Disclaimer: I don't own any of Anthony Horrowitz's Alex Rider books or the characters. I do own cheese though, want some?

Prologue

The cliff was steep and the climb was impossible.

Like most secret lairs Scorpia's hideout was built in a hard to reach place. The only way to get close was by flying and even then the gates were solid and could only be opened from the inside or from an explosion that would probably blow the whole place up and destroy all evidence of there ever being a secret criminal organization.

Inside a Chinese man sat on a leather chair in half darkness. If you were to glance at him once you wouldn't think anything of him, but if you were to glance at him again a bad feeling would suddenly appear in the pit of you stomach. The horrible feeling had nothing to with his appearance, he was a neatly dressed, well groomed man, but his eyes showed a sternness and seriousness that could scare you to the bone.

A month ago another person would be sitting in the seat that showed pure power. The person was a woman named Mrs. Rothman but she had been killed recently and the Chinese man had stepped up to fill in her position.

Another man was standing in the doorway. His hair was grey and neatly cut. Thick glasses sat crookedly on the bridge of his nose. He wore a white lab coat over a blue striped shirt and neat black pants. His body was visibly shaking and it almost felt like there was something nervously fluttering in his stomach.

"Is it ready?" The man in the leather chair asked. His voice had a thick Chinese accent.

"Almost Dr. Three…sir," the man in the doorway stuttered. Dr. Three scared him because he had power. All Dr. Three had to say was 'kill him' and he was literally a dead man. But he wasn't ready to venture into death yet and he was scared because once a person is dead they cannot come back to stay among the living. He had a wife and children. His children had left home and his wife was already dead but he still felt he had something to live for.

"You have one week to finish."

"Y…y…yes sir." The man walked out the door and quietly closed it behind him. He let a sigh of relief and went back to work. He was safe…for now.

Back in the office Dr. Three once again sat in silence. "Spend the last week of you life wisely Alex Rider," he said and smirked. Alex Rider was going to pay dearly for all the trouble he had caused Scorpia, for all the expensive planning that had been wasted and all the people's lives that could have been use to make and army. Oh yes he was going to pay… with his life.

Chapter 1: The Target

On the other side of the world the boy named Alex sat in a classroom. He had fair hair and deep chocolate brown eyes that had seen more than they should of. His head was cradled in his arms. His eyes were shut and his mind had drifted away from teacher's horribly boring speech. The monotone voice continued to fill the air until… "Alex!" The teacher yelled. The pitch of her voice was now higher and more painful. Alex's head shot up and the teacher walked towards him. He rubbed his eyes to get the sleep out of them and tried to wake himself up a little bit more.

"Sorry, I didn't sleep well last night," he lied. In truth he was still exhausted from his last mission.

Alex had no parents, they had been murdered when he only little and then his uncle had followed. His uncle Ian had died in a car accident almost a year ago, now he lived with an American girl called Jack Starbright in his uncle's house.

After Ian had died Alex's life had gone down hill. He found out that he had been lied to all his life and that his father and uncle had been working for MI6 and now he was involved. MI6 had black mailed him to get him to work for them. They had used him too any times. He came back from each mission with more scars both physically and mentally. Then Alex had managed to get himself shot by a sniper that was working for Scorpia, they were after him because he and his father had betrayed them and before he was shot Alex had found a way to prevent a deadly virus that would have killed hundreds maybe even thousands of children. While he was in the hospital he got caught in another adventure that ended in him going to space to blowing up Ark Angel and then landing a hundred miles off the eastern coast of Australia. His skin was still pealing because of the sun burn he had gotten.

"Well sleep better tonight or you will fail my class," the teacher yelled and went back to teaching the class in her monotone voice that had already put half the class to sleep.

Alex was sure she hated him. Her name was Mrs. Scott and she had arrived just after he had been shot. The rest of the school had been told he had it was an appendicitis; of course nobody believed his excuse. Most people in the school thought that Alex was a thief and the reason he was always away from school was because he was always getting in trouble with the police. Only his best friend Tom, Jack and another girl called Sabina knew what Alex really did.

Mrs. Scott had found out that he was failing and how much time he had taken off school because he was 'sick'. She had immediately decided that he was a trouble maker. Every wrong move he made she found out about it and he was punished for it, so even though Alex had barely been back at school for a week and he had already been in detention twice.

Alex looked out the window and once again his mind drifted away from the speech Mrs. Scott was making. Everything was against him, even the clouds. They had turned an angry grey. 'It's going to rain,' Alex thought glumly. The bell finally rang and Alex hurried outside to get his bike. He hoped that it wasn't going to rain before he got home. It would mean his clothes would get wet and dirty and he would have to put them in the wash. He was too tired to do anything other than sleep, breath and eat and he still had already had a pile of homework to do and on top of that almost a year's work he had to catch up on.

Droplets of rain made dark, round stains on the pavement and through the fair hair of a teenage boy. Alex Rider gave an angry sigh. Why was everything against him?

Ok, so what do you think? I'm open to suggestions.