James Bond: 00 Time to Die
Chapter 1: England Royale
James Bond was studying in his den. His home didn't always have a den, he'd had it added only recently because he wanted a place to read, write, and study. It wasn't as though he had much to write, though. He suffered from a pretty constant case of writer's block, and would eventually give up on writing entirely. It wasn't that he wasn't creative, just that his creative juices were more effectively applied toward secret spy plans.
He was really good at coming up with secret spy plans. As a 00 agent, he frequently had to come up with plans that went far above and beyond the outline set for him by his boss who was in charge of him. One time he came up with a great plan, when he was on the ropes against a bad guy, so he came up with a plan to escape. This was a smart move, because he needed to escape. Once he got out he was able to come up with another plan to bomb the bad guy's lair with TNT, which was a good idea but insurance didn't cover the lair because it was intentional damage.
Anyway, that was the sort of plan he usually came up with. He was pretty good at it, and nobody was sure if it was because of experience, training, or just raw talent. Whatever the reason, he was the master of secret spy plans. He was also good at keeping them secret. There was a time when a bad guy asked him what his plans were, and he didn't say them. Even after being threatened with torture, he still didn't say them. He would never reveal his plans to anyone, not even his direct superior at work in England, just in case his boss turned out to be a bad guy in disguise.
But yeah, he was studying. Specifically he was studying Spanish because his next mission was gonna be in Spain. They speak Spanish in Spain, you know. The language was even named after the country, that's why "Spanish" and "Spain" are such similar words.
All of a sudden, he got up and stopped studying, because he suddenly got a phone call. He answered the phone and heard his boss yelling at him into the other end of the phone. It wasn't a cellphone, because those aren't secure enough for secret agents. Instead he uses a special landline phone with its own underground wiring that doesn't connect to the main phone system, so only one person, his boss at work in England, can call him on it for secret missions.
And then his boss said "James Bond, it is about time you came into work again because you've been studying all night and it's morning now and you're late," he said. James was concerned and he looked outside and it was light out. He wondered what time it was in America, they don't use regular time zones in England, they use a different one instead that we don't use.
When he was finished answering the phone call, he hung up his phone back onto the hook, and exited out of his house and into the spy car that he had in his backyard, which is where his garage was. He opened the garage door with the garage door opener inside his keychain (he was too paranoid to keep it in the car in case someone stole the car), and then drove away to work. When he got there his boss was very angry at him for being so late. He was like almost half an hour late, which is not acceptable on meetings day.
Every other Monday his spy company which is owned by England has its own meetings for all the 00 agents. This is where they plan out who has what jobs, and take inventory of all the agents who are back from previous secret missions across the world, and who is dead and needs to be replaced. The meetings are at 8 in the morning sharp, and they only last 20 minutes (sometimes a little longer if someone brings donuts because they can't talk and eat at the same time), which meant that he missed the whole thing.
"Great Jove!" he shouted silently in his mind. The last thing he wanted to do was swear at his boss while he was being chewed out.
"Well," responded the boss, "you snooze, you lose. Since you weren't on time for the meeting, you got the last pick of available missions."
James thought for a minute about it and then said, "but I already got a mission at the last meeting. I was still researching for it, that's why I was learning Spanish. Don't I keep that one until it's done or I stop being alive to finish it?"
His boss thought long and hard about his words. After about 46 seconds he answered James by saying, "You are right and this also means you didn't need to be at the meeting anyway. But you still should not be late for work on meeting day because someone brought donuts and now they're all gone. You snooze, you lose."
James was sad and a little bit disappointed, but he trucked through it. Then he walked over to his desk which was made of mahogany. All the 00 agents get mahogany desks. The best agents get to keep them. The worst agents die in the field. James Bond was one of the best agents. In fact, he was the very best agent. So good that he'd had his desk for more movies than I can count. When he got to his desk he booted up his computer, but it turned out he didn't need to because he left it on yesterday, so he didn't boot it up.
At his computer he remembered that he didn't sleep all night because he was studying. That made him tired. He couldn't even get the sugar rush from a donut to wake him up. And since he rushed out the door, he also didn't have tea before he left (they don't drink coffee in England). So he almost thudded his head on his desk. It's a good thing he didn't, because he remembered that he had to stay awake to do his job.
Since he studied Spanish all night, he was ready to go to Spain and start his mission. So once his computer was finished booting up, he logged onto a travel website and ordered two plane tickets to Spain just in case he needed a second one. He didn't order any tickets back, because he didn't know when the mission would be done and he didn't want to waste them if he needed to come back sooner or later than when the tickets were for. He would get a reprimand if that happened, the company doesn't like wasting money on plane tickets that the agents aren't even using.
He dialed his boss's extension on the phone on his desk. "I'm ready to go to Spain now," he said.
"Then get going," his boss also said.
On the way to the airport, he stopped and got gas (sometimes they call it petrol in England). He wanted to make sure his car was full of fuel when he got back, in case he needed to stop by anywhere else after his mission was done. And he got to the airport, and he boarded the plane. But before he got to the plane, he gave his boarding pass to the cashier.
She was a pretty cashier. She was blonde and she had good teeth. Her nametag said "Claire" and James wondered if that was her real name and hair color. So he asked her, "Does the nametag match your birth certificate?"
She giggled a little bit. "Yeah, it does. What a good question to ask, you are excellent at flirting with women. I'm sorry I can't board the plane with you because you are a really sexy man and I have a crush on secret agents because they are powerful and confident, but I have to stay here at my ticket booth to do my job where I don't let people into the plane without a boarding pass."
"It's fine," responded James. "You don't want to come with me anyway. I'm going on a secret spy mission. I can't tell you what it is, or where it is, but I can tell you it's dangerous. Certainly not a good place for such a sweet piece of candy like yourself." And with that, he departed.
The flight was a boring one. They only had one in-flight movie, and it was Snakes on a Plane. He didn't like action movies because he had enough action in real life and phony stunts just didn't do it for him. As it turned out, nobody on the whole flight wanted to watch the movie, for reasons that should be obvious so they don't need explained (it's because they were on a plane and it made them nervous).
But without a movie, he had nothing to do. He couldn't play Angry Birds because his phone had to be off during take-off and landing and also he didn't bring it. He would be getting another phone at the English embassy in Spain, one that worked on the cellular networks in Spain without roaming charges, one that his employer would supply for him. So he was content to take a nap. He needed one anyway, after staying up all night studying Spanish.
Suddenly, he woke up after having a bad dream. He had dreamed that it was time for his Spanish test and he forgot the whole language even though he spent all night cramming for it. In his dream, he was also naked. He tried to explain it all to his teacher, but the teacher was his boss in real life and just got angry and didn't share any donuts with him. Lucky for him, when he woke up it was just as the airplane was landing in Spain. He looked around out the window and he could tell he was in Madrid, the capital of Spain. Barcelona isn't the capital, you know.
He called a taxi over to take him to his hotel, and he rode in a taxi ride over to his hotel. Since he studied all night, his Spanish accent was perfect, and the driver had no idea he was from England. It was a good thing the taxi driver hadn't seen the movies or he would've known James looked just like Pierce Brosnan.
James got to his hotel, changed into his pajamas (I forgot to mention he picked up his luggage before he got in the taxi), and turned on the TV. It was a boring show he didn't care about, so he turned off the television and went to sleep.
Meanwhile in England, Claire was also nodding off. As her eyes closed, she held tight in her arms James' boarding pass, which said what airport he was heading to. She knew where he was.