Julius was omnipotent to his own status because Alex walked into the kitchen the next day he found himself an unwilling participant in a showdown.

Julius waited behind the door so when Alex walked in to get his food, he turned around and found his exit blocked.

Tom and Nicholas at the table noticed the confrontation and searched around the room for the others. Joe looked equally grim-faced- James seemed alarmed by the presence of Julius himself.

"Hi," Julius greeted delightedly while maintaining eye contact with Alex. "I haven't seen you in a while. They have tea?"

Alex clutched his single cup of tea (the cheap kind that came in bags) a bit tighter. They had plenty of tea. "They just ran out."

"Oh, like you were going to?" Julius sighed, clicking his tongue.

He walked forward and tapped on the table. Nicholas looked at Tom. Both boys very smoothly vacated the room. James hurried after, Joe gave a lazy wave before abandoning Alex and all thoughts of safety.

Thanks, guys, Alex thought sourly. Alex said: "I saw Yassen put you through the wringer. You must still be aching."

Julius' grin slid off his face rather quickly. If he was hoping Alex was going to take shit sitting down, then he was sorely mistaken.

The knife fighting had helped relax Alex, open his mind and make his plan more rational.

Julius was wanted by MI6 for something, and Alex would play his cards right to see where he went from there.

"You seem confident," Julius said lightly. "Should I bash your face in to take away your smile?"

"How bought I break your nose first? I hear it's a pain to get surgery."

Julius' face stiffened like rock. "Is it now?"

"Mm," Alex sipped on his tea. It tasted bad, but Julius didn't have any, so he counted it as a win. "How's that chip sitting?"

"Chip?" Julius asked venomously. They started to pace, walking slowly around the long table between them. A flimsy barrier keeping the two wolves apart.

"You know, the chip," Alex crooned. "The one that means Yassen is taking you on. If you don't have it well…" Alex shrugged.

He took a sip of tea to hide his laugh. Julius looked stricken.

"Oh dear, look at the time. I've gotta get going," Alex said. He turned on his heel, hoping to walk right out of the room without Julius managing a single word.

"No you don't," Julius hissed. He leapt up over the table to smash into Alex's back, sending tea scalding all over them both.

They hit the ground, padded by the velvet carpet. Julius looked furious and panicked under his sneer. He hadn't known about the chip.

"You better start talking, street rat," Julius spat. He had his hands around Alex's throat, not quite pressing but getting close.

"How about I don't?" Alex choked out. "Yassen would be pretty pissed if you hurt me. Since I'm his after all."

"No, I'm his."

"Are you sure about that?" Alex smiled crookedly. "I was just talking the other day to some people about how much of a prick you are. How do you know he's not just indulging you?"

"Who?" Julian hissed like an animal. His thumbs squeezed tighter. "Who were you talking with?"

"Nobody you'd know," Alex wheezed. "Genghis, Hannibal. The usual."

Julius froze, stiffened so thoroughly Alex wondered if the boy truly was a robot. Julius looked like a corpse posed over him.

He pulled back his arms as if Alex's skin burned him. "You're lying."

"Better watch your back," Alex rasped out in a laugh. "Or I'll stab you in it twenty-three times."

Julius stared at Alex like he had condemned him to an unspeakable fate. Julius snarled wordlessly in rage. Alex laughed, because this was who Yassen risked himself for? This?

"I hate you," Julius seethed. If he had a tail, it would have been thrashing back and forth like a viper. "I'll kill you- I'll kill you."

Julius said it with a startling amount of certainty. Alex couldn't stop the guffaw that escaped his throat. Julius flushed red, a mixture of offense and rage. He sneered once, looking close to throttling Alex into the ground- but changed his mind and stormed away quickly.

Alex found himself laughing near hysterically on his back. Just outside the kitchen, where the thick carpet smelled of old garlic. James spotted him in his state- poor little Nero, and helped Alex to his feet.

"I've never seen someone stand up to him before," James said in awe. "He's going to kill you, you know."

"I'm not easily missed," Alex rasped, rubbing his sore throat.

James kept looking at him with a sense of disbelief, like Alex had sprouted wings or pointed ears. Alex knew the expression, it was one that all the other boys reflected in their stares.

Alex didn't see Julius again, but from what he heard, Julius was furious. Nile threw Alex looks, having heard something along the grapevine. Nile had something he wanted to ask Alex but never quite found the words for it.

It was fine- Alex had Julius under control. Alex could handle an insane brat well enough, he didn't need anyone's help.

Daniels approached him a while later to ask basic information and semantics of the buildings. Alex didn't want to comply, but if he refused then he'd lose all opportunity to know MI6's plans.

Maybe, if things went well, Yassen would notice how useless Julius was. Julius hadn't accomplished more than a couple bruises, and Alex had learned knives, infiltration, and subterfuge. Maybe Yassen would come to his senses and drop him.

"We saw someone who you need to watch out for, kid." Daniels said, trying to sound casual under the tight leash of stress.

Daniels tried to help, but he was just an accident waiting to happen. A desperate animal caught in a trap, willing to chew off its own leg to escape. Alex asked: "Who?"

"An operative who means trouble," Daniels explained. "His name is Nile. He works on behalf of a SCORPIA directive. SCORPIA is very bad news. You don't want to get in the crossfire."

'Bad news to MI6, you mean.' Alex thought. "Nile? Yeah, I think I've heard his name."

"Stay away from him. If SCORPIA is here, it means that this Alex kid is the real deal. Do you think you can bribe him outside?"

"No way in bloody hell!" Alex argued. "I'd get caught instantly!"

Daniels grumbled something sour. He continued asking questions- nothing important and everything useless. Daniels was paranoid, worried, and incredibly afraid of Nile.

MI6 knew that SCORPIA was here, which Alex expected to happen. But well...a bit slow, weren't they?

