[ 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 worst fates. Or so that saying goes. ]
Took your bloody time, [ comes the voice in Q's earpiece. Rattling, but otherwise clear; Bond is on the move, and maybe a little more than irate because of it. Even MI6 can get testy when there's been a change of plans and you haven't slept in 32 hours, though knowing this particular double oh — there is, very potentially, amusement as an undercurrent. ]
[ 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.
[ If asked, Bond would quite easily correct: no, it's not a habit of dying. It's a habit of coming back to life rather unexpectedly to those around you, and hell hath no fury like an agent taken by surprise. That's the bit that has most people scrabbling for a foothold. (It feels rather transparent to imply that he counts himself among them.) ]
Maybe I should ask for smaller shoes. [ Dry in its delivery but clearly not a life-threatening situation, if 007 has time to be civil in conversation. ] Something quaint in your size?
[ 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.
[ A huff of a laugh. It's a quiet one this time round, a week's worth of tracking down a satellite that crashed in the Atacama desert. Certainly not an event worthy of a senior agent of MI6, let alone a double oh, but there's a fair bit on the line when it's a data packet attached to it that the Chinese are also after. Well— were.
The desert air is acrid and dry. There's a thin film of dust and sand over the side-mirror of his rental jeep, but Bond can't bring himself to care — everything is connected and plugged up to the laptop in the passenger seat, the road stretches out, and it's finally bloody cool enough to feel like he's not about to shrivel up and suffocate in the heat. ]
All the better to burn, Q. [ Over the line, Bond inhales. A hand out the window, one on the steering wheel, and the light of his cigarette trails cherry-red sparks alongside the centre-line of road. He ignores the blood on the end of his cuff. ]
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.
[ 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? ]
[ What could he be doing indeed? (Bolivia has a very particular geography; rich in minerals and refined petroleum, and where there's a greedy man, there's money to be traced.) When he picks up, his voice is thin — bad connection, possibly, but even more likely is the fact that Bond has just been roused.
His answer isn't curt, but it is efficient: ] Yes?
[ 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? ]
[ 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. ]
[ He doesn't keep her waiting long. (Not that he wouldn't — there are a few things one is allowed to embrace in international waters, and one of them is the ability to be petulant about some things, if the fancy strikes.) Bond picks up on the third or fourth ring; he's in transit, tucked away in the back of a cab. ]
Am I being rerouted? [ No inflection one way or the other; just plain. He's in Bolivia for a bloody reason. ]
[ 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?
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride, [ he intones, though there is a curious thread on the uplift of it, equal parts needling joke and boyhood lesson. In the background: a burst of a car-horn, fragments of angry Spanish from the middle-aged cab driver. Bond exhales, annoyed, like some cosmic mirror of M's own struggle.
There is, of course, a small multitude of things he could infer from the fact that it is M calling him directly. None of those possibilities feel particularly life-threatening, however, so he skips a reference point or two in favor of: ]
I do hope you're not asking me to RSVP to that Christmas party.
[ 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.
[ Meat. Tiger. It doesn't matter who or what, as long as the animal has a taste for blood — or, more accurately, as long as you keep it hungry. (For what, as always, depends on where you're unleashing him.) Bond exhales a laugh, a huff that could be and should be much louder if he lets it. It's a noble thought, that a double oh wouldn't show up just because a list forbade him. It's not as if he has the courtesy to pretend like he doesn't keep track of her various living arrangements.
Bond sounds thoughtful when he replies, the way some recall passing cipher keys or the GPS co-ordinates for underground weapons caches. ]
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. ]
[ A long exhale. (Someone's picked up smoking again.) Bond counts the beats and though his voice is plain, it's also unhurried. No danger close, at least for the moment. ]
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. ]
[ Even a double oh would question whether Eames' anything is genuine, nevermind his agitation, though there are some aspects in which Bond thinks he does know better. His affection for the heat, for one. His equally odd fascination with run-down apartments. (Eames might be a bloody savant, but it doesn't mean it accounts for his appaling lack of taste.) ]
I might be coming down to your neck of the woods, [ he says after a beat. It doesn't answer the question. ] Corceau. Heard of him?
