Work Text:
The agent slapped a collection of files onto the table. The manila folder thumped, Alex didn’t look up.
“I’m going to ask you again,” the man said, “Where were you, Alex Rider?”
Alex huffed, curled up on his chair. He was sunburnt, skin so tan it matched his story. His nose hadn’t completely healed, still burning near his left nostril. His hair was chopped poorly, from what looked like a dull blade.
“I told you,” Alex said, sounding just as tired as he looked, “I was in Africa. Some village found me and helped-.”
“And you have no proof of how this village healed you?” The agent pressed, looking just as annoyed as Alex. “You don’t know what sort of medicine-.”
“Oh sorry, I was a bit unconscious.”
“Your story doesn’t match!”
Alex shrugged with one shoulder, closing his eyes and resting his chin on his knees.
Jones sighed quietly, watching through the thick glass that hid her from sight. Alex wasn’t so naive to assume she wasn’t there. Watching him.
“His story matches, ma’am.” The technician told her, passing over another folder she hadn’t the time to read through yet. “There are several wounds that have healed completely-.”
“Too fast for African Tribal medicine.” Jones said.
“It wasn’t SCORPIA, ma’am.” The technician said quietly, “we have evidence suggesting that they were as equally lost as we were. For unexplained reasons, Alex Rider was shot nine times, seven months ago, and proceeded to fall off a building in Ethiopia. He vanished, and no corpse was recovered.”
“Until he shows up calling us in Kenya.” Jones said flatly. “With healed bullet wounds at a speed even SCORPIA can’t accomplish.”
“Yes ma’am.” The technician hesitated, tapping the file once nervously, “and ah...significant but healed scar tissue suggesting all bullets left cleanly through most vital organs, including his heart and aorta.”
“Right.” Jones said with an increasing headache. “We can’t forget that.”
Alex was poked and prodded by more medical staff than he had ever seen before in his life.
“Really, is this necessary?” Alex said, flinching back from yet another cold probe poking a nestle of scars on his back. “Where were you all when I jumped out a window?”
The doctors ignored him, continuing to test everything from his pupils to the reflexes of his left knee. He pouted, huffing and grumbling through the collections of tests. He drew the line at having a camera jammed down his throat.
“No,” Alex refused, “no more of this. This is absolutely insane- Jones! I refuse! There is no consent here!”
One rather eager doctor went and plucked a stray hair from his head, dancing out of reach from Alex’s swat.
“None of that!” Alex growled, rubbing his head irritated. “And stop stealing my blood! You lab coat mosquitos-.”
“That’s enough.” Jones said, stepping through the door with a firm cold expression. “Alex, I see you’re feeling better.”
“And missing half of my blood.” Alex said, glaring at one doctor who had the vials at hand. “What is this all about? I thought I already explained this.”
“Whatever tribe you were with had significantly advanced medicine.” Jones confessed, eyes skimming over the various purpling patches of disfigured flesh. Messy, but well coordinated. A sniper likely in the African Poaching ring, even two of the bullets should have killed Alex. A punctured left atrium, a punctured aorta. Three bullets in his left lung, one in his stomach. Three in his intestines. Each bullet would have left him crippled, rotting from infection from the African climate and countless issues. Alex should have died, in fact they had long since thought he was dead. His body was not recovered, but that was not unusual considering the countless scavengers and predatory animals that lived in Africa. Hyenas, vultures, lions and other predatory mammals. SCORPIA had combed the area, likely vying to gain information on the MI6 experimental drug programme and vaccinations that other agents would have- they aborted the mission after days of scouring. Alex hadn’t been found.
“This tribe,” Jones said, heavily skeptic on the story although there was yet to be anything to prove that Alex was lying, “must have had a wonderful Doctor.”
Alex looked a bit wary. He said slowly, “a shaman. A bit odd, but a nice fellow.”
Jones nodded slowly, “did he provide you with a name?”
Alex frowned. “I didn’t speak the language.”
“Ah, right.” Jones said, “language issues.”
“Okay, cut the crap.” Alex snapped angrily. Eyes flashing to the Doctors- likely trained doctors, who could summon one of the many scalpels nearby in a second. For a biopsy, a sample of his newly healed heart, or lungs. “What is this all about? Why am I being interrogated-.”
“You were missing for seven months, Alex.” Jones said her tone slightly softer given the sharpness of his voice, “who found you? The Oromo? The Amhara?”
“I don’t know.” Alex said, his hands curling around the edge of the table in something that likely portrayed as stress. Jones would have a psychologist analyze the recordings to construct Alex’s profile afterwards. “They carried me on a cow, a bull. On its back.”
“Seems convenient you were found in Kenya,” Jones said. “Where they had phones for you to call us. You gave us quite a shock, Alex, we couldn’t find you.”
“Well,” Alex said coldly, “maybe you weren’t looking well enough.”
Jones smiled, it was ever so slightly condescending, as if he had failed her expectations but she was still slightly pleased with his attempt.. “Kenya is a fair ways away from where we assigned you to take out the Animal Poaching ring in Ethiopia.”
“I know.” Alex said, “good thing I learned how to ride a cow.”
“You always were innovative,” Jones confessed almost fondly, “we’re testing you for any toxic substances, perhaps trying to find traces of whatever medicine was used to cure you so rapidly. Anything you can tell us, Alex, could help save others.”
Alex looked at her with something sharp. “I don’t remember it.”
“Okay,” Jones said, “you’re free to go.”
Seven months didn’t seem to feel that long, except it was in every way that mattered.
Alex opened the door to Jack’s flat (moved out, because staying in the Rider house was too empty without him) and walked through the hallway quietly. He didn’t mean to walk...suspiciously, but she must have noticed something was wrong.
He went around the corner to face her clumsily pointing a gun at his face. There was a small basket of yarn, needles thrown half hazardously on the ground.
Instantly he reached out, redirecting the shakily held gun to the side before he exhaled quickly. “Whoa there,” he said, voice warbling ever so slightly, “please don’t shoot me, I don’t want to die twice.”
