Disclaimer: I do not own the Alex Rider series.

Chapter 16

"Dessi? Dessi, wake up."

Someone was shaking her gently. Dessi cracked open her eyes.

"What?" She murmured.

"If you want to come with us to the airport, I suggest you go get changed," Jake said as she slowly sat up.

"Why - Oh Alex!"

Suddenly the girl was out of the med centre bed. Apparently she got out way too fast, for she suddenly felt dizzy and the world spun for a few seconds. Jake held out a steadying hand, concern etched onto his face.

"Let's not try that again in the future," Dessi muttered. With Jake's help, she made it out of the med centre alive.

It was nine at night. The soft glow of lights illuminated the AIS headquarters, and helped the two find their way back to the DB. Dessi leaned lightly on Jake at first, but by the time they actually arrived, most of her weight was being supported by him. Apparently, the girl was more injured than she thought, or let on.

"Do you want me to carry you up the stars?" Jake teased.

Desiree stared at him in horror, then rapidly shook her head. In the end though, Jake did have to carry her up. Her body just couldn't take the climb.

"Do you need help changing too?"

The girl scowled at him

Get lost, she signed and limped over to her room, shutting the door softly behind her as Jake waited outside. As quickly as she could without injuring herself again, the girl changed out of her blood stained and torn clothes.

She hesitated for a second, biting her lip and staring at her bed. Then, with a slight effort, she lifted her thin mattress enough to stick her hand under and pulled out a small object. This she slipped into her pocket, before going back out the door and almost walking into Jake.

"What-" then she quickly switched to signing.

What the hell are you doing?

"Waiting for you," Jake smirked, just as Alex appeared dragging his suitcase behind him. Seeing Desiree though, he stopped suddenly before breaking out into a smile.

"Dessi! You're out of the med centre!" He exclaimed, "Did the doctor say you could come with us to the airport?

Yes. I thought Jake would've told you that?

The boy stared at her, confused.

"I thought you read my file, Dessi. I don't understand non-spoken languages," he said.

Desiree rolled her eyes, then glared expectantly at Jake. Her field partner glared back, then heaved a heavy sigh and translated for Alex. He seemed to be playing translator a lot recently.

"You didn't tell me," Alex said indignantly.

"Yea, 'coz I didn't know where you were. I told K-unit though," Jake replied, "And I thought one of them would've told you."

Dessi scowled at Jake for a moment, before reaching over and grabbing Alex's wrist. She dragged him down the stairs, giggling slightly as Jake realised he was left to carry Alex's suitcase and promptly let out a loud "Hey!"

The girl didn't manage to make it down the stairs either without help. By the time they reached the bottom floor, she was using Alex as both a support for the majority of her weight, as well as for balance.

K-unit, Terry and Dean were milling around downstairs. When they reached the bottom floor, Dessi withdrew her grip, throwing a thankful smile at Alex, before waving at the chattering men. Only Dean saw her.

"Hey Des!" He said, pushing over to the two of them. That was as far as he got before heavy thumps echoed down the stairs; Jake apparently didn't take kindly to being assigned to drag someone else's suitcase down.

Scram! Dessi signed, and she and Dean left as quickly as they could. Alex, not having someone as a translator, was left to bear the brunt of Jake's annoyance, and when the man exploded, the DB emptied pretty quickly.

Except for Jake and Alex, the others trudged over about fifty metres to where the AIS kept their cars. By the end, Dean was almost half carrying Desiree.

"You should've stayed in bed," he chided.

The girl couldn't reply since she needed both hands to sign, and right now one of them was gripping onto Dean's shoulder extremely tightly for support, so she just rolled her eyes and glared.

Jake and Alex caught up while they were loading the car, the former breathing heavily and still glowering, and the latter looking supremely unconcerned that he just got yelled at. He was also carrying his own suitcase, which he threw in on top of all the others.

They all clambered into the seven-seater car, the back two rows slightly more squished since there were nine of them. Terry took one look at the gathered and yelled "shotgun", darting into the front seat next to Jake. The unit leader rolled his eyes and got into the driver's seat.

