Author's notes:
Oh man, I'm writing fanfiction again after a hiatus of YEARS. And Skyfall fiction, to boot.
I'm not British, nor am I an expert in any of the things Q needs to know for his job (or his extracurriculars), so please point out any errors you might find.
One. A boring mission becomes more interesting.
James Bond sipped a cup of coffee, unfolded the Daily Telegraph, and focused the lens of the camera embedded in his sunglasses on a brown station wagon parked across the street.
"Are you getting this?"
"Crystal clear." Through Bond's earpiece came the muffled clattering of quick typing. "Stolen yesterday from a plumber in Brighton. Didn't even bother to swap out the tags."
"We're not exactly handling geniuses," Bond muttered behind his newspaper. Mallory had handwaved Bond's failure of his most recent physicals in light of his performance at Skyfall, but the new M was less willing to overlook the psychological evaluation, especially because he seemed to have caught the idea that his predecessor's death made Bond less effective. Grief, or a reluctance to transfer his loyalty, or something like that. Bond had bluntly dismissed the idea, hoping that his disdainful conviction would illustrate how stupid it really was – but M had raised his eyebrows and confined him to Europe until further notice. Thus the outdoor café, the station wagon containing some very dull criminals, and the kid in his earpiece sounding much more excited than he had any right to be.
"They're moving."
"I'm not blind." Bond folded the paper, tossed some change on the table, and trotted around the corner and into an alleyway behind an Italian restaurant. MI6 had once given the building owner a new name, job, and apartment for his own protection, and in return he granted them free parking.
"Where are they?" Bond asked, typing the passcode into the car door.
"Three blocks north. Moving slowly, but once they get past the roundabout they'll pick up speed. Cut across on Mullarney Street and you'll catch up."
An outside observer wouldn't have tagged the kid as excited, but Bond had spent enough time with his voice over the last three months to notice the tiny uptick in speed, the slightly higher pitch, and, in the background, the way he jabbed at his computer keys with more force than necessary. This was probably the first time he'd been allowed out of the office while on the clock.
The car was disappointing. "You couldn't have allocated me something with voice commands?"
"I'm teaching you how to be more discreet, 007. Keep driving flashy cars and everyone will know you're an agent of the Queen."
Bond sighed and turned right onto Mullarney. "Once upon a time, that was the point."
"You're not Batman. It's not your job to strike fear into the hearts of the general criminal populace."
The kid was chiding him. Bond assuaged himself with his recurring fantasy of slapping the kid so hard his glasses flew off his nose.
"They're four cars ahead of you now, do you see them?"
"Yes. Where are you?"
"Ten blocks west. Keeping level with you."
Get them outside the city, tap the car, dispatch and restrain driver and passenger, radio Q the moment it was done so he could close in with his crew. Do not attempt to open any of the boxes. Although it would certainly endanger civilians, Bond longed for a high-speed chase.
He deliberately kept three or four cars between himself and the station wagon until they had left the neat blocks of office buildings and the road opened up, leading them past increasingly scattered retail developments and petrol stations. In the side mirror he saw the white van containing Q's team, camouflaged with a logo and phone number for a fictional landscaping business, pull into one of the petrol stations and park near the air pump.
"Very few cameras out here," Q told him. "I'd appreciate it if you could crash them within the next five miles or so, before I lose visual completely."
"Simple." Bond floored the car for a couple of seconds, just to inject a little excitement into the game, then eased up and focused on steering. Right lane clear; a little bump, spin them into the guardrail. He was close enough to see the driver's reflection glancing at him in the mirror. The wagon's turn signal flicked on.
The impact jerked his head back, as it always did, not enough to cause whiplash because he'd been trained for much worse than this. He had already pointed the wheels towards the empty right lane, and his car sailed clearly past the skidding station wagon; he braked, swung the sedan around to block both lanes, and was out on the pavement with gun cocked before either car had stopped moving. The passenger jumped out, stupidly, and Bond shot his legs out from under him. The driver had crawled over the seats into the back of the station wagon, which made things marginally more difficult; he could not fire at the car because that risked igniting the explosives booby-trapping the boxes.