Jack made a choked noise, grip tightening. “Why are you?” She demanded, lacking conviction as her eyes welled up, “who sent you?”
Alex laughed, then it shifted to a sob. “Jack, it’s me. Promise.”
Jack dropped the gun, and he caught it quickly. He didn’t know where she could have even gotten a gun. Maybe an apology from MI6 for ‘losing Alex in combat.’
He had only a few seconds to flip the safety on and set it down before she crashed into him, nearly knocking him to the floor.
“Where were you?” She nearly screamed into his shoulder, “they- they said you were -”
“I uh, got lost.” Alex said trying not to break, “turned left at that damn volcano and should have gone right-.”
“No, stop.” Jack said, refusing his bad attempt at humor. “Stop it, we- I buried you.”
Alex flinched, and swallowed thickly. “‘I’m so sorry.”
Tom reacted better.
He punched Alex so hard in his face, Alex had to feel to make sure his nose hadn’t broken. It didn’t help the snot pouring from his abused sinuses, or the way Tom cried ugly and punched him again.
“How did you survive?” Tom asked. He lived in London, although his flat was much smaller than Jack’s. They crowded into her little living room, sprawling on the worn armchair, the new futon and the kitchen chair Jack dragged into the room. The small shag carpet was a nice distraction, Alex wiggled his toes until the long fibers tickled between each toe.
“Africa.” Alex said quietly, scrunching his shoulders. He wiggled his toes, the tops popping up above the fabric. “Just...Africa.”
“Were you hurt?” Jack asked, holding a small glass of tap water in her hands. More something to hold. Alex imagined that she’d have tea if not for how long it took for the kettle to boil. He was fine, he’d had enough tea waiting for Jones to send a damned plane to Kenya to last him a lifetime.
“A little.” Alex downplayed, “I’m fine now.”
“Mate,” Tom said, eyebrows scrunching on his face. “They said that you had been shot.”
Alex stared at Tom. Maintaining eye contact for a long while, saying nothing and staring well past the point he should have. He asked, quietly in a gentle voice, “who said that?”
“It was an official notice.” Jack sniffled, trying to use the water to stop her throat from closing. “They...sent a spokesperson. A nice basket. Some flowers for your funeral.”
Alex stared at the floor, wiggling his toes. “Well, I’m here now.”
“After you were shot!” Tom shouted, turning and punching the wall. The drywall gave with a crunch. Jack looked pained at the hole, the new renovation she’d have to cover. Tom winced the moment he saw the damage.
“It’s fine guys.” Alex said quietly, “just...it won’t happen again.”
“How can you say that?” Jack said, voice hitching to a high mournful tone. “How can you- we- you-.”
“Mate, we bloody buried you.”
“Well you didn’t!” Alex snapped, bristling sharply, “I’m here so let's just stop talking.”
A pause. Jack sipped her water.
“I’m sorry.” Alex said, a whisper. “I want to go sleep.”’
“There’s a guest room down the hall.” Jack directed.
“I was there,” Alex said, in the quiet stolen moments past midnight. When nobody stood in his room to hear his silent confession. “In Africa.”’
Deep in the Earth. He thought to himself. Hands curling in blankets and the spare duvet pulled from Jack’s closet. Under the crust.
He was held, cradled like a fetus cherished and loved. He was held in the hands of a monster and he wished he had died.
“They keep calling,” Tom said first thing the next morning, jerking his head to the house phone that kept flashing silently on mute. “Reckon it's for you.”
Alex looked at the phone and felt no desire to pick it up.
“Ignore them,” Jack said from the kitchen, fixing pancakes even though it was approaching noon. “They always want something. I’m making pancakes, and waffles. I made eggs and sausage already, and I can make toast-.”
“Why the feast?” Alex asked jokingly, snatching one of the pancakes to scarf it down dry. “It’s fine, honest. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Right,” Tom huffed, clearly looking skeptic. “I won my football league.”
“You did?’ Alex asked, suddenly brighting up in delight. “Great job! I knew you could do it.”
Tom smiled, looking a bit confident and a little bit arrogant. “Yeah well, you were right about Greg. Shit on defence-.”
“‘I told you!” Alex crowed, cackling as Tom swatted him playfully, “you’ve been bitching about Greg for years-.”
“Only one year!”
“-about how horrible he is at defense. He can barely run backwards and kept looking over his shoulder, you kept saying ‘That bloody Greg, needs a rearview mirror-.”
“I do not sound like that.”
“You do!” Alex argued, laughing as Tom tackled him to the floor.
“Boys!” Jack snapped, setting a plate of pancakes on the island. Alex looked up on instinct at the tone, Tom took advantage and headlocked him only to blow a disgusting raspberry on his face.
“Stop! No that’s rank!” Alex complained, wiggling feebly for a few seconds as Jack rolled her eyes. She snatched the top pancake, the smallest of the bunch given that she had run out of batter, and dropped it dramatically (syrup included) right on Alex’s face.
He shrieked, flailing as Tom jolted in alarm, getting syrup all over his own cheek.
“Not cool!” Alex wailed, the pancake slowly sliding down his face like a slug. “This is disgusting!”
“So is tussling before breakfast on my floor!” Jack teased, nudging the two with her feet. “You’re the one putting breakfast on the floor!”’ Tom complained, trying to wipe off the syrup although he ended up only smearing it more. “Gross! This isn’t even syrup!”
“It’s peach cobbler syrup and you better respect it.” Jack teased.
They ate pancakes and waffles, well past noon. Then, Tom canceling his classes and Jack choosing to stay in, they sprawled on the small couch to watch whatever horrible television was on during the day. Flipping from several movies to others, pausing on one new action one Alex didn’t remember, and watched it until they eventually grew tired and fell asleep on top of one another.
The weather turned for the worst and rained down with the wrath of sleepy London. The windows were battered wetly, each sounding like hail with the force of the heavy droplets.
Alex snuck outside, standing bare faced and arms outstretched in the onslaught.
