Alex Rider was less than pleased to find John Crawley sat chatting with Tom's mum when he came back from his early morning run. Tom would be asleep for several more hours and he would not get to say goodbye. Tomorrow he and Tom were meant to be flying to Italy to spent two weeks with Tom's hot older brother, Jerry. It was October half term, and Alex did not need MI6 kiboshing his holiday plans, not after Jack's family emergency had her go back Baltimore to help her parents for the foreseeable future. In minutes, the teenager was in Crawley's car without a chance to collect his phone or even shower because of a national security alert that required the recall of all available personnel.
He felt he had fallen down the rabbit hole as he scrutinised Field Operative A J Rider's official MI6 ID, in a borrowed suit , shirt and tie, as he entered Secret Intelligence Service headquarters on Albert Embankment for the first time. He and Crawley were just in time for the briefing to start as they reached the first floor conference room. Standing room only at the back as the space was packed with MI5 agents, terrorist specialists from the Met, scientists and several criminal psychologists. Their problem was the murder of several prominent scientists working at Aldermaston and the misplacing of a very unstable experimental plasma fusion reactor. This power source was small enough to be transported by a medium sized van and was capable of lighting up every home in London and if mishandled or reprogrammed the box was could well destroy an entire city.
The three hour briefing went well beyond Alex's GCSE triple science knowledge, rather than absolutely fail to understand just why this gizmo worked, he read through the personnel and clearance files for several Person of interest for his 'team' to follow up. One of the research scientists had left the project two months ago to earn more than double the salary at the Roscoe Communications Research, supposedly going from cutting edge applications of weaponising sub-nuclear science to working on the same physics applied to communications network technology. Alex read about Dr. Andrew Morrison resume, he was young, only twenty eight and had been on the project for over a decade. Graduating Cambridge at twelve, with a first in maths & physics and headhunted by the spook squad after gaining his second doctorate in plasma applications in physics at seventeen, now with five patents pending .
The guy had been the driving force behind the initial success of the project, which had foundered in his absence. Interviews from the team indicated the their former lead scientist had been made the scapegoat for the overspend, the lack of useable notes and and the imminent scrapping of this research, despite a working prototype.
The stolen van noted from the surveillance tapes of the government storage facility had already been found in Leicester with it's driver was dead in the back and DNA would be need to identify the partially liquified-remains, ending that trail of evidence for the stolen to order power source and the no clue to the mastermind behind the theft and murders. The CCTV from Leicester was going to be next to useless as there were over a hundred similar sized vans around the area between six and nine AM during the pre-Christmas rush and no coverage from the actual murder scene
The hunt for Dr Morrison assigned to Alex's team with the priority to bring Morrison into protective custody. No surprise, when the two Special Branch police officers and the MI5 counter terrorism agent treated him like the tea boy, assuming he was green rookie and straight out of college. Not that he wanted to tell them he was actually only sixteen and had more practical experience of stopping megalomaniacs than anyone in the department. His MI6 pass only had his surname, initial, photo and number ID on it. The white colour indicated special operations but with no pay grade. Alex would guess it was minimum wage, now he was officially on the books.
The whizzkid physicist was a bit of a loner, but well liked leading a small team based in Stevenage. Morrison currently on leave, supposedly spending two weeks off in the Lake District. From Ian's lessons and his own misadventures, Akex knew the best way to bald face lie was to twist the truth to fit. To the surprise of the other paid analysts, Alex had been been sent full details from Roscoe Communications UK, and all it had taken was a text to Paul.
The day progressed with a million dead end phone conversations, reading boring irrelevant work and personal emails and a list of bank transactions trailing the scientist from Birmingham to Kendal. The helicopter ride north had been abysmal as four strangers shivered and shaken in the freezing cold in their suits. The young pseudo agent wasn't technically disobeying orders from his idiot MI5 handler, when Alex followed a hunch, as the others went off to do the interview a hotel receptionist and left the rookie to fill in their contact report in the waiting area at Cumbria Police Headquarters as they fucked off in a borrowed unmarked police car. On the journey north, the teenager had used his time to google abandoned military sites and knew his hunch was on the money, after being dismissed as an idiot. It made perfect sense as Morrison had done earlier tests twenty five miles to the east in 1998. The contact report had been filed with all relevent info, so rather than hanging around he took the bus into Kendal telling the desk sergeant about where to get a decent Curry, as he was off to some food. The three stooges had not told him about sleeping arrangements so the MI6 agent stole a motorbike, warmer clothes and boots to scout out the mothballed base. First he had a curry.
