Alex Rider: Point Blank

Alex Rider: Point Blank

Alex Rider. A fourteen-year-old English super-spy for the Special Operations

division of MI6. He has every boy's dream. Or does he? Ian Rider, who was Alex's uncle

and guardian after his parents were killed in a plane crash, never told him what he really

did for a living. Alex never discovered that his uncle was a secret agent until it was too

late. On his return home from a mission, Uncle Ian was murdered by a Russian assassin.

MI6 then forced Alex to complete that mission. Unbeknownst to him, his uncle had been

training Alex his whole life to one day take his place. He could speak four languages, was

an expert at several sports including scuba diving and rock climbing, and also had a black

belt in karate. He completed the mission with flying colors. However, Alex didn't want

any part in it. He desired to return to his normal schoolboy life, playing soccer, seeing

friends, or just hanging out at home with his housekeeper, Jack Starbright.

He signed the

Official Secrets Act, and thought that that was the end of it. He solved their problem and

then left the equation.

But now they wanted him again. Alex is asked to investigate a boarding school

for boys located high in the mountains on the Swiss border. It is run by Dr. Hugo Grief.

He doesn't have a choice though, for now he is in the power of Alan Blunt, head of

Special Operations. If he does not accept, MI6 will put him in the English foster care

system, and Jack will be sent back to her home in America. Discontentedly, Alex accepts,

and during his briefing, is told that the school is for "problem boys", meaning those that

have been involved in drugs, vandalism, shoplifting, arson, etc., and is exclusively for the

sons of the rich and famous. MI6 wants Alex to check out the school because two of the

students' fathers have been killed within the last month, and this is the only connection

between them. He will be enrolling at Point Blanc Academy as the son of Sir David

Friend, a supermarket tycoon. To get to the know the background of his "family", Alex

spends several days with the Friends at their country estate. His "sister", Fiona, is

a

complete snob with no sense of propriety or courtesy. Alex ends up saving her life

however, when she is nearly run over by a train.

After the week is up, Mrs. Stellenbosch,

who is the school superintendent, comes to pick Alex up and take him to the school. As

they are traveling by helicopter, she informs him that they will have a one night layover

in Paris to refuel. While there, she drugs Alex's drink during dinner, and many pictures

and notes are taken of and about him. He wakes up in his hotel room the next morning

and he and Mrs. Stellenbosch finish the trip to Point Blanc.

Upon his arrival, Alex feels that something is amiss. The boys are not allowed

any communication with their families except through letters. There are armed guards

everywhere, the majority of the building is off limits, and five of the other six boys have

an odd similarity. The only exception to this is a boy named James Sprintz, whose father

is a multimillionaire banker. He, like MI6, believes that something is amiss. After a few

days, Alex decides to do some sleuthing and explore the school. He ends up getting

caught after trying it again a day or so later. In the basement he discovers boys that look

exactly like the students upstairs, including Paul Roscoe, the son of one of the men

who

was murdered. Paul informs Alex that Dr. Grief has imprisoned them for months. Alex

tells the boys that he will find a way to get them out, only to be discovered by Mrs.

Stellenbosch. She knocks him out, and Alex later awakens to the sound of Dr. Grief's

voice telling him to wake up. Dr. Grief has discovered who Alex truly is, and has made

the decision to kill him. He will be dissected the next morning by the Biology class. Since

Dr. Grief thinks that Alex will die the next day, he tells him his entire plan. Twenty years

previously, he began working on nuclear transplantation: to take the nucleus out of an

egg, and replace it with a cell taken from an adult. Six years later, the doctor created

sixteen duplicates of himself. Those babies had now grown into fourteen-year-old boys.

He created the school so that when wealthy families sent their sons there, he could

employ a plastic surgeon to make his "children" look exactly like his students. That way,

he could send his duplicates back to the families, and thus have a very powerful

influence in many parts of the world. He would kill the real boys. Alex is horrified, but

not surprised. A man this power hungry would do whatever it takes to gain the world.

Alex is locked up in another cell in the basement. He desperately hopes that MI6

got his distress signal, and that they arrive before morning, as he sees no other way of

escape. But then he remembers something. To make himself look different, Alan Blunt

and his assistant Mrs. Jones had him cut his hair extremely short, and temporarily pierce

his ear. The stud comes apart, and when joined back together, is like a miniature grenade.

Alex removes the stud, puts the two pieces together, and sticks it into the keyhole. After a

few seconds, the lock is burned open. Alex quickly makes his way upstairs, puts on his

bulletproof ski suit (another gadget from MI6), and constructs a makeshift snowboard

from an ironing board and a sheet. He immediately runs out of the school, and

snowboards down the steep mountain slopes to the small town below. He is followed by

two guards on snowmobiles, but both of them crash. He is nearly shot by a man

using a Belgian FN MAG machine gun. Even the bulletproof ski suit wouldn't protect

him from that. A train is coming, and Alex uses a mound of snow as a launch pad, to get

over the train, and to block himself from the guard. He crashes into a barbwire fence on

the other side and everything goes black.

Once Alex makes it back to MI6, he is very frustrated to find out that MI6 did

indeed get his distress signal, but chose to wait another day before coming in. They put

his life in danger just to make sure that he was certain. After Alex reveals Dr. Grief's

plan, Alan Blunt and Mrs. Jones decide that MI6 must go that night to rescue the fifteen

boys still stuck at Point Blanc. Alex is told that he must go back to Point Blanc with the

rescue unit as he knows the layout of the building and grounds. He rebuffs the idea, but

is once again drawn in to going.

Once there, the unit rescues the boys. A SAS man kills Mrs Stellenbosch after

being fired upon by her. Dr. Grief attempts to fly away in the helicopter, but Alex stops

him by driving a snowmobile down the old ski jump, and leaping off at the last minute,

letting it fly into the helicopter, causing a giant crash.

After finally returning back home, Alex is asked to meet his school

principal. He thinks it is probably about his missing the last two weeks of classes without

an explanation. Upon arrival, Alex goes up to the office. He knocks on Mr. Bray's door,

and is told to enter. He opens the door, and it is like looking into a mirror, for there sits

his own duplicate. Alex #2 was forgotten about, because they didn't think Dr. Grief

would have had enough time to have him finished. The second Alex is there to kill the

real one in revenge for killing his "father". The two of them fight all over the school, and

even start a fire in the science department. The fight, and the book, ends with one Alex

falling through a hole in the roof to be engulfed by the flames below, and the other

walking away victorious.