“Do you want an umbrella?” Tom asked, shouting over the roar of the heavy clouds.
Alex grinned, water bouncing off his teeth. Tom imagined that Africa didn’t have much rain, or at least not when Alex had visited. Alex stood there, until his clothing became so wet it was barely more than a second damp skin. Clinging to his body, to his thighs. His hair was dark and drenched. A flash of lightning flickered through the air, creating a silhouette that turned to face Tom through the rattling boom!
“I’m good!” Alex shouted over the roar. “I’m good!” he laughed.
Tom watched him, as Alex stuck his tongue out flat to taste the rain and lick it from his chin. Once he came inside, Jack would likely shove him in a bath and force him to grab cocoa or tea.
Alex kept laughing, loud and shrill into something almost bird like with its glee.
“Whatever happened to that animal smuggling ring?” Alex asked, laying slightly sprawled over a chair in Smithers mad-laboratory. It was more like an open hanger, reinforced with technology to prevent spying. Alex supposed it was intended to look professional, with the modified cars and a half assembled helicopter and an antique tank in the back corner. Alex didn’t fall for it, because under the rug there was hopscotch carved into the cement with battery acid.
“The Animal Poaching Mission?” Smithers asked, pulling back slightly on his spinning chair. He had been tinkering with something small, likely a watch or a belt buckle under a large magnifying glass. “It was determined to be a failure.”
Alex scrunched his nose and looked up at the rafters with a frown. He had lost a basketball up there once, and a jumping rope that supposedly worked as a grappling hook but clearly wasn’t long enough. “I thought I got rid of the poachers though?”
“Oh, you did!” Smithers tried to cheer him up. “Just uh, you failed to recover the animals being smuggled.”
“I thought they were poachers.” Alex muttered, fumbling with a small ball of clay Smithers gave him upon arrival.
“Well, you tried your best!” Smithers said.
“‘I died.” Alex said bluntly. “You said that, I mean...I didn’t, because I’m here but- my best is being dead?”
Smithers fumbled with his tools, a very tiny screwdriver attached to a longer handle. “Alex, it...it was an unfortunate thing-.”
“For me?” Alex said quietly, “or to MI6? That I died.”
Smithers paused, setting his tools down to walk over worriedly. He lowered himself to his knees, making sure Alex saw the sincerity in his face. “Alex, I am so thankful that you returned to us all alright. Not as an agent, but because I want you to be alright.”
Alex’s eyes flickered from one eye to the next, back and forth. “What if I’m not alright?”
“Then I’ll do whatever I can to help you.” Smithers said.
Alex looked away, and smashed his clay into a sad little lump.
Alex’s house hadn’t been sold. Well, Ian’s House, but it was Alex’s and he knew that.
Jack moved out because she felt haunted between its doors and walls, but Alex didn’t feel that same supernatural touch. Alex was alive, and he had no reason to not live in the large house. He had assured Jack that she need not move in with him; she had worked hard for her flat and it would be rude and unnecessary to haul her back in with him just so she could make him breakfast. Alex was a spy, he didn’t need someone cleaning up his mess.
The countertops didn’t have dust, but the top of the television did. The back crooks that anything more than a mild precursory wipe would miss. He wondered who had visited to keep the air from going stagnant. Who had they been preparing the house for?
Alex knew that it was bugged. That there would be wires and microphones and cameras all around. The neighbours were likely replaced, because they didn’t trust Alex and didn’t trust desperation in the face of getting shot nine times.
He would be called back, debriefed on something simple which ultimately was not simple and likely ended up with someone dead. Maybe a fire next time, maybe an explosion or a poisoning or more nuclear warheads.
Humans were horrible things, and Alex wondered how he had never seen it before.
“The world is disgusting.” Alex said, settled on a rooftop in Dubai. The city was polluted and rancid in the summer heat, radiating in waves of toxic fumes and reflected thermals. He sat on the top of one of the high rise buildings, cheap apartments with melting asphalt roofs and looked down between his legs. The city below was so small, a collection of ants moving in a synchronized dance through a city of trash and rubble.Free will ruled by corporations and poverty.
“I know,” his teammate said, looking down over the building before very quickly stepping back towards safer ground. “But we’re extracting whatever-Smirnoff here.”
Alex looked over his shoulder slightly, glimpsing at Wolf, or Fox rather for this one. “Smeklof.”
“Close enough,” Fox said, nose twitching. The air really did reek.
Alex hummed a flat noise, looking over the Dubai Skyscrapers once again. “Do you ever think about how...all of this could come down?”
Fox made a low grunt, some sort of gargled noise that Alex assumed was also a complaint at the heat.
“All of these buildings.” Alex elaborated. “One bad earthquake and...boom.”
Fox looked up, looking a bit mystified. “You thinking there’s going to be a goddamn earthquake?”
“Not at all.” Alex said, tracing one ant meandering through the streets. Hazy through the smog, but bright in his off-brand red shirt. “I just think that the world is very small.”
“All that pollution is getting to you.” Fox said, double checking his gear and gun. “Stay here. I’m meeting with the other team and I’ll message you when extraction finishes. From there, you should be able to get to rendezvous and get out of this trash heap.”
Alex hummed a flat tune, fingers brushing against the blistering rubber of the roof. “From this height, If I dropped a coin it would be the same as shooting someone.”
Fox looked at him oddly, emphasized by the slightly crooked nose. He said something else, and Alex ignored him. His little red ant made it to a trash heap, and began to search it for anything worth taking.
Alex slept in his bed, and he woke up convinced he was drowning.
A blink forward, and Alex was taking shelter against the side of a flipped bullet proof car. Bulletproof, not bomb proof.
No backup, like normal. The Middle Eastern group seemed especially insulted and offended by Alex’s presence there. Someone should really do something about them.
The machine guns were fairly high quality, but Alex was sent there to uncover the black arms trading of illegal weaponry.
“Boy!” His particular angry adversary shouted at him in accented English. “I will be your coroner!”
