A nondescript black car pulled up to a small, drab administration building surrounded by mud. Alex thanked the driver and got out, duffle bag in hand. It had been a silent three hour drive from his home in Chelsea, time that he had used to go over memories of his training and missions in an attempt to figure out what he should have learned from them. If he was going to continue in this line of work, it was best to pinpoint his mistakes as soon as possible. His reflection on the past year and a half had come up with a surprising amount of things he had learned and he would make sure to never forget them.
Taking a deep breath, Alex walked into the building and followed the signs to the sergeant's office. He knocked sharply on the door twice.
"Enter."
Alex went in, closed the door behind him, and stood at attention before the black man sitting at the desk. There was a long silence as the training officer studied the boy in front of him. The teen's posture was different, more confident. There was also something in the teen's eyes that hadn't been there the last time they had met. They were cold, hard, and emotionless. Yet, haunted at the same time. A soldier's eyes. He knew that only field experience could have caused this.
Sergeant Philip Sanders had thought that he'd seen everything in his ten years of military service until he had met this boy a year and a half ago. He had wanted to have some fun giving the teen a hard time and thought it would be easy to bin him. Except the teen had surprised everyone by keeping up with the soldiers without complaint. That wasn't normal. Even the soldiers could often be heard complaining about the harsh conditions they were training in. There was a 90% fail rate for a reason and, even with concessions made for his age, a schoolboy shouldn't have been able to keep up. The teen had even had the gall to pickpocket some matches from him during one of the training exercises! He hadn't known if he should be mad, amused, or impressed with that act. He still didn't know. But from that moment on, Sanders knew that the boy had what it took to survive. Even so, he hadn't thought that his superiors were serious about sending the teen into the field. He still wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't read the file that had been sent over a couple of days ago. It told him absolutely nothing useful, not even a name or age. It had only told him the skills the boy possessed and the number of missions completed. What surprised him even further was the clearance level on the file, which was higher than his, and the 100% success rate. As impressive as it was, this whole situation wasn't right. This schoolboy was essentially a child soldier! It frustrated him that he couldn't do anything about it. And not for lack of trying either. Sanders was disgusted with MI6 for even thinking of using someone so young. He had a son and a daughter. Even without the details, Sanders shuddered to think of them going through the same thing as this teen. After reading the file, he had hoped that he'd be able to gain some insight into the boy this time around. It was time to start testing him.
"At ease."
Alex relaxed his stance and patiently waited for the sergeant to speak.
"Cub, do you know why you're here again?" Sanders barked out.
"Training, sir," Alex answered, staring straight ahead.
"It's not my job to ask questions but if it were, I'd be asking what the hell Blunt and Jones were thinking back then and what Jones is thinking now!" Sanders ranted. "One specialization takes six months to train and she expects you to specialize in every position in the unit by the end of these two months on top of your regular schooling! That's even more suicidal than last time!" He paused, noticing mild amusement in the boy's eyes even though the rest of his face was blank. "DO YOU FIND THIS FUNNY, CUB?!" Sanders screamed.
"No, sir!" Alex did find it funny, in a dark way, but he wasn't about to say so to the sergeant. He had asked for the training and it seemed that Jones was going to make this as difficult as possible for him.
The sergeant narrowed his eyes at the lie but chose to keep going. "This is no place for a schoolboy! There are three units here at the moment. You'll be with K-Unit again. My men are not going to like you anymore than they did last time. In fact, they're going to like you even less than last time because their sole focus will be to train you in order to meet Jones' requirements!" Visibly forcing himself to calm down, he took out five files and handed them to Alex. "I've been instructed to give you these. Give your file to K-Unit. You read the rest. When you're all done reading the files, give them back to me. Your training starts tomorrow. Here is your training schedule. Dismissed."
Alex saluted the sergeant and marched out of the office with the files and his duffle bag in hand. Sanders watched him leave, wondering what the teen could have found so funny about the situation. Other than the amusement, he hadn't been able to read anything from the boy, who had been completely professional and forgotten none of his brief training. His shouting and ranting hadn't even made the boy blink while his soldiers facing the same would have struggled to keep from flinching.
Meanwhile, Alex was cursing Jones in his head the whole way to one of the nine wooden huts that were set up for units to sleep in. The soldiers had treated him badly enough last time. Having them train him would definitely be a lot worse like the sergeant had predicted.
