Chapter Text
London, April 15th
The first package was addressed to Alan Blunt and arrived three weeks after the last report from Alex Rider. Well, from Alex Rider's partner for the mission, rather. Tulip wished they knew more than that but their agent had been killed and they hadn't heard a word from Alex since. The last confirmed contact had been from Sri Lanka with an update and the message that they planned to follow a lead to the Maldives and then – nothing. Agent Jacobs had been found in a morgue in Colombo, and there had been no sign of Alex. She didn't think Alex was dead – she hoped he wasn't, and he had clearly inherited that Rider luck – but they had heard nothing since and three weeks in Alex Rider terms was … a significant amount of time.
After a week and a half with no update, Tulip had put a local asset on the case. After Jacobs had been found dead, they had turned their attention to the Maldives as the only lead they had.
The Maldivian authorities had readily provided passenger lists and surveillance records from the airport. Tulip strongly suspected that the passenger lists had already been scrubbed of anything useful, and the surveillance records upon closer analysis proved to have been quite accidentally and very unfortunately overwritten for the exact day they needed.
Tulip considered it all but proof that Alex and agent Jacobs had arrived there, at least. How Jacobs had ended up back in Colombo with two bullet holes – well. That was a bigger question.
A week after, Tulip still had no leads. Just the heavy implications of a government cover-up and a package that someone had left on their doorstep.
The Royal & General didn't usually see too many unexpected packages, which was enough to make Tulip fear for long, painful seconds just what they would find in it.
Winston Yu had liked to return intelligence agents in pieces. Sometimes in less than that.
The package turned out to be a mid-sized dead fish along with a note and a photo in a plastic bag. Even packed with what had once been a decent amount of dry ice, Tulip was grateful they hadn't used her office to open it in. Especially since it took five hours before her people could agree that it was safe enough to pass the non-fish contents on to her.
I named this one Blunt, the note said in Alex's distinct handwriting. Even with the plastic bag to protect it, the paper smelled like rotten fish. The peppermint in Tulip's mouth got a distinctly unpleasant fishy aftertaste, too. It died of boredom. It bored itself to death. No love, Alex.
The analyst in front of her fidgeted. "It's a common goldfish," he said. "Uh, just a big one. The package was sent from the Maldives, the stamps and everything look authentic, just – by express mail. It was shipped two days ago."
"Yes," Tulip agreed dryly, "given the fourteen Maldivian stamps on it along with the express mail stickers, I expect you're correct."
She picked up the photo. That one smelled like very dead fish, too. The analyst winced. "Uh, we checked with medical records and we're pretty sure that's -"
"- Agent Rider's backside." Tulip sighed. Who else would moon the head of MI6 special operations through Polaroid photo and had the address to do it? She wondered for a moment exactly why she even kept her people around sometimes and just how Alex managed to cause chaos from even half a world away. "Yes. Thank you."
Well. At least she knew he was still alive.
The Maldives, March 29th
(Two and a half weeks previously)
"- Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirt-"
Alex's lungs burned. Some distant part of him knew he was dying. His left arm was still restrained but he scrambled blindly with his right; frantic fumbles along the walkway for anything, anything at all -
- And his fingers closed around the long, thin, curvy scissors he had found by an aquarium earlier and slipped into his pocket out of some desperate hope that maybe it could help him escape.
There was no time to think and no way to aim. Alex pushed back and up; tried to dislodge the body that kept him pinned and stabbed backwards as hard as he could at the same time.
He felt resistance, metal piercing flesh, heard the scream that followed, and suddenly he could move and breathe again. Hazy lessons took over; not the years of martial arts but his brief time at Malagosto that taught him him survive by any means necessary.
Alex twisted; finally got the momentum he needed to get away from Crewe's choke-hold, and then he kicked with the last bit of strength adrenaline could wring from his body.
It wasn't much, but it was enough.
Already in pain and unsteady from the scissors embedded deep in his thigh, Crewe stumbled back, caught his foot on the edge of the metal stairs, and fell as his leg collapsed beneath him.
The sound of a human body on metal stairs was thunderous. Then it stopped.
Only the countdown continued and Alex was too tired to care. What could he do in a few seconds, anyway? It wouldn't make a difference, and everything hurt.