Yassen needed to know now about MI6. Plans be damned. Yassen was his sponsor, shouldn't he be helping?

Yassen was not helping, because he was standing dramatically in the rifle range with little innocent Julius.

The range had been made with soundproofing and speakers enabled for communication through the barrier. Directions, instructions without risk of being shot. A similar setup to music recording studios, and to police interrogation rooms.

Alex hid inside the inner booth, sneakily enabling the one-way microphones to listen to the dramatic backstory Julius milked out. Alex thought about having popcorn to go with it- he certainly was salty enough to cover that.

"Where will we go after this?" Julius asked. All bright sounding and optimistic. Not at all the boy who threatened Alex's life. "You said you have a boat?"

"Yes," Yassen said. Yassen paused, evaluating something. Neither had fired a shot in a while. "It is easiest to travel across international waters without being seen."

"Yeah, it's rough sneaking around," Julius said. Alex wanted to gag- he doubted whatever Julius did was harder than what he did. He doubted Julius had to drop a water tower and save Yassen's arse.

"I do not want you to be involved with SCORPIA. It is not safe."

"What? But that's not fair! I'm already wanted, you can show me how to actually last!"

"This is not up for negotiation."

"You're going to get me killed!"

"Good," Alex mumbled sourly. Julius must really be shit at surviving if he wouldn't last at all outside the school.

"Your safety is my main priority. SCORPIA is not an environment to ensure such."

"You don't want me. You're going to send me away just like- like-."

"What MI6 did was unfortunate. Their actions do not alter my decision regarding your safety."

"Ouch Yassen," Alex commented, finding wicked glee in Julius' struggles. Spectating in on Yassen's sharp arguing with a very bratty child. It hadn't been nearly this hard to get Yassen to help him.

"It's because of that other boy isn't it?" Julius asked. Yassen didn't respond, and Julius barked a single laugh of disbelief. "It is! You're choosing him- Yassen, please. I... I don't have anything. You can't just...just leave me for those bastards-."

"MI6 will not find you."

"Well, that doesn't bloody matter! You're picking that- that street rat over… I thought you and my dad were…"'

"I owe Hunter a debt. I will not change my mind."

Alex thought he would have felt victorious at Yassen's refusal. He didn't.

Without saying anything further, a gun began to fire target practice. Alex knew Yassen's signs; the conversation was finished.

Alex lay sprawled on Nile's bed, playing with a knife in an only slightly potentially lethal way, when the door opened. Alex stopped halfway to saying greeting when he spotted who walked in- being led by a familiar figure.

"Uh," Nile said slowly. "That's a kid."

Julius scowled and said: "I'm not a kid."

He's a bastard that's what he is. Alex thought, throwing the knife towards the ceiling again. It arced spun twice before tilting downwards with gravity, plummeting towards Alex's face.

"Behave, Alex," Yassen said in a low voice. Yassen observed Alex on the bed with sharp eyes before he pointedly reached out and caught the knife handle first a half meter above Alex. "You will lose an eye like that."

"I see the point," Alex said because he was a little shit. Nile at chuckled a bit.

Julius looked around the room curiously, poking the destroyed plaster of Nile and Alex's throwing knife accuracy. Little bits of dust poofed out as the boy wriggled his fingers into the wall. "The Doctor will be really mad about that."

"We'll bribe him off, doesn't matter," Nile said, scribbling something on his papers. Alex didn't want to ruin Nile's secrecy by explaining it was a word search puzzle.

"Why is he here?" Alex asked blandly. Julius glared, Alex flipped him off.

"Hey, stop that," Nile said, frowning at the blatant hostility. "Yassen, control your children."

Yassen's hand wrapped around Julius' jacket, lifting him slightly like a kitten. His other hand grabbed Alex's longer hair and twisted slightly. "Behave."

Alex wondered if he could kick Julius in the ribs from his angle.

"So, why is he here?" Nile asked. "I'm assuming the forms…?"

"Yes," Yassen agreed. "I want to run tertiary checks."

"You're being awfully paranoid about this," Nile muttered. He set aside his papers, starting a search in his stack of papers- mostly crossword puzzles. "I did an electronic back run, managed a few accounts. I got hospital records from a while ago and want to cross them with an X-ray-."

"The papers, Nile," Yassen said. Nile's face twitched slightly. He looked displeased that Yassen shut him down that quickly. Julius looked baffled, even as Yassen accepted the papers and thrust one set before Julius' face. "Complete this."

"Uh, okay?" Julius asked baffled. "Why?"

"You as well, Aleks," Yassen said. He handed over an identical stack of papers. Alex accepted them numbly. He felt a bit freaked over the suddenness of the situation.

"Afterwards, Alex, meet us within Doctor Grief's office."

Oh, Alex thought horrified. Oh, they're finalizing it.

"Okay?" Julius accepted the pen Nile chucked at his head, shrugging casually.

Alex quietly followed him out the doorway and into the adjacent room. He took his spot on his usual bed. Julius's confused expression shifted into a snarl now under the privacy of closed doors.

"Hello there, rat," Julius crooned. "We meet again."

Alex didn't want to start chaos, not with Nile and Yassen next door. The papers were self-explanatory, easy. He said nothing and refused to respond. Julius frowned displeased at his mutism.

Alex was halfway through them when he spotted a slight movement from the corner of his eye. He turned to see what exactly-.

Alex woke up slowly; he felt hazy and disoriented. His head hurt like someone's poor attempt at breaking open a walnut. Everything in his vision seemed to swirl.

Alex was in his bed, wrapped up in his velvet blankets. A tightness around his wrists put strain on his shoulders.

"What the hell?" Alex mumbled in the quiet of the bedroom. He thrashed about in the blankets. "Julius? Julius!"

