oo: (pic#)
JAMES BOND ([personal profile] oo) wrote in [community profile] remarks2012-11-15 04:12 am

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[ It's only 10pm in Bolivia when the phone rings. ]
qms: (pic#5175649)

[personal profile] qms 2012-11-14 03:25 pm (UTC)(link)
[ It's only 10pm in Bolivia, but it's already two in the morning in London. Still, you don't become quartermaster for a place like MI6 without knowing how to burn the proverbial midnight oil. Arguably, men and women like Q practically live off the stuff, barring any restrictions made for 'delicate' constitutions.

Q glances at the time displayed on this computer as the line rings, adjusting the earpiece in his ear. Time for another cup soon, he thinks.

There are worse fates.
]
Edited 2012-11-14 20:02 (UTC)
qms: (pic#5175646)

[personal profile] qms 2012-11-15 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
[ For a man supposedly indoctrinated in the arts of subterfuge, coercion and seduction, Q finds Agent 007 rather stodgy at times. How did the saying go? A man who loves his means of employment never goes to work a day in his life? Well, that saying certainly didn't apply to Bond at first glance. Though, for a man who has a habit of dying, certain acceptions should be made. Q knows that he'd hardly be in a sporting mood if he'd fallen off the roof of a moving train.

But then again, Q is a quartermaster and not a field agent for a reason.
]

I have been known to multitask on occasion, [ Q begins, the tone of his voice clearing indicating that on occasion really means all the time. ] Though vanishing the considerable footprint you leave out there on the world does demand a certain amount of attention, 007.
qms: (pic#5175644)

[personal profile] qms 2012-11-15 04:12 am (UTC)(link)
[ Quaint. Now there's a word Q has begrudgingly grown familiar with over the years. Hard not to, he supposes, looking the way he does (even though he's not the type to place much faith in appearances). A willowy frame, glasses, disobedient hair: not the first mental image one conjures at the mention of a budding provocateur, but Q knows that the times, they are a'changing.

To be considered quaint is to be considered unthreatening, which is perhaps half of the danger right there. Quaint things are quiet, small and precious, and by calling them quaint, one dismisses them. Emasculates them. Logic then follows that quaint things can also be dangerous.

The thought makes Q smile vaguely at the face of his mug, since there isn't anything better in the room to smile at.
] And here I had thought my radio and gun were far too quaint already.

[ Passingly, he adds: ] I do believe this qualifies as building bridges, Agent Bond.
qms: (pic#5175645)

[personal profile] qms 2012-11-15 05:00 pm (UTC)(link)
I have been for the past five minutes. [ Q answer comes crisply, coupled with the faint murmur of deft fingertips upon a keyboard. ] But since you and I were busy exchanging pleasantries

[ Information streams across the various screens of Q's station — a custom job, one petitioned and executed by special request. Facts, figures, triangulation schemas; they all flicker here and there, keeping independent times to an elaborate dance. Random and unchecked to the untrained eye but to Q, a certain kind of poetry, like every note of a single symphony played simultaneously and left for him to sort through.

Q pauses, but only briefly, before shuttling off the relevant information in a burst packet to Bond's location.
] If you'd turn your attention back to your computer. I think you'll find everything in order.
statistical: (Default)

[personal profile] statistical 2012-11-14 07:27 pm (UTC)(link)
[ the phone rings twice and m's fingers tap, tap, tap along the edge of her desk. the office is dark but for one lamp and the glow of her laptop and she thinks, he's keeping me waiting, because it's ten o'clock there and what could bond possibly be doing that kept him from picking up his phone? ]
statistical: (pic#4963393)

[personal profile] statistical 2012-11-15 05:43 am (UTC)(link)
[ there's a breath on the other end of the line, something almost a scoff, almost disapproval. ]

Were you sleeping, 007?

