"I remember you well
at the Chelsea Hotel.
You were famous,
your heart was a legend."
– Leonard Cohen, Chelsea Hotel no. 2
City of Romance and Revolution
Dinner is served in the small but extravagant hotel restaurant, where chandeliers hang from the painted ceiling. The entire hotel has been reserved for the conference, so the room is full of businessmen in crisp suits. Almost each and every one of them has a beautiful woman standing next to them. Q looks around for any other male PA's or secretaries. He counts to five, but two of them have female bosses and a third winks at him. The other two seem to be accompanying married couples. Q wonders if business is always such a meat-market in these circles, or if it's just when they're away at a place like this. He hopes it's the latter – that's bad enough.
With a palm on Q's lower back, Bond steers him towards the table where Jeunet and Chabrier sit.
"Are these seats taken?" Bond asks, smooth as finely aged whiskey, and just like that they are introducing themselves to their marks.
Q is "Quentin" again for the weekend (which certainly wasn't his idea, and he has a sneaking suspicion that Bond has bribed someone, or just flirted his way past the regulations, neither would be much of a surprise, really) and he has gained the less conspicuous surname of Samuels.
He smiles, nods, and lets Bond do most of the talking. He listens for any mention of what technological equipment Jeunet has brought with him, and watches the man to see if he seems to be carrying any on his person; much like he expects Bond is trying to gauge if, or rather where and what, Jeunet's gorilla-like bodyguard is carrying weapons. Still, Q can't help thinking that he isn't doing anything he couldn't have done from his keyboard in Vauxhall – where he would have the added comfort of not having to wonder if the people with guns in the room outnumbered the people without. He doesn't belong here, he feels sure he must stick out like a sore thumb. He has no experience talking to the kind of people who are sat around this table, and he has no real experience of fieldwork. Thankfully, it suits his cover to stay withdrawn and quiet and hide behind Bond's charming, outgoing persona, but it's frustrating all the same. As the evening wears on, he catches himself tapping his fingers against the table, longing for the feeling and sound of keys.
00Q00Q00Q00
Night has already fallen when Q watches across the room as Bond approaches Marie Chabrier at the bar. The smile he gives her is enough to dazzle half the room, and Q hopes Bond has made sure that Jeunet is not around. But of course, Jeunet is nowhere to be seen. After all, this is James Bond, having drinks with a beautiful woman – he knows what he's doing. Q sips his watered-down wine and watches the game play out. If anyone catches him looking, it can always be explained away as jealousy. In a way, it is: the jealousy of a misplaced man watching someone who is so clearly in their element.
When they retire to their rooms, all that has been established is that Jeunet carries both a tablet and a smartphone on his person, and although he rarely looked at it, Q could tell that he was fingering the phone in his pocket every now and then all evening. But was that a sign that he expected a phonecall (from, say, presumptive buyers) or just the ordinary phone-withdrawal of every other twentyfirst-century-person? It's too soon to tell. Q also suspects that Jeunet has at least one laptop in his suite. Alas, that too has to remain a guess: Q has tried to sneak in but the doors were locked, and while he knows how to fool an ordinary hotel card-lock, this one had clearly been improved by Jeunet and Q needs a bit more time to figure out how. Q is not sure if Bond has already attempted to charm his way into the room, but if so, he has met no more success than Q on that front.
00Q00Q00Q00
Bond disappears into his room with a quick "Good night, Q" as soon as they have shared their results and observations, but Q is still awake in the small hours of the night. He sits bolt upright in his bed, tapping away at his laptop.
Lost in his work, he reaches blindly for the glass of water he's put on the bedside table, but manages to knock over the lamp instead. It falls to the floor, pulling the cord out of its socket as it tumbles, plunging the room into darkness but for the blue sheen from the computer screen. Q curses and reaches down to fix it, praying the bulb hasn't been broken.
He puts the lamp back on the table and switches it on, only to nearly knock it over again in shock when he sees Bond standing by the foot of his bed, wearing nothing but pants and aiming a gun at him.
"Q," Bond says and lowers the gun, allowing Q's pulse to settle down a little.
"007. What the bloody hell?"
Bond smiles a bit at his coarseness.
"I heard someone knocking the furniture over and thought you were being attacked. What are you doing? Do you know what time it is? Shouldn't you be sleeping?"
"I didn't think I'd live long enough to hear James Bond sounding like a concerned parent! I didn't know you had it in you. Then again, the gun counteracts that impression, so you're not hopelessly lost yet."
Bond doesn't seem to appreciate the humour, but then neither would Q if he'd been woken up at this time of night.
"You said there was nothing more you could do tonight, so you're not working," Bond points out.
