The Spy Who Kinda Liked Me

By Fool's Gold

Chap. 3: For Your Eyes Only

Disclaimer: I own stuff, but it isn't in this fic, and it doesn't include any part of the James Bond or FMP universes. So don't sue me.

The Crow Bar, 8 Oct, 2000h

"Bartender, I'll have a Martini… shaken, not stirred." Kaname was dead-set in her resolve to get well and truly sloshed for purposes of anaesthesia.

"Ah. And the gentleman?"

"Grapefruit juice."

The bartender's face twitched into the closest approximation of a scowl that was allowed in this line of business, as though Sousuke had just told him to do something anatomically impossible and morally indefensible. "Grapefruit juice?"

"Grapefruit juice," he insisted. "I do not drink… wine."

Heathen.

Drinks were served, albeit with reluctance, and Kaname stared glumly at her glass. "Of all the bodyguards in the world they could've hired for the job… it had to be you."

"True." Sousuke, as always, completely missed the underlying message. "I was the only one left to take on this task. But they did not tell me that you were the principal. In fact, I did not even know that you worked for the United Nations."

"If you'd stuck around after Graduation Day, you'd have known that I've been working at the UNU as a researcher since January," she muttered sardonically, knocking the cocktail back in one swift gulp before sinking down onto the tabletop on folded arms. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"It has."

"I mean, seriously… You walked out of school right after Graduation Day, without a word to anyone, and that was it – we never saw you again. No phone number, no address, no e-mail, nothing. Five years, and nobody's seen hide or hair of you since then… and now, out of the blue, you pop up just like that." She snapped her fingers for emphasis, wondering if that solitary drink had really gone to her head: not only was she beginning to ramble drunkenly, but her voice almost sounded as bitter as the gin in the cocktail. "Honestly, what were you thinking?"

"About this stalking incident…" Sousuke replied, and received an elbow to the gut for his pains. Clearly, Kaname was a mean drunk – but then again, she was like that even when sober. "That hurt."

"Yeah, but at least I feel a bit better now," she muttered viciously, having been dragged prematurely into clear-headedness. You idiot, you never did understand… "Don't you think of anything other than work, Sagara Sousuke? And for that matter, how in the world did you get a job with the UN?"

"I work with the Peacekeepers," he said, not exactly lying.

"Figures. That's probably the best line of work for a gunbunny like you," Kaname groaned. "Anyway, this isn't the right place to discuss these matters, so we'll have to do this some other–"

"I must go with you."

"…Why did I get a feeling you'd say that?" she groaned. "Bartender, one more for the road."

Brilliant. Of all the bars in all the cities in all the world, they walk into mine.

Kaname's flat, 8 Oct, 2030h

Fortunately for them, and for drivers all throughout Tokyo, they decided to walk back to Kaname's flat.

"It's kinda funny, but… now I just want to get this over with as quickly – and painlessly – as is humanly possible. So let's get down to business…"

"Correct. Tell me about the situation."

"Well, it all started a couple of weeks ago… when I felt like I was being watched. I know, you probably think I'm nuts."

He didn't. He knew for a fact that, more often than not, people were actually being watched – after all, he'd done a fair bit of the watching in his time. Still, though, he needed to see some evidence. "And…"

"I thought so too at first. After all, when you've been living alone, you start to get a little paranoid. But then these came in the mail."

She got up off the sofa and walked around to the back of the room, pulling a large envelope from underneath a stack of tomes on nanotechnology. "These confirmed my suspicions." As she tossed the envelope to the coffee table, a couple of photographs spilt onto the table.

Sousuke picked one up. The picture was, actually, innocuous enough: It was a particularly clear shot of Kaname at the door of her apartment, just preparing to leave the house. But the fact that it had been taken at all was cause for concern. Quite obviously, she was being targeted… but by whom? The press would have kept their photographs for their own use, and spy rings even more so.

Sousuke was relieved, in a perverse way. After all, it was quite unlikely that the miscreant was anything more than a simple stalker who delighted in making his victims squirm, and such a person would be much easier to deal with than a fellow spy.