After a decent hike around the perimeter of the abandoned base to assess for unexpected surprises. By seven the next day, Alex's iPhone snapped a van with mechanical tail gate parked at the mothballed RAF missile research base, next to Dr Morrison's vile green Fiat Punto, which had not moved all night. The photo, with details of its location was messaged to Crawley and his team in charge of searching for and reacquiring the tech. The message swiftly came back to observe and not engage Morrison until backup got there. He could sit by the van and wait for backup, but he knew an experiment was likely to be underway, which was unlikely to be dangerous, as there was no sign of any external protagonist or a possible buyer. With stealth Alex was inside the lab, texting updates to Crawley. Morrison was reclaiming his perceived work and was unlikely to be a home grown terrorist bent on crafting a weapon of mass destruction or selling his intellectual copyright to the highest bidder. If everything went tits up, at least the bunker was in rural Cumbria with only sheep and forestry for miles.
The bunker was built into solid granite, a former government shelter now used by the genius intent on preventing environmental doom for the planet, at his previous post he'd proved the plasma generator was working, the only hiccup was the postulated possibility of creating a subatomic wormhole across space time if run above safety levels. Morrison planned on two weeks uninterrupted lab work to finesse the necessary energy flow to jump start a clean energy revolution.
The Scientist has rigged up his test equipment, but he did not uncover the modifications made after his departure from the project. His safety buffers had been removed so as soon as the machine was powered up it was at full power during the test equipment hook up. With a panicked cry of "no, no, no" the genius desperately tried to cut the power flow now at 125% above his expected test level and still rising. The panicked attempt at shut down was noted by Alex as he texted Crawley the experiment was live and a complete SNAFU.
Dr. Morrison's attempt at averting catastrophic was too late and both occupants of the facility saw the energy blast as it slammed into the them.
The explosion of the plasma generator had, by accident rather than design,created a space time wormhole for a fraction of a millisecond.
...
The bomb disposal unit and technical advisers were a mile away and the bright light was milliseconds ahead of the blast wave, which would be reported locally as World War Two UXB bomb blast as there was only spooks and police near enough to see the blast.
The site had been cleared, radiation levels normal. John Crawley entered the base after the Royal Engineers and went into the chamber, noting the blackened walls, floor and ceiling with a glass tempered surface in areas in the wake of the blast. In the main chamber was there was the remains of the scientist. He looked around and noted a small antechamber roughly hewn in the granite. In the back was a slumped figure with a dropped iPhone on the floor. Crawley was joined by a young lieutenant, who shown a torch on the MI6 Deputy Director of Special operations searching for a pulse on a agent. As the body was laid out the dead young agent looked like a teenager with open brown eyes and dark blond hair.
John Crawley rang SIS Headquarters to confirm the deaths of Dr Morrison and Agent Rider and the destruction of the missing power generator.
...
2
After nearly two years in a coma, four different consultants had confirmed brain activity was minimal and with no hope of improvement, the ventilator keeping Helen Beckett's, only child alive was disconnected. At that moment, the mechanically assisted rise and fall of the teenager's chest ceased. The doctor's eyes on the heart monitor was waiting for the flatline before confirming time of death, when the boy started to choke on the tube on his throat.
The patient convulsed with a seizure after he gasped for breath. Memories clashed and melded. So different, this universe's Alex Rider had grown up knowing the events in Paris over sixteen years in the past. John Rider met with his heavily pregnant estranged wife and instead of a tearful reunion solidifying his exit from deep cover black ops, this universe's assassin for hire had insisted, 'Really, you expect me to play dad to your fucking bastard'. Helen's miracle pregnancy years her first marriage failed due to her failure to produce an heir to the dismay of her own parents. At forty-two, she had been sure of perimenopause and irregular menstruation, especially since she and her husband had been together for only 18 hours, most of which had been spent fucking, precisely seven months ago. She had only dared hope after the baby moved. This Alex's mum had been forced to work two jobs to pay off her husband's considerable legal debts. She had always openly to her son and been candid of being a love sick fool, turning a blind eye to John's serial adultery. His actions of abandonment, cruelty and economic abuse had been grounds for a quick divorce. John even refused to use basic math to calculate their last reunion.
