Rain was beating against the panes, sliding down and obscuring the view. Forecasts had already spoken of a rather nasty week to come and Londoners, used to rain, had simply shrugged and gone about their lives.
Q was one of them.
It had been a typical day at work, which meant overtime and too little sleep, less to eat, and too much on his table.
The weather outside was frightful, the streets seemingly drowning as London hunkered down for the night, out-waiting the thunderstorm.
He had been called into a meeting with M, which had cost him precious hours he could have spent doing what he did best. Nothing was as important as bringing MI6's servers into the twenty-first century, safer, more secure, ready. It had him spent night after night at the underground bunker, overlooking installations, programming and more. Q had been there throughout it all, as had the whole of the IT unit, all of them busy, busy, busy.
And oh yes, their very special Double-Oh, the one he was primary and probably only-ever handler of, had disappeared once more. M had demanded he find their wayward field agent. Q had been calm and professional and not impressed by the order. If Bond wanted to be found, he would be. And last time he had seen him, 007 had been busy getting important information on an arms deal about to go down from a very beautiful hostess.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, lightning followed bright and hot against the black sky. A dark silhouette was illuminated against the window.
Q felt no alarm at the presence of someone inside his flat. Only two people had the access code. If someone would have broken in, there would have been at least one alarm triggered. If someone were to be able to circumvent the alarm, there were motion sensors. If those had been compromised, Q would have received an error message on his smart phone. The programs had been developed by him, in his own code, his own programming language. Aside from maybe another technopath, no one would have been able to crack that code.
The silhouette moved and Q found himself fascinated by the lithe, predatory movements, admiring the sleek lines of a body trained and shaped to kill. The predator closed the distance, the outline familiar, the sense he had of this man complete.
"007."
"Q."
James Bond. His anchor. A preternatural who happened to be a vicious predator, a creature so dark it had nearly consumed itself with each and every resurrection. He was a phoenix and he was a nightmare.
"M's looking for you."
"Fuck M."
He tilted his head, a small smile on his lips. Bond's hair glistened with rain in the meager light of the lamps that made it through the windows. His body gave off heat, but the clothes were damp as well.
"You could have used an umbrella."
"Lost mine."
"Too bad. I was hoping you would set a new record for returning my equipment."
A hand slid around his waist and the agent closed the last distance. "It fulfilled a purpose."
"Well, I hope so."
This close Q could see the glint in the shadowy eyes. Even now the blue was startling, overlaid by darkness and yet so alluringly bright. There was hunger in that gaze. Need. A desire that told him that the mission had been bad.
They had lost contact quite early on, with the hostess as the last sure set of coordinates, and while Q had been able to follow through all kinds of security cameras, wifi networks and cell phones, there had been no sign of Bond after the initial meeting with the hostess.
The preternatural leaned forward, burying his head against Q's neck, lips sliding over smooth skin, blunt teeth biting lightly.
"Please," Bond only said.
That one word said more than anything else. The mission had ended badly. Catastrophically maybe. It had shaken Bond in a way he would never show. That he gave Q such insights spoke of the trust between them, the way Bond turned to him.
Q carded slender fingers into the short, damp strands, had his partner look up, and when he met the hot gaze that threatened to swallow him hole, he smiled.
Lips sought his and he answered the kiss, letting himself fall into the contact. Hands caressed his sides as the kiss grew deeper, more desperate, and Q let Bond take over control, show him where to go. The agent needed this, needed to get something out of his system.
Debrief could wait.
The phoenix rose with a strength that left him breathless, but not defenseless. He fought the powerful predator, guided Bond through the surge of darkness, let him reassure himself that his quartermaster was there, only for him, belonged only to him, but he didn't submit to the force of nature that was James Bond.
He kissed back forcefully, letting the preternatural know this wasn't a conquest, and Bond backed off a little, the blue eyes alight with hunger.
"M wants to see you tomorrow," Q whispered against one ear.
Bond growled something uncomplimentary, already busy getting Q out of his clothes.
The quartermaster smiled, logging off his private network.
And then he enjoyed the welcome home.
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"She's dead."
Q looked at Bond, took in the deeper lines in the usually so composed face. He wasn't unreadable any longer. At least not completely. There was sadness and anger and the pain.
So Lilly was dead. The hostess. The woman who had been their way in, had been Bond's contact and maybe his entertainment for a night. Q was sure his partner had enjoyed himself if there had been an opportunity.
Now she was dead.
Bond's voice was rough, low, almost dead. It wasn't a debriefing. That would have been different. It was just James Bond venting his anger and pain.
Lilly had been shot; executed. Not unlike Severine. She hadn't given them Bond's name or any other information and she was dead.
It hurt. Each death hurt an agent, even a Double-Oh. They were able to kill in cold blood, but Lilly or Severine or others like them hadn't been their victims or targets. They had been sources of information, confidential informants, undercover agents, the like.
Bond had escaped unscathed because of her.
There was nothing Q could do; simply be there and let his partner vent in his own way, in his own time. It was something at least. More than Bond had had in the past.
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Bond was gone when Q woke at five a.m. the next morning. Not like Q had expected anything else. He went through his morning routine, checked his email, found nothing of interest, and went to work.
Bond would find his way to Q branch when he was done. Q was sure of it. He didn't worry and last night had calmed his agent down. The dark energy had dispersed and the ferocious beast was a bit tamer. Not tamed, but easier to handle.
