Two weeks passed, and slowly but surely Nine began to integrate into the the workings of the office. She had begun to make peace with most of her team. Steve continued to be friendly towards her, as did the ever charming Roger and goofy Eric. More like friendly acquaintances. Abby still wouldn't talk to her though and she wondered sometimes whether Q even noticed she was occupying the desk opposite his. She didn't dwell on it for very long, however. She just tried to be as friendly as she could be to everybody.
The other five members of the Q- Branch quickly discovered that Nine's daily schedule was as erratic as her ability to stay organised. Unlike Q, Nine had no set routine. She came and went for different periods of time every day, visiting level BQ, the junior techies in the computer laboratory next door and the main Q-Branch. M and Q had given her some small assignments already, but mostly, Nine could be seen typing lines and lines of endless emerald green code into her two computers. Both of Nine's desks were buried in notes scrawled in her own spiky, unreadable handwriting. Paper. The Q- branch hadn't seen notepaper in years! The vast majority of their work was done on computers. There was no need for something so "low tech" as Eric put it. The others figured she must have some sort of system, because she hadn't lost anything. Yet.
Nine was still shy and nervous around everyone. Not to mention, very easily startled. She was fine if she saw the person before they talked to her, but if not she'd jerk into the air in fright and drop whatever she was holding. They'd lost two or three tea mugs as a result.
She mostly took her lunch breaks with either Eve or Steve, either outside the office, or in the break room down the hall. Nine was beginning to get a headache from all of the white in this place. The break room wasn't huge, just a small, long, white room. A stainless steel kitchen unit could be found at one end, complete with a sink, fridge, microwave, a small drawer of cutlery, cupboard and an endless assortment of multicoloured coffee mugs, which seemed to be the only colours besides black and white Nine could find in the whole building. On the opposite side of the room was a coffee table, two black plastic chairs and a matching battered, old leather sofa. According to Steve, nobody knew how the large couch found its way into the break room. One day it was just there, but nobody complained or asked questions about it. So, the sofa stayed.
The linguist soon discovered not only Nine's native Irish but also her poor basic secondary school French she hadn't used in six years or so. During lunch hours, Steve would help Nine try to reclaim her grasp on that third (and final, she assured him) language. He didn't laugh at her once, and for that she was grateful. In return, she taught him some basic Irish words and phrases. One day, Q happened to walk in on them conversing (or attempting to, in Nine's case) in French. He just brewed his usual Earl Grey and left, shaking his head tiredly.
Nine's first time helping with a 00 mission happened just before the end of her second week...
"MI6 let you off because they were convinced you'd be a useful contact. Well right now you're not being useful in the slightest! You had better not be wasting my time!"
The six members of the Q branch were practically glued to the large screen on the side of the room opposite to the door. Q and Nine's desks were the closest to the screen, and so they had a clear view of what was going on. A long stainless steel desk, previously unnoticed by Nine, was parallel to this main screen. A desk shared by Q and Nine, who now stood side by side surrounded by equipment. The team had audio and surveillance through Bond's earpiece and various security cameras dotting the area.
Jean Claude Bavarde was a weedy, little ex arms dealer who had been little more than an annoying thorn in the side of several international agencies. MI6 had gotten a hold of him, and now he was their reluctant informant stationed in France. For some unknown reason, he'd had to drop everything and go into hiding two weeks ago. Eric had received an urgent message from him, and so 007 had been sent to find him and investigate whatever lead he had dug up. Bond had spent more than a week tracking down the informant, who he found hiding in a seedy motel in the outskirts of the city. The agent had then been led to an empty warehouse, much to his annoyance.
The warehouse itself was near central Paris beside the Seine. It may have been a factory at some point, but had later been converted into a storage facility. Silver corrugated metal made up the walls, and cheap light fixtures hung from the slanted roof on rusty chains wrapped in wires. The whole structure covered an area slightly smaller than the size of a football pitch.
Unfortunately, contrary to Bavarde's information, the warehouse was empty. All there was to be seen were four metal walls, flickering lights and forgotten tools. In all of this, Bavarde found himself pinned against a cold metal wall. James Bond was not a happy bunny.
"Eet was moofed, I swear! Eet was big hooge machine! I doh know what eet was for, but eet was eemportant. Eet was garded twenty foh- sefen by armed gards!" Bavarde spoke in poor, heavily accented English. "T-there was seembol on eets monitor! Like number huit on its side!"
Bond was getting more and more impatient, "The symbol for infinity? You had better say something useful in the next ten seconds. Who's 'they'?"
