Merely weeks after Q implemented his handler system did he get his first assignment from the MI6 brass. Bond, with an injured pride and an injured shoulder from some suicide mission in Istanbul (and the testing after it) needed to go to Shanghai for some important data recovery mission. The message from M said this much in fewer words and was signed with 'details to follow.' He already knew who it was. An upgraded agency messaging system had been his pet project in between pairing and his first handler assignment. It had not taken him long but had so far proven quite useful. He dismissed the message and its subsequent reminders and pulled up a new document on his somewhat modified laptop.
Bond would need a gun. That much was easy-it was standard issue for MI6 field agents. Concealed weapon laws be damned, they protected their country and they needed protection. MI6 floated above the law in this respect. Q knew that the research and development team of his division had recently gotten some surplus stock to play with, and Q fully intended on getting his hands on a few. He had little time before the agent left for China, and he realized that despite his wishes, he wouldn't be able to make major changes to the weapon. Of course, his idea of "major changes" might seem radical to the layman.
He decided on something fairly new that he had a good amount of confidence in. Gone were the days of fingerprint recognition (in Q division anyway), as there were many more parts of a human that were unique enough to be used for one-person identification. Fingers could be cut off and pressed to ID pads manually, and no one had time to heat- and pulse-sensor everything, especially the triggers of guns. What else was used in gripping a gun, besides the fingers? The only other part of a person involved in holding and firing a gun was the palm, which happened to have its own unique print. In MI6 field agents, these prints were often very one-of-a-kind, as the palms of its agents had a tendency to collect interesting scars.
Q decided on his modification then. A gun that could recognize someone's palm print would come in handy, as the weapon would not fire without its owner holding it, therefore protecting the agent in dangerous situations when their weapon was taken from them. "Protect the agent" was one of Q division's unwritten laws, and he thought he had a clever idea before he realized that he wouldn't have time to collect a properly usable print of 007's palm. His latest battle scars might not show up in the possibly out of date prints, and he had no time to get to the agent and test him himself. He searched the vast computer database belonging to Q division and then the much larger MI6 database. Nothing more recent than a few years ago appeared. He was frustrated with the agency's record keeping. Q decided to get off his laptop and see what he could do off of the digital record book.
He did a few good hours of digging through physical records in one of the various sub-basements under the less gun-frequent areas, and turned up with nothing that he deemed useful. Q was then determined to trace the path of the agent himself and see if he could come up with some more recent records of Bond.
He struck gold within an hour, finding the not yet filed (as they had been fudged) records of Bond's latest field service tests. Among the files were complete handprints that Q deemed of appropriate quality to prepare a palm-printed gun. He scanned the prints and not the rest of the records into his personal files and went about magnifying them. He tweaked the quality of the image and ran a few tests to insure that a small laser would scan it properly. Q started to build a small recognition program. He tested it against his own hand, and smiled when his rough program denied him access. He pulled a few Q divisioners from mundane tasks to have them checked (glee was obvious on their faces as the little laser scanned their palm).
"What's this for, Q?" asked a man not too much older than the Quartermaster himself and in possession of a thick Irish brogue. He had been looking at his left hand curiously since he had been zapped.
"Palm-reading weapon. I'm planning to take some of those Walthers off of your hands." He smiled and absentmindedly pushed up his glasses. "It's working so far. You're obviously not James Bond."
"Only in my dreams," he replied, nudging Q in a friendly manner. "I'd get the ladies then, I bet."
He laughed along with the other agent and beckoned up the next Q operative milling about, a no-nonsense looking woman in her late thirties or early forties who seemed very interested in his idea. "Do you think it's plausible?" she asked, eyes skimming over his little assembly.
"If I can get it right, it'll work." He smiled a bit and scanned her palm, satisfied with his work as it denied her as well. The brown-haired Quartermaster was confident in his ability to physically manifest most of his ideas- technology-related ideas, anyway.
He put some real effort into the idea, miniaturizing everything again and again before he was satisfied with a fingernail-size chip and a tiny camera. It was only then could he acquire a new Walther handgun to take apart. Within the hour, the weapon laid in pieces across the desk of the Quartermaster. He was most interested in the grip and trigger, but if there was a good reason not to take it apart he hadn't found it yet. He had picked up and looked at the grip of the gun a good number of times already, and each time found no reason why it could not have some sort of tough, clear plastic in it. He knew of a few plastics that would be strong and impact-resistant (what happened to 007's weapons, the world may never know), both enough to satisfy a reckless field agent. He knew that a few of the operatives on one of Q division's lower floors had built a very useful 3-D printer a while ago and he figured he could pull rank to play with it and possibly print the gun grip at the same time.
The next morning, as the sun had long ago set by the time Q was out that past day, he headed down a few floors with a box full of select gun pieces. With him he also carried his chip and camera, and his tablet for note taking. After some playful banter with the mechanically gifted Q operatives, they agreed to help him with the gun parts and started doing some serious measurement with a nifty little laser. They reassured him that they could take care of it and told him to bugger off and do something important instead of drooling over their devices (metaphorically speaking of course).