He was alone in the room, wrapped up and handcuffed.

Where did he get these? Alex thought to himself, flailing one way than the other.

The restraints were secured tightly with no hope of escape. What had happened?

Julius and he were in the room to sign papers...and- and then they were supposed to meet in Grief's office to finalize something…

Finalizing Alex staying behind, and Julius going with Yassen.

"Did he bloody knock me out?" Alex slurred. He began to struggle once again.

"That bastard."

He really, really hated Julius.

Think Alex.

He didn't know how long he had been stuck here. If he told Yassen about Julius attacking him later, it wouldn't matter if they made a contract. Alex needed to get out now.

He had a dozen lockpicks in the room, but standard handcuffs worked on the three-tuner system and took serious effort to break out of. He didn't want to challenge SCORPIA handcuffs with dusty hairpins.

Alex wiggled, feeling an obvious shape in his pants pocket. The pen.

Daniels had said that the pen ink could melt metal- time to see if the man was right. Alex fumbled the pen out of his trousers. He managed to get the cap off behind his back.

The pen nib felt wet with ink- he scribbled the best he could behind his back all over the thinnest point of the chain. It hissed alarmingly, frothing a waxy foam- then the handcuffs fell away like hot Sodder.

"Sweet," Alex whispered.

The door had been locked- nothing he couldn't fix by shoving the pen nib directly into the keyhole. The knob bubbled and frothed like a primary school baking soda volcano. The door swung open easily.

Alex ran as fast as he could through the halls, still feeling disoriented. Vertigo switched up gravity, leaving Alex careening into one warthog head that stuck out too far. Alex cursed, stumbling fast as quickly as he could. He couldn't let Julius endanger Yassen.

The office of Doctor Grief opened under one of his fists. He burst in flushed and furious.

Nile looked slightly alarmed, eyebrows raising in a silent question. Julius stared at him, composed and blank-faced. Yassen frowned a bit, making a crease under his eye.

"Ah, hello my boy," Doctor Grief greeted gently. "Take a seat, Alex here mentioned you were feeling ill and decided to remain behind."

What a bloody snitch. "I'm fine, just needed a moment."

Alex stumbled forward, finding his chair next to Nile with minuscule struggle. Nile steadied him, grip a little tight.

"As we were discussing," Doctor Grief said, resuming the conversation as if Alex had never barged in. "You plan to remove Alex and place him in witness protection until a time in which MI6 has withdrawn their efforts."

"Yes," Yassen said flatly. "MI6 is capable of being fooled. We currently lack information pertaining to their operations."

"Rest assured, they won't find him," Nile smoothed, trying to look social.

Alex's head hurt far too much. Julius looked far too pleased.

"Then we will exchange," Grief determined. "Alex will follow you to a safe house, and this Alex will remain here for your retrieval-."

"What? No!" Alex blurted feeling incredibly overwhelmed. "I don't- Yassen no."

Yassen didn't look at him. The man had eyes only for Grief. "MI6 will likely investigate further-."

"MI6 is already here!" Alex shouted. He tried to stand up, stumbling on shaky legs and asshole gravity. "They- they want him and…"

Nile's expression sharpened into that of iron. "What did you say?

"I…" Alex faltered under the smoldering heat of Nile's serious evaluation. "I said they're here. They've been wanting to- to storm this place for him."

"Look, do you have a problem with me?" Julius snapped. "Because you're acting like a child. There are bigger things at hand. Grow up, won't you?"

"Excuse me?" Alex spluttered. "Me? Why don't you back off for one bloody second."

"Stop, both of you," Yassen ordered.

They fell silent.

"MI6 is here, correct Aleks?" Yassen clarified. Alex nodded. Yassen continued: "They are aware of our movements. They will likely press their perceived advantage when we show signs of departing. Their objective is Alex-."

"Then why don't we let them get me?" Julius asked, jerking his chin up. "You just said you don't have anyone on the inside. Why don't you throw me in then? Let me figure out what they're doing. Let me help you!"

"It's not safe-."

"If this will help you, then I'll do it," Julius said gravely. "Either you let me do this with your help, or I'll run out of here right now."

"I won't let you."

"Jesus Christ," Nile muttered into his hands. "This is a shit show."

"They will not stop searching for you," Yassen said sternly. "Any attempts to further yourself will fail. MI6 is not to be trusted or toyed with. They have killed many and will kill you."

"I don't care!" Julius cried. "Let me at them. I want to help you, I don't care what they'd done to me- I... I just want to help."

Nile sighed heavily and leaned back in his chair. Doctor Grief looked equally baffled by the situation. Alex wished that Julius hadn't taken his knife holster off him when he tied him up. Otherwise Alex would be picking out dirt from chewed nails. Maybe he could snag one of the knives from Nile's side bandoleers.

"You cannot help," Yassen said. "This conversation is over. They will never stop searching for you, Alex Rider."

Alex froze.

"I'm sorry what did he just say?" Alex asked Nile quietly. "What did he just say?"

Nile blinked quickly. "You didn't miss anything important, Yassen's just being his normal rock self."

Alex Rider.

Yassen had called Julius Alex Rider.

'No,' Alex thought in cold shock. 'It isn't mind control.'

James had seemed so normal then he completely transformed.

They all appeared so perfect, and so wrong in other ways. The same movements- the way that Hugo and Tom and Joe all had the same smile. The same punching style.

The same head tilt.

'It isn't mind control,' Alex thought with a dumb sort of clarity.

'They're the same. They're the exact same.'

There was a reason that Julius- cruel bastard Julius, could pass as his brother.

Doctor Grief hadn't enough reference material for what Alex looked like. Alex's yearbook photos. The sports photograph Jack's Facebook.

Alex to the rest of the world, was a kid that mysteriously vanished. And a globally high position of power wanted him.