[ sleeping when there's work to be done, such a sin in a profession like this. how many nights had the husband no one ever mentioned woken up to a cold bed and empty house, wife vanished into the night because things needed doing and m must be the one to do them. sleep, one of the first things to be sacrificed to the job, wasn't it always how this went? ]
chrometophilia: (14)

SO SUE ME

[personal profile] chrometophilia 2012-11-14 08:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Yes?
vauxhall: (pic#5177892)

[personal profile] vauxhall 2012-11-14 11:18 pm (UTC)(link)
[ It's nighttime, no matter how you look at it or where you look at it from. But the thing is -- or rather, the important thing, as there will always be a hundred things battling for attention, few of which are ever important -- that they both gave up the pretense of 9 tp 5 long ago. And so, in the end, the fact that it is nighttime for the both of them really means very little in the grand scheme of things, and M is still waiting on the line. Ring, ring, double-oh-seven. ]
vauxhall: (pic#5177906)

[personal profile] vauxhall 2012-11-15 03:24 am (UTC)(link)
[ No inflection, maybe, but asking the question is a statement in itself. She'd like to think that in the old days they didn't have any of that. They had a knowable, identifiable enemy to fight and that kept the urge to backtalk in line. But that wouldn't be the truth. The truth is there have always been and will always be agents like Bond and if they weren't so good at what they did, they would be bloody intolerable.

She refuses to pinch the bridge of her nose, resting her fingers all in a line on the top of her desk where she can keep an eye on them instead.
]

Do you really think it would be me calling if that's all it was?
vauxhall: (pic#5159061)

[personal profile] vauxhall 2012-11-15 04:05 am (UTC)(link)
[ There is much to infer here. If there was a great danger -- or, more privately, if she had any real doubts as to 007's chance of success -- she wouldn't waste time on trivial things like permitting herself to rise to Bond's nature. That she is says as much about the current state of his mission as she plans to at the moment.

--it's a bit like dangling a piece of meat in front of tiger, really. There's no question what the tiger will do, because it is a tiger, after all. The part that sustains a persons's curiosity lies more in the how. All these years of knowing Bond now, and there's still some satisfaction to be taken from dangling a piece of meat in front of his face.
]

Of course not, [ she says, mild, matter-of-fact. ] I had you removed from the guest list years ago.
vauxhall: (pic#5159070)

[personal profile] vauxhall 2012-11-15 10:41 pm (UTC)(link)
It's not the proverbial bullets you should spend your time worrying about, 007.

[ Not that she can worry about him and either sort if she's to do her job. No one left behind, you can tell yourself. The things we do we do to keep our agents safe, to bring them home, to keep us all safe. But start to worry about them each, as individuals, rather than as a the whole, the idea, and it would be harder to send them out to do what had to be done. She'd seen others make that mistake during her time out east, but she never would. ]

Your timeline's just grown shorter.
Edited 2012-11-15 22:41 (UTC)
signatures: (❝the staccato alarm of a parked car)

[personal profile] signatures 2012-11-15 04:18 am (UTC)(link)
[ There's a click of someone picking up the line and a few, slow measured beats of quiet before he speaks up. ]

It'd best be fast or important.
signatures: (❝I'm a bit confused this evening.)

[personal profile] signatures 2012-11-15 04:29 am (UTC)(link)
You've really got to update your list of who to call when you get lonely.

[ Still, Eames sounds more wry than agitated - though when does he ever sound agitated? - as he leans back in his chair. 10pm in Bolivia nears 5am in Mombasa, and it's already starting to get warm out, though the humidity's low for now. ]

Business, or something else?
signatures: (❝because now he is busy.)

[personal profile] signatures 2012-11-15 04:58 am (UTC)(link)
Mmm.

[ It's a mild rumble, Eames tucking the phone between cheek and shoulder as he works on digging the grit out from under his nails. He chose this apartment because of the character to the walls, yes, but also for the bright blue door. ]

I might. But you know I put in my badge of honour and servitude in a long time ago. What do you have for me?
signatures: (❝his underwear in a state of despair)

[personal profile] signatures 2012-11-15 05:23 am (UTC)(link)
You don't want to talk about Arthur. [ That much is obvious. In fact, if Bond wanted to talk to Arthur, there's artful ways of going about finding his series of new numbers, too. ] Are you too broke to bring something to the table? I thought I've warned you about spending your government stipend on all those suits.

