He shivered. The cool air-conditioning caused Goosebumps to snake up his arms and neck. The thin sheen of sweat that had broken out on his skin made everything ten times worse. Q's fingers skimmed briskly over the keyboard, lines of computer code marching proudly along the screen.

"Three hours down. Only five more to go, Q." The earpiece in his ear burst to life with Bond's rough voice coming through loud and clear.

Yes, exactly three hours ago he had walked into this room with Sebastian Hamilton leading the way. It was the main security room where all the security cameras were monitored and all the information could be accessed from. Of course, the information wasn't actually kept here, but Q was able to access it from here.

Sebastian Hamilton lounged lazily on the hard sofa directly across from the desk at which Q sat. His presence alone made him uncomfortable but when he tried to make small talk, it became boarder line unbearable. Q was paranoid that somewhere between talking about the weather and his newest "architectural project" he would slip in a sentence that Q would fail to pick up on. A sentence that, if answered a certain way, would tell Hamilton who's side Q was really on. Bond was mostly silent on the other side of his earpiece. There was nothing to say really. Still, he always felt better whenever he said something. His voice was like a solid reassuring block.

"What are you doing?" Q jerked his head up in alarm, his eyes wide. "Right now, what stage of…fixing my equipment are you up to?" Hamilton was inspecting his jacket for any stay pieced of lint. Q shook out a shaky breath. He needed to calm down.

"Right now, I'm just fixing the glitches in the two cameras positioned by the front door. The driveway and perimeter ones are done and now I am working my way inside." The lie slipped easily from Q's lips. His cameras weren't broken, they never had been. Q wasn't sloppy or messy when he did a hack job. He didn't leave mess behind. But he had given the illusion they were broken so that he had a reason to be here. He also had said he would include firewalls to protect his computer against further hacking. That was just to buy him more time if he needed it. Hamilton wouldn't know how long it took to build a firewall; it could be anywhere up to two days if Q wanted. Hopefully though, he wouldn't need that long.

Abruptly, Hamilton stood and flanked by two bodyguards he made his way to the door. Just as he was about to disappear through it, he turned.

"I will be back in just a moment. Pressing issues to attend to, I'm afraid." Adding nothing more, he slipped through the flimsy metal door painted with a flaking blue. That left Q alone with one heavily armed, well-trained soldier. Q got back to work. And for the next five minutes, Q felt like he was going to do it. He relaxed as much as he could in his current situation and let the endless amount of computer code swimming across his vision soothe his jittery nerves. For that blissful moment, for that brief undisturbed moment of hope, Q felt like he could do it. But of course, that was only five minutes. And when that time ended, all his hope and faith he had previously had in this mission was crushed within a moment. And that moment was when Sebastian Hamilton entered the room.

The heavy metal door swung open with a crash. Q's head jerked up to see a bodyguard enter the room followed by Hamilton; his expression, displeased to say the least.

"Stay calm Q, If you panic, you'll be given away in a second."

There was Bond's voice in his ear, giving him instructions and telling him how to act. Q had no idea what he meant, but he had a horrible feeling he was about to find out. Hamilton's His brow was furrowed and more than one crinkle blemished his forehead. Q's blood ran cold and the color drained from his face when he saw who came through the door next. Two more bodyguards entered the room with a man in-between them. He was wearing a neatly tailored suit made of light grey fabric. His previously white shirt was now stained red with blood, both old and recent. He was limping and clearly very weak. There was a bag over his head but Q knew who it was even before they removed it.

His face was beaten in, his eyes black and bruised. His nose gushed with blood and he was missing two teeth. And now, he was going to die. Q wanted to be sick all over the desk in front of him. But he kept it in and rose.

"Mr…Mr Hamilton. I-I-I'm not entirely sure what's going on."

"Stay calm Q!" The earpiece crackled for the second time.

"Don't play stupid with me boy!" His sudden outburst caused Q to jump a little in fright. Hamilton whirled around with anger in his eyes and fury in his actions. He reached over to one of the guard's hips and ripped out a standard black 9mm handgun. Q was about to raise his hands up in surrender but stopped short when he realized Hamilton wasn't aiming at him. For the first time since he entered the room, Q made eye contact with the bloodied and broken man in a once fine looking suit. His name was Agent Matthews. And he was supposed to be dead.

"Now, I know that your real name isn't Jonathon and I know that you don't really work for an IT company that's here to fix my broken security system because you see, there isn't anything to fix. It was never broken. Oh don't look at me like that! I'm not an idiot." Hamilton was waving the gun around Matthews's head in such a way that made Q wince every time his finger inched toward the trigger. His eyes flickered back and forth between the gun and Hamilton's face. His eyes finally settled on his face when he resumed talking. "So you have ten seconds to tell me the truth before I blow his brains out. Ten, nine…"

Q began to panic. His words all clogged together in his throat. The only thing he could get out was "Wait stop!"

"Eight, seven…"

"Feign innocence Q. I don't think he is 100% confident." Q wanted to scream. That was really reassuring. Because the man looked about 110% confident pointing a fully loaded gun at Matthews head.

"Six, five, four…" Blood rushed through Q's ears drowning any ideas he may have been able to conjure. He managed to get words past his lips.

"Mr Hamilton please! Please don't kill that man. I don't know what you want me to tell you but my name is Jonathon Anderson, I was born in Wales and moved to London when I was three. I've always had a love for computers and so I became a computer technician. Please put the gun down. Please!" Q was on the verge of tears. If Hamilton pulled the trigger on that gun Q knew his resolve would crumble. His pleading had caused a gap in Hamilton's count down. He was looking directly into Q's eyes. Q could see the decision weather to trust him being weighed up behind Hamilton's green eyes. Q gaze flickered to Matthews. He obviously believed that Q was a fantastic actor because he wore a look of slight awe on his face. Oh how wrong he was. Q looked back to Hamilton with pleading eyes. Seconds stretched into minutes and still no one spoke. The earpiece in Q's ear stayed mute. He could feel the tension in the air. It was like even the simple task of breathing became difficult. Q thought of 007 then. He thought of all the times that he shared witty and sharp comments with him over the communications line, all the times he'd been in the exact same situation and the composure he'd brought with him. But most of all he remember earlier that morning. The one time he'd seen real human emotion exposed on Bonds face. He remembered being happy. So incredibly happy that he'd gotten a small brief glimpse into the human side of the cold hard man Bond was. The amount of control Bond must have to keep a lid on such emotions like that awed Q. And it gave him something to strive for. He squared his shoulders and looked Hamilton straight in the eye. Because he knew. He knew from the second Hamilton pulled out that gun. He knew from the second Matthews walked through that door. He knew what he was going to do. Regardless of what Q said. He had made up his mind. Sebastian Hamilton's mouth curled into a cruel sick smile.

"Three…two…one…"

Hello again. Please please review and a huge thank you for reading this far. This was pretty fun to write so I hope you liked it. So yeah :P Chapter 5 is on it's way!