"MOVE IT, YOU MAGGOTS! EVEN CUB COULD DO BETTER THAN THAT!" a voice in the distance roared, interrupting his musings.
Alex raised both eyebrows, stopping in his tracks in surprise. On second thought, he groaned inwardly, it might be even nastier than the sergeant anticipated. He began walking again, cursing the sergeant in his head as well for making him a bigger target by spreading comments like that as the training officers' daily verbal abuse of the soldiers.
Eventually reaching K-Unit's hut, he quickly glanced at the names on the files and steeled himself before rapping sharply on the door. It opened to reveal a dark man with black hair and a slightly uneven nose. A shock of recognition crossed the man's face for a moment before it turned into an angry scowl.
"What the fuck are you doing back here?" the man snarled in a slightly foreign accent, blocking the doorway.
"Pleasant as always, Wolf," Alex remarked wryly. It seemed that no one had informed K-Unit that he would be coming. "I'm here to train with your unit again."
"Who is it, Wolf?" a voice came from within the hut. Footsteps approached and three more men appeared behind the unit leader. They stared at Alex in shock with their mouths open.
"Eagle, Snake," Alex nodded curtly to each in acknowledgement of the brawny red head and the lithe Scotsman. He turned his head to the fourth member of the unit. Chestnut brown hair and stocky build. Short for a man but not as short as Wolf. "You must be Badger, the communications expert and Fox's replacement." He looked at the rest of the unit again. "You're going to catch flies if you keep that up," Alex commented in mild amusement.
Their jaws snapped shut. "CUB?!" Eagle and Snake exclaimed in unison, finally recovering from their surprise.
"Yes," Alex replied shortly. "Are you going to let me in?"
Realizing that they hadn't moved aside, the soldiers hastily stepped back. Wolf had to be pulled away from the door by his teammates as he was still angry about the teen's presence. Once they were inside, Alex headed straight for the only empty, metal bed that had been squeezed into the hut for him and stowed his duffle bag in the locker beside it. He was very aware of the four sets of eyes watching his every move. When he turned back to face the soldiers, Eagle and Snake were still staring at him, Wolf was glowering as usual, and Badger was looking at everyone confusedly. Alex raised an eyebrow at them.
Seeing that his unit leader was too angry to be saying anything soon, Snake cleared his throat in response and asked, "So, uh, what are you doing here, Cub?"
"Training. Properly this time."
"Like hell you are," Wolf snapped, losing control of his temper and stalking towards Alex. There was a time when Alex would have backed away from Wolf's glare alone, like most people, but he wasn't even phased now. He found that he wasn't afraid of his unit leader. Not after everything he'd been through. "You're a schoolboy! What did you do this time to get sent here for punishment? Rich daddy doesn't want you anymore?"
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, everyone knew that Wolf had messed up. The boy stiffened and the temperature in the hut seemed to have dropped a few degrees. Cub's eyes, a chocolate brown before, had turned into a frozen tundra. "Out of everyone here, Wolf, you should know better than to make that accusation," Alex said coldly. He quickly sidestepped the man, thrust his file onto the unit leader's bed, and told them the sergeant wanted the unit to return it after reading it. Then, he walked out with the rest of the files before anyone could react. The soldiers couldn't help but notice that even the boy's gait had changed into something almost predatory as they watched him go.
"What was that for?" Snake asked his leader quietly with his arms crossed. None of them liked having the teen with them but Cub had kept up without complaint last time. He had earned their respect.
"Did you have to be so mean to Cubby?" Eagle complained, finally getting over his shock enough to return to being his usual childish self. "And what did he mean you should know better, Wolfie?"
Wolf was silent and eventually looked away as Snake stared him down. He knew that he had gone too far and the kid was right. Wolf had seen the kid in action at Point Blanc but had never told his unit about it. The shock of seeing Cub again had put him off guard and he had reacted without thinking. The whole situation with the kid just made him angry. At first, it was because he thought the boy had been put with his unit to humiliate them. But after working with him, he was furious because Cub was obviously a child and, as a soldier, he couldn't even protect the boy from their own government.
"Who's Cub and why does he know my name?" Badger finally mustered the courage to ask.
