Afternoons in the M16 gym facilities were always the most deserted time of the day. It was the middle of the workday, so none of the office chair lackeys were cluttering up the space. The field agents were usually in the middle of assignments, taking advantage of the daylight hours to avoid the more dangerous London night scene. As for the double-oh agents- well. They liked to sleep in.
But 007 was never one to follow stereotypes, so at 2 pm on a Thursday, he was whaling on a punching bag in the center of the abandoned training room. His own breathing and heartbeat were the only sounds the agent could hear, apart from the steady, rhythmic thud of fist on industrial strength rubber. It had a hypnotizing effect, drawing him deep into his own body, completely focused on the tensing of muscle, the stretching of sinew. Until a voice rang out in the solemn stillness of the room.
"Mr. Bond?"
Bond twitched imperceptibly, the only signal of his surprise, before fluidly pivoting to face the speaker. He scanned the new arrival. It was a man, early twenties, with a tweed suit and a red-bordered name tag reading "Jason."
Management intern. Wonderful.
With a mental sigh, Bond resigned himself to cutting his afternoon ritual short. He shook out his hands, stiff with exertion, and bounced on the balls of his feet, ignoring the sweat trickling down his spine. His eyes stayed locked on the intern, who looked increasingly uncomfortable at the widening silence, a grimace flickering across his face. Bond savored the man's discomfort for a bit longer before taking pity.
"That's me."
The intern nodded, a bit quickly. "You're required for a mission debriefing in M2's office."
Bond raised his eyebrows. He had just gotten back from his previous mission late last night, or rather, in the early hours of the morning. A turnabout so short was very unusual, even for a double-oh. And for M to have her second-in-command assign the mission for an agent of his caliber… Curiosity peaked, Bond strode past the wide-eyed intern, ignoring his attempts to lead the way. No untested amateur was going to show him around his own building. Satisfyingly, the intern subsided to follow in his wake.
"So, details?"
The intern shook his head apologetically. "I'm just the messenger, sir, I don't know any more than you do."
Sir. Huh. Bond liked that.
Bond strode down the fluorescent-lit hallways towards the M branch, ditching the intern somewhere along the way. The door to M2's office was closed, as always. Bond didn't bother to knock. He pulled the door open, taking a measured step into the expensively-furnished space, all mahogany and velvet. M2 was peering at his paperwork, attempting to seem impossibly busy with unspeakably important affairs. Bond rolled his eyes, unfooled.
"Two, you called?"
M2 glanced up, eyebrow quirked. Bond scoffed internally; as if his entrance hadn't been instantly noticed.
"Ah, 007. Yes. Your next mission is ready to launch."
"So I was told."
M2 smiled thinly, a mere twist of the mouth. "The target is a Caucasian male, early to mid-twenties, around 5'9, 60-70 kilos, dark wavy hair to the ears, thick black-rimmed glasses. Intel says he's likely to make an appearance in Shoreditch this evening. Your handler has a picture and will be watching the CCTV feeds; she'll let you know who to mark."
Bond waited a bit for the more interesting information, before realizing M2 wasn't going to say anything else. He furrowed his brow.
"So, what's so important about this guy that you're sending out a double-oh after less than twelve hours of R&R?"
M2 gazed coolly at Bond for a moment before looking back to his papers in a clear dismissal. "That's classified."
Bond nearly gaped. He was 007, one of the most well-established, well-respected agents in M16 history. Almost nothingwas above his clearance level.
"There's nothing else you can tell me?" he blurted, testing the edges of his limits.
"I've given you all the information you need. Q branch will equip you, then you will go check in with your handler."
Bemused, and not a little disquieted, Bond did just that.
Q branch always made Bond feel a tad prickly. There was just… too much. Too many wires, too many buttons, too many interns scurrying around with menial tasks to accomplish. Too many beeps and little flashing lights. The entire wing had a vague sense of clutter to it, no matter how organized it was. Not to mention, the denizens of Q branch were notoriously dismissive of field agents, and they held a special dislike for agent 007, who never failed to return their precious gadgets in pieces.
But even Bond could see the necessity of such a division. His life had been saved countless times by the ingenious feats of engineering that came out of this sector. So he valiantly pretended he didn't notice the gawking and the whispers that followed him, tried not to intimidate the computer geeks in his path overly much, and made his way to Q's office with all possible haste.
Q's office, more of a workshop really, was a familiar sight to Bond. Since the double-oh agents' missions tended to be especially crucial, they were usually outfitted with equipment directly from the department head. Q himself was an older man, with silvery hair and a rather impressive mustache. He would have been able to pull off a dignified aura if not for his haphazard surroundings. Half-completed projects lay propped against walls and under work benches, and there was no discernable rhyme or reason to the placement of any of the tools. Bond often wondered how Q was able to find his own thoughts in the mess, but so long as his gadgets did their jobs, he wasn't going to complain.
Q peered up at Bond over his latest project as Bond entered the workshop, thick safety goggles creating a perturbing dichotomy with the carefully pressed suit Q wore. Q looked completely bewildered for a moment, before seeming to remember who Bond was.
"007! Hello, M2 notified me that you would heading down to my little corner of paradise." Q giggled slightly. Bond gritted his teeth subtly and carefully didn't roll his eyes.