"Double-oh-seven –" Alarm from Q.
"I know about the boxes."
Bond raced to the injured man, hauled him up with his hands behind his back and used him as a shield. The driver screamed something from inside the car, but his sidekick was stuttering, "Oh God, Oh God," over and over again and Bond couldn't parse the driver's words.
"Shut up," he snarled at the wounded man, and silenced him with a swift strike from the non-lethal end of his gun.
"– told you they were following us ten miles ago, where are you?" The driver's desperation gratified Bond. Of course, a worthy adversary wouldn't fear him, but occasionally it was nice to stroke the ego by hunting young rabbits.
And these two were embarrassingly inexperienced considering the cargo they were hauling: more than five million in counterfeit money, sealed in a dozen plastic containers rigged to explode if not opened with the proper fingerprint. The white van Bond had left behind at the petrol station contained a bomb-defusing robot that would theoretically open at least one of the cases so they could examine the bills, and the robot's escort team: two field agents, two techies, and Q.
Bond circled the car, looking for the clearest shot. The driver was still yelping into his mobile with one hand ("What do you mean you got hung up?") and pointing a gun with the other, but his hands shook so badly that Bond was sure any bullets would miss.
The robot was what had the kid all hot and bothered. He had written the software and supervised the hardware development, and he had sent M an eight-page memo explaining why he should personally review the bot's first foray into the field instead of watching the video feed from the safety of headquarters. The stakes of this particular mission were low enough that permission had been granted, as long as he consented to be accompanied by a pair of back-up field agents.
Bond took aim through the windshield – and in the narrow window of time right before he fired, when it was too late to signal his finger not to pull the trigger, the driver's mobile slipped from his sweaty fingers and he dove down to retrieve it. The bullet punched a massive spiderweb crack in the back window instead.
The driver's gun appeared over the edge of the passenger seat and he fired wildly. Bond dropped his human shield – too cumbersome – dodged around the side of the car, and aimed through one of the tinted windows. This time his bullet slammed the goon back against the far door. His head dropped to his chest; probably not dead, but he would be soon if medical didn't come.
Bond holstered his gun and opened the back hatch. "Q, order me an ambulance and get down here with your toy."
Static.
He couldn't be out of range; the petrol station was three miles behind. "Q?"
Without the bustle of city traffic or the burst of gunfire, even that little bit of static seemed unbearably loud.
"Someone answer me –"
A loud click, like a pair of headphones plugging in, and an unfamiliar voice: "'Ello, double-oh-sev'n."
Bond ran through the possibilities, catalogued the details: a man, probably in his early forties, Cockney, a smoker.
"Yeh know, I always wondered 'ow a secret agent knows everyfing goin' on 'round 'im," the stranger mused. "Turns out 'e's got a lil' birdie chirpin' in 'is ear." A pause, a rustle, and then the stranger's voice glowed with such dark satisfaction that Bond forgot the two men he had wounded, the counterfeit bills, the wail of sirens in the distance. "And I bet yeh didn' know this lil' bird is worth a pretty sum."
In his most dangerous voice, Bond said, "If I find any of them dead –"
"Relax, double-oh, I ain't killed 'em." The stranger sounded exasperated, almost wounded that Bond would think him capable of such a thing. "I'm stakin' one claim – got a buyer already lined up – and yeh can keep the mooks an' the money an' all the rest o' yer crew. Deal?"
"You must be joking."
"Cheer up, I'm doin' yeh a favor. Suave guy like yerself must hate bein' bossed 'round by a lil' git like 'im. Now, enjoy the rest o' yer evenin', double-oh."
The click again, then static. Just static. Bond yanked out the traitorous earpiece and flung it from him as hard as he could, into a darkening copse of trees that flickered blue in the light of the approaching police.