All in all, the back row was slightly less cramped than the middle, since the two teens were a lot smaller than the men. Dessi took the seat by the window and Dean sat beside her so he could further annoy her about the state of her health. Alex, who'd taken the seat in between Dean and a sleeping Ben, was extremely tempted to tell the man to shut up.

When finally he had enough of Dean's whispers, he decided to interrupt.

"Dessi," he said, leaning across Dean, "How did the doctor get to the gym so fast this morning?"

Jake called them in when you and that assassin were fighting.

Dean acted as the translator, though very grudgingly, and only after the girl signed something or other that was obviously a threat. He talked in a monotonic voice, clearly bored.

"Ah," that made sense.

"Can I ask you something else?" He said, and continued when the girl nodded, "This isn't meant to be offensive, but how is it that you have all this technology, you can hack into MI6 and God knows what else, and yet you didn't realise that there was a Scorpia assassin loose on your grounds?"

Dessi grimaced.

Funny I asked the Director the exact same question when he came to visit me. Apparently he knew, or at least suspected, that the new agent was with Scorpia. He said that if he'd raised suspicion, then Scorpia would kill me a different, and probably more painful, way. Since the only way to know for certain was to flush him out, he let the man in as a 'probationary agent'. The Director also said something about how he'd matched the man's face to a photo we pulled from MI6, and the stuff which we were able to get off Scorpia, which isn't much, said that he was basically a rookie, and that this was basically a test. One he obviously failed, thanks to you.

"Wait, so you're telling me that you Director purposely let in a Scorpia assassin, knowing full well that the guy was after you and your life would then be in danger, just so he could prove that the guy was an assassin?" Alex questioned, slightly horrified. MI6 were bad, but they were never that bad…were they?

It's what every agency would've done. Of course, most agencies would also inform the person at risk, but I guess you've noticed that we do things a little differently here.

Alex snorted. A little differently? That would be the understatement of the year.

They lapsed into silence after that, though K-unit (or at least Eagle) didn't stop talking all the way to the airport, despite being punched by Wolf, Snake, Terry, Alex, Dean and Alex again for Dessi, who couldn't reach him.

Does he ever shut up? Dessi signed.

"It doesn't seem like it," Dean said, whacking Eagle over the head.

"Ben? Ben! What? How could he possibly sleep through this noise?" Snake asked.

"He took sleeping pills?" Alex guessed, looking over at the sleeping figure of Ben beside him.

"Guys! Please! I'm trying to concentrate on driving!" Jake yelled from the front seat.

Jake drives like a grandma, Jake drives like a grandma... If Dessi was allowed to talk, she would have chanted that all the way to the airport. As it was, when Dean translated what she was signing for Alex, who was staring at her with a quizzical expression on his face, the boy decided to start the chant anyway.

"Jake drives like a grandma, Jake drives like a grandma…" He sang, then suddenly ducked as Jake retaliated by throwing Terry's sunglasses at Alex. The car swerved briefly when he took his eyes off the road, but Jake didn't lose control. Mainly because he was driving so slow.

"Hey! Give them back!" Terry shouted.

"They're mine now! Finders keepers," Alex taunted, holding up the sunglasses like a trophy.

"Don't make me go back there!" Terry yelled, before unbuckling his seatbelt and attempting to climb over to the back row. He didn't so much make it out of his chair before Jake reached out and grabbed the back of Terry's pants, almost pulling them down as he forced the man back into his seat.

At which point Desiree promptly dissolved into laughter.

It was with some relief when they finally reached Perth's International Airport; Eagle had refused to shut up and now all their ears hurt, and Terry had caused such a racket after being pulled back into his seat that Alex had been forced to give back his sunglasses or else risk losing his eardrums.

At some point along the journey, Ben had woken up, but seeing the chaos around him, immediately fell back asleep again.

It was around half past ten when they finally checked in and got their tickets. A fight had ensued, again, since no-one wanted to sit next to Eagle. By a unanimous vote, he was to sit by himself, again.

"We could just hang out here for a while, since our flight doesn't leave until in like, four hours," Snake said, looking across at where the two teenagers were trying to communicate, "You two want some privacy to say goodbye?"

Alex caught Snake's hidden meaning and gave him the rude finger before he was dragged off by Dessi to a deserted corner in the waiting lounge. She sat, making sure that Jake couldn't see her face, and gestured for Alex to sit in the chair opposite her.

