Becoming Agent Rider

Birthday Surprises

Everyone knows that when the doorbell rings at three o'clock in the morning, it's never good news. But when the doorbell rings at five o'hell in the morning, an hour before his usual time to wake up after working and training for a full fifteen hours and getting to bed at after midnight, Alex isn't sure if that was any better. What he does know is that it had better be important. Or he would be very tempted to shoot someone. Non-lethally, of course. He groaned as the doorbell rang again, followed by a few knocks. Thursday morning of his work experience week was not off to a good start.

Forcing himself to get up, Alex unconsciously grabbed one of the pistols that Yassen had left behind for him to practice with as he trudged downstairs. Cautiously, he opened the door just a crack to see a wiry delivery man holding a package. Instantly, his senses went on high alert. He wasn't expecting anything in the mail.

"Yes?" Alex asked shortly.

"Uh hi," the delivery man said uncertainly. "Express delivery for Mr. Rider?"

"Who sent it?"

"I don't know," the delivery man shrugged. "But I need a signature for it."

Alex considered the man for a moment. Deciding it wasn't likely that he could get any other information from him, he instructed, "Put the package and the paper down, inside the doorway, and wait here."

The delivery man complied, grumbling under his breath about difficult people. His jaw dropped when the teen promptly shut the door in his face as soon as he put everything down. Great. Now, he didn't have the package or the paperwork. He dithered about on the doorstep, not sure if he should just leave or not. In the end, he decided to wait two minutes. At least he could say he tried. His bosses could just deal with it if he returned without the paperwork or the package. They should understand, since the sender had been insistent about a lot of procedures for executing the delivery and just generally being a hassle, even though quite a bit of extra money was paid to ensure correct delivery at this godawful hour. If the sender was that way, who knows what kind of people lived in this house.

Inside, Alex had locked the door and pulled out his phone to check the fingerprints that the security system would have recorded as soon as the man's skin had touched the doorbell. Running the prints through MI6's database, he found that there were no matches. So, either this person had no records of being associated with anything suspicious or he was wearing fake prints. He ran facial recognition from the image captured by the security cameras next. What popped up was the man's driver's license photo and all the standard information that the government had on every citizen. Nothing suspicious. A little more confident that the delivery person, at the very least, was just a civilian doing his job and posed no danger, he signed the packing slip with an unofficial signature that no one would be able to derive his name from. Not before pulling on some latex gloves first though. Just some precautions so no one could get his own fingerprints or trace his signature, in case the sender was an enemy.

Alex opened the door and handed the packing slip to the delivery man, who stared at his latex gloves before leaving hastily. He closed the door and watched the man until the delivery truck was out of sight. Only then, did he turn his attention to the package. After thoroughly examining it, he was uneasy to see that it was from an anonymous sender but was fairly certain it wasn't poisonous or explosive at the very least.

Sighing, Alex opened the package carefully. He frowned when he saw a stack of textbooks on aviation. Aerodynamic theory, the basics of how to operate (and read the instruments) in an aircraft, maintenance before and after flights, and how pilots should navigate different weather conditions. Perplexed, he was just about to write this package off as a mistake or prank when one of his phones vibrated, signaling an incoming text message from Yassen.