“Oh come on,” Alex moaned behind the safety of the car. “That’s the easiest job, how do you mess up at that? You sneeze while cutting them open and- what, whoops? They’ve got a pulse?”
The man roared and started screaming more things Alex didn’t know. Alex sighed, and let his head thump back against the underside of the car.
“Give Alex a gun, but noo.” Alex complained quietly, huffing a bit at the audacity of his situation. “Give me a tazer once and everyone is shocked when they find out how good I am with it.”
Then again, that was the reason why he was banned from using tazers again.
“Damn,” Alex said contemplatively, “that was a good one too. I should keep track, really. Alex’s best punchline to a villain! vote now!”
The man kept screaming, then went blissfully silent. The reign of bullets also came to an end, and Alex considered the risks of peeking to see if his opponent became intelligent enough to play dead. A trick a decently trained golden retriever could accomplish.
Another noise, a click and more language Alex didn’t understand but a suspiciously different voice. Someone who stopped his attacker for an unknown purpose.
Alex popped his head up, stared and said, “you’re dead!”
Yassen Gregorovich stared at Alex with a rare expression of surprise. “No, you’re dead.”
“You were dead first.” Alex argued.
Yassen looked a little bit unsure what to do. The corpse on the ground likely would have agreed. “You...are here for…”
“Arms trade?” Alex said, voice twisting into a question. “This group has illegal ties?”
Yassen nodded very slowly. His entire body still had not moved from its freeze-frame-post-murder stance. “They have bombed a shipment of valuables.”
“Oh cool,” Alex said, blinking quickly because sand had gotten everywhere. “Are you going to kill everyone? Because that seems like a not very nice thing to do.”
Yassen breathed through his nose very slowly.
“Think of your conscience.” Alex urged, although he felt a smile start to twist on his mouth.
“I have a clean conscience.”
“You know,” Alex said, “that's also a sign of a bad memory. Maybe you have dementia.”
Yassen ignored him and straightened up. Swiping a cracked phone, two clips of automatic bullets, and what looked like a protein bar. Glimpsing at Alex, he threw the protein bar over so it landed in the sand. “You look ill.”
“I was dead,” Alex complained, peeling the wrapper and taking a bite. He was hungry. “It’s not fun.”
“I know.” Yassen said, pausing as he considered his words carefully. “How did you survive? All of SCORPIA reported your...expiration.”
“Well expiration dates normally lie so jot that down first,” Alex advised, scarfing down the food like he had the throat gullet of a pelican, “and also I hid myself away and was cured by a biker gang of nuns-.”
Yassen’s expression could have curdled milk. As could have faulty expiration dates.
“Where were you, Alex?” Yassen asked him, eyes piercing and cold and layered with something Alex was afraid to name. “I looked for you. Personally.”
“Well,” Alex said, his throat thick like molding cheese, “you didn’t look thorough enough.”
“I did.” Yassen said. “You weren’t there.”
They found their targets. Huddled in armored cars, caravans of stolen goods and materials and the stupidity of young men with nothing but God to fear.
Alex bared his teeth and stood in front of the caravan of cars and bombs. He looked at their gun muzzles, and showed them a muzzle of fangs and sharp grins.
“Sorry guys,” Alex apologized, “I don’t think you’re going to be that happy with the afterlife.”
They shouted at him, locking and shifting guns off safety. One car honked, another reved its engine.
Yassen deployed the mines, and every car burned like a supernova.
Afterwards, when they sat on the top of a sand dune in a rare opportunity of camaraderie (no matter how odd it was,) Yassen looked him and scoured his skin with his eyes.
“Do you know,” Alex said, “that the dung beetle is the only animal on the planet that navigates using the Milky Way? Not the sun, or the stars. Nothing magnetic- the Milky Way.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Yassen asked him.
Alex hummed, shifting his legs slightly. Sand fell around them, rolling down the dunes like water. “I think it’s interesting. How with all our science and technology and religion, a little beetle uses something so far beyond our understanding.”
“Are you religious, Alex?” Yassen asked.
“No,” Alex said, “but I do believe in Hell.”
“You weren’t supposed to kill the arms dealers-.”
“Why not?” Alex said sitting sideways for his mission briefing. “You were going to kill them anyways. Execute them, or stage an explosion. Oh, I know. Maybe stage a terrorist attack just so you had the public permission to go after them like you would have anyways.”’
Jones stared at him. Alex didn’t look at anyone. Instead, he seemed rather fascinated by an abstract painting on the wall, staring deep into its monochrome meaningless design.
“What has gotten into you?” Jones asked, looking and sounding baffled by the sudden shift of cruelty.
Alex shrugged. “Maybe I’m just tired of this.”
“‘Tired of what?”
Alex smiled, grim. He looked deep into the picture, and understood its meaningless nature. “Humanity.”
“‘Why do you believe in Hell if not Heaven?”
“I never took you for much of a religious guy.”
“I’m not. Where were you, Alex Rider?”
Alex woke up screaming and choking, and dreamed he was chewing and gnawing and swallowing dirt.
He was thankful he lived alone now.
Only MI6 through their microphones and bugs could hear him laughing in the night.
“This has gotten ridiculous,” Jones said, looking at the various statistical analytical reports. Even Microsoft Excel was pulled in to try and decipher the data and reports. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“The psych department doesn’t know what to make of it either, ma’am.” One of her workers said, “our African support team has confirmed that all villages within twenty kilometers of his death had no contact-.”
“Except his arrival.” Jones said, her fingers folded under her jaw as she looked over the blunt mission report. Objective Confirmed. Agent: Rider. Recovered disoriented and sick. Translator claims that the odor was on par of decomposition.
“Yes ma’am.” Her worker said, “we have no reports as to Alex Rider’s healing or recovery, only that of his appearance some months later.”
“Looking like a wild child and smelling so bad an African Nomadic Tribe vomited at the smell of him.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Jones rubbed her forehead. She missed the days where Blunt was here to deal with this.