"I am, just not on this case. Look, there are no intruders here, so you can go back to your bed."
Because your naked chest is distracting, Q thinks but doesn't say.
"You can't sleep, can you?"
There's a softer tone to Bond's voice now, and Q has to look down at the laptop when the agent takes a step closer.
"No," he admits. "I can't. Because even though I'm in no apparent danger and I'm not doing anything remotely useful here, I still have enough adrenaline in my system to keep a small elephant up all night. I don't know how you handle it."
Bond smiles.
"I think you know exactly how I handle it, or you're not as smart as you pretend to be."
"No comments," Q mutters.
"You have to sleep, Q. Take a pill, meditate, do what you like to take the edge off, but you won't be much use to anyone if you stay up all night, you know that."
"I think I know my limits better than you, 007."
"If you say so, Quartermaster."
00Q00Q00Q00
When Bond has left, Q sighs and puts away the laptop. Bond is right, he really ought to find a way to take the edge off and go to sleep.
In other circumstances, he would feel ashamed of what he does next, but right now he is too tired to. He turns the lights off and thinks of how it felt to stand pressed against Bond's body at the shooting range; the tingle that went down his spine at the proximity, the warmth of the body behind him. He thinks of how that body looked just a moment ago: the way the shadows in the dark room added definition to the muscles on that sculpted torso, the way those blue eyes shone in the blue light from Q's computer. Q brings himself off to thoughts of one of the agents under his watch, and he should be ashamed, he should feel guilty, but he can't be bothered to care. And besides, it works – he's asleep within minutes.
00Q00Q00Q00
The following day brings more of the same – sitting around, watching, listening, and studying Bond's technique as he gets close to both Jeunet and Chabrier.
By lunchtime, Bond has managed to convince Jeunet that he's interested in investing in Jeunet's business – the slightly-more-legal-than arms-dealing one, that is – and Jeunet has dragged him away into a private room to discuss plans. Q can hear the conversation through his earpiece, which during this slow part of the mission has been set to only transmit between him and Bond, not to or from HQ. Bond gets Jeunet to start talking tech by complaining about the tablet he uses, saying that he's begun to wish he had stuck to his laptop, and asking for Jeunet's advice. Q sits on a sofa in the hotel lounge pretending to watch BBC News on his tablet and gets the full list of what technology Jeunet uses and what he's brought with him. He crosses his fingers and hopes Jeunet will offer Bond to have a look at the things, but he's not surprised to be disappointed. Q wouldn't let anyone get their hands on his own tech, and he doubts Jeunet feels differently.
Q roams through all the wifi-networks he can find to see if he can locate any of Jeunet's devices, when the Frenchman changes the subject.
"So," he says, "what do you think about my Marie?"
Q freezes, remembering M's warning. The conversation next door suddenly has his full attention.
"She seems like a remarkable assistant."
Q is almost surprised to hear Bond's voice so warm, yet entirely devoid of innuendo when speaking of a woman. It's not something you hear every day. It's the way he used to sound when he spoke of the late M, Q recalls – even when he cursed her. These days, he doesn't speak of her at all.
Jeunet is still suspicious, though.
"And a remarkable woman?" he asks.
"I'm sure."
There's a creak of leather, and Q imagines Jeunet leaning forward, or perhaps even getting up from his chair.
"I saw you talking to her yesterday. You looked ... quite intimate."
"We did?" Bond sounds surprised.
"She was flirting with you."
"We only talked about work. She began talking about you, that's when she lit up."
"Do you really expect me to believe that, Mr McEwan? A beautiful woman like that smiles and flirts with you, and you do not respond in turn? Not even the British are so cold."
Q can practically feel Jeunet slipping out of their grasp. Well, he'll be damned if he'll let the mission go to hell in a hand basket while he sits and twiddles his thumbs. He picks up his tablet and looks at it as if he just got a message – it's a simple trick, but effective every time – and walks up to the door, knocks and pokes his head through the door.
"Sir? I'm terribly sorry to interrupt, but there's an urgent message for you."
Bond looks at Jeunet, who makes a gesture that seems to mean 'whatever'. Q walks up to Bond's side, and stands just a few inches too close. It's a fine line he's treading, trying to be obvious without being obvious. He hands Bond the tablet where it now says: "pretend like you are reading an important business deal", and lets their fingers touch as he does. Bond looks up at him, and the corner of his mouth twitches slightly, as if he is holding back a smile. Q can't help but think that Bond is a master at this. Bond pretends to study the tablet for a while. Q pretends to study Bond, then glances briefly at Jeunet as if he just remembered that they're not alone, and looks down in a carefully faked gesture of hidden embarrassment.
