Talk of Gold
009 had only been back a few hours, one of which was spent squeezing the life out of Q after handing him a keychain of the Eiffel tower, when Q's phone buzzed. He'd set custom vibration patterns depending on who was calling, and when he heard the SOS reverberation against his metal desk, his heart briefly froze.
Which was impossible, of course, and Q knew that, but it still didn't curb the pure panic he felt at the Head of MI6 ringing his personal number directly.
Slowly reaching forwards, he mentally psyched himself up for this phone call and pressed accept.
"Sir?"
"Quartermaster. Have you sent two of my agents on a hide-and-seek mission that I should know about?"
He immediately frowned.
"Hike-and-seek, sir?"
"I'll take that as a no. I got a security alert from one of our storage vaults at the end of the tunnels".
"A break-in?"
"Of a sort" M replied dryly, and Q could practically hear the resigned look the man was no doubt currently expressing.
"Open the security feed for tunnel thirteen, room four".
The Quartermaster quickly did as told, pulling up the cameras on his laptop and maximising the window across both monitors.
"Got it. What am I looking for?"
"Aisle nineteen, row fifty-three".
"Aisle nineteen? Isn't that-"
"Personnel files, yes". And M definitely sounded exasperated now. "The lights are off, of course, but the cameras have night vision so you should be able to make out our so-called intruders anyway".
Putting the phone on speaker mode, Q scrolled through the rectangular camera views on his screen until he found the one he was looking for. M was right. Despite it being dark, he could clearly make out the room's surroundings, with each object being thrown into stark shades of black and white. And not just objects, either.
Two people, one man and one woman, both wearing fashionable suits, were currently rifling through the same cardboard box, gloves on their hand and a flashlight expertly held in both of their mouths. Q frowned and squinted, leaning closer to the screen to try and make out more details because that-
That looked like Edie.
"Is that 009?!"
"Yes" came M's very unamused voice from his phone, "Do you recognise who she's with?"
Tall, lean, and light-haired. Q had never looked at him head-on before, but he'd seen more than his fair share of the man out of the corner of his eye this past week.
"002?"
"002" M confirmed, "Care to explain just what the bloody hell they're doing in there?"
The Quartermaster sighed and continued to watch the camera feed, even as the double-0s returned one file box and opened up another.
"Well, at the risk of sounding sarcastic, sir, I'd hazard a guess that they're looking for something".
"I'm glad to hear that you're putting your genius-level intellect to good use, Q".
"I didn't send them down there, sir. I'm as in the dark with this as you are".
"I don't know whether to be relieved or even more concerned… Aisle nineteen is where our staff files are kept. Can you think of anyone they'd want to look up?"
Q's mind briefly flashed back to 005 demanding the names of all those who'd accused him of sleeping his way to the top, but that didn't make any sense here. To begin with, Saif wasn't anywhere near the storage vaults right now, but even if he had been, searching MI6's personnel files wouldn't be much use without first having those names to find the perpetrator's folder. Unless, of course, they were going through each file name by name to try and match the person they saw to the picture stapled inside the front cover.
Although, speaking of names…
"Those files are organised alphabetically by surname, right? And you called me as soon as you got the security alert?" he suddenly asked.
"Yes to both. Why?"
"009 and 002 are on row fifty-three, but if they only got there a few minutes ago, then there's no way that they could've already read everything in rows one through fifty-two. They chose to start on row fifty-three".
"You believe they're searching for someone specific?"
"Exactly" Q finished, already running the numbers in his head, "And based on my estimates, I'd say that they're somewhere between "P" and "R"".
"Q".
It wasn't his name and it wasn't a question - it was an answer.
"Yeah" he said, sighing, "Q".
So now the question was, what to do?
"If they're searching for you based on your moniker, then they obviously don't know your real name" M reasoned, and Q couldn't hold back a snort of disbelief. "With all due respect, sir, I no longer have a real name which they could use to try and find me. Every link to my past was burned the day I stepped foot in MI6. Put simply, they're not going to find anything because there's nothing left for them to find".
"And yet still, they're searching".
"So it would seem".