[ 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?
More honour and less servitude, [ he says, though it's meant as a joke, the way his voice takes on that tone. (That one phrase, or so the saying goes, with thieves and that pesky H O N O U R word.) Bond exhales again and under some awning in a hotel in Bolivia, he watches the smoke rise up and up and thinks, rather disdainfully, that his jacket is going to smell by tomorrow. ]
How is Arthur? [ Not a threat, mind, but a deliberate change of topic. Transparent, but Bond's too impatient (or tired) for the pretense of not working an angle. ]
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.
I'd wager you've put on a stone, then. [ Delivered lazily, without any real heat. Eames isn't wrong in his estimation; there's a woman a couple paces away, arguing with her cab driver, one hand curled around her luggage while the other gesticulates wildly. She is beautiful, but in a way that makes Bond feel more tired than secure. (Espionage; supposedly a young man's game, and all that.)
The quip about smoking makes him exhale again, though it's more in the vein of a tsk than plain amusement. He flicks the butt into the cobblestone at his feet where it lands in a tiny pool of rainwater, turning from cherry-red to wet-ash in a single breath. ]
There's been a restructuring of management. [ Bond very deliberately does not say the word funeral. ] Hell of a stressor. Compartively, I'll talk all night about your Spring fling.
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.
[ It's a snort this time, skating the fine line of friendly and genuine offense. ] Are you calling me old?
[ Nevermind that all of Bond's problems as of late, ennui or otherwise, come from that feeling of weariness. It's not necessary to pare it down any finer than that — shit happens, isn't that the favored phrase of their international counterparts — and it will be momentary. The life of a double oh certainly doesn't make for many friendships, nevermind the amount of bridges still intact versus those burned, but there is a reason that Corceau was a fleeting topic of conversation rather than the focus of it. Answering other instead of buisness certainly counts as direct, but it is, perhaps, also the only way Bond knows how to be the smallest modicum of genuine. ]
You'd leave me with the ugliest flat in town before running off with all my money.
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.
[ A mild scoff is all Eames gets for his troubles. (Yes, the conversation is not directly about luxury but one does know better, to expect blatancy. Bond's done it before, to live off the beaten track but the old addage of spies will be spies still applies. It's debatable, who finds it easier to shift skins: himself, or the man at the other end of the line.) ]
My luxuries don't give me E. coli. [ Bond looks down at his shoe, the smudge of ash smeared on the stone next to it. He's regretting it now, isn't he. ] Should I bring a new front door with me through customs?
[ 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.
[ 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.) ]
It's done, [ comes the reply, neat and easy and stamped with a bow. (Though, as always: late on the paperwork.)
On the other end of the line, there's a light crackle, then the sharp sound of a silencer. A premature evaluation, but the end effect is still the same: everything cleaned up and taken care of, though now there's blood on the cuff of his shirt. When Bond exhales, it sounds almost irritated. ]
If I drink any more of the bloody corn tea they have here, I might as well defect. [ Not that Bond has ever been particularly sentimental about tea, but there is something to be said for love of Queen and Country. ]
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.
[ Bond says nothing, though there's a quiet exhale. It could be a laugh or mild smile — likely somewhere in between, if M's recommendations string along the line of stonefruit ciders. (Certainly Emma would have said something different.) ]
I'll swim across if I have to. [ A promise from a double-oh; not quite a guarantee, not quite a dismissal. ] Should I bring you a keychain if I'm late?