Q followed their advice and went back up to his office to find another message from M waiting. This one was the promised details to follow, and outlined Bond's plan of attack and location, which was going to be all over the place. M had included that she wanted to keep track of Bond in this particular mission, and that she knew Q could come up with something. Well, not in those exact, encouraging terms, but she got the point across. He set about obtaining a little GPS chip from the supply downstairs, and started work on a tiny transmitter. He never would have guessed that his work at MI6 was all going to be so…small. Q settled into a rhythm easily and got to work. He lost track of time working on the miniscule metal device and was surprised when a knock on his door roused him from his trance.
"Your gun part's ready. Going to come down and have a look?" the young man was leaning against the doorframe with pride tugging against the corners of his mouth.
"Of course," he said, standing and carefully setting down his tools. The transmitter was almost finished, anyway.
The gun part was exactly what Q had envisioned, and he was happy with the end result, immediately taking it to implement his design. The tough plastic held up to a battery of tests and scrutiny and went through it all again before the wavy-haired Quartermaster decided that it was good enough to be used in a handgun for a Double 0 in a dangerous situation. He took it apart to put in the chip and camera, which were now connected with some tiny wiring that had taken him the better part of a day to perfect. There was one new part to the assembly as well, a small latch inside the casing he had been working with which would lock the trigger and prevent firing of the gun if the chip it was hooked up to did not recognize the palm wrapped around the handgun's grip. He then reassembled the Walther sans the factory-issued handgrip, putting in his design instead. It fit perfectly and stood up to the same strength tests conducted before assembly. He raised the gun, put his index finger on the trigger, aimed it at his door around eye height, and started to squeeze.
The first thing M saw when she opened the door to the office of the new Quartermaster was the barrel of a handgun aimed at her head. She had very little time to react before the young new hire dropped his hand, looking horrified. M realized that she could have been dead if it had been an enemy behind the door and made a mental note to work on her reaction time, knowing that she as a higher level operative was subject to exactly the same (in her mind) regulations that her field agents were. The Quartermaster set the gun on the desk, looking at the woman who had hired him with cool indifference. M decided that he had adjusted to MI6 quickly, and much better than she had originally expected. She knew it had been the right choice to hire him.
"Our firing ranges are downstairs, Quartermaster. I'm sure that you know that," she stated evenly, keeping her gaze evened at the lanky man.
"I had no intention of firing," he returned in the same smooth tone. "It's a handgun for 007. I was merely judging its weight after adjustments." The lie was plausible and came out almost without thought. Q was getting more and more adjusted to life at MI6, and he had picked up the trick of falsehoods early and easily.
"What adjustments?" she asked, like she was judging him.
"I've modified this gun so it will only fire if it recognizes the palm print of its owner. In this case, it is wired for 007." He stated this casually, as if the adjustments had taken him very little time and effort. Seeming indifferent but intelligent seemed to be the right way to come across in this situation.
"I suggest you dismantle it and do more work. The weapon will be useless in a tight spot if Bond needs to fire with his left hand instead of his right, or vice versa. Don't tell me that you only set it to recognize one hand." M wanted Q to realize that small mistakes would cost him honor, and possibly an important agent's life.
"I'm afraid I'm one step ahead." He picked up the weapon with his other hand, tapping the grip with his index finger, and definitely not letting pride into his tone. "I've already considered the possibility. The gun is coded to both of his palms, and was from the first modification."
"Either way, it will not work. The digital records of 007's palm prints are several years old at the very least."
"Not the ones from the testing you 'modified,'" the brunet said casually. "Do not think I can only find something if it exists in digital form. I scanned them and stored a copy for myself. I see he's come across some interesting scars since the last time he was tested. Knife fights, I'm guessing."
M let a tight smile flash across her face. The boy was better than she'd expected, and the information she had gathered from other loyal Q division operatives (including those with the 3-D printer) had proved correct. He had passed her test, and he had no idea of knowing.
Q let the same small smile grace his younger features. "I assume I have passed some sort of assessment, judging by the look of satisfaction on your face and the details regarding my work that you would not have known or even taken a particular interest in had you not been talking to my agents." He'd learned to listen to whispers.
"Welcome to MI6, Q." She exited, pausing before closing the door behind her. "And for future notice, pointing guns at colleagues is usually reserved for field agents. Unless you'd like to enter the field?" M savored the sour, shocked look on Q's face before exiting the office. That boy was intelligence stock born and bred, and she was proud for having sought him out.
Q spent a few hours in a state of mild pride and fascination as he tweaked the gun, making numerous small changes, adding lights which showed if access was approved or denied, as well as disguising the handle to make it look more like the black plastic of the original unmodified gun. He also perfected the tracker, and set it to signal MI6 if it was activated, so 007 could have quick backup. Before packing up his gadgets for the field agent, he gave them a few last tests and fixed any errors that he found, which weren't many at this stage. Q was most of all confident in the palm-printed Walther, something he wanted to come back unharmed, even though 007 had quite the reputation for returning without any of the Q division's precious equipment. He knew somewhere that all of his good hard work on the gun and the tiny tracker might be for naught, but thinking that they might save one of the most important agents in MI6 made him proud to be where he was, and even more proud to know that the higher-ups were giving him close to free rein in this respect.
Q's devices might be perfect (or at least he hoped so) but there was now the question of getting said devices to the agent that they had been specially developed for. M wanted Q to meet 007, and she had decided that the best way to get the high-ranking spy to warm to the young new Quartermaster was to show him the genius of the wavy-haired man right off the spot.
That's how Q ended up getting past security at a fine art museum with a high-tech handgun in his coat.