Somehow, somehow, they had made copies of all of the boys. The son of a man in the pentagon. The child of a diamond miner.

Androids? Plastic surgery? Were they even human?

Julius wasn't a person.

Julius was the bastard attempt at him.

All without knowing who Alex was.

"Oh shite," Alex breathed in a strained broken voice.

Julius was Alex Rider, but Alex Rider was Aleks.

"You okay?" Nile asked him in a low voice. "You look rough."

That was why Julius kept trying to stop him from getting close to Yassen. Because it was a freak coincidence- but everything lined up.

Ian- working for MI6. Ian dying so suddenly, Alex's parents dying when he was born. MI6 told him that Ian had died in a car crash- but Ian always wore his seatbelt. Ian had been killed by an assassin.

His parents had been- his dad, John Rider, was Hunter.

"I need a second," Alex muttered, leaning heavily on his chair. Holy shit.

Holy shit.

"I'm saying, that I can help!" Julius still argued. "You don't have any eyes on the inside. I can push what they did aside if you let me help-."

"I'm sorry what did you just say?" Alex said. He felt- he-. "Did you just say that you can push aside what MI6 did?"

Julius blinked in surprise at having been interrupted. His focus changed, his mouth opening to argue. Alex couldn't think, he had never felt so enraged in his life.

"How dare you," Alex spat vehemently. "How dare you say that."

"I am sick of you," Julius growled. "Don't you understand? You're nothing. You know nothing."

Alex knew everything.

He had been the one to hear the news that Ian wasn't coming home.

He was the one to deal with the incessant phone calls. He was the one to break into Blunt's office, and escape.

He was the one who watched Jack get deported and get shuffled into foster care-.

He was Alex bloody Rider, and this copy was garbage.

"Right," Alex said smoothly. He felt so furious, his anger couldn't be conveyed through shouting. "Tell me this- what are you going to say to Blunt when you see him next?"

Julius smiled like the monster he is: "I'll say I forgive him."

Never.

Alex grabbed one of Nile's knives from his bandoleer- and threw it across the table. Yassen quickly responded, managing to catch the blade- but Alex had already hauled himself up and over the table to slam Julius into the ground.

"How dare you!" Alex shrieked, wrapping his fingers tight around Julius' throat. "After everything he's done!"

"Oh fuck off," Julius gasped. Julius reversed his grip and punched Alex across the tender spot of his skull. "You're useless!"

"You're the useless one!" Alex shouted. He wanted to giggle, already he felt the weeks of terror and stress wash aside under his hands. All of that, all his worrying- for nothing. "You're a bloody fraud!"

Yassen stood and prepared to intervene with the fight. The man stilled at the loud sound of a gun cocking. Yassen turned his head very slowly.

"Nile," Yassen said calmly. "Think about what you're doing."

"Sorry Cossack," Nile grimaced. "I'm superior ranking. I'm acting in extension of the Board. In order of SCORPIA direct, you are ordered to stand down. You have been rationally compromised and are emotionally connected to the operation. Your intervention will be considered defection. All necessary procedures will be enacted."

Yassen's eyes widened ever so slightly. His body tensed, locked in place. Yassen looked at Nile as if he had never seen the man before.

Julius laughed and curled inwards. He tore away brutally, spitting blood and meat from where he tore it out of Alex's shoulder. The hole gleamed dark with shiny muscle, a deep ways into the junction of Alex's neck and shoulder.

Alex shrieked, flailing about as he scrambled with his fingers. His manifested desperation to keep Julius' face away from his tender throat. Alex's nails hooked along Julius' lip, tearing it up. Ripping across a nostril, plunging into one gelatinous eye. Julius began to scream.

"You would never forgive Blunt!" Alex roared, rolling on red carpet. "Not after Jack! Not after Ian!"

"Grow the fuck up, you defect!" Julius snarled. He cared little for the grotesque wounds spread across his face. "The real world doesn't work like that!"

"You don't know what the real world is, Julius!" Alex countered.

Alex clawed his hands higher, plunging deep into the nearest point he could. His fingers scooped and tore what he thought was an eye. It was too hard to tell, what with half of Julius' face sheered off in flapping skin.

"You have no idea what I would do," Julius swore. He looked like a monster, bleeding viciously and baring pink stained teeth. "You have no idea what Alex Rider would-."

Alex punched Julius in the face, just like Ian showed him. "You sure about that, copy-cat? You sure you know Alex Rider? Better get that eye checked- you're looking right at him!"

"Holy fuck," Nile realized. His gun still held steady even during his epiphany. Nile turned his gun quickly, shifting his target to aim directly at Doctor Grief. The man froze in his chair.

"I should have killed you when I had the chance," Julius snarled. He struggled back, staggering to his feet. One bloody hand snatched a letter opener off of Grief's desk. Alex grabbed the decorative walrus tusk from the wall plaque. Julius tried to stab forward, and Alex lifted the bone with a twist just as Nile mentioned.

The blade caught in the hollow bone, wrenched away from Julius' grasp when Alex chucked the tusk into the corner of the room.

"You are a goddamn fraud," Alex sneered. "I'm never going to let you hurt Yassen."

Julius attacked him. They tussled along the ground, rolling back and forth with their fighting. Julius was the stronger and more coordinated of the two, but the gash out of Alex's shoulder had bled so much it worked as lubricant. Julius tried to kill him, but his movements were the same as Joe (Genghis) and James (Nero).

Alex managed to get away, only for Julius' patience to wear thin. Even with one eye, Julius aimed properly and sunk his fingers into the open wound of Alex's neck. He crooked them like a butcher's hook, hauling him up and choking him while standing.

"This is it, rat," Julius giggled. He finally had shed his layers and masks and plastic surgery. His fingers crooked about, seeking and searching in the gaping hole.

