How It All Goes Down
Looking For Trouble
- When Alex wakes up, he notices a piece of paper stuck to the roof. It looks like some sort of map, but Alex can't quite decipher it, so he takes a picture and sends it to MI6 via his Game Boy.
- Mr. Grin comes by and leads Alex to a more modern, high-tech part of the facility. A harsh, German woman named Nadia Vole brings him into an isolated room, where he'll get to spend the day playing with Stormbreaker.
- To his surprise, Alex loves Stormbreaker—it might not make schoolwork "fun," but it certainly "made it lively" (8.26).
- Alex breaks his trance around four hours later. He tries the door… and it's actually unlocked. So he takes the opportunity to do some snooping.
- Alex sneaks along the hallway until he reaches a staircase. He creeps down the stairs and emerges in a room with "unfinished, dark brown rock" (8.34) walls. There's a door on the other side of the room, but it's locked.
- Alex uses his Game Boy X-Ray to peep through the wall, seeing people walking back and forth and hearing them yakking about a shipment arriving that night at 2:00AM.
- Just as Alex puts away the Game Boy, he feels a hand on his shoulder—it's Mrs. Vole. Alex spews out an excuse, but she leads him away curtly.