Nine minutes later, Q knocked timidly on M's door. His anxiety had subsided enough that he could walk steadily and mostly without tripping. At his shoulder loomed the ever-present Sanders.
"Come," M barked through the door. With a deep breath, Q opened the door as little as he could to slip through and hastened forward to stand, arms clasped before him, in front of M's large, elaborately carved oak desk. He felt like a poorly-behaved schoolboy called to the headmaster's study. Behind him, Sanders entered noiselessly and shut the the door with a muted click. Silence descended.
"How goes the security system overhaul?" M never wasted time with greetings, but the question had the tone of an offhand concession to courtesy.
"Well enough. But I'll need younger employees soon. People for whom binary is a second language." It wasn't meant to come out as a demand, but M did not seem to take offense. Indeed, she took no notice of hs reply at all, though he felt Sanders shift slightly behind him. Sanders was not a young man, already greying at the temples, and Q's comment must have ruffled those immaculately arranged feathers.
"Sit." She addressed exclusively to Q, and he took the only available chair. Sanders remained, as ever, hovering at his side. "It's time that we replace 007. It's been a month since his funeral, and he doesn't seem inclined to make a dramatic re-entry." Q listened closely, waiting for the point to come around. But she stopped there, as though expecting some response.
"Oh, well, yes. That seems... rational," he ventured, cautiously. He paused, hoping for an explanation. When none was forthcoming, "I'm sorry, what does this have to do with Q-branch?"
M pushed a slim folder across her desk.
"Sit. Read that over." she spoke exclusively to Q, and he took the only available chair. He scanned the contents of the folder: three typed briefs, a handwritten note, and a photograph.
Q glanced at the image. It was an idyllic picture: a handsome family of five gathered around a table, heads turned to smile brightly at the camera. He turned to the documents, read through them, then returned suddenly to the photograph, scrutinizing the faces. Seizing the note, he read it twice. Finally, he raised his eyes to meet M's.
"Are you certain that this is who you want? This psychological profile is hardly a recommendation. Sociopathic tendencies... father fixation... nymphomania... " He trailed off, reading the profile again with growing alarm. Regular listener of Rush Limbaugh? M smiled grimly.
"I'm afraid that the subject identified our profiler within minutes of meeting him, and spent the next hour toying with him; she is, at worst, a mildly sadistic compulsive liar." Q sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The Agency didn't need more head cases. He had filled the last slot.
"How long has she been monitored?" At the question, M shifted uncomfortably.
"Three weeks. We had our eye on her before 007 got himself shot, but the loss of our best agent added urgency. Short-staffed as we are, we simply cannot afford to wait the typical four months of vetting." M's tone had become a bit defensive. "It's merely a recommended precaution, anyway. We know all there is to know about this girl. There will be no surprises." She said the last two sentences far too emphatically. Well now she's making a concerted effort to tempt fate, thought Q, irritably. He did not, however, say it (his sense of self-preservation had never been of the highest caliber, but in this case it did not fail him). Carefully moderating his tone, he posed his next question:
"Dedalus Enterpises... that's the company whose weapons are finding their way to criminal syndicates?"
"You know very well that it is so." M's eyes flashed. Q's implication rang loud and clear.
"And this girl-"
"Cordelia Kobayashi-Spector," interrupted Sanders.
"Yes, yes, quite. This Cordelia Kobayashi-Spector is the daughter of Madoka Kobayashi, one of the founding members of a company that we are nearly certain has been arming ruthless terrorists, gangsters, and kingpins-wait a minute!" Q spun around to stare at Sanders. "How did you know about this girl?"
"I recommended her, sir." Q started multiple thoughts at once, then backtracked. Duty and, more to the point, fear, precluded any argument with M, but Sanders he could contradict to his heart's content.
"Oh did you? And what, pray, could possibly have possessed you to do that?"
"I worked with her father for decades, sir, and I met Cordelia when she was just a little girl. She is, I daresay, far less deranged than she appears on paper."
"Speaking of mad, Q, you ought to read your own file some time. Phobic, over-analytical, borderline obsessive-compulsive, pathologically anti-authority, Communist sympathies, callow as a rosebud in spring..." Q blushed to his ears. "The question is not whether she is mad, but whether her madness is of use to us." M sat back, fingers steepled, as Q struggled to formulate his next objection.
"But her family. Her father was a 00 agent killed in the line of duty and her mother raised her in the midst of a corporation that we are in the process of targeting. We killed her father and we're in the process of stamping out her mother's legacy. Her loyalty to the Agency would be conflicted at best."
"Cordelia Spector has more reason than anyone to hate Dedalus Enterprises," Sanders interjected again. "It is generally agreed that Madoka killed herself because of the lawsuit against the company. Dedalus is the cause of Cordelia's mother's death."
"At any rate, the issue of her loyalty is precisely why I called you in. Or did you think that I sought the delight of your conversation?" M fixed Q with a frigid blue stare. "I need you to bring her in."
A few notes:
I know that this chapter is a bit confusing. I hate excessive exposition, and I may have over-corrected in the other direction. I do promise that all the particulars of the situation will become clear in time.
I only watched Skyfall once, and I've forgotten some of the details (e.g., the appearance of M's office, the amount of time Bond went missing in Turkey, etc.)
Timing-wise, the first few chapters will take place in the time between the first scene of Skyfall and the explosion of HQ. I don't want to progress too far in the timeline too quickly, because I love Judi Dench's M and I'd be heartbroken if she died before I could characterize her properly.
I tried to make my sentences less convoluted. The syntax became absurdly run-on in the first chapter. Did it help?
Finally, thank you to Platypus for the review! I am exceptionally insecure about this kind of writing, especially where humor is concerned, and the positive feedback certainly alleviated my paralysis. That said, I welcome negative criticism as well (or rather, I like to think that I do).