My carotid, Alex thought as his vision blacked out from pain. Julius was trying to tear out his throat from the inside.

"There's a good-boy!" Julius laughed. Warped and foul with blood coating his tongue-

Bam!

Alex dropped to the floor. Julius' corpse dropped onto him. Alex breathed shakily. His heart stilled just enough so Alex could turn his head to the side. Yassen holstered his firearm.

Doctor Grief let out a noise; something shuddering that could have been a sob- if not for how normal he looked. Grief bowed in mourning, a moment of silence. He composed himself before he looked at Nile.

"Alex," Nile said from the other side of the table. His eyes didn't waver away from his target once. "Are you okay?"

Alex let himself thump back onto the carpet. "I'm a bloody mess. Fought off a doppelganger. A man after my own heart."

"Not the time for puns, champ. Hang in there."

Alex finally let himself give a tiny hysterical giggle. His throat hurt beyond words.

"What was the deal with the fakes?" Nile demanded coldly. Grief gulped slightly, looking down in quiet dismay. He said nothing. Nile snarled: "Talk faster and you'll die quicker."

"They were copies," Alex moaned. "Really really damn good ones. The boy- James. He was normal...got replaced."

"By what?"

"My child," Doctor Grief breathed. "He was so perfect."

"He had a lazy shot," Yassen said quietly. "He had no luck."

The first thing he spoke since he put his gun away. The man looked…different. Overwhelmed, or perhaps so exhausted and tired he couldn't show anything at all. There was hurt in there somewhere- hiding under all the ballistics armor. He thought he had murdered Alex Rider. "He was fast. Talented. Lacked Hunter's heart. Too brutal. Too cruel. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth."

"Yassen," Nile said between clenched teeth. "Not time for the fucking jokes."

Doctor Grief jerked his chin out defiantly. There was something in his red eyes Alex couldn't help but find familiar. An emotion with a name he couldn't remember.

Alex managed to haul himself into a sitting position, slapping one hand over his wound. "The others, they're all copies. Julius was its name. They had second names- like Genghis, Nero, Hannibal-."

"We thought you would join us," Doctor Grief hissed viciously. Alex finally realized the emotion he hadn't been able to identify. Doctor Grief looked devastated by betrayal. "You seemed so perfect, a perfect anomaly. All along, you were the unknown mirror of my greatest achievement."

"Your greatest achievement is staining the goddamn carpet," Nile said. "Talk now, or I'll shoot you."

Doctor Grief closed his eyes, looked upwards and shook his head.

Bam.

"I can't believe the absolute disaster of this entire mission," Nile said. He had been mumbling to himself while he tore apart the room in a storm. Alex sat on the bed, feeling numb to what had happened.

"Dealing with one idiot is easy- I mean, I deal with new recruits. But killing the boss? Jesus Yassen, I said I admired you not that I want to be you-."

"That was one time," Yassen defended. Nile laughed a bit cruelly and flipped him off. Yassen averted his eyes in uncharacteristic guilt.

Nile destroyed the bedroom, only sparing Alex a single long look before he left him on the bed.

The sheets and blankets had been stripped and lobbed into one big pile that would be destroyed. No hair to be found. Alex sat in a sad lump near the back wall, staring at his bloodied fingernails. He liked to chew his fingernails, so they were fractured and only needle long. The blood had been pushed far under, spreading below the nailbed. He couldn't quite get all the goop out.

"Be useful, Yassen," Nile snarled furiously. He shoved the blankets into the other man's chest. "Go get rid of these."

Yassen wordlessly obeyed, vanishing out of the room. Yassen had already disassembled his and Alex's room.

Nile wilted in the absence of Yassen. With a heavy sigh he looked at Alex with something akin to pity. "How are you holding in, champ?"

"Peachy."

Nile set the last bits of his things down before he plopped next to the smaller boy. After a second, Nile leaned into Alex's side pointedly. A warm grounding presence. He said: "I'm sorry. I really am."

"Yeah well," Alex said a bit salty. "I tried to tell you that the kids here were wrong."

"To be fair, I've never heard of an evil clone."

Alex shrugged. They stared at the wall. The silence felt uncomfortable but the idea of talking felt even more ominous. The physical contact was...nice.

"He was a pretty shitty clone," Nile mumbled quietly. "I found some pictures online, where this Rider kid- I mean you- I- anyways. Apparently broke his- your, ankle and messed the bone up. Al- Julius didn't have a mark," Nile said. He paused before huffing out a quiet: "Shit."

Alex couldn't help the tiny giggle of hysteria at the entire situation. "That bloody hurt. Tom- my mate, didn't shut up about it forever. He drew all over my cast."

Nile inhaled sharply. He dropped his head into his hands. "Your goddamn ankle. I even tested you and I knew you had a bad ankle."

"In your defense," Alex said. "The evil clone thing was a bit of a stretch."

Nile laughed. He briefly wrapped one arm around Alex to squeeze ever so carefully. Nile let go and stood, smiling sadly before he started to messily arrange the room once more.

"We have a plan, well, a contingency plan," Nile said. "That spy, Daniels, right? Well, he knows I'm here, so we'll make it look like I got pissed off and pulled a Yassen."

"Pulled a Yassen?"

"Murdered the boss, it happens all the time with Yassen. Weird morals on that guy. Anyways, we'll rig the scene. You pull the warning, make it look like I snapped and started killing off the clones. MI6 thinks Alex Rider is officially dead, and we're off Scott free."

"Right," Alex said staring at the wall still. "Nile, would Yassen have killed me?"

"No. I don't know how to convince you, but he wouldn't have. Just think about this mission. Sit there, look pretty, and we're done with this."

"That easy?" Alex asked.

"That easy," Nile promised.

It was that easy.