In front of him, 002 shook his head and said something to 009, who shrugged and replaced the box on the shelf next to them before pulling out the next one. They were certainly determined, he'd give them that. Breaking into the storage vaults at MI6 was no easy feat, even if they were double-0s, because despite the usual mundanity assigned to things that were filed under "storage", the fact of the matter was, the only thing that MI6 stored were state secrets. For Charles and Edie to go through all that trouble just to try and find Q's personnel file…
The Quartermaster immediately decided to never let R get wind of this, because committing treason while breaking and entering just to find out about his past definitely fell under the "interesting to a double-0" tab.
So much for that plan.
Although… if it was just Q's file that they were trying to find, and if it was his past and his name and his entire life story that they wanted to know…
He took his phone off speaker and raised it back to his ear. "Permission to deal with this gross breach of privacy directly sir?"
"Considering that I haven't the slightest idea where to even begin, Quartermaster, permission granted".
"Thank you, sir". He smirked. "I'll try not to break them too badly".
Standing up, Q was positively grinning in devious delight. If 002 and 009 wanted a story, then he'd bloody well give them one.
Stepping out of his office and onto the small platform that overlooked the rest of TSS, he did a quick scan to make sure R was nowhere to be found, and then loudly cleared his throat.
"If I may have your attention?"
His minions immediately stopped what they were doing and looked up at him, and Q briefly wondered if this was what it felt like to be king.
"I've just received a rather interesting phone call from our mighty and benevolent leader. Apparently, two of the double-0s have seen fit to break into storage in search of my personnel file. As most of you, if not all, may know… that file does not exist".
He caught sight of a few quickly repressed grins throughout the room, and had to fight down his own smug look in response because clearly, he really had hired well if his employees were just as vindictive as he was.
"So I propose a friendly wager, with a few stipulations, of course. Rule number one, no one is allowed to tell R. That woman is already under a lot of stress right now, and believe me when I tell you that it'll benefit both of our states if she does not hear a word about this. Those of you who are uncomfortable with keeping secrets may leave now, with no hard feelings".
Not a single person so much as twitched. This time, Q really did grin.
"Excellent! Okay, rule number two, nobody is allowed to tell M. I've been given his explicit permission to deal with this as I will, however, I do not want to test those boundaries. Same goes for Mr Tanner. Understood?"
A sea of nods agreed with him.
"Good. And finally, rule number three, no one is allowed to tell the double-0s, or any agent, for that matter. In fact, you know what? Let's just make a blanket clause. Nobody outside of this room but within the walls of MI6 is allowed to know. Deal?"
As everyone nodded once more, Q clapped his hands together and then skipped down the stairs and over to one of the large revolving whiteboards that were spaced intermittently throughout the room. Flipping it over to the blank side, he pulled off one of the magnetic markers and quickly drew a grid.
"From what I can tell, the two double-0s - who shall remain nameless - are trying to find out about my past, but since there's currently nothing written about my past, we're going to create one. So. The wager is this: Whoever can come up with the most ridiculous story possible, whether it be laughable or depressing, will win the bet".
"What's the prize?"
"Excellent question!" Q recapped the marker and spun back around. "Suggestions?"
"Free pizza!"
"A classic, but a good one. Any other ideas?"
"Casual Fridays!"
Q gave the man a dry look. "You're currently wearing a Next Generation t-shirt and jeans, Duncan, you can't get much more casual than that".
The man flushed. "But The Next Generation is the best Star Trek series!"
"It is absolutely not, you absolute heathen! It's The Original Series or nothing!" Q snapped, "Any other suggestions?"
Halim slowly rose his hand. "What about… What about the chair?"
In unison, everyone turned to stare up at the open door leading to Q's office. The chair, or, the chair, as it had come to be known, was perhaps the most comfortable chair in existence. It was one of the very few things salvaged from the original explosion at MI6, and somehow it had wound up in Q branch, and then, later, in Q's office.
There were some perks to being the departmental head, after all.
"The chair?" he asked, weighing up the pros and cons, "... Alright, fine. The chair. You have a deal".
Excited whisperings broke out across the room. The chair was a worthy prize, after all, and as much as it would pain him to lose it, the possibilities for revenge on Charles and Edie were too great to ignore.