Setting down a still-flaming blow torch, Q turned in a quick half circle, muttering under his breath. He raked his gaze over the chaos, seemingly searching for something, before letting out a small noise of triumph and marching across the room.
"I have got just the thing for you, Mr. 007!" Q held up an overly-complicated looking contraption with a speaker and an elaborate control panel on the side. His face fell slightly as Bond failed to fall to his knees in awe at the gadget, but his excitable monologue didn't even slow down.
"This is a radio." Bond held back a snort. So that's what it was. "It operates like a walkie-talkie, you hold this red button here to speak, and this knob is the tuner. But these switches on the side here control the really interesting functions-"
Bond allowed his vision to glaze as Q waxed poetic about the inbuilt knife, the electromagnet, the fire-starting kit, and the grappling hook that 'doesn't quite work properly 100% of the time, but will doubtlessly be invaluable once it does.' Bond knew from hard experience that Q's more ostentatious modifications weren't exactly reliable; the fiasco with the mechanical homing pigeon had demonstrated that. As far as Bond was concerned, the radio was just a radio.
Finally, as Q was winding down, Bond got the correct frequency for his handler out of him, then collected his radio/grappling hook, sidearm, and restraining devices and went on his way.
"It was a nice chat, Mr. 007, lovely of you to stop by! We'll have continue at a later date," Q called cheerily as Bond wove his way between bustling tech people in the hall. Bond smiled to himself. Not likely.
Then, a pair of raised voices claimed his attention. Intrigued, Bond listened in.
"—damn well better find him, he hasn't taught anyone else how to use his bloody system yet!"
"It's not my fault the guy didn't show up for work today, he's only been here a week, I barely even know him!"
"Well how the hell are we supposed to finish categorizing the intel if we can't even get into the buggering network?"
"Look, blame Alex, not me, he's the one who decided to revamp all the sorting protocol-"
The heavy steel sliding doors to the wing slid shut behind Bond, cutting off the rest of the argument. He shook his head, grinning wryly; another new intern gone wrong.
The communications center was a breath of fresh air. Neat lines of simple monochrome cubicles formed orderly aisles to walk down, and the walls were punctuated with doors at regular intervals, leading to private offices. It was a complete 180 from Q branch. Administration was always making noise about merging the two divisions. On the surface, it was a logical step; gathering and dispersing information seemed to go hand in hand with organizing and protecting it. But Bond didn't think it would ever work, or at least not with the current leadership. One of the sectors would inevitably rip the other into pieces.
As was customary, the first stop Bond made was Moneypenny's office. The door was already cracked, a clear invitation. She must have caught wind that he was heading this way. He nudged it the rest of the way open with his foot and stood in the doorway.
"Well, if it isn't the infamous Comms ice princess. James Bond at your service," Bond quipped with a smirk and a flamboyant bow. Moneypenny raised an imperial eyebrow from her chair, mouth twitching.
"Flattery won't get you anywhere, agent, as I suspect you know," she returned, leaning forward on her desk. "I hear your beauty rest got cut off at the knees then?"
Bond straightened, grimacing. "Yeah, no idea why this mark is so damn important."
Moneypenny rolled her eyes. "As if you would prefer lazing around back here to being out in the field." Bond conceded the point with a shrug. "So they didn't give you any background intel?"
"Not even a name. Just a general physical description and a vague possible location," Bond grumbled. "How am I supposed to do anything if that's all the information I get? This could be more dangerous than I'm prepared for."
Moneypenny patted him on the arm, eyes sharp with humor. "Don't worry, I'm sure you're still in the running for mystery man of the week."
Bond glared balefully and stalked off towards his handler's cubicle, ignoring Moneypenny's laughter and slamming the door behind him. Just like her to simply brush off his concerns.
As Bond approached the cubicle, his handler stared at him, slightly paler than her usual wan complexion. Bond knew he cut an imposing figure when he was irritated, but his handler was also rather unfortunately skittish. Bond had no idea why they had assigned this woman to be his connection to HQ when she could barely even stomach looking her own agent in the eye. She clearly had no real-world experience whatsoever, and her commands over the radio were unsure, more tentative suggestions than anything. Most of the time, Bond was forced to rely on his own intuition to get himself out of sticky situations, rather than the more sweeping view his handler was supposed to provide.
"Well?" Bond growled, as he arrived at the desk. The woman—Marcy- swallowed and opened her mouth, but for an interminable moment, nothing came out. Bond stared her down, eyes narrowed.
Finally, Marcy found her voice. "I-I-I think that the, uh, our frequency should be, um, 107.3?"
Bond glanced down at his own radio. "Affirmative."
"So, um. You. Are supposed to go to Shoreditch now. To complete your mission."
Bond didn't try to hold back his sigh. "How am I supposed to do that when I don't know where my target is?"
Marcy looked slightly alarmed. "Um, um, I can do that." ("Can you?" Bond muttered under his breath.) "I can monitor the CCTV and run a facial recognition program. I'll tell you over the radio when the, uh, mark shows up."
Without another word, Bond turned and walked down the hall and out of Comms, slipping in the earpiece for the radio. Not that he expected to hear anything but silence for quite some time. It was time to hurry up and wait: he had a man to capture.