The rest of the photographs were similar: high-quality photos that could only have been taken by an expert at close quarters. Once was okay, but Kaname would surely have noticed if some fool had decided to approach her on a regular basis… and from the same angles every time. It had to be a hidden camera.

"So what did you do?"

"Well…"

According to his training manual, it was natural for victims of stalkers to be reticent about the events. They regarded their inability to do anything as shameful, allowing the cycle of victimisation to continue…

"…I triangulated the position of the camera from the photographs taken, and about two hundred metres from my flat, I found this in a tree."

Very rarely, though, they took matters into their own hands – and in this case, said "matter" was a mangled scrap of metal about the size of a ping-pong ball. "Okay, so I wanted to preserve it, but before I could do anything, the stupid thing just imploded." Kaname scratched her head. "The circuitry was all fried – well, more like vaporised – but it was definitely a camera, and from the looks of it, quite advanced. I couldn't find any others, but I can never be sure… and nobody's found out who did it."

By this point, alarm bells were going off in Sousuke's head. Hidden cameras were normal – self-destructing hidden cameras with super-high image quality were quite a bit rarer. Either this stalker had tons of money to blow, the technological expertise to make these devices, and too much free time on his hands, or…

…something didn't add up.

The Den of Evil formerly known as "Somewhere Else", at that very moment…

"Kurama, about the photographs…"

"Exactly as you ordered, sir. I filed the bedroom and shower ones into your personal folders. The outdoor ones were posted a week ago, but she destroyed that camera."

"No matter," Silver breathed, steepling his hands. "The plan is working perfectly. Now, let's take a look at what going on right now…"

Kaname's flat, 8 Oct, 2035h

"Do you know anyone at all who would have cause to stalk you like this?"

"Well… until you turned up, you were my prime suspect."

"…"

"Okay, so maybe your interests were more towards anything that went 'boom', but you get the point. Aside from that, I have no idea… Sousuke, are you even listening?" she yelled, looking up at her ex-classmate, who was already unpacking his luggage. "And what do you think you're doing?"

Sousuke looked up from his suitcase. "It is too dangerous for you to stay alone. I will keep watch."

"WHAAA!" Kaname almost went into a seizure. "You're not staying over, you pervert!"

He didn't even acknowledge her until he had finished unpacking. "Listen, Chidori."

"Huh?"

Sousuke walked over, placing his hands firmly on her shoulders, and stared her down with a glare that could deflect bullets. "You do not know what you are facing. These… stalkers are dangerous elements with a limitless capacity for violence. They do terrible things to their victims, hunting them down mercilessly and kidnapping them before they use all sorts of torture to accomplish their evil goals. And they will stop at nothing, even bombing this entire block, in order to… er… get revealing photos of you."

Den of Evil, same time, same channel…

"He's on to us, sir."

"I know that. It seems that the man from Mithril will be a bigger thorn in our flesh than we previously expected. We must take action before he does anything serious..." …and before he finds any more of our cameras. Damn, how does he do that?

Kaname's flat, 8 Oct, 2037h

"In short, you are in grave danger." Fortunately for Sousuke, not even Silver could have known that he was just making it up from the A21 dossier as he went along. "This is for your own safety."

Kaname groaned again. She knew Sousuke: it was impossible to get him to give up when he had that look of burning conviction – actually, she preferred the term "delusion" – in his eyes. About the best she could settle for was hoping that he didn't burn the house down in the process. "I give up. You take the couch, and stay out of my room."

"But–"

"No buts, Sousuke, and goodnight." The building was sent rocking on its foundations as she slammed the bedroom door shut.

Sousuke stared blankly at the door for only a brief moment, finally deciding to make an important call on his communicator. He would need some help if he was to deal with the problem decisively.

Kaname's flat, 9 Oct, 0805h

There was trouble in paradise the next morning, as Kaname found to her chagrin.

"…You noticed when she got back from the bar yesterday, didn't you?"