"Okay, listen up" he announced, stepping back from the whiteboard, "Whoever wants to participate needs to write their name in the left column of this grid. Your suggestions for my fake past go into the box on the right. But remember; you only get one suggestion each, so use it wisely. Whoever makes the double-0s break down in tears first, wins".
Halim raised his hand again. "Can the double-0s even cry?"
Q gave him a look. "We're about to find out".
The next stage of his plan was just a little bit more complicated.
"You want me to what?!"
Q took a deep breath.
"Secretly sneak into tunnel thirteen, room four of the storage vault and hide a file somewhere awkward but still accessible to any double-0 who may or may not be looking for it?"
Eve raised an unimpressed eyebrow. Q winced.
"... And maybe do all that more than once?"
She folded her arms across her chest, danish pastry forgotten on the plate in front of her.
"Why?"
"... As a favour?"
"Q".
He sighed and took a sip of lemongrass tea. The café was thankfully quiet which made it easier to discuss confidential matters, but even with him promising to pay for today's lunch, Eve still wasn't happy with being "tricked" into coming here under "nefarious circumstances".
"002 and 009 have gotten… curious".
"002?" She frowned. "I thought he was still in Berlin?"
"So did I, up until a few days ago. He's… researching".
"Researching what?"
"... Me?"
"You?"
"... Me".
"He's researching-" She cut herself off, thought for a moment, and then took a dainty sip of tea. "So let me see if I got this straight. 002 has been back in-country for almost a week now, and you're the only one who's noticed because he's been stalking you, and instead of going to M or Bill or- or even me, you decided to keep quiet on the matter and now it's blown up into this whole ass problem involving yet another double-0 and you've told M that you'll deal with it but you've also suddenly realised that you're completely out of your depth so you got your entire department betting on who can upset the most dangerous alpha's alive and now you want to drag me into this?!"
"... I mean, I wouldn't say that I'm completely out of my depth, I just-"
"Q!"
"I'm sorry, alright!" he exclaimed, "I can deal with this myself, really, I can! It'd just be… a whole lot easier if you helped me too".
"By breaking into MI6!"
Oh if looks could kill.
"You wouldn't be breaking in! I'll disable all the security features first! Even the one on M's phone!"
"Even the one on-"
She pinched the bridge of her nose and he tried not to flinch.
"... Okay".
Q blinked.
"... Okay?"
"Yeah. Okay. I'll… help you out or whatever. Fuck it, it's not as if I've got anything better to do".
"You're literally the secretary for the Head of MI6!"
"I know" she said morosely, "I thought it'd be more entertaining too".
The Quartermaster stared at her. Eve calmly took another sip of tea.
"Alright, so, drop in a file, right? That's it? That's all I have to do?"
"Yeah!" he said quickly, not wanting to risk her changing her mind, "That's it! It'll look suspicious if I'm seen hanging around the personnel files, but like I said, you're M's secretary. It's not weird if he asked you to pull someone's folder".
"And just to clarify, M himself has zero knowledge of this?"
"He knows that I'm dealing with it" he said carefully, "And he knows that it's not going to be… exactly painless for 002 and 009, but as for the actual details… No. He knows nothing".
Eve gave him a wicked smile. "Well then, Quartermaster, it looks like you'll have to buy my silence".
"What? No! I'm- I- I just bought you lunch!"
She popped the last of her pastry into her mouth.
"Oh please. It'll take a hell of a lot more than a danish to win me over".
Q stared at her in disbelief. "Then what the hell do you want?!"
"Hmm". Eve downed the rest of her tea in a single gulp. "I want in".
"In?"
"In. To this ridiculous bet you're holding. Whoever makes the agents cry first, right?"
"... Right" he replied slowly, "That's it? That's all you want?"
She stood up and gracefully put on a fur-lined coat.
"That's all I want. Well, that and your chair. I don't know if you know this, Q, but the chair is legendary. Warn your boffins for me, will you? I take no prisoners".
And with that, the most dangerous woman in MI6 strode away from their table and out of the café.
Sometimes, Q was sad that Eve would never return to the field, considering that she definitely had the makings of another double-0 if she did. But then, at times like this, he was absurdly grateful.
That woman was bloody terrifying.