"A kid who trained with our unit for eleven days during selection," Wolf grunted.
Badger stared at his leader. "You're not serious, are you?" Wolf gave him a withering glare. "Right, never mind." Another pause. "Wait, this isn't the Cub that Sarge keeps comparing everyone to, is it? The same one that stole a pack of matches from Sarge and beat the Green Jackets during RTI training?"
"Er..." came the reply from all three of his unit mates.
"And you didn't tell me that I was in the same unit as a legend?!"
"Shut up," Wolf muttered. "Let's read the file."
With that, the unit moved to huddle over the file and start reading. The contents surprised them as they all thought that it would be a mission briefing.
Name: ********* *****
Birth date: February 13, ****
Age: **
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 140 lbs.
Clearance level: 9/10
Status: Active
Organizational affiliations: Special Air Service, Military Intelligence Sector 6 (clearance level 9/10 required for further information)
Code name: Cub
SAS unit: K
Medical history: recent bullet wound to the arm (clearance level 9/10 required for further information)
Skills: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian, Japanese, karate, aikido, climbing, abseiling, snowboarding, skiing, canoeing, kayaking, white water rafting, scuba diving, surfing, horse riding, cycling, mountain biking, quad biking, shooting (clearance level 9/10 required for further information)
Training: eleven days SAS course at Brecon Beacons (clearance level 9/10 required for further information)
Missions: 11 with 100% success rate (clearance level 9/10 required for further information)
Notes: List of skills and training are incomplete. Competency of some known skills is unclear.
As they finished reading, the unit stared at each other. One page. It was the shortest personnel file they had ever seen and no one was happy about it. When they finally reacted, everyone spoke at the same time.
"What the fuck?!" Wolf snarled, throwing the file away in frustration. "What's the point of this? It's completely useless! And how does he have a level 9 security clearance?!"
"How did he get shot?" Snake muttered to himself. He was the unit medic and often worried about his team's health. "Are there any other injuries they didn't tell us about here?"
"Cubby can shoot!" Eagle exclaimed excitedly, bouncing up and down. As the unit's weapons and demolitions expert, he was looking forward to seeing what his youngest unit member could do with a gun. "He can ride a horse too! Do you think he could shoot while riding a horse like those movies about the wild west?"
"That's how he knew my name. He's probably reading our files right now," Badger mumbled. Then, raising his voice, he asked, "So were any of you ever going to tell me that K-Unit technically has six members?"
Realizing that none of them could hear what the others had said, they started over and took turns repeating their questions. No one knew the answers to Wolf's and Snake's questions, they ignored Eagle's, but there was an awkward silence at Badger's.
"I'll take that as a no," Badger sighed. "Where do you think he's gone?"
The unit shrugged and then realized that they didn't know their sixth member at all. "He'll turn up sooner or later," Wolf grunted. As a unit, they walked over to the sergeant's office to return the file, determined to ask some questions about Cub. To their surprise, the sergeant only gave them orders to find out more information about the boy and report back because no one in the SAS knew anything except what was in the file they had just read.
Meanwhile, Alex had settled in a tree some ways into the forest as soon as he had left the hut, muttering to himself about stupid SAS soldiers. Once he was comfortable on the branch, Alex opened the first file and began reading.
Name: James San Luca
Birth date: July 9, 1984
Age: 27
Height: 5'6"
Weight: 154 lbs.
Clearance level: 5/10
Status: Active, available
Organizational affiliations: British Regular Army, British Special Air Service
Code name: Wolf
Rank: Corporal
SAS unit: K
Specialization: Forward Air Control
Medical history: fractured three ribs which have healed, bullet wound to the right arm has healed (see Operation Point Blanc, clearance level 9 required for further information), superficial knife wound to the left thigh has healed
Skills: English, French, Spanish, above average sniper, archery, scuba diving, skiing, karate (second dan)
Training: 44 weeks basic training at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, 26 weeks at Infantry Training Centre, 14 weeks Special Air Service course at Brecon Beacons
Missions: 20 with 85% success rate
The file went on to list all of the deployments from the beginning of Wolf's career in the regular army up to the present. All the details were there – briefings, units involved, status updates, debriefings, final reports, and psychological reports after the deployments. When Alex finished reading the whole file, he closed it and stared blankly ahead. He had grimaced when he got to the Point Blanc mission. It was his fault that the man had been shot. He hoped no one else would be taking a bullet for him again. But besides that, there were details in the mission file that even Wolf wouldn't have access to. But he did. It was eye opening to read about everything that went on to support the mission. Alex looked at the documents bitterly. He had never even received a briefing file before. It was always Blunt telling him to think of it as a vacation. Knowing it was useless to dwell on such thoughts, Alex pulled himself together and opened the other files.