"…Yep."

"…And she brought a guy back with her!"

"…Yep."

"…AND HE SPENT THE NIGHT!"

"…Yep."

"Do those nosy old ladies know that we can hear them loud and clear, and vice versa?" she muttered aloud, absolutely convinced that her reputation had just gone down the crapper.

"…Yep."

Just then, she caught sight of Sousuke making his way out of the garage, grime-stained and red-eyed. He really stayed up all night? Kaname was astounded. Clearly, he was taking this job seriously – which was good, she noted, since the stalker would probably be caught, interrogated, and put through three hundred and sixty degrees of torture before Sousuke would let him leave…

On second thought, it wasn't so good.

"What are your plans?" Sousuke asked.

Kaname pinched her lower lip in thought. "Well, since I've got the day off, I figured I might as well do a little shopping. I suppose you'll have to come along as usual, right?"

"I have to."

They walked towards the garage, and with the initial shock beginning to fade away, she didn't protest as much as she should have; surprisingly, she actually felt a little safer with him around. Besides, nothing had exploded in her face just yet…

It was a respite which turned out to be short-lived. A wrathful, anguished scream issued forth from the garage: Sousuke had included Kaname's car in his sweep, and the results were not pretty. Still, at least he now had an excuse to rent a car.

Weber and Mao's Used Car Dealership, 9 Oct, 0853h

It wasn't too hard to find Weber and Mao's Used Car Dealership, and Sousuke, sporting a few new lumps on his head and a wrathful Kaname dragging him by the ear, located the proprietors. "Sagara Sousuke. I'm looking for a car… Do you have anything cheap for rent?"

"Ah, Mr. Sagara," Melissa Mao, co-owner of the shop, greeted. "You're in luck. This Italian girl just sold us her car recently. It's almost brand-new, specially modified, and guaranteed to drive like a dream. Right this way, please, sir. Yan, please take care of the lady for a while, will you?"

When the garage door had closed behind them, Mao quickly switched to a more informal demeanour. "It's safe to talk here, we just swept for bugs last night. So, how's it going… ooh, and who's the hot chick with you?" (Needless to say, they, unlike Sousuke, had not lost any cars in the process.)

"The principal is my ex-classmate," Sousuke reported, objective as usual, and yet as close to complaining as he would ever get. "Such an assignation is hardly professional, even considering the manpower constraints. Has Headquarters sent an update?"

"Yeah, Tessa sent you something. Isn't that sweet?" She nudged him in the side, winking as they walked over to the lone car in the middle of the garage. "We're calling it the 'Ferrari Testarossa'."

Sousuke gave the white sports coupe a once-over. From what little he knew about cars, it looked decidedly unlike a Ferrari, aside from the fact that both had four wheels and were roughly the same shape. The clincher, though, was the "ARX-7" model number located on a corner of the boot.

"Fine, so it's actually the 'Advanced RX-7', and yes, it's based off a Mazda frame. You don't want to attract too much attention on the streets, do you?"

"True. But what does this have to do with instructions?"

"Beats me, but it's a bloody expensive envelope for the message," Kurz Weber groused, both hands occupied by the hefty cardboard box that he was carrying. "And it drives like a dream."

"I didn't know you were authorised to even touch it." Mao shot him a suspicious glare.

The cardboard box was deposited onto the ground unceremoniously, freeing Kurz's shoulders for him to give the usual shrug. "All in the name of field testing, darlin'. Anyway, Tessa's instructions were to plug your communicator into the lighter socket over there."

"Thanks. By the way, did you get the items I asked for?"

"You owe me one, you punk. This is the last box, and the other two are in the boot," he groused. "Come on, Mao, let's go scam some more folks out of their hard-earned cash."

"Thanks," replied Sousuke, climbing into the car as the two departed. As instructed, he then lengthened the hidden extension cord on the communicator, fitting it into the socket. There was a slight blip as a connection was made, and all of a sudden, the words "Access Code Verified" appeared on one side of the windscreen, followed subsequently by M's perpetually sour visage.