"Okay, I'm going to keep this short," she whispered.

Alex raised an eyebrow, "I thought you couldn't talk?"

"No. I can talk, I just wasn't allowed to. Which is why I'm whispering, because if Jake catches me opening my mouth then I am so dead."

"Right…"

"Look Alex. I still feel bad about the whole, file incident. It was my fault, I shouldn't have accepted it in the first place. And I-I'm really sorry," she whispered, staring at the floor.

"Yea, well. It's not really your fault that your agency has access to all that stuff. And I suppose you were just doing your job, you know checking me up to make sure I wasn't a mass murderer or something."

Dessi smiled slightly, and raised her eyes to meet his.

"There's something else. This was what I was trying to tell you in the morning, but I don't think you understood me. In the last two weeks, ever since you came, we've been getting really weird communication signals," she grinned, and Alex suddenly realised where she was going, "We managed to trace it a couple of days ago. The signal was pretty good, scrambled at almost every point on the way, but in the end we got it. Links directly from you guys to MI6. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that would you?" She asked teasingly.

"Yea, sorry about that but…"

"Orders are orders. Don't worry, I get it," Dessi smiled, "But I hope you don't mind us reading your messages. Security, you know? Those K-unit guys didn't find out much, and they didn't think to report on our training drills, but you…You certainly found out a lot. We had to block most of your messages about our info swipes and the Bullet Runs, among others. Sorry," she added, "But it's not something that should become well known. I'd really appreciate it if you didn't tell them when you get back, but I know I can't stop you."

Alex stared at her. "So, wait. If…Did you guys block their messages to me-to the rest of K-unit?"

"Yea. They were spamming our system. Hope you didn't mind," she added worried, "I didn't think you wanted to read message after message telling you to get info about me."

"No, actually you did us all a favour," Alex said truthfully.

Dessi smiled, then asked, "Is that why you went into my room?"

Alex looked at her, trying to gauge if she was mad about that. "Erm, sort of. They gave me the idea, but I suppose I was curious as well."

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while, before Alex decided to interrupt it.

"Dessi, can you keep a secret?"

The girl looked up. "Depends, are you planning to murder anyone?"

Alex snorted. "No, not that kind of secret. You…you asked me a couple of times where I learnt how to shoot so well. D-do you still want to know?"

Desiree stared at him. She knew that information wasn't in his file, which meant that he did not want it to become well known. If he wanted to tell her, he must actually trust her!

"Yes. But only if you're comfortable telling me."

Alex nodded, then took a deep breath. "You know about how my dad worked as a double agent in Scorpia? Well, he was, um, pretty high up, so he was pretty well known. Um, I met a guy, an assassin, who worked with my dad. He basically idolised him, because he saved his life. The assassin told me how to find Scorpia…" Alex trailed off as he saw the girl's eyes light up in sudden understanding.

"Scorpia trained you," Dessi whispered as the pieces fell into place.

"Yea. And, well, if you're trained by Scorpia, you're trained well," Alex said, glancing up at the girl, "Even if the training was rather…strict."

Dessi stared at him, stumped. The kid was trained by a criminal organization, and lived to tell the tale! No wonder he was so good.

"There's something else. Um, you know my godfather? He didn't just have connections with Scorpia like it says in my file. He, well, he was with Scorpia behind ASIS's back. He…" Alex paused, then drew a shuddering breath, "He…killed my parents…to get into Scorpia."

"Oh, Alex," Dessi murmured, "I'm so sorry."

"Yea. Me too."

"You didn't have to tell me that, you know?"

Alex raised his head to stare the girl full in the face. "I did. You and me, we're the only ones in the world who are the same. So, I guess you have a right to know."

"I don't, it's your secret. But I promise I won't tell anyone. I'll keep it secret until I die, which probably won't be too long away, considering the field I work in," she joked rather feebly. Alex suddenly remembered something Mrs Jones had told him, way back when he first entered the spying world:

"You're never too young to die."

There was another silence, in which it seemed like Desiree was having an inner struggle with herself to say something. Finally she sighed, catching Alex's attention.

