Journey

Alex Rider

(before Never Say Die and Alan Blunt hasn't be fired yet)

NOTE: I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE CHARACTERS, WHICH RIGHTFULLY BELONG TO ANTHONY HOROWITZ. I ONLY OWN THE PLOT. 

Jack was dead. That's all that mattered. What was the point in living? Jack was dead and she wasn't coming back. His eyes stared blankly ahead of him, seeing nothing. He sat on the hard bench, his bag on the concrete floor beside him. Men in combat gear strode past him, eyes ahead, doing their duty. Hours came and went. Time meant nothing. Time didn't matter. Nothing mattered. Jack was dead. Gone. Forever. A pair of boots stopped in front of him. He looked up.

"Hello again, Alex."

************************************

(A day earlier)

The K-Unit were veterans now. They'd done their duty overseas, and for some of them, done things that could never be revealed, that were top secret. They'd seen things, things that no man should ever see but instead of allowing it to break them, they grew stronger. They trusted each other. They would protect each other to the last. Every mission left them a little stronger, a little better, a little closer. They were SAS instructors now. They taught, trained, and binned. And every time someone would complain, the K-Unit would remember a teen, a teen they once knew, who had never complained, had never done anymore than his fair share, and they would wonder, where was he now?

They talked about him almost every week, but they never called him by name. Wolf knew. (There's different opinions on whether or not Ben Daniels is Fox or Wolf. Wolf appears again in the eleventh book where he is under the name of Ben Daniels, (even though this name was affiliated by Fox in Snakehead. At one point Wolf reminds Alex of their time invading the oil rig, meaning that Wolf was actually Fox in the book,) so I don't really know what to do here. XD) and he just joined M16. He'd helped the kid several times, on various missions. He wasn't allowed to talk about them. Top secret and all that. But that had been months ago. Was the kid even still alive? Was Alex Rider still alive?

One day they got their answer. They got called to the headquarters right in the middle of a shooting exercise. They weren't happy about it, but they knew better than to ask questions.

"Sir." They saluted.

"At ease, soldiers." The sergeant didn't look happy, and he had a folder in front of him. "I have a mission for you. I didn't choose it. Luckily for you, you won't have to leave the compound to complete it. Everything you need to know is in the folder." He handed a yellow manila folder to Snake. "The job is a safe guarding job. You will never, ever, allow the person mentioned in the folder out of your sight. They are dangerous, both to others and to themselves. You will have two hours to memorize everything that is in there." He pointed to the folder. "It should be plenty of time, there's hardly anything in there. After two hours, the folder will be returned to me and destroyed. You have sixty seconds for questions."

"Sir, why us?" Eagle was first.

"Because you're the best team I have. And you already have some experience with the said target."

"How long will he be with us?" Wolf this time.

"I don't know."

"Who sent us this mission?" Fox asked.

"MI6."

"Will there be more information coming with the target, sir?" Snake finished.

"I'm told he will also have additional material with him, records and footage. MI6 knows nothing about it. A former agent put it together with the target's permission. Dismissed."