I have had some complaints that the characters abilities are too similar to Alpha Force. As I explained to elledreamer and SuperTD, I have tried to make them as different as possible, both personality wise and ability wise. Unfortunately Chris Ryan has already used most of the useful abilities in one form or another. If I make them to different then Betta Force wont be able to survive, which is a pity, seeing as I made the characters myself and they are like my children, no, more like siblings. However, I will probably change Eliza from navigator to medic.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed.

Sorry for taking so long to update, I was busy, and then we had the fire, and then school started again…

Anyway, on with the show.

London, UK, a few weeks earlier:

Ben sat in his room, bored witless. It was snowing outside, as usual for a winter London. He knew he should be feeling happy; Christmas was in a couple of weeks, but he wasn’t. Instead, Ben was feeling bored, lonely, and most of all, left out.

He had overheard his brother talking on the phone to Alex – very unusual for the hacker but a stroke of luck for his younger brother. Every time Ben touched a computer it broke down, so he couldn’t read Hex’s emails.

Unlike what his brother did to him. Ben knew without asking that his brother kept tabs on all his internet communications. That was why he preferred to txt, knowing that even Hex couldn’t hack into something that wasn’t connected to the internet. It cost him a hell of a lot on his phone bill though. But the privacy was worth it.

The conversation that he had heard, lurking just outside his brother’s window, made him very annoyed. Apparently Hex was going to get together with a bunch of friends – Alex, Paulo, Li and Amber. Every holiday he did this, while Ben, the ‘baby’ of the family, the invalid, had to stay home in bed.

Ben was ‘delicate’, his mum would claim. He mustn’t breathe even a speck of dust in case his asthma played up. Just because he had severe asthma and he had had to have an operation didn’t mean he couldn’t do anything. Hex had told him about Amber, one of the friends that he was going to see again.

She was an American orphan, the daughter of multimillionaires. Her parents company made software. Amber was a diabetic and had to inject herself twice a day but she didn’t let that stop her.

Judging by the way his brother talked about Amber, he had a really big crush on her. Ben grinned evilly. He had a plan, and he had blackmail material too.

Dunedin, New-Zealand, just after the last chapter:

Tom brought the letter out of its hiding place, first checking that his sister wasn’t anywhere in site. He knew Li was already annoyed at having to ‘baby-sit’ him. If she found out what he was planning she would be furious.

He re-read the curious letter that had arrived just after Christmas:

Dear Tom (don’t ask how I know your name),

Have you ever wondered what your sister gets up to in the holidays? Why she always comes back covered with cuts, bruises and even broken bones? Who her friends are that she meets?

All you probably know is the names of her friends and (sometimes) their location. If so, read on.

My name is Benjamin Brown. My older brother is Melvin, more commonly known as Hex. Do you recognize that name? If you’ve spent hours eavesdropping on your sisters phone calls or reading her emails or letters, or even just listened in when she’s trying to get your mum’s permission to go on her trips, you probably do.

Just in case you don’t know it, here’s some info about my brother and about the rest of your sisters friends.

Alex: He lives in Northumberland, his dad is in the SAS and he seems to want to join as well. Already applied once and he got turned down. He is tall and skinny, with blond hair and blue/grey eyes. His full name is Alexander Craig and he has a sister called Alexandra who is about our age – 13.

Li: Your sister, so I don’t need to mention much.

Paulo: Now here is a name you probably will recognize. If I presume correctly, your sister fancies him. He is a strongly built Argentinean, with brown curly hair and brown eyes. He has a sister called Eliza – again, 13.

Hex: My brother, so there will probably be more information on him than on the others. He is an ace hacker, one of the best in cyberspace. He monitors all my internet communications so if you have to email me replies please encode it – securely. He is also very good at code breaking. A Londoner, from the east end. He has brown spiky hair and green eyes. Hex has a little brother called Ben – me. I am also 13.

Amber: My brother’s girlfriend! No, not really but he fancies her, though he manages to hide it quite well. She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, the US. She is the heir to the Middleton software company. Amber has brown hair, brown eyes and brown skin. She is a diabetic, but that doesn’t cramp her style. She is an only child.

Together, they call themselves Alpha Force. I don’t know why they called themselves that but one reason might be because ALPHA is made out of the first letters of their names – Alex, Li, Paulo, Hex, Amber. Apart from that, I know as much as the next person – unless the next person happens to be one of the aforementioned five, our siblings, Alpha Force.

Please don’t tell your sister anything that is in this letter – if any of our siblings find out, we are dead meat.

Now we come to the point of this letter – what do they do? Why do they come back looking like they’ve been in a bullfight?

That, my friend, is what we are trying to find out. I have gruelingly searched the internet, the directories, anything to find out about you, the siblings of Alpha Force.

We should all unite, and host a spy operation to try to find out just what they are hiding. Follow your siblings and try to find out where they are going, and then email me using this simple cipher.

A q/

B g

C d
D 3
E x/9
F r
G t
H y
I 8/
J u
K o
L s
M j
N h
O 7/1
P 0

Q 1

R 4

S b/)

T 5/p

U n/&

V f

W 2

X i

Y y

Z k

There are no rules. U don’t have 2 spel rite, u cn use chtspk. If you want to you can spell out numbers, or just write them out.

Email me at my email that Hex doesn’t know, davincicoderoks (hotmail) but encipher it anyway. By the way I am not a die hard fan of the Da Vinci code but I needed to think of a really random email address with no links to me.

While you are emailing me also email Eliza and Alex (Alexandra, not Alexander).

Their emails - Eliza is ElizaS (gmail)

And - Alex is proudtheif (hotmail)

Good luck with the spy work,

Ben.

Tom grinned evily to himself. He was as eager as anyone to find out what his sibling did every holiday, and now he was about to find out. The thirteen year old opened an email window on his laptop and began to write…