"Alex, those messages we intercepted, from the MI6, the tone got progressively more annoyed when you didn't tell them anything about me. I-I'm sort of grateful that you didn't even though you were mad at me, but I don't want you to get into trouble."

Desiree shifted so she could reach into her pocket and pull out the small object she had hidden under her mattress. It was a sixteen gigabyte USB, a really delicate looking one. She clutched it in her hand tightly.

"This USB is a really useful invention of the AIS. It only allows itself to be inserted into a computer twice before it self-destructs. The first time is when you load info onto it, the second time is when you get the info off.

"I-Well, no agency in the world, aside from ours, knows a thing about me. There are rumours that our sources have confirmed, but no actual documents, or anything to prove that I exist. Well, you know how I was, um, abandoned on the freeway. I didn't have a birth certificate, so I was never registered into the government system. I never had a passport, well, not one that was actually me. I've never been entered into the national census, I don't have so much a library card, and when I went to school, it was under the name 'Natalie Lake'. So, basically, I'm a ghost. Which is exactly how the government wants me. After all, you can't catch ghosts." Desiree gave Alex a sad smile.

"I've known about my status all my life. I know that, in the state of the world, I don't actually exist. I've sort of come to terms with it. But when we intercepted those messages from MI6, I realised that every agency was looking for me. I-I didn't want you to get into trouble for not telling them about me, so…" she trailed off, then leaned across and grabbed Alex's hand with her free one. She placed the USB carefully in his hand, and curled his fingers around it.

"That's my file, the one that MI6 probably wants," she explained, removing her hand from around Alex's, "It's got everything about me; my birth, the orphanage, all my foster homes, Ann and Red, and also details about every mission I've ever been on. Give it to MI6; they sound pretty desperate. In fact, trade it. If they want it as bad as they say, I'm sure they wouldn't mind releasing their hold over your life for it."

"But…Dessi," Alex croaked, "Th-this is your life…you can't just give it to MI6!"

"I can and I will. I don't want you in trouble, and I know you don't want to remain in our world. Alex," she sighed, "There's still a chance for you to leave this world. To be normal, to have friends and not have to worry about getting them killed; that's why you're going back so soon, we saw the message. You've only known this world for a year, leave it while you can. As for me," she gave him a bitter smile, "It's already too late. Half the world is after me; all I can hope is that my death isn't too painful."

Alex continued to stare at the girl, and she became slightly frustrated.

"Damn it Alex!" She hissed, "Don't make this so hard! I'm trying to help you! Plus, it's high time the world knows that I actually exist."

"Dessi, this information could put your life in danger..."

"My life already is in danger. It always was and it always will be," the girl stated, as if it was a commonly known fact, "But there's still a chance for you not to live your life constantly looking behind your shoulder for danger."

The girl had made her mind up, and Alex saw that no matter what, she would not be taking the USB back. He'd learnt when to back down from a fight after living with Jack for so long; now seemed like a time to concede defeat.

"Okay, fine." An image of the girl's room suddenly popped into his head. The way it was so devoid of anything, and his conclusion that she'd already killed herself on the inside. He sighed and put the USB carefully into his pocket. Honestly, the thing was so fragile it looked as though it would break the moment you breathed on it.

"Thank you."

There was another silence before Desiree spoke again.

"I was wondering if you could do me a favour," she said, slightly timid.

"Depends…"

"Well, I know I can't stop you, but I was wondering if you could keep the details of our drills and our grounds and the info swipes, well, secret. It's just, really important that it doesn't become well known, because well we don't want more trouble than-"

Alex raised his hand. "I won't tell a soul, and I'll make sure Ben and K-unit keep it quiet too."

Dessi broke out into a relieved smile. "Thank you, Alex. That means a lot."

Wolf gave the two a shout, telling them that they should be moving now. The two stood at the same time, facing each other.

"Well, good luck for your mission," Alex said.

Dessi snorted. "The mission got pulled."

"Why?" The boy frowned, "So, wait you did all that training for nothing?"

"Tell me about it," Dessi rolled her eyes, "But according to Jake, now "I'm fit". You see, ASIS has never liked the fact that we exist. Because AIS doesn't need to obey the law, we get more intelligence in a week than they get in a month. So the government favours us, and we get better grants and that. But every now and then, ASIS kicks up a fuss, and the government forces us to hand over one of our missions to calm them down. So, long story short, our mission got pulled."

