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It’s a gray December day when Alex meets the kid. His first thought when he sees him is to panic because Julius is dead. Julius is dead and he can’t hurt Alex anymore. Can’t walk around in Alex’s skin and hurt the people Alex cares about. And Alex is not at all prepared to deal with a world where that isn’t true, or where a second one had been created. It’s only after that initial panic, that he notices that the kid is too young to be Julius. Too young and… too soft.
“Who are you?” the kid asks, voice terribly young. Alex thinks he’s trying to sound suspicious, but it mostly just comes across as scared.
“Alex Rider.” It’s not like that’s much of a secret. Even if this were somehow related to a mission, MI6 has never been that thorough at providing him a cover.
But somehow his name seems to throw the kid off. His eyes widen looking impossibly big on his young face and it’s hardly a surprise to Alex when the boy opens his mouth and says, “No, that’s not possible, I’m Alex Rider.”
“You know, given how common both of those names are, there are probably hundreds of Alex Riders,” Alex says, mainly to see what the kid will make of it. If he’s being honest, he’s already convinced something is going on here. His life so far hasn’t been nearly peaceful enough for him to really believe in coincidences.
“But, this has never happened before,” the kid says – probably to himself more than Alex. “Every other time, I’ve been the only one. I don’t understand. How can there be two of them.”
“Okay kiddo,” Alex interrupts what is shaping up to be far too many emotions for a British child, “Let’s say I assume you aren’t crazy. What do you mean by ‘every other time’?”
“It’s a long story,” the kid hedges, “and you’ll definitely think I’m crazy by the end of it.”
“I mean, my life is insane enough to include murderous clones, so I’d say you have even odds on not being too much wierder than that.”
The kid is silent for a moment, clearly trying to determine if Alex is being honest with him. It’s somewhere between adorable – Alex can hardly remember being that open with his emotions – and uncanny to see such an expression on his own much younger face. Finally though, he seems to decide that Alex is either trustworthy, or more likely, the only option he has available to him.
“When I said that I am Alex Rider, I didn’t mean that we share the same name. I meant that we’re the same person.”
The kid pauses for a minute, looking slightly frustrated and Alex takes the opportunity to interrupt, “You mean like time travel?” he asks. And honestly, it wouldn’t even surprise him anymore to find out that was real. A year ago he’d also thought cloning was only something from bad sci-fi, so clearly he’s not read up on the latest scientific breakthroughs.
“No. Not like time travel. I’m you, but I’m not you you,” Little Alex lets out a frustrated breath. “My parents are John and Helen Rider. My uncle is Ian Rider. As far as I can tell, that always stays the same. But then things start to change. Some of them are important changes and some of them are small, random things. I don’t know why. And it’s always so hard to figure it out to try to pretend to be the person who everyone expects.”
And he’s lost Alex again. “What do you mean, ‘some things will change’?” Alex asks.
“I don’t know. I just got here. But I grew up in Spain. My dad used to work for MI6 as a deep cover operative, but it wasn’t safe after his last mission and we went into hiding. We were supposed to go to France, but I was sick and my dad had a bad feeling. Never trust something that seems too easy, he would say. And it turned out that he was right because their plane exploded. Well the plane they would have been on. And we went to Spain instead, which Mum says is just as well because she’s terrible at French. It’s the vowels, there’s too many of them. But I think there are even more vowels in English. But I guess the important part is that I grew up in Spain. Anna and I aren’t allowed in photos, and dad is paranoid about some other things too, but we had a mostly normal childhood I think. Was it the same for you, or are there already differences?”
“You grew up with them? What were they like?” Alex can’t help but ask, apparently having already decided that the kid is telling the truth. He just seems… too earnest to be lying. And knows more about John Rider than anyone outside of MI6 – or SCORPIA. But SCORPIA is typically more into clean straightforward solutions ( a bullet to the heart ) and Alex knows they don’t have the technology to make clones. Or the interest.
“Mum and Dad?” Little Alex asks, interrupting his thoughts. “They’re both really cool. Like a lot of people have pretty lame parents, but Mum and Dad aren’t like that. Mum is really really smart and she always puts a note into our lunch boxes for school even though she has to go into the hospital really early now that Anna is old enough for nursery school. And Dad is really good at sports, even if he is super paranoid. He’s teaching me how to surf! And for my birthday last year we went on a family rock climbing trip just for me and he taught us how to set up camp in the back country and break everything back down afterward so not even the animals would know we were there. And he can explain stuff really well, so even Anna understood how to do it. She’s normally not very good at hiding, but it’s okay because she’s still little.”
It sounds nice. It sounds really nice. Alex would have loved a childhood like that. And judging by how the kid’s face lights up when he talks about it, it’s clear Alex does love having a childhood like that. And it’s somehow nice, in its own way, to know that somewhere out there, an Alex does get to be happy, that the Rider luck doesn’t always pull in all the worst things out there. Except, apparently it did eventually strike, what with the kid winding up here and all.
“It’s just,” Little Alex started again, his tone much more muted than it had been a moment ago, “they’re my parents. And you probably want to know about yours. I guess that means you don’t know them. And I don’t know if mine are anything like yours. It’s always different. Sometimes they’re alive and sometimes only Mum is or only Dad. Or both of them are dead. And sometimes both of them are alive, but they’re wrong. They aren’t my parents. They don’t like the same things or have the same jobs… sometimes they don’t even like me. So I don’t know. I don’t know what your parents were like.”
He looks back at Alex then, as if hoping he might have some answers and Alex tries his best to smile back reassuringly, as though he has any idea what is going on.
The snow that has been threatening to fall all afternoon finally makes an appearance. The flakes, falling slowly down in cotton-ball white clumps, break up his view of the kid. For a moment, Alex just watches them. Then he forces his smile to turn less forced and brings his eyes back to the kid’s face.
“Hey, it’s okay. It was a bit of a silly question anyway. I suppose the more important one we should be working on is how to get you back to your parents. From all you’ve said, it sounds like they’re probably going mad with worry right now. Why don’t we head back to my place for a bit and see if we can’t figure something out.”
He holds his hand out to Little Alex. The kid only hesitates for another moment before sliding his own smaller one into it and holding on as if Alex might be the only solid thing left in his universe. And based on how often he’s apparently been jumping universes, Alex very well might be.
“Do you mean it?” The kid asks, turning the full force of his serious brown eyes on Alex.
“Of course, we’ll have you back in no time,” Alex replies, trying to reassure the kid. At the kid’s skeptical look, he continues more seriously, “You were surprised to see me. I take it this is the first time that there have been two of us. That has to mean something. Once we figure out what, we can figure out why. And if we’re very lucky, we’ll be able to get you home by Christmas. I have yet to find a problem more stubborn than me, and with both of us working together, there’s no way we won’t get this sorted. Now come on. It’s frozen out here and if we hurry, we’ll get home enough before dinner to convince Jack to make some hot cocoa.”