Alex dreamed of being blind and feeble and weak. Contorted and bathed in wet slime that made even breathing impossible. A wet mucus, like egg whites. It stank of rot and growth and felt like worms over his skin and in his eyes.
Alex dreamed of the rumble of the Earth itself, the unbearable heat and warmth where sweat had long since been swallowed by slime and there was no end to wetness. He dreamed his nails had fallen out, his skin so wrinkled and white it sloughed off at a touch and left him screaming silently.
Alex dreamed of hunger, an all consuming ravenous hunger, and the wordless thrumming command of chew.
The phone rang, and Alex stood in his house in the darkness.
“You know,” he said quietly to the empty house. “If you keep calling me, one day I may not come running.”
The phone kept ringing. He answered it.
In South America, Alex stood and locked the door. He closed his eyes, leaning forward to press his forehead against the warm metal.
He could hear the screams, the begging and flailing and gunfire from inside the bulletproof room. The room had been prepared to stop anyone invading with a gun. They hadn’t expected a teenager with experience in lockbreaking, and his casual capture of a deadly pit viper.
He opened the door, threw it in, and closed it.
Mercy! They screamed, begging to be let out. Alex counted in his head; his heartbeat, the thrum of the air and the ground. How long did it take for a pit viper to kill four grown men?
Mercy! They screamed.
“I’m giving it to you,” Alex whispered, “why can’t you understand that?”
The news said a tourist cruise sunk somewhere near the Arctic Ocean after an unfortunate collision with a pod of whales.
“That’s horrible.” Jack said, staring at the footage of the sinking boat in grim acceptance.
“Mm.” Alex agreed. They were fortunate, it would be cold enough they would die easily and peacefully. Drowning was never fun.
“Where were you Alex Rider?”
Alex wasn’t sure how to explain it. How do you confess, some sort of eternal suffering that extended beyond the growth of time? Time depended on gravity, on the rotation of the moon and stars- and what was Time if you existed so deep in the Earth’s mantle that even gravity had no grip or meaning to you?
How do you track time beyond that of kill me kill me kill me-
No, that thing- IT said. Brushing against him with its disgustingly wet fleshy flank. It’s engorged teeth and nonexistent eyes in the darkness. Skin baggy and wrinkled and who needed air so deep down and burrowed hot? Who needed water or air or words.
Kill me, Alex wanted to beg, barely able to thrash in a coagulation of blood and feces and the mutilated rotting remnants of IT’s other children and-
No. IT said to him, and Alex kept living.
In some places, they sold guinea pigs roasted over an open flame. Skinned and gutted, cooked until their little limbs contorted stiffly and they looked like a rat. Gold and dripping with grease and fat.
Alex never thought he would hate guinea pigs, but his stomach twisted.
It was hard to forget the slime rotting taste of murdered pups.
Eat, IT said to him.
Alex ate.
“Alex,” Jones said, staring at him with something Alex knew but didn’t want to name. “Why has the casualty rate on your missions gone up so drastically?”
“Collateral damage.” Alex shrugged.
“This isn’t...collateral damage. This is purposeful. ”
Alex smiled sharp and cruel and Jones wondered if she had ever known him at all. “Isn’t that the same story for why you keep dragging me away?”
“Please,” the resident evil villain said, arms held up as he shook. “I didn’t mean to-.”
“Nobody does.” Alex said, “It’s not personal.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone!” The man argued, “this world...it’s a plague, a disease! Corporations, the greedy rich, the sick and poor and Humans are ruining this world.”
Alex tilted his head curious. “Humanity does that.”
“It doesn’t have to. We could restart. We could- could remove the main and only those who endure would then recover and-.”
“I think,” Alex said, “You talk too much.”
Climb. IT said to him. Nudging him along, forcing him up through the dirt and rock and crust. It shoved him, pushing with its nose and tusks and Alex screamed and begged and it forced him up and higher and higher. Climb.
Alex screamed, drowning in dirt and writhing as he burst through ground. The air felt like acid, the sun lava on his eyes.
He vomited, coughing and retching fluid and afterbirth and inhaled his first breath.
He climbed to his feet, naked and putrid and began to walk.
“Now, Dung Beetles are weird,” Alex continued, staring up at the sky in wonder. “But the real weird ones, are the fucking Mole Rats.”
“Mole Rats.” Yassen said flatly.
“Yep,” Alex nodded, “too much skin. Giant teeth, weird as hell and live their entire life underground like some sort of alien. They’re the only cold blooded mammal, and actually they don’t even need air.”
“You seem fixated on Mole Rats.” Yassen said.
Alex smiled. It was not kind. “The real bitch. Is their Queen.”
Climb. IT said, and Alex wanted nothing more than to die.
“You’re right, humanity is wretched.” Alex told the corpse, carefully stepping over it. MI6 never gave him guns, but he had learned how to use them ‘on the job’. “But you were a bit wrong in how to do it.”
Alex sighed, taking a seat across from the still body. Drooling blood and eyes sinking back into its socket. “See, the thing is, unless you get rid of everything, humanity will just...keep going. Already our carbon emissions are horrible, and animal extinction is- well. You know all that.”
Alex looked over his shoulder. The reason MI6 sent him here. It wasn’t anything... spectacular, it wasn’t a bomb or a weapon. Actually, it was a highly advanced constantly adjusting Artificial Intelligence programme. The best ever made, and the best that would ever be made. Said to likely break its way into every single source of data on the planet. Rooted in organic adaptability instead of the harsh structure of coding and binary. New, genius. A pioneer of a genius with blood soaking Alex’s socks.
“Maybe though,” Alex said, staring at the computer and information thoughtfully, “I can fix that."
“Where were you, Alex Rider?”
Alex smiled at him. “I was in Hell.”
Yassen was a good Agent. He had survived a bullet to the heart- he had survived MI6’s interrogation to return to SCORPIA. He had survived SCORPIA, which said something in his age.
Yassen was a good agent, but he was not a...a man built on constructing plots or plans himself. He took orders, he followed or broke them. He did not plan.