Name: Chris Murray
Birth date: October 16, 1983
Age: 28
Height: 6'0"
Weight: 175 lbs.
Clearance level: 5/10
Status: Active, available
Organizational affiliations: British Regular Army, British Special Air Service
Code name: Snake
Rank: Trooper
SAS unit: K
Specialization: Medic
Medical history: healed stress fracture in the right foot, bullet wound to the left shoulder has healed, various superficial knife wounds to the arms and abdomen
Skills: English, French, knife fighting, knife throwing, scuba diving, skiing
Training: 44 weeks basic training at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, 14 weeks at Army Training Centre, 14 weeks at Selly Oak Hospital, 14 weeks Special Air Service course at Brecon Beacons
Missions: 15 with 73% success rate
Name: Neil Dunn
Birth date: December 3, 1986
Age: 25
Height: 5'11"
Weight: 179 lbs.
Clearance level: 5/10
Status: Active, available
Organizational affiliations: British Regular Army, British Special Air Service
Code name: Eagle
Rank: Trooper
SAS unit: K
Specialization: Weapons and demolitions expert
Medical history: bullet wound to the left arm has healed, bullet wound to the right calf has healed, had a dislocated left shoulder
Skills: English, French, scuba diving, snowboarding, Japanese jiujitsu (blue belt)
Training: 44 weeks basic training at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, 26 weeks at Infantry Training Centre, 14 weeks Special Air Service course at Brecon Beacons
Missions: 16 with 81% success rate
Note: Banned from foods that are high in sugar.
Name: Blake Travers
Birth date: July 9, 1987
Age: 24
Height: 5'8"
Weight: 160 lbs.
Clearance level: 5/10
Status: Active, available
Organizational affiliations: British Regular Army, British Special Air Service
Code name: Badger
Rank: Trooper
SAS unit: K
Specialization: Communications expert
Medical history: bullet wound to the left shoulder has healed, shin splints have healed
Skills: English, French, Dari, Pashto, lip reading, scuba diving, snowboarding, karate (first dan)
Training: 44 weeks basic training at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, 14 weeks at Army Training Regiment, 14 weeks at Royal School of Signals, 14 weeks Special Air Service course at Brecon Beacons
Missions: 12 with 75% success rate
The rest of the files had been filled with mission details as well and by the time Alex was done reading all of it, he was exhausted from the amount of information his brain had processed. One thing he noticed was the short list of skills compared to his own. He wasn't naïve enough to think that the soldiers had less skills than he did. If anything, they would have more. Alex supposed that the short list was because the formal training they had received already implied the skills that they possessed so the list of skills would be extra things that weren't covered in their formal training or things that took special notice.
Leaning his head against the trunk of the tree, he closed his eyes, hoping to rest, but was interrupted by his grumbling stomach. At the sound, Alex was startled to realize that he had missed lunch and was going to be late for dinner if he didn't get moving right now. Quickly, he scrambled out of the tree and jogged towards the sergeant's office to drop off the files. Once that was done, he trudged through the mud towards the mess hall for dinner, still thinking about what he had read. As he was lost in thought, Alex got his food on autopilot from his memories of the last time he was here and didn't notice that the mess hall had fallen silent. It was only when he got an uncomfortable prickly feeling all over his body that he realized the kitchen staff and soldiers had started staring at him as soon as he walked into the mess hall. He ignored all of this and headed towards the table K-Unit was already sitting at.
"Where - " Eagle started.
"Hey, kid," one of the soldiers sneeringly called out, interrupting Eagle. He exuded authority and arrogance so Alex assumed he was one of the unit leaders. "What do you think you're doing here? This camp is for soldiers who have earned their place! Not rich brats who have nothing better to do!"
