THE SITUATION IS ABSOLUTELY NOT BETTER GUYS. ALEX IS IN MORTAL PERIL THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE CHAPTER AND I DON'T SEE IT GETTING ANY BETTER!!!
I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHERE TO START, BUT I THINK CALMING DOWN WOULD BE A VERY GOOD IDEA.
CALMING.
Ok calm. Just about.
Here we go.
So we left Alex at thepoint where Straik and McCain had just entered the room and he had dived into a hiding place which turned out to be in the gap between a large painting which had not been put up yet and the wall behind. Luckily no adult could fit in there so it's very unlikely that the men would think to look in there if they needed to.
The two men are discussing something that's "ready" and will be flown somewhere on aeroplanes and when in use will take effect "immdediately". I have absolutely no idea what this could be, but obviously it's not a good thing. They don't reveal anything about it because all too soon Straik realises that something's wrong: the USB that he'd had in his computer is not there anymore. WHAT DID I TELL YOU?? ALEX RIDER WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME??? They're instantly aware that someone's been into the room and Straik calls a "Double Red Alert". Red alerts are bad enough, but double? Yeeks. And then he makes it ten times worse by telling McCain that a double alert means the guards will KILL ANY UNAUTHORISED PERSON THEY FIND WITHOUT ASKING QUESTIONS.
BNF;OWHGREOTBEBMGKIOUVGKJTIYORVGIKYIU5TRNBRTEYUREJHUY
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO WHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHYWHY???
Oh don't worry, it gets worse.
The two men fortunately leave the room and Alex is free to escape - but to where? He needs to find his school party but there's know way of knowing where they are. Dr Bennett said that they'd go to the labs, then greenhouses, then lecture theater, so one of those places, but not only does Alex not know which one it'll be, he doesn't know how to get to these places.
He goes into the corridor and comes across a guard who, as Alex is running away, is shooting at him. A lot of the time in these books, guards hesitate before doing anything about Alex because he's a child and they don't expect him to be "dangerous", but here he didn't even stop to think, which makes me wonder what they could possibly be hiding there.
Another thing I'd like to mention is how in books like these, and also ones like Harry Potter, the His Dark Materials books by Phillip Pullman, and various others, children are so regularly targeted by adults. They come close to death, beaten, shot at, tortured and sometimes actually killed by these people, and yet they're considered 'children's literature'. I'm not saying children shouldn't read them: on the contrary, I think the more who read the better, spread the love and all that, it's just don't you think it's strange that things like this happen and are just accepted. I read Goblet of Fire for the first time when I was 8 and thought nothing about the scene in which Voldemort tortures Harry and tries to kill him, but I read it again a couple of months ago and realised how truly horrible it was. Harry was left, distraught over the death of Cedric, blaming himself and dealing with the wounds Voldemort left him and the worry that he'd returned to full power again - at the age of fourteen. You kind of take this for granted and don't realise how awful it is what's happening to these characters - if this happened in the real world there'd be outrage. That's the great thing about books, they allow for escape, you can read as deep into things as you want, or just brush the surface and the experience is always great (if the story's good of course), so you can read these as exciting adventure novels, or use them to look at the genre of children's literature and to help tell why, in children's books, this persecution is acceptable. Man, you can tell I'm an English student!
ANYWAY back to the chapter! Alex somehow outruns the guard and crosses over to the greenhouse, hopin his classmates are there. They're not, but other guards seem to have spotted him, because they start firing fom outside. Trying to escape the bullets, Alex runs further on and unwittingly runs into....
Oh, only the POISON DOME THAT DR BENNETT MENTIONED LAST CHAPTER. WHAT DID I SAY?? OH YEAH, THAT I HAD A BAD FEELING THAT ALEX WOULD GET CAUGHT UP IN HERE.
WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?
This room is pretty much a living nightmare for me. I really hate insects and anything that slithers or crawls, and this place is a hotbed of poisonous plants, snakes, spiders (worst thing EVER), bees, centipedes, snails, wasps and pretty much everything else. One touch and you're probably dead. Oh Anthony Horowitz, you evil genius. Alex takes a few, painstakingly slow steps (and can I add that I was practically screaming with horror through this whole section) and almost instantly feels something on his shoe. He looks down and there is a giant centipede, just inches away from his skin. I'd be surprised if you hadn't heard me screaming from wherever you are right now. Luckily he manages to kick really hard and send it flying, but now my fear was doubled and he still had to find the way out (he couldn't go back the way he came because it was an in-only door).
He carries on and is uninhibted by any other insects, but soon comes across a man, in protective clothing, holding a machete. That's right, a machete. The man attacks, of course, and Alex manages to duck, they struggle for a few tense minutes, until Alex sneakily cuts down the back of the man's protective suit with his concealed knife that Smithers gave him, and pushes him backwards onto a partcularly prickly plant thing, which spikes the man, killing him horrifically. Ouch.
Alex soon finds the door outside and luckily it's close to the lecture theater so he decides to head there, BUT as he does so two guards spot him.
With nowhere to hide and in plain site of them, the chapter ends, and I am left to wait another day to find out how on earth he is going to get out of this one.
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