"Tell Hammond he's crazy if he thinks I'll agree to this," Bond says and hands back the tablet. "If these are the terms he wants, he'll have to pay at least £ 50 000 more."
Their fingers meet again, and Q says, with a studied chill in his voice as if he's trying to hide the double entendre:
"Is there anything else you want me to do, sir?"
Their eyes meet, and the twitch of Bond's lips returns, more telling this time.
"Maybe later."
Compared to the husky tones Q knows Bond is capable of (he has a brief moment to think that his job is insane, that he would naturally learn things like that about his colleagues) his tone now is practically innocent. It's still enough to send shivers down Q's spine right down to his groin, pretend or not. He takes the tablet, croaks out a "Very well, sir," that doesn't sound as strained as he expects it to, and leaves the room with heated cheeks.
Q walks calmly out of the room, but his heart is in his throat, pumping adrenaline through his body. In his ear, he hears how Jeunet changes the subject, without mentioning either Q or Chabrier. Q isn't sure that they have convinced the man entirely, but he seems to be off the war-path at least, and relief floods Q's mind.
He goes back to working on the lock to Jeunet's room, paying only limited attention to the rest of Bond and Jeunet's conversation.
00Q00Q00Q00
Q is getting his coffee – he'd have tea, but the liquid they call tea here is atrocious – when Bond walks up behind, puts one hand on Q's waist and whispers in his ear:
"You know exactly what you're doing, don't you?"
Q shivers, and quickly pushes away the memory of his activities the night before.
"Always, Mr McEwan," he says and sips his coffee. "Always."
00Q00Q00Q00
He can't access Jeunet's devices. During a lecture of some sort after lunch, Q makes another attempt at unlocking Jeunet's door. He stands there for half an hour, trying to hack his way past an increasingly impressive piece of code, before he hears people coming up the stairs and has to abort and escape to his own room. It's Friday, the day is passing fast, and by Saturday night it might be too late to stop the trade. Q wonders what the weapons will be used for. He wonders if there are bombs in Jeunet's arsenal.
Q slams his hand into the wall with a scream of frustration. He leans his forehead against the wall and takes a couple of deep breaths. He has to get away for a moment; he has to think about something else, anything but that. To the earpiece, he says – feeling a bit guilty for having screamed into Bond's ear without warning – "I'm going out for a while," and then he leaves the hotel.
00Q00Q00Q00
Bond finds him. He should probably have expected that.
Q stands by the riverside, leaning on a railing. The sky is gray and droplets of water fall from the clouds at random intervals. Q finds the feeling of cold rain and chilly breeze against his face soothing. Bond walks up beside him and doesn't say anything for the longest time.
"Fieldwork isn't for everyone," Q says when the silence is beginning to get uncomfortable. "Eve says you told her that. I never actually needed to be told."
He doesn't turn around to look at Bond, but from the corner of his eye he can see that the man is smiling, a smile that doesn't reach his eyes.
"Don't worry Q, we'll have you back in your little cage in Vauxhall soon enough. You'll be reunited with your computers and your cardigans before you know it."
Q scoffs.
"It might feel like a cage to you, 007, but to me it's the place where I can see from five angles instead of one, gather information about anything I see in a matter of seconds, and actually affect events taking place and change the outcome of a mission. This ... this is the cage."
"You're changing the outcome of this mission, Q," Bond says. Q could swear that he actually means it.
"I'm winging it. When I improvise in Q-branch it's because I know what I'm doing well enough that I'm capable of adapting. Here it's all just guesswork."
"I thought you said you always know what you're doing."
At that, Q can't help but to turn around and glare at Bond. Bond seems to get the hint.
"Well, you're doing it brilliantly," he says in an almost apologetic tone.
"I don't do guesswork, 007," Q replies, and even he can hear the contempt dripping from his voice as he speaks. "I can't abide with it. I don't 'take a step back and see how things go'. If I fail in this operation, those weapons will make it into the wrong hands and they will be used to kill hundreds, perhaps thousands of people, and it will be my fault."
"No, it won't."
"Don't patronise me, Bond," he spits out and looks down into the river.
"I'm not. I'm reminding you that this entire operation does not come down to your performance. You might be a genius, but I've been doing this since before there was a World Wide Web for you to play with."
"You haven't been a double-oh for that long," Q says, but also notes that Bond differentiates between the internet and the web, indicating that Q has underestimated him again.
"Not all field agents are double-ohs," Bond replies, "and it's not your fault."
Q can tell that Bond is studying him, and it makes the hairs on his neck stand on end.
"I read your file," Bond says, and Q's stomach drops.
"Did you, now? I wasn't aware you had the security clearance for that."
"I don't."