[ There's some deliberation here as Eames straightens in his chair, lifts up to pad over to the window looking over the alley. He can hear the background noise from the other line, an argument in Spanish maybe. ]

Arthur can only be as wonderful as his take on life allows him. Corceau's holed up in the Cape until the sea somehow begets him a boat, last I heard. And you're smoking again.
Edited 2012-11-15 05:24 (UTC)
signatures: (❝The Author too smiles as he)

[personal profile] signatures 2012-11-15 04:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Summer, [ Eames corrects rather lazily. Kenya doesn't leave much room for mistake in terms of season. The sun's especially bad this time around, sporting a burn on the back of his neck that makes the rest of him look almost pale. ] And you always said I needed to put on weight, don't get patronising when I finally do.

Why don't you take a vacation? I never know what you'll die of next - on the job or a venereal disease. I could set you up something lavish in Fez if you lend me access to your account. [ He's not being serious, of course - at least in that he knows Bond wouldn't lend him a digit concerning his personal spendings; it occurs to Eames they spend far more time talking around things than ever talking directly, but it comes to an almost exaggerated point over the telephone than in person. Maybe because he can read Bond's face better than his voice. ]

People tell me the mint tea here has properties akin to the fountain of life.
Edited 2012-11-15 16:05 (UTC)
signatures: (❝enthusiasm; despair; disgust)

[personal profile] signatures 2012-11-15 07:15 pm (UTC)(link)
Paranoia isn't kind to your health, Bond. Besides, hasn't anyone ever told you that luxury can become toxic after awhile?

[ Not old, no, but isn't it always the young who fuck off to Spain in the middle of the school year with mother's money? The Queen isn't always so kind to her civil servants, but he wouldn't be getting a call if Bond was truly in the middle of something deep. ]

Unless you have something better to do than lay by the beach and drink to excess. Which, if you did, you'd not be ringing me up at such a ridiculous hour.
signatures: (❝bricks in his parents' apartment)

[personal profile] signatures 2012-11-16 07:33 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Depends on your foie gras. Still, Eames allows for the change in direction, glancing behind him when he thinks he might hear movement from the bedroom. ]

I like my front door. [ He may have gotten the place because the door and window were bright blue - his needs have never been very focused from day to day. ] But if you want to change the colour, you're welcome to bring whatever paint you'd like and do it yourself.
bureaucrat: (pic#)

[personal profile] bureaucrat 2012-11-15 08:30 am (UTC)(link)
[ It's a clean-up mission, out in the Atacama Desert. Not the sort of thing that a double zero would normally be sent on, but Bond's familiar with the area — he'd been on the Quantum case, after all — as well as the people involved with it. 10pm, by M's estimation, means things ought to have been wrapped up, brought to a head, etcetera, etcetera, so it only take a single ring before M picks up. (He's been expecting the call.) ]

Ready to come home, then?
bureaucrat: (pic#)

[personal profile] bureaucrat 2012-11-16 12:39 am (UTC)(link)
There's a lovely peach cider in that neck of the woods that might make a pleasant alternative, [ Mallory offers, tone of voice as flat as always, almost immediately moving on to the next pertinent topic of conversation. ]

There'll be a plane waiting for you at the airfield tomorrow morning. Do be there to catch it.
Edited 2012-11-16 00:39 (UTC)
bureaucrat: (pic#)

[personal profile] bureaucrat 2012-11-17 02:01 am (UTC)(link)
[ There's no question as to the fact that there's a distinct difference between the methods of the previous head of MI6 and the incumbent. Also without dispute: Gareth Mallory knows what he's doing. Despite what all the most obvious signs suggest — his style of dress, the old boys club nostalgia that he seems to embody — he's earned his place. ]

We won't reimburse you for gifts, [ comes the easy response. ] Tight budget, and all that.