"Right…" Alex trailed off, "So you guys have to deal with the bad guys and the good?"

"Yea, if you want to put it that way."

Dessi looked up at Alex, her blue eyes unwavering from his brown ones. She stuck out her hand with a soft smile.

"It's been a pleasure, the last two weeks," she said, "I'm happy I got to know you. I hope everything works out back home for you."

"Thanks. So, does this mean you forgive me?" Alex asked.

"Only if you forgive me," Dessi teased.

"Then we're all good."

The girl laughed and nodded.

"Yes. Friends?"

"Definitely," Alex put his hand into hers, and they shook.

"OI! YOU TWO!" Wolf roared, coming over to where the teens stood, "We do NOT have all night. Get going, Cub!"

Alex pulled out of the handshake, and gave Desiree one last smile before walking off to get his suitcase. Dessi limped over to where the rest of her unit stood, and waved to K-unit.

Alex walked through the gates last, turning briefly to wave a final time to Dessi. Then he was gone. Desiree stared at the place where Alex, her friend, disappeared. He'd made such an impact in her life in the past two weeks. For a brief moment, she wondered if they would ever meet again. Then she sighed. If they did, it would be on different sides and there probably wouldn't be time for friendship.

"Goodbye Alex," she whispered, and allowed Jake to gently steer her away towards the outside. And thank you for everything. I'll miss you.

Alex trailed K-unit as they tried to find their gate in silence. The flimsy USB weighed heavily in his mind. He didn't want to be the one who put Dessi's already non-existent life in even more danger. Looking around, he spotted a technician, trying to tighten the nail on a door. By his feet was what appeared to be a tool box.

An idea came into his head. Dumping his suitcase with Ben, and hurriedly making up an excuse, he ran towards the technician.

"Excuse me?" He said.

The man looked down and smiled slightly. He had a streak of oil running down his face, though he either didn't notice or didn't care.

"How can I help you, young man?" He asked in a friendly tone.

"I was wondering if you could lend me a pair of pliers, or a hammer," Alex asked.

"Sure, but what do you need it for?"

"Well," Alex said, pulling out the USB, "I need to destroy this thing."

"Ah. Do you want help or would it be more satisfying if you did it yourself?" Apparently the technician was under the impression that something on the USB annoyed Alex. The boy didn't bother to set him straight.

"Um, I'd like to do it myself."

"Okay," the technician bent over, rummaging around until he found his hammer, "Here you go, kid. Remember to bring it back!"

"I will. Besides, I'll just destroy it over there."

Alex took the hammer and walked so he was a couple of metres away from the man. He put the USB on the ground, then swung the hammer up and smashed it against the flimsy USB.

It broke immediately upon impact. Alex got a couple of looks from passing passengers, but since he wasn't actually killing anyone, no-one paid more attention to him. Alex kept pounding the USB until it was as close to being the size of dust as he could get it. He then collected up all the pieces, returned the hammer with a smile of thanks, and went off to find Ben.

Along the way, he scattered different pieces into different bins, until he was left with the largest unbroken piece which he placed back into his pocket. When he got home, he decided, the first thing he would do would be to break that piece into further pieces, split them with Tom, and bury it in both their backyards. He was probably being over-cautious, but if there was one thing he learnt, it was that in the world of spies, people would go to great lengths trying to obtain information. Even if they found every other piece of the USB in the bins, they would still have to locate the one Alex held before they could reassemble the thing.

Alex grinned as he entered the gate for his flight.

He was not the most willing spy in the world. He was not the best student to come out of Malagosto. He was not in the best condition, having almost been shot in the heart after Scorpia decided upon revenge. He was not the most careful person, after all the times he'd been caught out on missions. But one thing that Alex was…

He was loyal to his friends.

When he got home, he would make sure that Jack and Tom were well protected. When he got home, he would try to protect the rest of his class mates too. And when he got home, he would destroy the remains of the USB, to protect the one person in the world who knew what it was like to be him; who knew of the struggles and the pain, the grief, the anger.

Alex Rider, teenage spy, was coming back.

THE END!

Thanks to all my wonderful reviewers and loyal readers!

Love Chariots99.