Alex didn't answer, just kept eating the mush that the kitchen staff always served. He directed his attention to his surroundings and listened to the mutters of agreement from the man's colleagues though, just in case the soldiers tried anything physical. Surprisingly enough, K-Unit, even Wolf, was glaring at the other soldiers, silently daring them to try something. Well, that was unexpected but not entirely unwelcome. The soldier who had spoken either didn't notice K-Unit's defensiveness or ignored it.
"Hey, brat!" The soldier got up and walked over to their table, towering over Alex. "What's your name? Answer me when I'm talking to you!"
A moment later, Alex was yanked off the bench he was sitting on. Without thinking, he smashed the back of his head into the soldier's face, grabbing his opponent's pinky finger to bend it backwards at the same time. Alex grimaced as he felt the finger dislocate but followed it up with a kick to the man's crotch for good measure before calmly going back to eating dinner, careful to avoid aggravating his bullet wound further than the soldier already had by gripping it. Face going pale, the soldier clutched his injuries, letting out a string of curses. Everyone stared at Alex with their mouths open and K-Unit was frozen halfway out of their seats, clearly in an attempt to break up the fight that had happened too fast for them to stop.
Pausing mid-bite, Alex casually asked them, "How old do all of you think I am?"
"You can't be more than sixteen!" a soldier called out. Everyone else was still too shocked to answer.
"So, in other words, you think that I am a child." All of the soldiers nodded warily, not sure where he was going with this. Alex continued eating methodically in silence. When he finished chewing, he looked each of them in the eyes and said coldly, "So, let me get this straight. You are all soldiers, people who are supposed to protect the vulnerable, which includes children. All of you think that I am a child but instead of protecting, you decide to taunt and physically attack me." He paused. "You are not soldiers. You are glorified bullies with a license to kill."
Most of the soldiers silently looked down in shame, realizing just how childish and unprofessional they were being. They might not like having a child with them but even they could grudgingly admit that the rich brat had a point. On the other hand, the man who had attacked him, was still fuming with anger. He would be trouble, Alex thought as he finished his last bite of dinner. He stood up and went to dump his finished tray of food. Just before he left, Alex turned his head to the side and stated, "The name is Cub, by the way. And I'm here to train."
With that, Alex walked out of the mess hall, leaving the soldiers, who were not a part of K-Unit, staring after him in shock once more. They had thought that Cub was just a legend that the sergeant had made up to encourage them to work harder. Now, it seemed that Cub actually existed and they had just pissed off the legend. Once everyone got over the surprise of Alex's identity, the soldiers turned towards K-Unit and began firing questions at them. Except K-Unit barely knew anything either. As the soldiers steadily got more dissatisfied with the answers, they began to get into arguments until each of them stalked off into different directions, dinner forgotten.
"No one messes with my unit," Wolf growled, stalking off towards their hut while the rest of his unit followed. "But I swear that kid is going to get us all binned just by being here!"
Wolf continued to mutter under his breath but his unit kept silent, knowing better than to interrupt their leader during one of his rants. When they entered their hut, they saw a freshly showered Alex sitting cross-legged on his bed with his eyes closed. While the others were wary of interrupting whatever it was the boy was doing, Wolf was still too worked up to notice or care.
"What the hell was that back in the mess hall?!" Wolf shouted, storming towards the boy. "And where the bloody hell have you been all day?!"
Alex slowly opened his eyes to scan his surroundings before settling his gaze back on his glaring unit leader. "I believe it's called self defense. Or should I have let the big, bad soldier beat me up?"
"Lion is going to come back for revenge on you! And don't even get me started on punishment duty for our unit if Sarge hears about it!" Wolf snarled at him, completely missing the fact that Alex hadn't answered his second question.
"None of you want me here anyways. It was bound to happen sooner or later," Alex replied, shrugging nonchalantly.
"You - " Wolf started growling.
Snake, having watched the exchange like it was a tennis match with the rest of the unit, cut off whatever insult Wolf was about to make before his unit leader could mess things up further. "Wolf, give the kid a break. It's not his fault that Lion attacked him."
"Fine. But you better behave yourself," Wolf snapped, still glaring and pointing a threatening finger at Alex.
"I will if everyone else does," Alex answered coldly.
"Aww, come on, Cub! Of course everyone will behave. We want you here! We're all friends, right?" Eagle chirped, slinging an arm around the teen's shoulders.
