A.N. Obviously, I own none of the characters, vehicles, gadgets or locations of this fanfic unless I say otherwise in an A.N. like this one. Kudos to MGM and Ian Fleming for inventing them and bringing them all to life.

Outskirts of Beijing, China

Alec peered up through the rain-distorted windscreen at the large warehouse in front of them. It had taken some navigating to find the right one, as Mao Xiang had apparently chosen, for his unknown purposes, the innermost and most difficult to access. Still, on the front was a faded logo, which had been replaced with a newer sign, in English. It read, "Cybernet Enterprises."

Miranda leaned over from the rear. "An English-only sign on an old, remote Chinese warehouse. Sound odd to you?"

Bond nodded. "Especially as we've been forced to pass most of the other warehouses to get to this one, and even the bigger, newer complex ones had signs in Chinese, or at least English and Chinese. It's definitely suspicious. Shall we investigate, then?"

Alec threw him a sarcastic look. "Actually, I was looking forward to Classic FM's night-time show, but I don't suppose they have it here, so we might as well go in to pass the time." He got out, followed by Miranda, rolling her eyes at him.

Bond led the way to the main door, which was, entirely unsurprisingly, locked. Without any visible sign of an actual lock, the door was probably electrically operated, and from the inside only, too.

Miranda shook her head as she scanned the warehouse walls for potential entry points. "A new electric lock on an old warehouse? Without an outside operating panel, meaning remote entry? This sounds more and more suspicious. There; a skylight on that bit of sloping roof." Bond and Alec nodded at where she was indicating, a dirty skylight which was unlikely to cast much light into the building, judging by its colour, but would serve their purpose fine.

Trying to attract as little attention as possible, Alec grappled up first and kicked the skylight in, sending glass crashing to the distant warehouse floor below. Miranda followed him up, slipping slightly on the wet roof, and then Bond, brushing water from his hair. Alec hooked the grapple wire onto a protruding corrugated-iron roof sheet and jumped down into the gloom, vanishing from view. Bond and Miranda peered down after him until the grapple wire stopped shaking and a clang was heard.

"I'm in!" came Alec's hiss from below. "Chuck the wire down, could you?" Miranda quickly pulled the end of the grapple from its hook and it was slowly reeled towards the skylight and down, out of sight.

Next Bond went down, then Miranda. When she landed, she found that she was on a metal catwalk, but it was impossible to see anything else. Bond was standing nearby, idly playing with his watch laser on a stack of cardboard boxes beside him.

"Ah-ha!" came a muffled cry from some distance to the right, then a switch was loudly thrown, and light flooded the warehouse. Alec emerged from a small office at one end of the catwalk. Bond turned his watch laser off and looked around. They were ten or so feet above the centre of the dirty warehouse floor, and there were several forklift trucks below. Huge stacks of cardboard boxes covered the edges of the floor, but they were all closed. The warehouse was just essentially one big room, with a set of steps leading to the catwalk which crossed the room and went into a small office room on metal stilts.

Bond pointed at the various boxes. "We need to take a look at whatever's in those boxes. I'll take this half, Miranda can take that half, and Alec, you can take the office then come down to help us."

They split up and got to work immediately. No time was spared, and Bond and Miranda simply shoved high piles of boxes to send them tumbling loudly to the floor, and then checked each one. They all contained sheaf after sheaf of papers, with lists of words on them, but Bond found many useless, as most were in Chinese, apart from some others, which were in languages like Russian and, from what little he knew, Korean. However, the odd one was in English, but it was just a list of meaningless names, with a letter ranging from B down to M. Every now and again was the letter A beside a name. Bond was perplexed. What was this; exam results or something? Had they broken into the World School Examination Committee warehouse? He shook his head and carried on.

The same went for Miranda. She searched through boxes and boxes, most of which were French or German. Luckily, she was fluent in both, and recognized some of the endless lists of words to be names. Beside hers were also letters, Bs to Ms with the odd A. She frowned, closed a box, and shoved another stack, as much out of annoyance as need. There was a loud crash, and she ripped open the first box. Another German one.

Alec appeared above, with a big pile of boxes. Seeing the mess the others were making, he gleefully tipped his boxes off the catwalk, to burst open in a flurry of white paper below. Miranda couldn't resist smiling at the sight of Alec acting like a destructive child.