"Ah, Double-Oh-Seven. I take it that our delivery was successful." One would have expected him to actually be happy about it, but if he was, it definitely didn't show.

"Affirmative."

"Good. Now, there's something you need to know." M's stern face softened a little. "By now, you are probably aware that certain vital information was excluded from your mission briefing."

So it was done on purpose, Sousuke realised, his faith in his superiors vindicated. "Yes. I would like to request more information regarding the nature of this assignment."

"We have our reasons, but we are not permitted to reveal them to you at this stage. Suffice to say, you should treat this mission as seriously as you would any other mission…"

"I am, sir."

"…and that includes your cover mission as well. Your objectives have been modified: the woman, Kaname Chidori, must be protected to the best of your abilities."

Sousuke was nonplussed. He hadn't been treating his cover lightly, but an agent had to be prepared to drop his camouflage at a moment's notice. And now he was being called to juggle two duties at once, and there would eventually come a point when he would be called to choose between the two… "Sir, which should be my highest priority?"

"…That will be left to your discretion," came M's cryptic reply, an implicit warning that no further discussion regarding the matter would be entertained. "And speaking of which, K and I have agreed to send you our latest prototype. I'll let Tessa do the explaining."

The screen flickered briefly, and M's face was replaced by that of W Department's head. "I see you've already met our latest toy, Double-Oh-Seven. Be gentle, okay?"

"I will try to do so, but I cannot make any guarantees."

"Ah, well, you can't have it all." She picked up a manual with "RTFM" printed across it in bold red letters and opened it to the front page. "Now, the ARX-7 operates the same way as any other car on the roads, but we've just added a few modifications. Firstly, armour plating. We've reinforced the ARX-7's frame with a titanium-ceramic composite. Practical results show that it can withstand the 30mm depleted uranium rounds from a GAU-8… not that we recommend it, though, it'll ruin the paint job. Also, the ARX-7 can actually be controlled remotely via your communicator. Take a look at the mini-joystick hidden below the display frame. You should be familiar with the direction controls."

He flipped it up, noting the miniscule joystick and the six buttons surrounding it.

"The coloured buttons correspond to those located on the panel next to the driver's seat. The green button on top fires the paired 20mm Vulcans mounted on the front bumper, while the corresponding one below fires the ones in the rear. The blue button activates the ARX-7's Electronic Camouflage System, which I'm sure you've seen in some of our earlier stealth suit prototypes. As for the red buttons at the top and sides, they release the spring-loaded oligomolecular cutters located in the wheel hubs and on the front bumper respectively. And, of course, the yellow button releases nitrous oxide into the carburettor… or at least, it should, but we ran out, so you'll have to make do with rocket fuel." She was on a roll now, and possibly enjoying things just a little too much, judging from the almost maniacal relish on her face.

"Is there a self-destruct device? In the wrong hands…"

"No, M specifically vetoed that option. Anyway, we want this vehicle back in one piece, because it's currently operating with one of our top-secret devices. We call it… the Lambda Chauffeur – hang on." Someone off-screen beckoned her, and she turned aside. "What is it, Nora? Oh, right… Sorry about that, Sousuke. It's the 'Lambda Driver'. I won't go into the details, but simply speaking, we've taken the autopilot AI that runs on many of our aircraft and coupled it to one of our real-time data analysis programmes, and then linked it up to the car's sensors. When activated, the evolving AI will connect to our GPS system, allowing for dynamic adjustment of your drive plan. Then, it gathers input from the surrounding environment and modifies its driving style accordingly, allowing you to focus on other more important issues, like keeping those bad guys off your tail. It's surprisingly autonomous. The best part is that the Lambda Driver will recognise your voice as the primary data source from the environment once you've registered, which means you can actually use verbal commands to direct it. It actually understands some pretty complicated instructions."

At that point, Sousuke himself was having trouble understanding some pretty complicated instructions of his own, but he nodded and let Tessa continue.