"So when did you become a world class hacker? Or am I to assume that you looked at it from M's computer?"
That's it, he thinks. Focus on the practicalities. Don't think about the implications.
"I did," Bond admits.
"I'm sure he'll be interested in hearing that."
"I don't think you'll tell him."
"I won't?"
"She had things wiped from that file, didn't she?" is Bond's only reply. He's not smiling anymore.
Q feels that cold, familiar hand of dread and guilt – soul-crushing guilt – close around his heart. He can't even answer to point out that they've all had things wiped from their various files and records at one point or another.
"MI5 didn't recruit you," Bond continues when it's clear that he won't get an answer. "We might joke about them, but they're not so full of themselves that they would turn down that chance. Unless it was personal. Unless you didn't just break into their system."
He pauses again, as if he wants Q to chime in, to tell him the story in his own words.
"Don't," Q says. It comes out a whimper. He's not sure Bond even hears it.
"My first guess has to be that you sold their information. But M wouldn't have hired someone who had sold information of national importance. Not unless she had a guarantee that you'd never do it again. Something stronger than the promise of a flat and a good salary. Something stronger than gratitude. Something like guilt. The guilt of someone who hacked into MI5 in June 2005 and joined MI6 in early September."
It's getting harder to breathe. Q hopes he won't begin to cry. He looks down into the dark gray waters of the Seine and considers how little he would need to lean forward to fall in, fall in and sink below the surface, never to return.
"I didn't sell information," he says. This much, at least, is both true and in his favour. "I destroyed it. I was... I was contacted by some people in an anarchist movement, nothing terrorist related. They offered me a fair amount of money to have certain things wiped out of MI5's records of ongoing investigations. It fitted my political inclinations at the time. In order to make the data loss less easy to place, or trace, I went into other similar records, corrupting information, wiping entire files. Including, as one MI5 operative made sure to tell me, the ongoing investigation of a London terrorist cell."
Q reminds himself to breathe, deep, regular breaths. Stiff upper lip. He can do this.
"There was no such investigation," Bond protests.
"Well, they would say that, wouldn't they? Can't let the nation know that one little hacker can compromise national security. I doubt they would have told me the extent of damage I caused, but there was a lot of anger going around, and I think the man who told me probably ignored orders just to see me squirm. To put the blame on someone who was still alive, someone he could kick and spit in the face."
Q can see in Bond's face that he wants to know if Q means that literally or figuratively, but for whatever reason, the man doesn't ask.
"How did they find you so quickly?" he asks instead. "I can't imagine you left much of a trail, even eight years ago."
Q has to let out a laugh, even if it sounds more like a death-rattle escaping his lungs.
"Ironically enough, all the heightened security around the country led to my contact with the anarchists getting arrested by the local police for something quite unrelated, and apparently he sold me out the moment they brought him in. He hoped it was going to help him get away easier. It didn't. No one wanted to acknowledge that it had happened, that I even existed. So instead of having me arrested for what I'd done, enough drugs were planted in my flat that I was going to go away for a very long time. I didn't protest. It felt like the least I deserved. When M turned up, I refused the offer at first. But she wouldn't let me. She told me that as stupid as I had been, letting myself be locked up in a cell because of some misjudged idea about penance would be even more stupid. She told me that she had decades of experience in counter intelligence, and that it was highly doubtful that MI5 would have had enough information to prevent the attacks either way. It wasn't the sort of operation that leaves much of a trail; homemade bombs and homemade terrorists. She said: 'What kind of redemption do you expect to find in a prison cell? Now that you've seen what kind of damage you can do, wouldn't it be better to help us stop anyone who tries to do the same? There are people out there who work for scarier people than a bunch of Yorkshire anarchists, you know.'"
Bond stands silent beside him. This is the forbidden subject: talking about M. Bond's M. Q's M.
"She saved me," he adds. He doesn't know why he's telling Bond any of this, why he didn't just tell Bond to go to hell and keep his nose out of Q's business, but he's started telling the story now and he might as well finish it. "I was ... "
I was going to kill myself. I already had it all planned out when she turned up.
"My father was going to visit me later that day. I was going to tell him what had happened. What I had done. So that he would understand."
So that he wouldn't think it had anything to do with him, or that there was anything he could have done.
"Instead I told him that the police had made a mistake, which was what he had believed all along anyway, and that I was going to be set free and compensated. All because she looked at me with those steely eyes and told me that it wasn't my fault like she was giving me an order."
He takes a shaky breath. He focuses on the feeling of cold air against his skin, trying to keep himself in the present instead of being flooded by the emotions of the past. He's never told anyone this much – not even M herself. Too late now.
"She saved me. And I didn't manage to save her."