He stared at the television in his little Denmark cottage, watching the screen without comprehending. Everything he knew didn’t matter, when information did not cooperate.
Malagosto, gone. Bombed, by what the Denmark officials were saying- by 14 individual drone strikes each from different countries. Countries that would never cooperate with one another. Iraq would not use its primitive and secret drone development to- to destroy Malagosto.
The United States of America he could see pulling such an action. Not New Zealand, not South Africa, not Croatia.
He didn’t know what to think. His phone calls were not being returned. The running title on the news channel reported other bomb strikes throughout the world. Australia. England. Gibraltar.
Middle East- active areas with SCORPIA missions, completely obliterated. Singapore was gone.
Yassen had a growing suspicion, that he was very much on his own now.
“We need to move, Ma’am.” Tulip Jones’ escort said, moving her instantly. She barely knew what was going on.
They had situations, codes set aside for things like these. A bomb threat, a missile. Even chemical weapons- but this...this chaos had never been foreseen. Far beyond that of SCORPIA, if the quick reports were to be believed- which was... gone.
It felt...wrong. That somehow, after their decades of struggle and careful balancing acts, everything ended by a foreign power. Synchronized drone bombings.
“The united military units reported back, ma’am.” Someone rushed by just as they were getting to the car convoy to move to a safer area. “They didn’t authorize the drone strikes. Not from England at least.”
“We assumed as such.” Jones said, feeling anxiety flutter. “Have you gotten satellite footage yet on Italy? Is it true? Is it gone?”
“The satellites are all offline, ma’am.” Someone confessed near her, looking very worried as they hurriedly scrambled on their computer. Over and over, typing frantically next to her. “In fact, almost all satellites are offline.”’
“Great. Fantastic.” Jones said, letting her head thump against the back headrest. “This is a global emergency, where the hell is the CIA?”
“The E.U. is on the phone for you, ma’am.” someone said. Jones ignored them.
“What about our other operations? Australia? Argentina?”
“Some operatives are checking in that they’re alright. Nothing from Australia, they were-.”
“-Investigating reports of Yu.” Jones realized, feeling a deep sense of horror. “Good god. I need someone to check every bombing and cross reference with our best assumptions for SCORPIA positions. This would be the work of- of one hell of a mole.”
Alex curled his knees to his chest, resting his chin along the top.
“Thanks, NSA.” Alex said quietly to himself, “for being a prick.”
The laptop belonging to the nameless agent right next to Tulip Jones flickered on without any announcement. Both microphone and camera were his, and it was nice to see her panic.
“ Rider.” she breathed, crackling slightly over the sound of frantic typing. “Where did we send Rider. Where the bloody hell is Rider!”
“Rider is after the Argus project-.”
“Oh, fuck.” Someone else said, a deeper masculine voice. “You think he failed?”
“The Argus Project was just a prototype, there was nothing to suggest this level of hacking technology.” Jones said, although she sounded quite scared. “This- we have to try and recover. Find where all of our field operatives are, especially with SCORPIA dealings. Get the Goddamn USA on the phone, I don’t care if it’s a bloody telegram. For now, we need to leave Rider and presume that he failed-.”
“I didn’t though,” Alex argued quietly, pulling his legs tighter to his chest. “You don’t know it, but there was a ton of stuff against you. Contingency plans to kill you, Jones. Poison, shootings, five of your guards were trained to assassinate you on command.”
Jones, through the camera, kept shouting out orders.
“The USA had nuclear weapons ready to threaten you with,” Alex continued quietly. “They had spies and agents everywhere. I found your kids, in the records. I wonder if you want to know what happened?”
Alex watched her, then he looked over at the data reports. He didn’t like the carbon and fossil fuel emissions issue. Global Warming, because of a handful of countries. China contributed 23.43% of global Carbon Dioxide emissions. The U.S.A. following behind with 14.69%.
“You know,” Alex sighed sadly, “all of China’s emissions are from Steel production and electricity. And the U.S.A. is from- which companies?”
He typed, only a few questions, and Argus helped him.
The Saudi Aramco was the single largest contributor to global emissions. Then Gazprom. Then National Iranian Oil. Coal India. Shenhua Group. Rosneft. CNPC. ADNOC. ExxonMobill. Pemex. Shell.
“What would happen,” Alex whispered, curiously and so so cold, “if you all turned off?”
He clicked a button, and companies fell apart.
Six minutes, then Jones was cursing, frantically on her phone as more people began shouting in her envoy. Alex liked her GPS, it was convenient and traced the future path for him too.
“Ma’am, we have reports of collapsed Chinese coal manufacturers-.”
“Ma’am! Shell has completely froze-.”
“ExxonMobil is locked, the Prime Minister of Canada is on the phone and-.”
“See?” Alex asked the computer in the darkness of the room and the smell of blood, “I’m making a difference.”
Yassen wasn’t sure what to do, but it appeared land-line telephones were still in operation. It took some work, ignoring the slow signal and the operating fees he’d likely be charged with.
Working through the public channels was odd, different than the normally highly secure routes he used. He had to operate with the belief that his cover was made, his target was lost.
SCORPIA was... gone. Or heavily regrouping. He wondered where Nile was in this mess, or if Julia Rothman had fallen prey to the targeted missile launches.
He was lucky that MI6 tended to be a tad over protective, because within moments of walking down a public street with no disguise, an unmarked car rolled up. Amatures, they should have tranquillized him prior to advancing.
“Yassen Gregorovich?” The backseat agent asked, looking ridiculous with sunglasses and two phones (one in each ear). “You are under arrest by law accord-.”
“What is the status of SCORPIA.” Yassen deadpanned. He had no information, and this amateur did. “Where else have bombs hit?”
The agent looked a bit uncertain. “We- That is above my clearance. I’m ah, here in efforts to support the Prime Minister-.”
“I don’t care.” Yassen said. “Move over, or I will kill you and take the car myself.”
The agent thankfully, slid over instantly.
The back of the car was just as Yassen remembered when he had been abducted, near dead, and hauled away to their crude interrogation room. He doubted they had many facilities left.
