Author's notes:

This chapter is very short - a transitional chapter, really - but I promise things will start revving up beginning with the very next chapter.


Four. Q meets the mastermind.

Another boxy, undecorated room. This time they had left his glasses within his reach, on the seat of a heavy wooden chair. As Q put them on, his hand brushed gauze; someone had bandaged the wound at his temple. Judging from the prickling at the back of his neck and the way the skin tightened as though straining against tape whenever he turned his head, they had also patched the place where Cockney had extracted the microchip. They – whoever they were – wanted him alive for a little longer.

And still mostly unrestrained – he had sat up, curled his legs beneath him, and put on his glasses without discovering any restrictions. But every movement generated a slithering, clinking sound, like a handful of coins cascading over more coins in a ceramic dish. And there was something long and cold and heavy against his back. He reached behind himself, took hold of whatever it was, and drew it over his shoulder.

A chain. He followed it up to his neck and fingered the fastening. The links could slide through each other to tighten or loosen the loop, though a little metal bar prevented it from loosening far enough for him to slip it over his head. The far end linked to an eye bolt set into the floor; he could see the uneven, discolored seam where a patch of concrete had been removed and recast. Q spent enough time modeling unlikely devices in CAD labs that his brain automatically alerted him to the best features: Designed both to restrain and punish, and easy and cheap to manufacture.

He stood and explored the room. His captor had given him a generous length of chain, probably ten feet, more than enough for him to walk up to and touch each of the walls. Cold, but dry – a well-insulated basement. No windows, no furniture except for the pair of heavy chairs, a square table, and a clock on the back wall. Numerous pipes above his head created an artificial drop ceiling in the center of the room – more evidence in favor of basement.

The ceiling and a pair of door hinges creaked, somewhere above and to the right. Footsteps tramped down stairs.

This time when the door opened Q was prepared: on his feet, alert, with the table between him and the stranger and his hands on the back of a chair, ready to wield it if necessary. Two men entered, single file, the first dressed all in heavy black – boots, turtleneck, armored vest like the riot police – and nearly twice as broad in the shoulders as Q. In one hand he carried a riding crop, and the ominous implications drew Q's eyes as the man stepped aside to let his partner in and reached back to shut the door behind them.

Then Q got a good look at the second person, a polished blond man with a beige suit and a hardshell briefcase, and realized that he was not as prepared as he had hoped.

The voice had deepened and coarsened a little over the years, but Q could still predict the inflections perfectly, didn't even have to look to see the tiny quirk of the lips that accompanied the greeting.

"Hello, Ben. It's been a while."