[ 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.
no subject
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. ]
no subject
Took your bloody time, [ comes the voice in Q's earpiece. Rattling, but otherwise clear; Bond is on the move, and maybe a little more than irate because of it. Even MI6 can get testy when there's been a change of plans and you haven't slept in 32 hours, though knowing this particular double oh — there is, very potentially, amusement as an undercurrent. ]
Did I interrupt a game of minesweeper?
no subject
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.
no subject
Maybe I should ask for smaller shoes. [ Dry in its delivery but clearly not a life-threatening situation, if 007 has time to be civil in conversation. ] Something quaint in your size?
no subject
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.
no subject
The desert air is acrid and dry. There's a thin film of dust and sand over the side-mirror of his rental jeep, but Bond can't bring himself to care — everything is connected and plugged up to the laptop in the passenger seat, the road stretches out, and it's finally bloody cool enough to feel like he's not about to shrivel up and suffocate in the heat. ]
All the better to burn, Q. [ Over the line, Bond inhales. A hand out the window, one on the steering wheel, and the light of his cigarette trails cherry-red sparks alongside the centre-line of road. He ignores the blood on the end of his cuff. ]
Picking up the signal yet?
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
no subject
His answer isn't curt, but it is efficient: ] Yes?
no subject
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? ]
SO SUE ME
no subject
no subject
Am I being rerouted? [ No inflection one way or the other; just plain. He's in Bolivia for a bloody reason. ]
no subject
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?
no subject
There is, of course, a small multitude of things he could infer from the fact that it is M calling him directly. None of those possibilities feel particularly life-threatening, however, so he skips a reference point or two in favor of: ]
I do hope you're not asking me to RSVP to that Christmas party.
no subject
--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.
no subject
Bond sounds thoughtful when he replies, the way some recall passing cipher keys or the GPS co-ordinates for underground weapons caches. ]
Then I've dodged the proverbial bullet at last.
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
It'd best be fast or important.
no subject
If it were, I wouldn't be bloody calling you.
no subject
[ 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?
no subject
I might be coming down to your neck of the woods, [ he says after a beat. It doesn't answer the question. ] Corceau. Heard of him?
no subject
[ 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?
no subject
How is Arthur? [ Not a threat, mind, but a deliberate change of topic. Transparent, but Bond's too impatient (or tired) for the pretense of not working an angle. ]
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
The quip about smoking makes him exhale again, though it's more in the vein of a tsk than plain amusement. He flicks the butt into the cobblestone at his feet where it lands in a tiny pool of rainwater, turning from cherry-red to wet-ash in a single breath. ]
There's been a restructuring of management. [ Bond very deliberately does not say the word funeral. ] Hell of a stressor. Compartively, I'll talk all night about your Spring fling.
no subject
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.
no subject
[ Nevermind that all of Bond's problems as of late, ennui or otherwise, come from that feeling of weariness. It's not necessary to pare it down any finer than that — shit happens, isn't that the favored phrase of their international counterparts — and it will be momentary. The life of a double oh certainly doesn't make for many friendships, nevermind the amount of bridges still intact versus those burned, but there is a reason that Corceau was a fleeting topic of conversation rather than the focus of it. Answering other instead of buisness certainly counts as direct, but it is, perhaps, also the only way Bond knows how to be the smallest modicum of genuine. ]
You'd leave me with the ugliest flat in town before running off with all my money.
no subject
[ 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.
no subject
My luxuries don't give me E. coli. [ Bond looks down at his shoe, the smudge of ash smeared on the stone next to it. He's regretting it now, isn't he. ] Should I bring a new front door with me through customs?
no subject
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.
no subject
Ready to come home, then?
no subject
On the other end of the line, there's a light crackle, then the sharp sound of a silencer. A premature evaluation, but the end effect is still the same: everything cleaned up and taken care of, though now there's blood on the cuff of his shirt. When Bond exhales, it sounds almost irritated. ]
If I drink any more of the bloody corn tea they have here, I might as well defect. [ Not that Bond has ever been particularly sentimental about tea, but there is something to be said for love of Queen and Country. ]
no subject
There'll be a plane waiting for you at the airfield tomorrow morning. Do be there to catch it.
no subject
I'll swim across if I have to. [ A promise from a double-oh; not quite a guarantee, not quite a dismissal. ] Should I bring you a keychain if I'm late?
no subject
We won't reimburse you for gifts, [ comes the easy response. ] Tight budget, and all that.