[There was a recorded log attached to the document]

“I did use this particular subject for a reason. She’s… an interesting case. Out of everyone I have been doing research and made records on, I did most on 7489. There has to be a reason why she’s acting the way she is. She won’t tell me, no matter how much I try to be friendly. I don’t have any intentions on hurting her or her little sister… I’m just trying to understand, to be open. But she just… won’t. I can’t force her to talk. I think I understand why. I was the one that injected them. Her. She doesn’t trust anyone... Maybe she’ll be able to open up to someone who’s more… inviting. Like… Stella. I strongly believe she’ll understand Wave better than I ever could- I mean- 7489.”

There was a period of silence.

Again, we have this very strange decision where the book isn't actually about the kids we've been following this whole time. About a quarter of the book is taken up with some flashbacks including Kyle helping out with basic training when he meets Aizat, a local Malaysian kid whose village is being destroyed and bought out by an oligarch named Tan Abdullah. That's the man whose kids are being protected by CHERUB in the present day. And a large part of those flashbacks involves a reporter who Kyle has contacted investigating Abdullah's exploitation in the area, once again following a character we've never met before rather than our main character in the final book of the series. I'd have thought that this book would pick up on the Brigands thread from the last book - something that doesn't rely on exposition, so we can use the time to explore our established characters a bit better. But no, the Brigands mission is wrapped up in a pretty anticlimactic way in the early parts of this book, and the main mission that this book focuses on is the babysitting mission with Abdullah's kids that James turns down. It's just a weird choice.

Anyway, James turns down the mission, but decides to help Kyle protest Abdullah on the sly. It's not a CHERUB operation or a sting operation in general, so the outcome we're working towards seems a bit fuzzy, which makes the way that the book wraps up seems odd. After being protested all day, and after reporters were digging into his career, Abdullah decides to flee with his family and ends up shooting himself. It just seems all too neat a conclusion, for a mission like this. Adullah takes himself out of the picture, so everything is fine. We don't get much on what happens to Aizat or his community or other communities like it, but that's not really what this book was going to be about? I'm also side-eyeing the character decisions made. James has never shown much of a conscience before, so him taking a stand is admirable, even if it does ring a bit hollow in the fact that he's soon to be leaving CHERUB, and cancelling on the mission has no real negative impact on him. Lauren's reasons for staying on the mission, meanwhile, are sound - she's earlier in her career than James, and if she turns down something easy like this she won't get juicier missions. But then all of that is undercut with another character saying she just wants to go shopping with the rich kids, which strikes me as a strange beat largely because Lauren is the one with the conscience - she's the principled veggie after the animal rights mission, after all. Odd characterisation.

So, what do I make of CHERUB as a whole? It's been largely a disappointing return for me, sadly. The series has some strange ideas of morality, and overall paints things as being a bit too black and white for my liking with casting antagonists as out-and-out villains or protagonists as uncomplicatedly good despite the ethics of each situation being far more complex. James as a character really suffers from what I can only assume was an effort to make him more appealing to the typical teenage boy, meaning that he's wildly homophobic and misogynistic in a way that isn't challenged by the narrative in a satisfactory manner. The choice to have most of the non-mission story be taken up with relationship drama is largely uninteresting, mostly because that kind of teen-soap-opera nonsense is at odds with the spy thriller genre of the books. While CHERUB as an organisation could be an interesting idea for a narrative, the fact that its ethics aren't satisfactorily examined in the story lead it to feel more like copaganda than anything else. That's not to say there's nothing to enjoy here - I did enjoy the books, and I carried on with the series to completion - but overall I don't remember it as well as I did, and that makes me a little sad, not gonna lie.