Shortly before Charles' diagnosis

006 wandered through the British Museum aimlessly looking at its offerings. Sicily: Culture and Conquest. Such things rarely engaged the mind of the agent but seeing the roots of culture and contemplating the blossoming to our current incarnation made him somewhat intrigued. Were it not for such leaps, where would we be now? Still crawling around in the literal mud, he thought to himself. Though how much different that might be from crawling around in the figurative mud and swimming in the dark, murky waters of espionage was up for debate…

He felt the presence of a body slip in beside him to look at the ancient text contained within the glass case.

"Fascinating how far we have come."

"And yet how far we have still to go," replied 006. He didn't look at the man as he spoke. "You have something for us?"

"Not something, so much as someone," he said, slipping his hands into his coat pockets. "Word on my grapevine is MI6 will soon be seeking a new Quartermaster."

006 looked at him then. "How could you possibly know anything of the inner operations of MI6, Mr Sebastian?"

"My sources are sound so please don't bother denying the fact." He removed the hand closest to the agent from his pocket and handed him a flash drive. "In three months, the person on this flash drive will go on the run. He will evade you, the authorities, anyone who would seek to find him for 10 days," he murmured, maintaining his forward gaze. "In that time, MI6 will discover they have found their new Quartermaster."

He turned away then, looking back just briefly. "Like the Sicilians in their moment of enlightenment, your organisation might find a blossoming of their efforts under his hand. They would be wise not to miss such a golden opportunity."

006 pocketed the flash drive and turned in the opposite direction. M would either be really pleased or really pissed off, he thought to himself, there was rarely an in-between with the woman.

Until the moment Charles had revealed to him his original, true purpose - to recruit him to the organisation for whom he worked - Arthur had considered himself nothing more than ordinary. And he had gone to great pains to ensure that was the veneer with which people were presented. At first. Certainly, a gifted coder and hacker but with stealthy employ of those gifts he had managed to stay off the radar as anything other than just a regular geek with a love of coding and engineering. Falling in love with Charles, however, had been the undoing of him. He had dropped his guard and allowed the genius within express himself to this dashing man he was so keen to impress. That man whom he was so keen to impress, turned out to be a key legal counsel of the SPECTRE organisation, singled out as Arthur's type with the intent to befriend and recruit him for his talents in his area of expertise. Little did they realise however, until the relationship evolved and love had blindsided Charles Sebastian in the process, exactly how incredible was the prize upon which they had trained their eyes.

Loyalty was not to be tested in SPECTRE. Once you committed, you were theirs, body, heart and soul. So when Charles Sebastian gave his body, heart and soul to Arthur Clifton, betraying his employer in the process, there was little to be done but to remove him from the equation.

Charles Sebastian, however, was his own force with which to be reckoned. And while he could not save himself, he could at least save the man he loved.

In between Arthur Clifton and Q, between his simultaneous betrayal and salvation by Charles Sebastian, there was the ghost in the machine. A man who switched identities from day-to-day evading the good, the bad and the ugly who would make him their own.

Charles had told him to run. So Arthur had run.

And for ten days, he had run rings around those desperate to snare him first. Until finally, as per Charles' instructions, he had allowed himself to be found.

He had, in possibly the boldest move of his relatively short life, sent a message directly to the computer screen of the Head of MI6.

M was sitting at her desk reading the latest reports from 007 on his most recent mission in Bolivia when the message window popped up on her screen.

I'm ready. Are you?

M looked at the screen with the degree of incredulity she frequently bestowed upon 007 when he returned to River House after causing some small scale destruction for which she would be forced to apologise. Of course she knew who it was. The cocky little bastard had been running rings around them for over a week, hacking their server, rewriting code and basically demonstrating that Q Branch was about as far from perfect as one could get. At least under the scrutiny and subjected to the skills of this nemesis. Despite it all, he hadn't done any damage. Merely demonstrated the weaknesses in their system. M's curiosity was rarely piqued. It was now.

She leaned forward and typed a reply.

….…

Bravo. Trying to impress me?

….

You're already impressed.

Points for confidence, thought M to herself. Let's hope it's not misplaced. She typed again.

….

Can we meet?

….…

Trafalgar Square, 3pm today.

**Uplink Offline**

Not quite long enough to trace the source. Clever, thought M. She stood and headed for her door. Slipping on her coat as she passed Villiers desk, she said sharply, "have 006 meet me at my car in 10 minutes."

"Yes, Ma'am," he replied crisply, picking up his phone.

She stepped into the lift. Hardly the most orthodox of interviews for the Quartermaster's replacement but even she had to grudgingly admit to herself the man had some talent…