In complete shock, the nurse had returned to London and within hours had gone into premature labour. It had been her soon to be ex brother in law, who had gone from hero worshiping the decorated soldier, to complete abhorrent disgust at John's treatment of his hard working faithful wife. The confirmed batchelor had saved the pair from life in her bedsit by inviting them into his home. Ian worked in the city as a very successful broker. Happy to play father to his brother's son. Helen did not even inform John of the birth nor the decree nisei as she had no forwarding address as he had left the UK straight after his acquittal and had only two brief reunions after. The bastard wasn't even grateful for her hard work to get him acquitted.
….
Helen was reading aloud to her son, a miracle that he was no longer on life support. Her choice of reading material had been his favourite book at fourteen, The Player of Games by Iain M Banks. Survival would not give her back the son she had thought lost. Severe mental and physical handicaps a certainty with a possibility of major behavioural changes. He may still spend the rest of his life in a facility providing around the clock care. The violent seizure she had witnessed frightened her, she would wait and see if it was epilepsy. She had stopped reading transfixed by the regular rise and fall of natural breathing. Whatever happened now, she could face it and adapt.
The patient could feel his extremities, as he concentrated to wiggle his fingers and toes, carefully stretched his limbs and flexed his atrophied muscles. He knew and understood the words spoken, a book he had started on holiday in Colorado and lost track of in all the excitement. This body was weak. He doubted he could even sit up, but he was not drugged. He did not have the expected burns from the blast, but he now pondered the energy burst he remembered with every detail. Considering his mom was alive and well, spy boy was not in Kansas anymore.
The Alex here had no memories of the events leading to his coma. He had just overheard the discussions between his mother and the consultant. The prognosis was a bit of an unknown. This Alex should have died, no this Alex had only been alive due to the mechanical intervention. His rehabilitation would begin, but there were with no expectations for results. One plus was he was not paralysed, but brain damage took may forms. He could not walk, speak, sit up or feed/dress himself at the moment. He was off to Cambridge to a rehab centre. Alex then realised he'd have to retake his GCSEs. Then, again that was the least of his worries. Here he was not and never would be worried by MI6 as an asset. He did have to worry about his sperm donor dad though. Would he turn up? Would he get to meet the worst version of his Dad? Was Helen the better version of his mum? He had to get used to being called Alex Beckett, thank god he could just rest and let this new reality sink in. Normal life, with no spying and no threats.
Helen knew her son was pretending to sleep, by the slight frown on his face. It was typical, listening in. He was no longer a child but not quite an adult.
"This is going to be tough, trouble. Don't push yourself too much. Small improvements. Take each day as it comes." She clasped his hand, and felt the minute squeeze back. Alex then attempted to smile and drool escaped onto his gown.
The mother had already moved forward. She had sold Ian's house. The buyers moving in next week. Down sized a lifetime into a small box of keepsakes from her life before John, their tragedy and life with Ian. Alex's room still to clear. She had been planning to travel after the funeral, a funeral she still had to cancel. Overwhelmed she started to cry, and was surprised at the loud groan of concern from her beautiful boy. "Happy tears, darling. So, so, happy." The hug was one of sided but Alex was crying as well. She prayed he never remembered his 'accident'.
….
John Rider checked his phone again. He was expecting an update from Tulip Jones. His shrew of an ex-wife had won the court order to turn off his son's life support. The man wiped his face over his one stupid mistake, too concerned over Yassen to deal with Helen's feeble attempt at entrapment. The spy had only found out Alex was his biological son after Ian's will had been read. The bastard had bequeathed him £15 in fifty pence pieces. The rest of the financial wizz's money left to Alex and in the event of his nephew's death before 18, to Helen. His ex-wife would leave it all to charity rather than give a penny to John. Over 17 years and he had been feeding less and less info to his handlers. He was a glorified drill instructor now, rather than any closer to a directorship. Wu was after him for his new second in command. This business was no place for dependants.
He got up and went for a walk around the grounds. Planning another night exercise might ease his guilt. John knew he was to blame for everything, his attempt to force a relationship with his son had doomed Alex. The kid only here for two weeks at the end of summer. The boy had overheard the wrong thing, and given the authorities the heads up on Invisible Sword. John had forgotten Helen had been and still was friends with Tulip Jones, his former handler. Julia was dead and Zeljan Kurt's had attempted to kill Alex. John needed to get that bastard back, but nurse maiding recruits was not the place of strength to start liquidating board members. Revenge was a dish best served cold and he was more than willing to bring two shovels along. His sons accidental drowning was just Zeljan's style, waterboarding gone wrong. He would probably kill Tulip as well, that bitch should have gotten Helen and Alex into protective custody sixteen years ago. Kept then safe from John and the murderers he worked for.