Chapter Text
Alex sighed as the bell rang, finally, signaling the end of school. School. School had felt more like his personal hell for the past 3 years. He had become so much more withdrawn from everyone. Distant. The bullies eventually stopped acknowledging him. Most of the teachers, pretended he almost didn't exist. And it was school so it was rather boring too. And on top of that he had MI6 breathing down his neck.
Sighing, he made his way to his bike alongside Tom. He had been the only friend who stayed by Alex the whole time. Even James had left them. But then again, Tom was also the only one who knew what Alex really was. Or rather who.
His thoughts abruptly turned to Jack. He still had a month left. After the business with Razim he had thought she had died. But he was wrong. Just when he was about to leave the wreckage something had moved, something had moved to reveal an arm twitching barely enough for a trained eye to spot.
He barely remembered yelling at the medics, the helicopter ride to the emergency room and fighting with Jones who had insisted he go home. But he had stayed. Stayed for almost a week while Jack was being operated upon. Later he had talked to the doctors at St. Dominic's who told him that Jack had survived... But her legs hadn't.
Two months later, when she had finally gotten used to the prosthetics, Scorpia had heard that Jack survived and decided to attack, but not before threatening MI6. So after a much thought out decision the new head of MISO ( MI6 Special Operations) decided to fake her death, much like John Riders. Now she was at a MI6 safe house. She had been living there for 2 years and every 2 months Alex would be allowed to see her for a week.
He was shaken out of his awakened stupor when Tom yelled "BYE!". Alex waved back... he hadn't realized that he had reached so close to home. He sped all the way back to his house. Alex had, after a lot of convincing, been allowed to live alone, but that hadn't lasted long when he decided to have some... feelings... about a certain SAS turned MI6 agent. He had found out that the Agent had similar feelings, but was reluctant. Ben had eventually given up his morales for age and had given in. Yeah, that's right, Ben Daniels aka Fox was dating Alex Rider. Though at first their age difference was an issue they both quickly got over it. Were 6 years really that big of a deal to everyone?
Alex sighed as he opened the door and was about to call out when he realized, Ben was on a mission. He had been on that mission for a week. But that's not what worried him.
It was the fact that Alex had not been given a single detail about the mission. Usually, since Alex and Ben were dating, the former would be given information about the latter and vice versa.
Alex walked into the kitchen and pulled open the fridge. Inside he found yesterday's pasta. Shrugging, brought it out and put in the microwave. RING! RING! Alex sighed, ( he seemed to be doing that a lot today) and walked over to the phone that was ringing in the living room. Alex picked it up. " Hello?"
"Hello, Mr Rider this is Royal and General bank. There seems to be a problem in your account. We would appreciate it if you came down to sort it out."
"Of course. What time?"
"5 o'clock would be alright. Would you like for a car to be sent?"
" No it's alright. I'll take the tube."
Putting down the phone he hurriedly ate his lunch and ran upstairs to change his clothes. Usually the receptionist would say "anytime convenient for you" but she hadn't and Alex has learnt the code. 5 o'clock meant as soon as possible.
Not bothering to knock, Alex pushed open the Head if MI6's office door. Mrs. Jones sat behind her chair sucking in a peppermint. "Hey" muttered Alex.
" Hello Alex. Do knock next time. Please have a seat. How are you? How's school going?"
"Same old, same old. Now why did you call me?"
"Now Alex, you must understand that whatever that is being said in this office, at this moment is of utmost importance and can not be told to anybody without my permission." Mrs. Jones said. "Isn't every thing?" Asked Alex, already bored.
"No Alex, this is different. Last week we had sent Agent Daniels to a highly guarded facility in Chicago because we got Intel that there were prisoners being held there."
"Now it seems like Agent Daniels has also been captured..." Mrs. Jones trailed of. "What? How?" Asked Alex, starting to get worried. "We don't know but this is being taken to higher authorities as well because the CIA, NYPD and FBI are also missing their top agents. The CIA sent an acquaintance of yours, Tamara Knight? The LAPD and FBI however, were kidnapped. This leaves you. The only agent better than Daniels. We expect to have all the information by the end of this week." That means 4 more days.
"And once we do, a COBRA meeting will be called so be ready."
"Ok... What do I do when the meeting is called?" Asked Alex. "You will be a part of the meeting, wherever you are I will send an agent to bring you to the meeting. Alex I'm afraid you'll have to leave now, and on your way out, check in with Smithers. He'll give you your gun." Concluded Mrs. Jones. Nodding Alex left the room and went down to Smithers office.
After the mission with Razim he had been cleared to carry a gun. He knocked on the door and entered once he heard the affirmative. "Alex m'boy, how are you? Sit, Sit, I have lots of new toys for you but I'm afraid Mrs. Jones said that you're only allowed to carry a gun. But she did mention that you would be coming back later when you go for the actual Mission. Now I've gotten hold of your favorite... A Grach MP-443. Believe it or not these came out when you were just 14 and these are still rare so try not to lose this one..."
"Hey c'mon Eric- I mean... Smithers... I didn't plan on throwing my gun at Robert so that he would fall into the sea! It just happened!" Exclaimed Alex, feeling a little stupid about his slip up. He remembered in Cairo when Smithers had shown who really was behind that fat suit.
"Yes, Yes I'm sure you didn't... Everything just seems to happen around you. Now I have some Bluetooth bombs to attend to. The bombs are connected via my special lenses so all you have to do to detonate them is add these eye drops that will send a signal to the lenses, that will detonate the bomb! So run along now, let the old man get back to work." Said Smithers.
"Oh and Alex... Be careful..."
"Aren't I always?"
Alex rubbed his eyes as Mrs Kimplin droned on and on about the importance of the indices, something that he had learnt in year 7. Twenty minutes later the bell rang. Alex got up and gathered his books. He groaned slowly as he realized what he had next. Politics.
He despised the subject. And yet he still took the subject, listening to MI6's advice. He didn't even know why he listed to them anymore. He walked slowly to his class room and cherished the fact that he was the only one in the hallway, because he was late to class, but that didn't matter.
He was alone. He could calm down. He could calm down before he shot everyone.
He cautiously opened the door to the class to to find Miss Carris already giving out some papers. Miss Carris was a young, beautiful, unmarried woman with long brown locks and baby blue eyes, she stood at a good 5'9 which was taller than most of the women in school. "Ah! Alex! Sit down, sit down. I was just giving out the papers... I hope you learned for the test. It is quite hard."
Test? What test? Alex didn't remember her talking about a test! He nodded and went to the back of the room, where his seat was, to see that the paper had already been placed on his table.
He put his bag down and took out his pouch. As he looked at the paper his face slowly turned to a smirk. The test was on COBRA. He pulled out his pen and started writing. The test was easy... At least for someone who had been to those meetings *cough cough Alex cough cough*.