"- Four. Three -"
The voice fell silent. Alex waited. Either it had just stopped or it was about to blow up a second or two early because Crewe was dead. Whatever it was, Alex was too exhausted and in too much pain to worry about it.
"Self-destruct sequence has been terminated."
Alex would have been relieved but by that point he was already unconscious.
Alex woke up to the insistent buzz of an agitated roomba. It nudged him once, then again, and repeated the agitated sound. Or maybe that was just in Alex's head. He could feel his brain throb in tune with his heartbeat and his mouth felt like he had eaten shredded cardboard.
The roomba nudged him again, though now that Alex was actually awake, it became clear that it was less of a nudge and more of a spirited effort to run him over with what little engine power it actually had.
Alex worked up the energy to sort of shift and roll over onto his back. Path clear, the roomba zoomed past him.
Silence fell. The only sounds came from the aquariums; the steady rumble of machinery and the rhythm of pipes and pumps. Alex's headache approved. He wasn't sure how long he stayed there, just squinting at the ceiling but eventually he worked up the energy to roll back over and slowly get to his knees.
The room was empty and bathed in the blue glow from the water. There was no one else. Alex crawled the short distance to the stairs and looked down. Crewe was where Alex had expected him to be – at the foot of the stairs and utterly still. Alex had seen enough dead bodies to know one when he saw it.
Since Alex was not, in fact dead, and in rather a lot of discomfort to boot, he assumed the fact that the self-destruct sequence had stopped hadn't just been a particularly vivid hallucination.
That mean he was alive to get out. Assuming he could get out in the first place. Crewe had guards but … they had to have been smart enough to leave when the countdown started. Everyone had, right? Except Alex, who hadn't had a choice, and Crewe, who had been … a bit off his rocker by the end of it.
He didn't have a phone. He didn't have any gadgets left. He didn't trust MI6 to respond to his distress signal, anyway, but that was a different story. He hadn't seen any phones, either. Crewe had ranted about them. Cutting edge AI technology was fine, phones apparently weren't. Crewe had liked his base and the people around him quiet. No phones. No TVs. No music. Alex couldn't fathom the logic in that but a lack of logic seemed to be a requirement for a supervillain. In any case, he would be surprised to find a phone anywhere on the island. Could he even get away in the first place? There had only been a few boats and they had probably been used by the staff to escape.
He would just have to deal with that when he got that far. He had to get out. Get away, back to other people, and … try to get in touch with MI6, probably. There wasn't anything else he could do. Getting out was the first step.
Alex had almost expected Crewe to have used a dead man's switch as a backup to destroy everything in case he got killed, but the countdown had stopped and … that didn't make sense, then, did it? He pushed the thought aside. He was alive. That was the most important thing.
Escape, then. Except getting out left the automatic defences to deal with, and Alex didn't like his chances without some of Smithers' gadgets to help him.
It didn't matter that Crewe was dead. Without the right authorisation, the automatic defences would probably still kill him if he tried to leave, but … there was a solution, even if Alex didn't like it.
The stairs looked like an almost insurmountable obstacle. Alex took a deep breath and carefully made his way down. He didn't want to share Crewe's fate. His head still throbbed but his focus was slowly returning and he felt a little steadier with every step.
Up close, Crewe was very obviously dead, and Alex was a little relieved to be sure. The watch on his wrist, Alex's actual goal, was huge and gaudy and didn't have any obvious way to open it, but Alex didn't plan to let that stop him. He forced down his nausea, crouched next to the body, and pulled the arm closer.
It was still warm, that was his first impression, and he almost threw up. He supposed that meant he hadn't been out for that long. Mostly, it made him try all the harder to keep the nausea under control.
He needed that watch. That was the primary access key. Crewe had been smart enough not to brag about it but Alex had paid close attention when he was around the man. Sometimes, Crewe had brought up his arm with the watch just a little too much and too consistently for it to have been coincidence.
A closer inspection found a clasp so fine it was almost invisible, disguised in the gold filigree, and a small lock on the side. It made sense. If it was an electronic key, it needed some easy way to open it to fix the bits inside if it broke or the battery had to be replaced. A hard pull on the watch band did nothing but bend a few of the elaborate decorations, not that Alex had expected anything else.
The key for it could be anywhere and was out of the question. Option B, then. There was an option C as well but Alex really didn't want to cut off someone's hand, even a dead body, if he could avoid it.