The hardest part ended up being how to arrange the corpses in such a way it looked natural. The bullet holes were obscured by the grotesque puncture of Nile's short swords. Alex knew that you could hear bones break from a distance but stabbing into a skull sounded weirdly like crunching ice.

Alex didn't need to change his clothes. They were still covered in blood.

Julius looked strange, dead.

Alex hadn't ever seen a dead body. He imagined Ian a few times, but in a casket, all puckered with preservatives and glue. Julius looked...strange. He wasn't sleeping, not with the deep abyss and clear gel that oozed out from his eye socket. His nostril had torn so badly from Alex's thrashing, that he could see the pinkish cartilage. Lips a similar story, tattered from claw marks and revealing the two-prong roots of a tooth. Alex could count his pores. The last time they had been this close, Julius had choked him outside the kitchen.

Julius was dead. There was no disguising it.

Alex felt in a daze, yet Nile and Yassen moved with efficiency suggesting death had long since become simple to them. They knew death, dealt with death. Brought death.

Julius' skull fragments had gotten stuck to the zebra rug, the one with the taxidermy patched bullet hole. Julius' brain looked a bit like overcooked oats.

"Alex, you with us?" Nile asked him slow and steady. Gentle in his movements, trying to hide the brain-stained sword in his left hand. "You ready to get to work?"

Julius looked like a mirror of Alex. A picture taken in dim lighting or passed off on an older cell phone. Alex could have taken a picture and sent it to Tom and his friend would think he died.

"Yeah," Alex said. "I'm ready."

Nile gently helped Alex the best he could, shifting him appropriately and drawing his blade over the scabbed wound of his shoulder. The weak platelets splintered away like amber. Alex began to bleed sluggishly.

Julius' body was fresh, still in the stages before rigor mortis. Had it only been a handful of minutes?

Alex pulled out the pen Daniels gave him. Under Julius' weight, Alex twisted it around until he felt a tiny pop somewhere deep inside the mechanism. It was hard to keep a grip on the metal with sticky fingers.

"Hang in there, kid," Nile soothed him. Alex felt one gore streaked hand run through his hair reassuringly before Nile left to manage the rest of the building.

Julius had died laughing, cackling a shrill hysterical sound like that of a wild animal. Had he been any different than the lions mounted in the hallways?

Alex wondered what he would have been- a trophy for Grief to flaunt and display and keep locked away on a pedestal. Maybe if Grief had lived, he would have turned Julius into taxidermy.

The door opened under the weight of a battering ram, splintering into shrapnel. Alex didn't stir. His hands traced the gouged hollow of Julius' eye socket. It felt like school glue.

"Oh shit," Daniels said, standing in the doorway with two more armored individuals behind him. They all had guns, different guns than the German guards. "'Oh shit. Kid, hey, Aleks right? You okay buddy?"

"Not really," Alex said. " I think I have a concussion."

"You're okay," Daniels said, squatting next to Alex to gently divert his attention away from the corpse. Another agent hastily dragged Julius away, leaving a bright red smear on the red carpet. Another agent found Grief's butchered skull.

"Hey, Aleks. Are you sure you're alright? Nothing broken? Bleeding at all?"

Alex's hands flexed loosely, contorting a bit in the wave of disorientation. Daniels calmly offered his arm. Unflinchingly, he took the brunt of Alex's reflexively tight grip.

"I…" Alex trailed off. "He...bit me."

"Okay, you did good," Daniels soothed him. He tugged a little on Alex's shirt to better see the bite Julius took from him. "I bet it hurts, doesn't it?"

"Wolf," one of the agents said from across the office. "It's punctured straight through, slight trajectory curve. Shortsword, maybe fifty centimeters long."

"You sure?" Wolf asked, trying to speak as quietly as he could with Alex's proximity.

"No doubt. Looks like a katana curve but shorter. Maybe a tanto, or a wakizashi."

"That means nothing to me," Wolf muttered sourly. "Hey, Aleks. Think you can stand? I can't carry you the whole way, buddy."

"Wolf! Movement on the Eastern side looks like four more guards approaching from the slope!"

"Heard us break in then," Wolf grimaced. "Alright kid, we're out of time. I guess I am carrying you. Time to blow this prison."

Daniels (Wolf?) didn't bother waiting for Alex to stand, instead he hauled him up and over his shoulder in a fireman's carry. Alex yelped slightly, wheezing at the force of a Kevlar-reinforced shoulder slamming into the unprotected flesh of his stomach. Alex's ribs groaned in protest, even as the man sprinted through the hallways.

"Clear!" one of the agents shouted, holding an automatic rifle. "Second hallway clear, Wolf!"

They moved fast and furious. Somewhere above them rang rapid gunfire. Alex wondered if the rest of the mockeries- Nero and Genghis and Hannibal, were fighting their way out.

"Main entry is clear," the agent ahead of them reported. "I've received contact that air support is on its way."

"Air?" Alex gasped out, feeling a bit startled. "You have a helicopter?"

"No," Wolf grunted as they stormed towards the main grand staircase. "Hate heights. Taking the long way out, bastards will think we went air."

Wolf's hip crackled into static, a small black box that must have been a radio of some form. Wolf slapped it with his one hand, the other keeping his gun steady.

"Report."

"Unidentified hostile. Anti-Air unit on North battlement!"

"The hell?" Wolf said. "We had visuals that they didn't have any air defense! What are they using? What caliber?"

"I- Epsi is down, I repeat. Epsi is down. It appears to be single shots."

"Jesus, a sniper?" Wolf asked. The other agents looked just as grim. "In this weather? Shit, okay boys we're heading for the motors stat. We've got one hostage in minor condition."

The radio crackled again. "Hear you Wolf. I've got one hostage in critical condition, unlikely to make it. Others are compromised same as you found the others."