Bond turned to them, wearily. "No use. It's a bunch of names with letters beside them."

Miranda nodded in assent, kicking another stack in frustration. "Same here. No wonder the Amazon is dying; it's all coming here."

Alec descended and joined them. "So, what do we do now?"

Suddenly, as they stood in the centre of the floor, there was a loud bang and the iron warehouse door crumpled like tin-foil amidst an orange glow, which faded quickly. They all dived for cover, and several figures dressed in black entered, framed by one huge, hulking figure at their rear, who picked up the big door and idly tossed it to one side, flattening a set of shelves (holding more boxes) in the process.

Bond picked himself up and drew his Walther PPK. "Told you Jaws was fine."

Miranda and Alec gaped. Meanwhile, the ten or so black-suited figures, who were dressed in black survival suits with balaclavas to hide their faces, spread out to surround the trio of double-0 agents.

Bond was the first to react, and as the figures drew long metal staffs, he shot one through the head instantly.

"Ninjas?" Alec would have laughed had the situation not been more serious. "Oh come on, NINJAS? This is the twenty-first century! Henchman just… don't… dress like ninjas!"

One leapt towards him, and swung his staff at Alec's head. He ducked, and the staff missed, and as the "ninja" turned to hit him again, he brought his gun up and snuffed his life out. "They're not even good ninjas?"

Miranda gulped as one jumped into a forklift truck and raised the spikes to head level. "I wouldn't be so sure, Alec."

Bond dispatched another one, and then jumped into a forklift truck himself. Clumsily plunging through a huge pile of boxes as he wrestled with the controls, he ran down two more, but then hit Jaws himself with a loud crump.

Jaws folded, and literally flew across the room at high velocity. He smashed into a creaking shelving unit, which disintegrated on top of him, burying him under at least a ton of heavy boxes and metal. Bond didn't hesitate, and turned to face the forklift attacking Miranda. She dived nimbly for cover anyway, far faster than the black-suited driver could react, but Bond took no chances, and gunned the throttle, heading directly for the other forklift but jumping out at the last second. He rolled over on the hard floor, and stumbled to his feet to see his truck sweep the other one into the wall without slowing.

Then the mess really began.

The huge explosion and fireball blasted metal shelves in all directions, almost taking out Alec as he wrestled with another "ninja", and further crushing the pile that Jaws was somewhere under. And if the flying paper before had been a snowstorm, this was like a hurricane, blizzard and tornado, in the middle of the North Pole. All at once. Over the white mass filling the air, Miranda shouted to anyone who could hear,

"Alec! DB9! James! The DB9!"

Hoping that the Chinese weren't too familiar with the models of English supercars, and therefore wouldn't know what she meant, she dashed towards where she thought the door was, through the whirling haze. Dispatching one last black-suited figure who stumbled into her path, she hit the far wall and moved along it until she found the space where the door had been. She rushed out into the air, vision clear at last, and dashed to where the Aston Martin was still hidden in a side-alley, untouched. Alec was already getting in. Miranda leapt into the passenger seat and tapped over the weapons systems quickly, just as Bond stumbled out of the chaotic warehouse. More orange flashes lit up the white storm as some "ninjas" hit each other with their staffs in panic, sending sparks flying as metal hit metal. Bond climbed into the rear, as Miranda engaged the missile systems.

"Missile systems activated. Preparing for launch."

As soon as the system was ready, Miranda used thermal imaging to pick out the forklifts inside, aimed for where she hoped the petrol tanks were, and fired one missile at each, five in all. Just to help, she lobbed a few grenades in too, and then Alec decided it was time to go, and slammed on the throttle, the DB9 screeching away from the scene at neck-breaking speed. Behind, there were a succession of ear-blasting bangs, and the warehouse literally exploded, walls and flimsy roof erupting outwards with flames and shrapnel. Smoke billowed from what was left, as a huge fire raged.

Miranda closed down the weapons systems and sat back.

Bond spoke all of their thoughts. "That was our last lead. We have no new ones."

"What do we do now?" Alec asked.

There was silence for a while.

"Perhaps… perhaps it's time we reported back to MI6," Miranda suggested.

The DB9 headed away from another scene of flames and destruction, for the second time in one night, barely sliding on the wet Chinese roads.