“Who are you in communications with.” Yassen demanded.
The poor driver looked equally unsure what to do. Yassen glared, and he started driving without a destination.
“Er, my boss, but-.”
Yassen plucked the ear piece out and slid it into his own ear. SCORPIA wasn’t responding, MI6 could at least give him information.
“- the Svalbard vault is-.”
“Forward me to your Head of Department, now.” Yassen said without pause, “this is a hostage situation.”’
A pause on the other end of the phone, “...Jason, is he-.”
“Alive. Forward me to your supervisor. Now.”
A cheery please hold! Tone, and Yassen exhaled slowly. His fingers itched to get somewhere safe, instead of sitting inside a car manned by an incompetent driver.
“...This is Marcus of the Agricultural Defense and-.”
“Forward me to your Supervisor.” Yassen repeated. “Now.”
“I...am, the Supervisor.”
Yassen resisted the urge to punch the car window. He wouldn’t of course, but the urge still existed. “Your Supervisor. Or I kill your agent.”
“Now listen here, I am the Head of the Agricultural Defense Administration! You can’t just-.”
“This is Agent Cossack of SCORPIA, Cardinal Operative of Intercontinental Campaign. If you do not forward me to your Acting Supervisor, I will kill all operatives stationed in Denmark.”
A pause, then a bright cheery please wait! Without any more pause.
“You’d really do that?” The stupid agent who still had one ear piece in said with awe. Yassen ignored him. The idiotic driver pulled into a McDonalds drive-through.
“Well, it seems like this is quite a meeting.”
Yassen looked out the window, eyes picking up the rusted edges of the dumpster. “Tulip Jones. Head of Special Operations.”
“Speaking currently.”
“Status on all SCORPIA movements.”
A pause. The poor agent next to him gulped audibly. The driver had gotten himself a hamburger.
“You seem to think that we’re going to help you, considering you’re a wanted criminal.”
“I have two hostages.”
He knew that Tulip Jones wouldn’t be so emotional as to care for the lives of two inconsequential pawns in the greater scheme of things. The world was going to chaos, and Yassen was just as perplexed as she was.
“For all intensive purposes, we have labeled SCORPIA as eradicated as of now.”
Yassen breathed out very slowly, and closed his eyes. He forced himself to listen. “It seems that these collaborative strikes have targeted all currently operating SCORPIA missions and location. The unknown locations we believe match with your Heads of Operations. Care to confirm?”
Yassen looked out the window, they were back on the road. “The global economic market has collapsed.”
“Numerous companies have suspiciously frozen all digital footing, so far as the erasure of all information. Not special to any single country; affecting China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, USA, Canada- more.”
“Common link?”
“Why, Cossack. Any more involvement you may as well be one of ours now.”
Yassen controlled his breathing carefully, ignored the reek of cheap fast food, and repeated, “Common link?”
Denmark was a fair ways away from England. 26 hours by freight ferry. Yassen could have tried for a plane or a private jet, but with no SCORPIA connections and ways to smooth through acquiring one it would be more work than was worth it.
That, and the public airports had closed from data scrambling, and the world was collectively screaming.
26 hours from a freight ferry was nothing, once you selected a smaller ocean traveling boat and removed all unnecessary weight. Disabled the GPS navigation, shut off all electronic power supplies beyond that of basic engine ignition. He pulled out a map, found his path, and started the motor.
Yassen didn’t need technology when drones were commanding themselves and companies were being locked out. He had a horrible suspicion, that technology was their downfall.
Yassen appeared in a scraggy pier before noon the next day, and frowned at the collection of cars and agents waiting for him. At least fourteen of them, heavily armored cars. He could see the large weapons, as if prepared to take on an entire squad team.
Ridiculous, and Yassen knew that they knew as much.
One agent walked down the pier, looking nervous as he pulled out a selection of files. Yassen didn’t bother getting out of the boat, inviting the agent onto it instead. There would be no cameras here, no way to track what was said and what he did.
“Here is all paperwork that Mrs. Jones has-.”
Yassen looked through, already ignoring a great deal of it as not important. He didn’t care for the price of Barley in Manitoba, he wanted to know the missions that MI6 stuck their greedy noses into at time of incident.
He found it, and paused. “Alex Rider is marked as dead.”
“Ah, yes.” The agent cleared his throat. “Mrs. Jones said to state that Agent Rider likely was killed in action.”
“Did you look for a body.” Yassen said, feeling exhausted and weary all at once.
“Er, no.”
“Did you not learn from last time?” Yassen said, “if you don’t have a body, then Alex Rider isn’t dead.”
Yassen was included in the phone call, a private connection on a private satellite that somehow was not lost yet. Only a matter of time.
He muted himself, happy to listen and pay no attention to the expectations of others. Various individuals speaking of theories, projects or organizations who may have wanted such a thing.
SCORPIA was gone, and everyone was too dumbfounded to think of a reasonable threat.
“We have to imagine that there has been an underground operation running for-.”
Impossible. A leak of this much classified information in SCORPIA would have long since killed off the entire beast. There was no way this was an organization, not even SCORPIA knew the locations of everyone else. This was something else, something…
“This is Hell.” The CIA head said through the conference. “Hell on Earth.”
Yassen froze.
“Where were you, Alex Rider?” He remembered asking.
“I was in Hell.”
With careful fingers, Yassen filtered through the files supplied to him and found the brief mission statement regarding Alex Rider’s mission. Most of it redacted, information hidden from the pages, or rather from him.
Presumed dead. Why would they presume dead?
Only if they had reason to believe that if he was alive, something else would have occurred. Or perhaps, something else would have been prevented.
“Mrs. Jones?” Her guard said, one hand on his ear, “our...new informant is requesting additional documentation on Agent Rider.”
She stared forward unblinkingly. The world was going to shit. The economy was crashing. She had been notified, that countless furnace and heat suppliers had slowly shut off. Electricity supplied to Los Vegas, New York, and Chicago had yet to return.