"Dammit, SCORPIA," Wolf gnashed his teeth. "Come on, get out of there now. Don't know where that fucker is-."

"Wolf!" an agent shouted, firing down the hallways in a series of four abrupt shots. Alex faced the wrong way, he didn't know what was going on.

"It was a trap," Wolf hissed. "A goddamn trap, that's why this kid is fine. New priority, we get this kid out now. Only chance of intel, move!"

Alex couldn't keep track of what was happening, he just knew that the gunfire made his ears ring. His concussion made his vision swirl, and at some point, he vomited all down Wolf's back.

The cold hit him like a punch. He whimpered, wriggling slightly but Wolf secured him down with two hands. A helicopter shrieked nearby, an unholy grinding a mechanical device should never make.

"Kid, kid you with me?" Wolf said kneeling in snow. When had they gotten outside?

"You need to stay awake, okay? I think you may have a brain bleed, but you'll be fine."

"We're outside?" Alex asked, feeling very confused. "Where's…"

"My team is holding them off," Wolf soothed gently. He ran his fingers through Alex's hair, trying to clean him with some snow. "I need you to put on this helmet, it'll hurt a bit but it's only for a while."

Alex nodded numbly. His vision flickered and...and they were driving somewhere. Wolf wrapped around him, tying Alex to his chest with some sort of cord. Alex hadn't been on a snowmobile before. It felt a bit like a motorcycle.

Alex slumped over at some point, waking up from Wolf sharply jerking and shouting at him. Alex didn't have any memory of getting to the bottom of the mountain, or what happened to the rest of the team. All he could hazily recall was a stretcher being hurried into a large jet, manned by tactical agents holding heavy ammunition.

This shouldn't have happened. Nile said he would take care of the MI6 agent and find out what they knew- make it seem like an overall tragedy mission.

"Hey, kid," Wolf said, gripping Alex's shoulder carefully. "You okay?"

"I'm thrilled," Alex said.

Wolf smirked tiredly, looking a bit more casual now that he removed his fancy gear. Wolf had a square jawline, always hidden under the guard helmet.

"Glad to hear it. You had some minor issues with your head, all sorted out now. Nasty hit over the head and your neck just missed your carotid otherwise you'd be dead. Likely why you're even alive."

Because Julius missed, while half-blind. "So I'm out of there?"

"Don't worry about it, kid."

For the next hazy collection of hours, Alex drifted back and forth in a state of medicated slumber. A bed so uncomfortable it could only be infirmary, while the low chatter of guards circulated. Breezy like a cargo plane, automated cold like a passenger flight.

A doctor drifted about, muttering phrases and terms Alex had never heard before. Wolf looked a bit unhappy, somehow sustaining a single bullet through his arm.

There were only three agents on the plane; it had been made to transport a lot more.

"What a fucking mess," Wolf said furiously. He had been gazing out of the window. Alex remembered it in one of his more lucid moments when the sugary thick feeling of painkillers didn't drag him under.

"What a goddamn mess. All this for one kid? Nine agent casualty mission, with fifteen hostage deaths? Bullshit, this whole thing is bullshit-."

And then Alex woke up feeling sore and miserable with a ringing headache and a bandage making his hair stand up a mess.

He was escorted gently out of the plane by one worried doctor, acting as if Alex was incapable of breathing on his own.

It was...demeaning. Nile had taught him how to throw knives and now people were pissing themselves if Alex so much as sneezed.

"This way, kid," Wolf guided him, one arm in a sling. Wolf seemed to take Alex as his personal responsibility. Making sure he got where he was going.

A nine-agent casualty mission. That seemed like a lot, especially since only twelve of them had gone in.

Alex wondered if Yassen was worried about him.

"How long has it been?" Alex asked, stumbling only slightly. Wolf pointed out their car. He helped escort Alex in the right direction.

"Four days, a bit long but eh," Wolf dismissed with cautious eyes. "The doctor kept you out for some of it, just to make sure nothing bad happened. Some minor swelling was putting pressure on your skull, but you'll be fine now."

Peachy, just peachy.

The car started off in a slight lunge. Alex gripped the seat around him the best he could. He demanded his seatbelt. The car drove on the left side of the road.

"You're going to be fine," Wolf assured him. "We ran your prints but couldn't find anything. Once we get this mess sorted out, we'll get you housed."

His prints- because back on the boat forever ago Yassen had removed him from public eye by putting him in SCORPIA. His only identifier was the chip in his shoulder, that somehow managed to avoid detection. They must have kept all the medical scans localized to his head, instead of his entire body.

The car kept driving, pausing at the right points and looping around the round-about.

Alex couldn't help the growing sense of dread. He knew these streets, the corners and the gloomy sky. He thought this was all behind him, but now he had been dragged back.

Wolf took him out of the car gently, mindful of their matching immobilized left arm. Alex's neck itched, the imprint of Julius' teeth sunk deep.

"This won't be long, promise," Wolf said. He escorted him up the steps of a nameless brick building, having parked in the empty lot behind it. Alex knew this parking lot. Alex knew this building. His stomach twisted, he forced the bile back down.

He had jumped out of this building more than a year ago.

Wolf and Alex walked up the twisting staircases, a little slower than normal since both were injured. Alex's head played havoc on his depth perception, but it would heal in time.

"It's the first of May," Wolf explained. "If you were curious."

Small talk. Alex missed Yassen's silence.

They walked along a hallway, nameless and unimportant. No animal heads on the walls, no thick carpets. Hardwood flooring and pale plaster. Alex felt his terror give way to hate. His shoulder itched, burning and tingling slightly with a subtle prick. If his arm hadn't been immobilized to reduce movement of his neck, he would have scratched it.

"Wolf," a woman said politely from where she looked out of a window. She turned her back to it, crinkling an empty candy wrapper between her nails.

