Alex Rider: Trouble Never Stops

Meeting New Friends

Alex's POV

After Dave left the room, Alex went right to his smaller duffle bag, which held, what Ben had said earlier, his 'custom stuff'. When Mr. Smithens heard Alex was going to college, he wasn't about to let his favorite customer go unprepared. He armed the young man with a variety of things from their past together, including exploding ear studs,(one of which he was wearing), special gum, corroding hair gel, books and other things with knock-out-darts, and more. Now that he's older, though, there's more he's added to his list of weapons. He now has a set of small throwing knives, a Fairbairn-Sykes combat knife, courtesy of the SAS, and even his very own small .32 caliber Beretta Tomcat mouse gun and holster, a happy 16th birthday gift from MI6 from about 2 years ago. He put all of this in the small, but secure, safe, locked it, and tucked it in his closet. On the phone and just a few moments ago, Dave seemed like a nice kid, but he wasn't ready to share that part of his life with him anytime soon.

After that, it was around 12:30, and he figured, if he wanted to have a social life at all in college, he should go meet Dave and whoever he might be sitting with for lunch.

(AN: I have no idea how specific things work at this college or other colleges in Europe. I do go to college in America, so im going to base his college after mine.)

He walked in, swiped his college ID card, and went into the serving area. He decided to go to the deli section and ordered a wrap.

He walked out to the dining area, armed with his lunch, and spotted Dave sitting with 2 other boys.

"Hay, Alex!" Dave called, motioning to the empty seat next to him, then turned to the other 2 boys.

"Alex is my roomate. Alex, this is Scotty, I met him at summer orientation, and his roommate, Josh."

"Nice to meet you guys." Alex said, before taking a bite out of his wrap.

"Which Summer orientation did you go to, Alex?" Dave asked

"neither, actually. Ive been busy, and was out of the country for a while."

"really, where'd you go?" Dave asked, surprised.

"Um, France, to see some distant family with my uncle Ben, who you meet today." Alex lied quickly, thinking that the places he did go would raise some questions he couldn't answer. 

After a short pause, Scotty continued the conversation. "So we got me, a math education major, Josh, a music education major, Dave, a physical therapy major. What are you, Alex?" 

"Im not positive yet, but I might go with criminal justice." Alex replied.

He has thought about it, and he figured that major might actually help him in his inevitable future with MI6.

"you wanna be a cop, then?" Dave asked, interested in his new roommates future career.

"Something like that." alex replied, half honestly, with a smile.

"Where are you from?" Josh asked. 

"Chelsea, a couple hours away"

The 3 other boys talked, being mostly done eating, and Alex chimed in every once and a while, or when he was asked a question.

Alex couldn't help but notice some immaturity in their conversations every once and a while. Alex knew he was more mature than other boys his age, but whenever he was talking with peers (in age, that is),  he had to remind himself of this. They would start talking about serious subjects so loosely, or jokingly. This small group wasn't the worst he's heard by far, but they were still 18 year old boys.

About 15 minutes later, the group of 4 new friends left the dining hall, and Alex excused himself, saying he had more unpacking to do. He went up to his new room and got everything settled.

This might not be so bad after all, Alex thought, looking proudly at his newly decorated side of the room. But Alex knows he has the luck of the devil, and he can't help but think of how many things could go wrong.