At least for now. Bond was known to be an obstinate agent. It was why Q was his handler and why everyone was glad it was him.
He smiled a little to himself as he went through his open projects.
Q didn't mind at all.
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"Someone cracked our system."
- Think on your sins. –
Q was a technopath, which meant he could access machines with his mind. It didn't mean he could simply go out and do whatever he wanted, write code and programs and crack every encryption known to man with a single thought. Actually, it was more painful to use his abilities than to do it manually, like every other human being on this planet.
With Bond, Q had found an anchor, which meant he didn't fall into the screaming abyss he had barely clawed himself out of when M had recruited him. Bond was a lifeline and he kept Q from sliding off into the world wide web, which could be a road of no return. And Q kept the preternatural stable and balanced. It was a give and take relationship with perks.
Good perks.
Fantastic perks.
Q smiled slightly to himself.
But technopathically speaking, Q was still learning how to walk again. He had been a cripple in that regard, with no chance of healing the wounds or removing the terrible scars on his mind. Bond had started the healing process and every single time he entered the MI6 servers and came out with barely a headache was a success.
Little by little he upped the ante.
Q was MI6's quartermaster and as such responsible for outfitting the field agents, running the network, coming up with whatever was needed, and maintaining security.
Silva had shown him just how shoddy security had been when he had started this job. Actually, he had started it just before MI6 had been blown to pieces. It hadn't been Q's first day as quartermaster back then, but it had been a hell of a first quarter of a year as the man in charge. His branch had been one of the last to move underground, in a rush, leaving behind too much to be fully functional, and they had paid for it when Silva had overpowered their system.
Q didn't really think about it that often. Nor did he reflect on his luck that he hadn't been one of the eight unlucky souls who had perished that day. Or later.
There had been too many bodies to count.
So after Silva, and while he was still not able to use his technopathy, Q had already started on updating security. It was a tedious job, interrupted by the most mundane problems, and it was mind-numbing.
MI6 was an intelligence operation. There should have been better protocols in place. It should have been impossible for Silva to hack into the network so easily, but he had. At the time Q had only reacted, had trusted in the set-up his predecessor had used, and he had failed on all fronts. Silva had managed to get in and had wreaked havoc.
So now Q was undoing everything completely, was going back to the basics and reprogramming every line of code, every interface, every outgoing and incoming line. His encryption was faultless. He had developed this himself and only another technopath would be able to crack the code.
But it was tiring work.
It took up a good portion of his time in Q branch and he had too many other responsibilities as well.
After his connection to Bond, after they had finally worked out what they were and how they kept each other sane and, in Bond's case, from falling into the darkness of his preternatural side completely, Q had employed his mind in another way to work in the security system. They were still running with the old one since his own grid was far from complete.
MI6 was still rebuilding itself. The bunker was no longer temporary. It was their new headquarters. Miles and miles upon cable and wires had to be laid out throughout the seemingly endless tunnels. They were still exploring all the corridors and vast, cave-like rooms, some flooded, some so damp it would take months to make them serviceable, and some infested by those rats they had already evicted out of the current core of MI6.
Slowly but surely the secret service was back in working order. Slowly but surely the operations were running more smooth and more like before.
M had given him almost free reign and while Q knew how to delegate and actively did so, none of his underlings knew what he truly was. He delegated the rebuilding, had his men and women everywhere a tunnel or room had been declared safe and ready. They installed cameras, heat and motion sensors, palm readers, retinal scans and even a few more experimental bio signature access points.
Aside from the problems at home, abroad had to be managed, too. Handlers had to be in contact with their agents wherever they or the agents were; satellites needed to be tracked; communication had to be ensured.
Q branch was busy like an ant hill on steroids. Overtime was a given.
So Q delegated. And he ran operations with his primary agent, 007, James Bond. He was always there when the agent was back in contact. His voice was the only one Bond heard. Be it while he was hip-deep in parts, head first in an interface box halfway between the Thames and Buckingham Palace, or having a quick lunch that consisted of take-out and a caffeinated drink.
Q was there.
It was where he was needed.
Q branch was now housed in a much larger room with a lot of storage and testing areas connected to the cavern. Q had claimed one area as his office, surrounded by brick walls and metal, giving him a little privacy when he needed it. Usually he was right in the middle of the hubbub, facing huge screens, eyes tracking data and images and small dots weaving through a complicated network painted on the displays.
The beta test for the new security network was looming on the horizon. Q was proud of his baby and he knew he wouldn't be this far if not for the stabilizing effect of the anchor. Bond didn't have to be physically there for it to work, but when he was, Q worked easier.
He could only compare it to removing the grit from an engine. It ran smoothly and like new, like it had never been this creaking, faltering thing in his head.
When Bond was incommunicado, Q used that time to run system checks. His agent went dark when matters required it and Q wasn't too worried about the lengthy silences.
Sometimes they stretched for days.
A small window on his screen was always open, waiting for 007 to reestablish contact, and he kept running facial recognition software throughout the area Bond had last been seen in, before he had disappeared.
It was something to pass the time and to test how his programs were doing in the field. Bug reports were sent to the techs and programmers and they could work on those.
Q turned to the task of the beta test.
With Bond's latest mission accomplished and his agent back home – wherever he was currently lurking - it was time to get serious.
tbc...