“Go ahead,” she said, wondering what it would take to get some brandy, “give him anything he wants.”
Yassen had thought that acquiring a plane would take more effort than that. He requested one almost instantly after obtaining the entirely free case, something about an Argus Project, and he had decided to go.
A man named Smithers had appeared almost instantly, waddling hastily down the pier in a horrible trench coat lugging a child’s wagon loaded with boxes of Girl Scout Cookies. They did not contain Girl Scout Cookies.
Yassen looked at the objects inside. All surreal and incredibly impractical. He didn’t need a belt that could withstand the strength of a bull elephant. He didn’t need shoes that had knives built into them.
“Do you have a gun.” Yassen said.
The man winced, looking apologetic. “Ah, sorry, we don’t believe in those.”
Yassen looked at the assortment of objects and breathed very carefully. “You are... providing me, a...blow dart...with scorpion venom.”
The man winced, “I thought it would be ironic?”
“But no gun.” Yassen clarified. “You are supplying me with no firearms.”
“Sorry lad,” Smithers apologized, “make your bang another way.”
Yassen flew the jet without any unnecessary technology. He read through the Argus Project, and lost his faith that he could arrive unknown.
The moment he left, the ground station control would alert someone, and thus the Argus Project would be notified. Yassen disabled every single electronic device or frequency. Disabled communications, unplugged the black box. He turned off navigation, put the piloting compass directly within eyesight, and prepared himself for an absolutely mind numbing experience.
“Smithers,” Mrs. Jones said, “what is Yassen Gregorovich’s codename?”
"Honey-Badger, ma’am.”
Jones stared at her computer in dismay. “You didn’t.”
“I admit, my humour may have been a tad off.”
“Well, tell Honey-Badger, that the three hundred and eighty nine nuclear reactors located around the world but immediately initiated a compressing sequence due for the next twenty four hours.”
“What! But that would be the equivalent of-.”
“I know the damage, Smithers!” Tulip Jones shouted at the phone, “I know! Just- I don’t know what to do!”
Smithers, for once, had nothing to say.
Yassen arrived at his destination, and found several corpses sprawled out across the ground. None of them were killed through normal means, which generally meant Alex did it.
The cameras were following him as he made his way into the building, pausing to swoop up one poorly manned automatic rifle from a dead corpse. Oh dear, this one looked to have been killed by blunt trauma to the skull after (according to Yassen’s nose) being sprayed in the face with mosquito repellant. Classic Alex Rider.
The hallways were empty. The meeting rooms were empty. The labs were empty.
“ Hey,” came over the intercom, quiet and tired and very lonely. Yassen would know that voice anywhere. “Where were you, Yassen?”
Yassen responded, “Hell.”
Climb, the mole-rat monster told him. After he had gorged himself round on the dead fetus’ of her other children. After she had plucked him from the ground, denied him a rightful death and nursed him to life in her own guck. After she had left him there, forever drowning and suffocating and unable to sleep with the constant roar and rumble of magma just below him.
Climb, the Mole-Rat Queen said, forcing him up through the dirt and clay as he clawed his way up and up. Out of suffering and pain, out of forever torment and torture and to a planet where humans were killing it with poison and rot.
You don’t know death and pain, Alex thought, delirious as he stumbled with fresh born skin and wet clotted gums. You don’t know what you’re doing and you’re killing the world.
“Where were you, Alex Rider?”
Hell.
“What are you doing, Alex Rider?”
Yassen looked at him, staring at him with something close to horror. Alex felt for once, that he could breathe, and he said- “stopping humanity from creating Hell.”
Yassen looked down, saw the creator of the Argus Project bleeding and stiff in Rigor Mortis. That foul stink of feces and urine that said he had been dead a long while. “You’re destroying the world.”
“I’m purifying it,” Alex said quietly. “We were killing it. I didn’t want us to suffer. I don’t want- I- Yassen they were going to- to turn this place into-.”
Yassen walked forward very slowly. He looked up at the screens, eyes flickering from one to the next. The global stock market. The space station. The satellite that the governments thought they were so sneaky for using. The laptop camera, still focusing on Mrs. Jones.
“Destroying the world doesn’t save it.” Yassen said, so close now he could see Alex’s state. He smelled of someone who hadn’t showered since this all began. His eyes were red and glazed from being alone in the dark, looking at screens. His hair greasy, his face gaunt.
“It saves them.” Alex said quietly, legs pulled to his chest. “In China, they’re suffocating on air. Breathing and suffocating. In the Arctic that cruise ship? They- they drowned.”
Yassen set his gun down on the floor, settling himself on his knees to face Alex directly. “People die often. I kill people.”
“You kill people fast.” Alex choked out, his body shaking. “They- I- they were drowning and-.”
“Where were you, Alex Rider?” Yassen asked, using one hand to tilt Alex’s head upright.
Alex’s entire body shook as he sobbed, tears gushing over and painting his face like blood. He slumped, exhausted and weak and babbling on and on about it wouldn’t kill me, I wanted to die and it wouldn’t let me it wouldn’t let me-.
Yassen looked up at the screens. Alex had somehow found similar cleaning protocols for nuclear reactors- condensing the core in such a way that originally would circulate fluid to clean away the waste products. Initiating it while running would detonate around the globe all at once. Humanity wouldn’t recover from that.
“You’re going to kill everyone to stop suffering?” Yassen asked, “the world’s, or yours?”
Alex sobbed louder, slumping forward against Yassen’s chest. His entire body shook. From the exposed collar of his shirt, the computer screens glinted off the silvery scar tissue of one of the nine bullet wounds. He shouldn’t have healed from them.
“I don’t know what to do.” Alex whispered in a pain filled keen. “I don’t know what to do.”
Yassen Gregorovich closed his eyes and rested his chin on top of Alex’s head. His other hand came up to gently close and support the back of Alex’s neck, holding him gently. Alex sobbed, so harsh it sounded like retching.
Forgive me, Hunter. Yassen thought quietly.
Alex Rider didn’t know what to do, so Yassen decided for him.