Alex spent no time looking at her, he had eyes only for the man behind the desk who had eyes too large for his own good.

"Ma'am," Wolf grunted, gratefully accepting the seat offered across from the desk. Alex silently settled in his seat, gripping one armrest to prevent himself from running. He couldn't, not yet.

"You did well," Alan Blunt said, looking only at Wolf. "The situation was well beyond what we anticipated, given the brief mission updates we received in transmit."

"In all honesty, sir," Wolf said. "It was a complete goddamn clusterfuck."

The woman inhaled, then exhaled through her nose very quickly. Mrs. Jones, the second in command.

"I heard," Alan Blunt sympathized. "We've had to hush up the situation. The global impact has already been devastating, but we have orchestrated it as an unfortunate gas leak that, due to the temperature, scaled out of control."'

A gas leak.

They were hiding everything, under a bloody gas leak.

"All information was wiped before we could even get there. They had contingency plans," Wolf said. "We looked, but my intelligence squad found nothing of use. Then they all died."

"Yes," Mrs. Jones said with a sigh. "We had not realized SCORPIA's involvement."

"Bullshit!" Wolf snarled. "I told you well in advance! SCORPIA was all in there, Nile was in there! And what do you do? Send me air support? Fat lot that did when they had bloody backup."

Alan Blunt looked genuinely puzzled. Alex clenched the armrest a little tighter. His left arm buzzed, like a nerve had been pinched sharply. He wished his arm wasn't confined to a sling. His entire left side burst into a flare of discomfort- not pain, but close. The bite must have damaged his nerves as well.

Wolf looked like being in the room itself pained him.

"We didn't know about the sniper," Alan Blunt said. "Whoever they are, they are remarkably talented to operate in such condition."

"They took out two choppers through snow, they aren't talented they're freakish."

"Nonetheless," Mrs. Jones said gently. "Your work is greatly appreciated, Wolf. You managed to recover a victim in this cruel circumstance, and for that we are eternally thankful."

Wolf scowled. "Yeah? Your little mission objective was goddamn psychotic. Alex Rider tried to rip this kid's throat out, with his teeth."

Alan Blunt's eyes slid over with keen focus. "Is this true?"

Alex kept the absolute fury out of his voice. He managed a solid level of acceptable anger. "Nobody liked him." Julius. "He threatened to kill me a half dozen times."

Alan Blunt sat back in his chair with a thoughtful frown.

"That is...unfortunate. The boy experienced hardship, it is understandable. Thank you for your service. Your actions aided our efforts and reduced further casualties."

Alex wished that he could tear out Alan Blunt's throat. He was tired, itchy, and his arm hurt. "Right."

The sun was shining outside, a bright cheery day. No lights were lit inside the office, it was filled only with shadows. Alex disliked it.

Somewhere, a tiny flash of light occupied his attention. He looked away quickly, so Wolf would not glance at the same window.

"This kid was the reason we even got in," Wolf said. "Security was too tight. It was only because your little objective was so wild that Aleks even agreed to help."

"Thank you," Mrs. Jones said sincerely.

Alan Blunt looked a tad puzzled. "Is that so? Do you perhaps know how Alex Rider came to be within Point Blanc?"

Oh, they hadn't known how Alex got there himself then. They had no idea that he had arrived with Yassen, or that Yassen was even there.

"No, I didn't hang out much with him. We fought."

"Clearly so," Mrs. Jones said. She turned her focus to Wolf. "How did you find Alex Rider?"

"Sprawled across this kid, with his eye ripped out, face mauled to shit, and a sword shoved through his goddamn brain."

Mrs. Jones lifted one hand to her mouth in shock, face pale.

"Amazing, what damage a little prick can do," Alex said as flatly as he could.

Wolf's mouth twitched into a tiny smile. "Anyways, Nile decapitated the other hostages, and rammed through the director. All your info is scrap, and your kid is dead."

"And still, you have brought one witness," Blunt said. "Does Wolf's story match to your perspective on the events?"

Alex swallowed and jerked his head in a nod. The window had another flash of light, twice in quick progression. His shoulder buzzed with a bright flare of pain, he winced and shifted his posture. None of the adults gave it any mind.

"It…" Alex trailed off, making sure he had all eyes in the room on him. "...Alex knocked me out, and when I came to, I knew he was trying to start...something bad. So I went to talk to Doctor Grief and…"

The window threw another shadow, subtle and slow and Alex felt his confidence return all at once. "I confronted Alex, and Alex attacked me. We were fighting on the floor, and then Nile killed him."

"I see," Alan Blunt said. "And Doctor Grief?"

"Nile stabbed him then too. Alex tore out my throat, so I think Nile thought I was dead."

Mrs. Jones crossed her arms, her back to the window as she evaluated Alex. "That sounds like quite the ordeal. You must be exhausted."

"Aleks, was it?" Blunt asked him. "Russian perhaps? I must inquire, all the children at Point Blanc seemed to be related to families of significant power. We would appreciate reuniting you with your family but find ourselves at a loss."

"Yeah," Alex said. "I went to Point Blanc with my...dad, I guess."

"Your father?" Mrs. Jones asked with a baffled lilt.

"Aleks, who is your father?" Blunt asked him with a very measured voice.

Alex relaxed, and paid no mind to the shadows of the room. "My name is Aleks Gregorovich. My dad is right outside your window."

The three adults froze. Then, slowly, they turned to face the window directly across from Alex. A stealth helicopter hovered, silent in its approach on the other side of the soundproof glass. It's mounted turret clearly capable of penetrating bulletproof material, along with the massive sniper rifle resting in the passenger seat of the cockpit.

"Oh look, there he is," Alex said casually.

Let's try this again.

Alex lifted his one good arm and waved. Yassen Gregorovich waved back.