The informant turned pale instantly, "I donno who's 'they'! They say they bring world to eet's knees. They will do it using... uh, what was English word? They say they make spi-"
The shot came out of nowhere.
A bullet hole appeared between the man's eyes. His dead weight was thrown onto the agent. The shot had sprayed Bond in Bavarde's warm blood. Automatically, Bond shielded himself with the informant's body and dragged himself outside into the cool, dark night to find cover behind the thin metal wall. He unceremoniously dropped the dead body on the ground and drew his favourite Walther from his jacket. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a red dot moving across the concrete, searching for its next target.
The whole scene was watched live from London. A chorus of typing and mouse clicking echoed throughout the Q- Branch. Q was still at the head of the room standing before the large screen. Nine stood to his left, patiently awaiting instructions. Nine forced herself to watch the terrible scene, successfully turning her initial look of shock and horror on her face into a grimace. Oblivious to Nine's disgust, Q spoke calmly and clearly to his operative, "Bond, you're outnumbered. You need to get out of there now."
Bond crouched down and sprinted towards Bavarde's car, a shoddy little Ford Fiesta he could barely fit into. He had no need to check for traps before opening his door and starting the engine. The CCTV would have told Q if the car had been sabotaged in any way. He speeded out of the yard and headed for the main road leading into the city. Checking his mirrors, he spotted a Black Range Rover tailing him, but he was too far away to see exactly how many people were in the jeep. There were at least two occupying the front seats.
Meanwhile, the Q- Branch were trying to find Bond a quick way out of Paris using footage Eric pulled from the city's traffic camera's. The roads were blocked up with people returning home for the evening, and traffic was being diverted due to a concert being held somewhere nearby.
"Nine, I need to hack the Paris Traffic Control system." Q began typing into his laptop, not even taking his eyes off Bond's position. At his command, the contents on the monitors of his own laptop and Nine's appeared alongside live footage from Paris for the whole room to see. "Ensure that we go unnoticed for now."
It was clear: Nine certainly knew her way around a computer. She hid Q's hacking quite well. Q noticed this almost immediately and increased the speed of his typing, now knowing full well she could easily keep up with him. Nine let out an undistinguishable sound that was something of a startled squeak, then she began to type faster, trying simultaneously to regenerate the code Q had broken and delete his cyber footprints, hiding his trail.
Typing furiously, Q called out behind him, "Steve, listen to the police scanners. If they're onto Bond, let me know immediately. Roger, if the system tries to retaliate, hold it off. Do not let it anywhere near our firewalls. Eric, keep an eye on those cameras and don't lose Bond. Abby, map the quickest route out of the city. I'll need you to give us directions in a moment." Q lowered his voice as needed when he spoke to the young woman beside him, "Nine, I need you to re- program the traffic lights while I guide Bond out of the city. Gridlock every route in Paris except the one we chose for Bond."
In Paris, Bond was about to get stuck in traffic when he heard Q's voice in his earpiece, "Bond, if you don't follow these directions to the letter, its your funeral. Now, take a left up here." Q hoped that for once, Bond would follow instructions. He did.
So everything was under control. Abby was giving directions, Q was backseat driving while Bond swore vehemently at Q to shut up and Nine typed frantically while Eric told her which set of traffic lights to re- program. Sure enough, 007 was quickly making his way through Paris with ease. Then the sound of gunshots rang through the room. The last thing Q saw, was Bond jamming on the brakes.
Then the Q- Branch went blind.
Video, audio, everything gone in the blink of an eye. Nine knew immediately, that something wasn't right. This was not normal. This was not a part of the plan. Screens which previously held live camera footage were blank, and all that could be heard was a monotonous fizzing sound from the microphones. This silence lasted for a few seconds before Q began barking more orders at the team. Nine, of course, was unable to do anything to help without anything to programme. Inputting code onto a computer was certainly of no use to anyone at that moment.
For the first time since she'd met him, Q's usual calm and collected façade crumbled. Now he just looked... worried. Panicked. Surprisingly, like a normal human being with fears and worries of his own, a side of him which he usually hid from the rest of the office. They were all terrified, and rightly so, had Bond not been wearing a seat belt, the laws of physics and gravity would have ensured his fatal flight through the windscreen of the little car. Not to mention that with no help from Q and his team, Bond was at a severe disadvantage. Q looked how Nine felt: incompetent. Nobody could do anything about 007 now, so all they could do was sit in front of their computers wait in a terrible, heavy silence.
"...Q?"
"Bond?!"