"It also has some other functions, but… we're not really sure how they'll work yet." She giggled like a schoolgirl, admitting her bewilderment with a coquettish air. "Still, I'm sure you'll figure it out sooner or later. It isn't really that hard."

"Roger," Sousuke replied, feeling slightly unsafe at the mention of "other functions", but saying nothing more.

Unusually enough, Tessa began peeking over her shoulder, checking for some invisible presence, and the smile on her face gave way to blushing nervousness. In a stammering voice, she began, her confidence slowly fading, "Sousuke, I just wanted to tell you…"

"Yes?"

"…that… I–"

There was another burst of static, and M's face reappeared onscreen. "…and that concludes the update. Any questions?"

"Yes," Sousuke replied, slightly puzzled by the sudden interruption. "How will I get this vehicle past a police checkpoint?"

"…Good question." The image onscreen blinked into oblivion, leaving Sousuke higher and drier than a man on peyote.

Merida Island, 9 Oct, roughly about the same time give or take a couple of hours (stupid time zones)

M closed the connection and leant back into the chair, closing his eyes. He recognised the tone of Sousuke's voice: the sound of a man who didn't know what the hell he was getting into, but went in nevertheless… because he had orders. The perfect soldier, perhaps, but that sort of obedience wasn't exactly a good trait for a spy. Those who worked in the line of espionage could trust no-one, as the tagline for a popular show went, and nobody was above suspicion.

"We've localised the leak," K said as he walked into M's office. "And as we suspected, it's been releasing information about our Uruz team."

"What about the W Project?"

"The evidence is equivocal, but there has been a recent surge in the outflow of information regarding Double-Oh-Seven's duties. There is no evidence to show that they know anything about the project, though." K's eyes narrowed, but his expression remained otherwise unchanged. "We cannot rule Double-Oh-Seven out as yet."

"I know," M answered, his thin face twisting into a grim frown. At length, his eyes opened. "It looks like we've got some serious mole-hunting to do. And for all my dislike of Sagara Sousuke, I seriously hope he's not the one."

Weber and Mao's Used Car Dealership, 9 Oct, 0902h

Sousuke jabbed the button that activated the AI, searching vainly for answers, and the console flickered to life in response. "Register user information: Sagara Sousuke," he commanded, testing out Tessa's claim.

"User identified: Sagara Sousuke, Uruz 007," the system grated mechanically.

It operated as advertised, but Sousuke was still a little peeved. For a mission where all sorts of information had been kept from him, the flagrant use of his secret designation was more than a little irritating. "Alter settings to withhold use of code number," he muttered, disliking the machine already.

"Sorry, I did not know that it was not permitted. I will remember that for future purposes."

Sousuke stared, gaping in astonishment. Tessa had said something about talking to the car, but he hadn't expected it to talk back.

Author's notes: Apologies for the delay, but work, work, and games – I mean, ahem, work – got in the way. Anyway, back to the story. Another of James Bond's hallmarks is his legendary steed, the Aston Martin DB5 (or, if you're more contemporary, some BMW make). And, for Sousuke, nothing less than the ARX-7 would suffice, although it's not quite in the form we're familiar with… I tried to keep it as close as I could, though, which made things a little awkward. But the cutters are there, and the vulcans are there, and Al is definitely there. So don't worry about the boxer shotgun, it'll turn up soon enough.

Ah, Silver. I think anyone who's familiar with TSR or the novels will know who he is. As for him being a perv… Hey, it beats being the typical megalomaniacal villain who's trying to take over the world. Not that he isn't, but if he can get some along the way, he'll take it, and woe betide the secret agent who gets in his way.

And once again, Tessa's schemes are foiled. Will M finally butt out of the way and let true love reign supreme? Will Sousuke ever discover her true feelings? Will Tessa ever get to complete her sentences? (For your information, the answer is NO. So there.)

Feedback, as always, is welcomed. Credit goes to Weltall Elite, who pre-reads for this fic and is thus subject to this torture before the rest of you readers.