Alex raised an eyebrow at this. "I weep for whoever has you as a friend if your definition of being one means constantly ignoring and sabotaging them," he said dryly.
There was an uncomfortable silence at this, each of his old unit members remembering how they had treated him last time. Then, Badger finally caught on to what Alex meant. "You ignored and sabotaged a kid during selection?! That's the hardest part of our training! What is wrong with you guys?!" Badger exclaimed with wide eyes.
Snake coughed. "Well... we were afraid of being binned."
"And Wolf was the one who sabotaged Cub," Eagle added. "The rest of us only ignored him." Wolf turned his glare on Eagle, who didn't notice but was bouncing up and down in excitement as he got an idea. "But we can make up for it now with bonding time! Oh, I know! Let's play a game to get to know each other! How about Never Have I Ever?"
Alex stared at Eagle. With the exception of Wolf, K-Unit was much more relaxed than the last time he had been with them. Maybe it was because the pressure to make it into the SAS wasn't there anymore. "Is he always this hyper?" Alex asked the unit.
"Yes," Wolf grunted, mellowing out as he, once again, realized the teen's presence was making him react badly first before thinking.
"Unfortunately," Badger and Snake added underneath their breaths.
"Come on, Wolfie! Please?" Eagle asked, looking like a little kid despite his size.
"Don't ever call me that again or I'll rip out your intestines and shove it up someplace where it don't shine!" Wolf snarled.
Eagle completely ignored the threat. "Come on, let's play Never Have I Ever! Please, please, please, - "
"FINE!" Wolf shouted, throwing up his hands and looking skyward.
With a groan and a shake of their heads, the unit sat in a circle in the middle of the hut, each holding up three fingers. As it was late and they had to be up at 0530 tomorrow morning, they had decided to keep the game short.
"I'll start!" Eagle volunteered. "Hmm... never have I ever - "
"Hold it," Snake interrupted, ignoring Eagle's pout. Turning to Alex, he asked, "How old are you really, Cub?"
"Uh... I don't think I'm allowed to tell you that," Alex answered. He knew his file hadn't stated his age. Or his name. And he wasn't the one who crossed out that information in Jones' office either.
"Don't bullshit me," Wolf snapped. "How can your age be classified?"
"If it's not in my file, then it is classified," Alex responded coldly. The unit watched as his face was wiped blank of all emotion. They were unnerved by how easily the teen did it.
"Alright," Snake started before Wolf could say anything else. "You can't tell us your age but you're obviously a teen. You'd have to be at least sixteen to be involved in any of this and it's been about a year and a half since we last saw you. To be on the safe side, let's assume that you're seventeen now, still underage, so keep this game clean," he instructed.
The unit agreed reluctantly, teasing Snake about being a mother hen, and Alex watched on amusedly. He would never have imagined any of these men to be capable of being parental but he guessed it made sense since Snake was the unit medic. However sound the man's reasoning though, it was still ironic.
"Okay," Eagle began again, "never have I ever walked a tightrope."
Alex put down a finger, groaning inwardly in anticipation of the questions that were sure to come. He really didn't want to talk about how he was kidnapped from the hospital, almost had his finger cut off, and then walked across his makeshift tightrope to the opposite building so he could escape the fire that his kidnappers had set.
Most of the unit stared at him. Eagle just jumped up and down while asking, "Really, Cub? I thought it would have been Snake!"
"Hey, why would you think that I've walked a tightrope before?!" Snake exclaimed indignantly.
"Because you're so slim, like a rope!" Snake tackled Eagle, trying to get him to take it back, while everyone laughed. Once the two men finished wrestling and came back to their places in the circle, Eagle said contemplatively, "I suppose Cub is slim too but he's a teenager. He's not done growing yet."
"Cub, when did you walk a tightrope anyways?" Badger asked, cocking his head to the side and looking at Alex curiously.
"I'd rather not say."
The soldiers wanted to know more but considering the fight in the mess hall, they just shrugged and kept going on with the game. They would get answers out of the boy eventually, when they knew him better. "Never have I ever shot one of my teammates for being annoying," Snake said.
"It was one time!" Wolf protested, putting down a finger. "And it was an accident!"