Q had clutched both hands around the edges of his desk, his knuckles turning white with the amount of force he used. He desperately looked for any signs of life on the large monitor. One by one, the computer screens around the room blinked to life once again. The whole team seemed to release a breath they didn't realise they'd been holding. But Bond wasn't on any of the footage.
"I'm tracking you now. You're on the other side of Paris! What happened?"
"I honestly don't know."
The agent described what had occurred since MI6 had lost contact with him. According to Bond, everything had simply stopped working. Cars, lights, anything electrical simply shorted out. The whole city suffered a blackout. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the Walther's palm recognition ran off electricity, Bond's custom made gun would not operate. With no weapon or transportation, Bond had been chased across Paris by goons whose guns most certainly did work. Bond told of how he lost them several minutes ago and that he was now leaving Paris on a motorbike he had stolen just as the power had come back on.
The normal cool, calm and collected Q was back now. He shook his head and sighed, just glad that Bond was out of trouble for the time being, "Turn right onto the A1. It should take you to Calais and you can catch a ferry back to England. I want a full report once you return. Turn on your comms again if you run into trouble."
"Will do, Q. Also, I found a note from Bavarde stuffed into one of my jacket pockets. The symbol for infinity and the words 'Rio de Janeiro.'"
At least the agent got something from Bavarde. Whether or not it was useful was to be decided. After a final goodbye, Bond was gone. The team relieved at another job done. Puzzled, Q checked his watch and glanced around the room, "That's odd, M isn't here yet. I thought we'd be in a load of trouble over hacking the traffic lights..." He decided to get the dreaded telling- off from M over and done with now before tackling the problem that was the strange blackout that interrupted their mission.
Nine was typing a final few lines of code into her laptop, not looking up as she spoke, "Oh, the French don't know it was us." At the stunned silence, she turned slowly to meet the attentions of the other occupants of the room. Q met her eyes, seeming to ask for some sort of explanation.
"...What? Q said 'unnoticed'!" Nine's shy gaze dropped to a familiar place: the floor. Adjusting her glasses out of habit again, she found herself wishing that the spotlight would somehow shift to anyone else but her, "...T- the French just think that everyone is stuck in traffic because of that big charity concert a few streets away and wouldn't have noticed Bond in all that chaos and the blackout. Their data logs have been altered to show no manual intervention in the system. Now that power is restored, they'll find their traffic lights are working perfectly."
She waited nervously for someone to speak. "I couldn't be in trouble, right? Is this really a big deal? I only did what I was told. Maybe I did go a little overboard..."
"Amazing!"
It was Roger who spoke, "In all my years here in the Q- Branch, we were never capable of hiding ourselves so simply and effectively. That was some quick thinking on your part!" The other techies, even Q and Abby, couldn't argue with that.
Nine was turning an increasingly bright shade of pink, "I-it wasn't that amazing, to be honest. Really, just a few extra lines of code! Nothing special." She was stuttering again.
Eric was smiling like a Cheshire Cat, "You just saved us from an hour long angry lecture from M and some idiot French Ambassador!"
The others, except Abby and Q who remained silent, voiced their thanks and such. Any more flattery or attention, and Nine would have died of embarrassment right there. She picked up a mug of fresh tea, attempting to hide behind it. The young intern had been and gone on his regular tea and coffee run and she had failed to notice. When she was working, she rarely paid attention to her surroundings. She took a sip from the mug and grimaced.
"Ugh!"
Q had also decided to drink his tea, the famous Scrabble mug in his hand. He also had a look of disgust on his face, "This is terrible!"
Nine agreed wholeheartedly, "Absolutely repulsive!"
"How much sugar can you possibly take!?"
"This is so... so bitter!" Nine said, and almost added, "like you" to the end of that statement, but managed to hold her tongue.
The two walked the exit at the other end of the office, heading towards the break room next door. They acknowledged George the janitor mopping the floor as they passed.
Q scowled, "At least it's not green tea."
"I wouldn't be caught dead drinking such a vile concoction!" Nine said irritably, "At least Earl Grey is actually drinkable!"
That was the end of a somewhat civil conversation. The usual awkward silence manifested between them again. The only thing uttered after that was a quiet request for Q to get the sugar, which was once again on the very top shelf in the cupboard, which Nine couldn't reach. She suspected that someone kept putting it up there on purpose. Nine added a small spoon of the sweet substance to her blue, striped mug before leaving the room as quickly as she could. Q, with his arms folded, watched her leave, leaning casually against the counter while waiting for the kettle to boil.