surely? It had been dark when he got back to the house. It must be close to midnight now.
But he couldn't justify waiting until morning. Not with this sort of news.
With a sigh, he dropped off the roof and used the gliders to control his fall onto the fire escape below.
-o-O-o-
The sun was hot, and Nicki frowned irritably as her fringe drooped into her eyes, blowing futilely at the sweaty locks. She was in a tree, partially hidden from the sun and from her brother, who would probably love to soak her, and the book she was reading, with the hose he was messing about with.
The dog was barking, loudly, as Eric rassled with him and she wanted to be irritated, but couldn't help the smile that caught the edge of her lips.
Ellie was giggling though, she had picked daisies from the lawn and made a chain out of them. The toddler was trying to get it to rest on the dog's head, but he kept shaking them off.
The woodpecker was drilling again, she thought, a steady tap-tap-tap on the edge of her hearing. She frowned, trying to catch the sound, focusing and listening.
She snapped awake, the dream replaying in her head and making her smile. It was a shame that Eric hadn't been around as much when Ellie was young, he had always been great with kids. But he'd been making more of an effort, recently. Maybe he could help with Ellie's birthday. It was only a month or so away, now.
The tap-tap from her dream came again, and she finally recognised it. Someone was tapping on her window.
She frowned, and glanced at the clock. Half twelve. She had probably only been asleep an hour, but it was still too late for someone to be calling on her, and why were they at her window anyway?
She scowled and threw off the covers, slipping on a robe as she crossed to the window.
"Alex?" she gasped, as she tugged back the curtains. How was the boy balancing on her windowsill exactly?
Quickly, she opened the window and he climbed through.
"What on earth were you thinking?"she scolded. "What if you had fallen off? How did you even climb up that high?"
Alex shrugged and stayed silent. A shred of foreboding trickled down Nicki's spine.#
"Alex, why are you here?" she asked softly.
"It's about Eagle," murmured Alex, sadly. "I'm sorry, there's been some bad news."
-o-O-o-
The conversation had not been pleasant and Alex was grateful to swap the claustrophobic room for the London streets. He had felt even worse leaving, so after Nicki had cried herself to sleep, he had waited until she woke up. Thankfully, that had actually been around 2AM, at which point she had thanked him for staying and then directed him to the window.
Crossing to the fire-escape again, he quietly climbed the metal steps. He checked the rooftop was empty, then glanced once more at Nicki's now-closed window.
A hand closed over his face and pressed a cloth to his nose and mouth. Alex chocked and shouted against it, trying to buck away from the iron-like arm that was gripping his arms and torso. He barely had time to try to fight back, before blackness claimed his vision.
-o-O-o-
A/N: Alex seems to be making a habit of being abducted at the moment. Hopefully he'll get over that soon. What do you think of the suit, by the way? I wanted to give Alex something completely over the top that wouldn't necessarily give him a huge advantage. (Plus, I really want one of these suits! Or the Falcon wings from Captain America. I fully plan on developing them. How, I am less sure about.)
Anyway, review and let me know what you thought? I have an exam on the 21st and the 5th, but will try to update after that - assuming you all still want me to?
Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed it!
Oddx