Luckily for Alex, there was just enough of a gap between the watch and the arm that between brute force, a completely limp hand, and a disregard for the damage he caused to the decorations and the body, he managed to get the watch off.
Unsurprisingly, it was too big for him. The string from his hoodie turned it into an oversized pendant on a makeshift necklace, which would have to be good enough. It was his best bet for a way past the defences. As a bonus, it would almost certainly get him access to Crewe's office, too, and Alex was sure his phone was there.
The last time they had been in contact with MI6 had been four days ago, right before they left Sri Lanka. The MI6 agent he had arrived with – a cover, Alex, an uncle and nephew on vacation, nothing more; you will spend the entire time at a resort, I promise – had vanished to have his passport checked. Alex knew a trap when he saw it and had made his own escape the moment he could and – that had been the last of it. He had been kidnapped less than two hours later and he had the awful suspicion that the MI6 agent, Jacobs or whatever his real name had been, was dead.
Would MI6 even have started to look for him after four days? He doubted it. Maybe that other agent, who had been all official and paid an actual salary. Not him.
The thought lingered as Alex made his way through the base. It was utterly deserted and more than a little eerie, but the aquariums helped a little. It wasn't completely silent, at least.
Alex hadn't actually visited Crewe's office but careful observation had narrowed down the possible locations and he found it within ten minutes.
The watch was enough to get him inside. There was no extra lock on the door, and Alex realised a little belatedly that if it had needed Crewe's fingerprint, too, he would have had a problem and needed option C after all. Was overconfidence a requirement for supervillains? Sometimes it seemed like it.
The office was huge, with an entire wall taken up by what Alex figured was part of one of the largest aquariums in the complex. The floor was covered in what looked like a hideously expensive rug, and the antique furniture was all dark wood. It was gloomy and depressing and the awful stillness reminded him a little of the first time he had stepped inside Ian's office after his death.
Alex ignored that thought and set to work. The desk was completely clear of anything but a fancy pen and expensive paper, but a rummage through the drawers netted his phone, several guns, and two laptops.
The guns looked normal. Alex, after a moment of indecisiveness, left them alone. The laptops opened without passwords, too. Either Crewe had been very confident in his security or very stupid. Alex leaned towards the latter.
His phone still had plenty of battery left to call for belated help but he found himself hesitating to actually do it.
He could call MI6 and … then what? They would probably come for him now that the actual danger was over. They usually did. And then he'd be sent back home, to Jack and to school and be expected to live a normal life and know the entire time that it was just a matter of time before he somehow got drawn back into the intelligence world again.
A large shadow moved into his field of vision and sent Alex's adrenaline back into overdrive. It settled back down a moment later when he realised it was one of the huge sea turtles that swam by as a silent behemoth.
Alex knew entirely too well what he'd return home to … and then there were the fish and everything else that called those aquariums home. MI6 would probably save him eventually. They would do nothing for the aquariums, because they weren't useful. Maybe they would contact some animal rescue but … how many of those animals would die first? How long would that turtle – or any of them – survive without food or anyone to maintain their home?
Alex sank down on the small bench by the aquarium and felt like every bruise and injury he had managed to push through had caught up with him at once.
He was tired. He had spent four days being the hostage of a mercurial megalomaniac and … how long before it happened again? Two months, maybe? Enough time that he would start to hope that maybe this time he could catch up on all the school he had missed and then feel it all crumble again the next time it was just a weekend, Alex, we just need you to take a look at things -
- and he realised quite abruptly that he didn't want to go back. He wanted Jack and Tom but he never wanted to set foot near London again. The house had more bad memories than good these days, school was hopeless, and MI6 was always there and -
- maybe he could just … stay. For a day or two while he figured out what to do.
He should be safe with the watch. He hopefully had access to the entire system with it, which meant he could revoke every access but his own in case some of the staff decided to return.
There was a dead body, sure, but Alex had dealt with worse than that. There was a freezer room for supplies; Alex had been locked in there as punishment once already. He could just … put the body in a crate or something and lock it. Just in case.
Just for a day or two while he found his feet again. Until he figured out what to do, with himself and the aquariums. It looked like there was plenty of food for them. Someone just … had to look after them for a little while.
He could do that. For a while.