Alex raised an eyebrow at this. "Really, Wolf? Who did you shoot? Eagle?" Everyone chuckled at Wolf's scowling face, confirming his guess. He chuckled along with them, shaking his head. As the laughter died down, everyone turned to Alex. It was his turn. He didn't know what to say that wouldn't compromise his identity so he decided to play it safe. "Never have I ever ignored or sabotaged a teammate."
Four fingers went down. They already knew what happened with three of those but the fourth was a mystery. "Badger, who did you ignore or sabotage?" Alex asked.
"Someone on my school football team," came the sheepish answer. Then, quickly before anyone could ask more questions about it, Badger said, "Never have I ever destroyed the camp because I was on a sugar rush."
"Hey, no fair!" Eagle shouted, putting down a finger. "You're the one who gave me the chocolate!"
"I didn't know you were banned from sugar! No one told me!" Badger complained.
The unit groaned, lamenting the month of mess duty they were assigned because of the incident and swearing that they would never forget to warn people against giving Eagle sugar again.
"Cub, the rule is that whoever gives Eagle sugar has to babysit him until his sugar rush is over," Snake explained. "So don't give him sugar." Once Alex nodded his understanding, the man gestured for Wolf to continue the game.
Scowling, Wolf muttered under his breath about how stupid the game was before raising his voice and saying, "Never have I ever snowboarded down a mountain on an ironing board."
The unit stared at their leader, wondering who would be crazy enough to do that. It was only when they looked around to see if anyone had put down their finger that they saw Alex had.
"What the hell, Cub?! Were you trying to kill yourself?" Snake shouted, eyes flashing in anger.
"Trying to save myself, actually," Alex retorted.
"I swear, if you're suicidal, I'm going to - " Snake started before processing what Alex had said. He paused. Frowning, he asked, "Wait, save yourself? How the hell does that save you?!"
"Pretty sure I'm not allowed to tell you," Alex said coolly. "Why don't you ask Wolf? Since he was commanding the very late backup that was sent."
Three heads snapped around to face their unit leader, glaring at him with a silent demand for an explanation. Shit, Wolf thought. He had only wanted to get the kid to put another finger down and what he saw on that rescue mission was the only thing he could think of that would target Cub. But it looked like his plan had backfired on him. He was now facing three angry SAS soldiers with no good explanation for why the kid was in a dangerous enough situation on his watch that suicidal escape plans were the better option. Actually, scratch that. He didn't have any explanation because he had never even been given enough information to know what was going on in that damn school, much less why Cub was there. "Er... it's classified?" he tried. Wolf winced inwardly as the glares only intensified. He knew the "classified" excuse wouldn't work because the unit shared everything, top secret or not, and they had the same clearance level. As he tried to think of what to say, the silence dragged on and his unit mates began moving to surround him, slowly backing him into a corner.
Alex watched as the game was forgotten and Wolf struggled to come up with an answer. Sighing, he said tiredly, "Lay off him, guys. It's not actually Wolf's fault that backup arrived 36 hours after I sent the distress signal. If anything, blame MI6 for that." In his momentary anger of never having backup or people believing him when he says he needs help, he had accidentally taken it out on the closest target in the room.
The unit stared at him, appalled that the government would use someone for their own purposes and leave them to die. It was even worse because of the teen's age. The army had always looked after their own so they found this mind-boggling. Seeing their shocked faces for the umpteenth time that day, Alex decided to get another surprise out of the way. Hopefully, it would reduce the amount of attention he would be getting from the other units if his own unit wasn't constantly staring at him from new surprises. "By the way, Wolf, thanks for taking that bullet for me. I owe you."
With that, Alex turned on his heel and went to bed, leaving speechless soldiers to stand there dumbly with their mouths open. By the time the unit snapped out of it, Alex had gradually slowed his breathing to make it seem like he was asleep. He listened to his unit murmur among themselves, noting that he had a soldier's eyes and speculating on what could have happened to him to cause that. With all these questions, Alex was glad that he had taken an earlier shower. While he wasn't vain and didn't mind anyone seeing the scars on his body, it would only raise more questions than he wanted to answer. It didn't help that he wasn't allowed to reveal the information either. As he listened to the unit leave the hut for their own showers, Alex heard Snake planning to give him a full medical check up and groaned inwardly. The last thought he had before he drifted off to sleep was how he would evade the medic for the next two months.