CARNABY
Thursday, 12:42
Q hates Soho.
He hates the crowds; he hates the tourists; he hates the newest Primrose Hill set. The only reason he comes is that it’s an acceptable luncheon locale that’s also far enough from Shoreditch. Today, suffering noise and sunshine in this crowded courtyard, he considers it a mistake. His lunch partner is no better, regaling Q with meaningless tech buzzwords as they wait for their mains.
Q is contemplatively eyeing a second ball of takoyaki when he hears the voice of his literal nightmares.
“Pingu, mate! What’s chopping!”
If he ignores it, it could go away. Eventually.
“Chris,” his dining companion exclaims. “You didn’t tell me know you knew Nathan Barley!”
The tone of excitement rankles and the expectant look is worse. Resigned to his fate, Q turns around warily. On the other side of a planter stands a man-child, dressed in terribly expensive, terribly eye-watering layers and topped with a Dream Whip panama hat.
Nathan Barley reaches over the potted shrubbery and opens his arms. Q leans forward just enough to look casually polite but obviously disinterested — to anyone that is not Nathan Barley — and braces for the most uncomfortable reunion hug in history. Q can feel his soul leave his body as it happens. He doesn’t even believe in souls.
Gratefully Nathan Barley soon releases Q from the hug, but an ominous hand lingers on Q’s shoulder. “You didn’t tell me you were back in London,” Nathan Barley gushes too loudly much too close to Q’s ear. “I’d have thrown you a party, it would’ve been well hectic.” He’s bristling with enthusiasm; Q has a tension headache already.
Q can’t say he just returned to London as his obsequious tablemate would immediately expose the lie. But he is utterly unwilling to let the slightest hint slip to Nathan Barley that he’s been back on British soil for over half a decade.
“I’ve been here and there,” he says instead, because it is technically the truth.
“He’s well jokes,” Nathan Barley says in an exaggerated aside to Q’s repast associate. “We were best friends, me and Pingu.” He shoves a hand over the table and crosses his fingers in emphasis. “Like this.”
Q skewers a takoyaki ball and takes to nibbling at it, slowly, so that he won’t have to talk or scream.
Across the courtyard someone shouts, “Nathan!”
“I have to run,” Nathan Barley says, shifting on his feet, “but we’ve got to catch up sometime. Y’should come see the new Trashbat HQ, it’s banging.” He makes finger guns at Q.
Q restrains his instincts, and manages to reply with the type of lukewarm affirmative hum that translates to never.
“Can I get a selfie?” his sustenance acquaintance asks.
Q doesn’t hate Soho. He loathes it.
VAUXHALL CROSS
Thursday, 15:21
Q busies himself with work back at Q Branch, but the unease engendered during lunch lingers. When he hits a lull waiting for a script to run, he gives in and sends Eve a message on the intranet.
ran into he who must not be named at lunch
Boris Johnson?
ugh the guy i told you about
?
why shoreditch is blacklisted
The reason you ran to America for 4 yrs?
yeah him
I wouldn’t mind a milk run.
lol
SOMEWHERE IN LONDON
Thursday, 20:19
The tasks Q always carries out when he steps into his flat is to check first on his cats and their auto-feeder, and second on his scripts. Some of these scripts identify and erase photos and recordings of him online: remotely decommissioning privately-owned and poorly-secured security cameras is a charitable act as far as he’s concerned.
Today, however, there’s an unusual number of pings one of his facial recognition scripts. He hopes he wasn’t accidentally in the background of some viral news photo; that would be annoying to erase.
It’s worse.
WHO IS NATHAN BARLEY’S NEW FRIEND? asks Grazia Daily.
13 FACTS ABOUT NATHAN BARLEY’S BFF, proclaims BuzzFeed UK.
Q opens up a new private browsing window, and begins to open a flurry of links. He’s greeted in all of them by the same candid shot of him with his face thankfully turned half away. In the midground, distinctly visible, is Nathan Barley. From the photo, one could mistake the two of them to be friends in close conversation.
It’s obvious from both the angle and the username that his ungracious eating enemy posted the snap. It seems, however, that his erstwhile acquaintance was wise enough to not give Q’s name or details out — the 13 facts are all about Q’s looks and meal, cringe — so the man has saved himself from an Instagram hack.
Somehow, despite years among the fame-hungry upper echelons of Silicon Valley, the person who most threatens Q’s hard-earned anonymity is still someone he met when he was twenty-two and naïve.
Q makes a conscious effort to relax his hands from the fists they’ve become, and begins to write a more thorough removal script. At least he can count on the geek stereotype of celebrity apathy to keep this news away from his subordinates at Six.
VAUXHALL CROSS
Friday, 09:07
He’s wrong.
Morning chatter on the main Q Branch floor the next day is a few decibels louder than usual. At first Q thinks it must be due to a slow morning. He’s considering retrieving his noise-cancelling headphones from the lab when he overhears a badly whispered conversation.
“How do you think Nathan knows Q?”
Q looks up towards the source of the noise to see Emily and Niko in a tête-à-tête behind their monitors.
Niko says to Emily, “Maybe Q has a twin we don’t know about?”
Q wrests his immediate stress response under control. Slowly, he rises, and carefully and casually pretends to fetch a new cup of tea. When he arrives at last behind Niko and Emily’s pod, he deliberately kicks a cable guard on the concrete floor. It makes a loud plastic scratch. Emily and Niko whip their chairs around to stare at him in dismay.
“Tape this cable down,” Q commands.
“Do you really know Nathan Barley?” Niko asks, because Niko is a former script kiddie and has all of the self-preservation of one.
“I do not,” Q says as forbiddingly as his 9 am hair will allow. Yet Niko continues peering at him, eagerly awaiting more detail. Q tries not to grimace.
Resigning himself to having to address the issue properly, Q stands straighter. “Everyone,” he announces. He lets his voice carry and waits for people to turn to him, for the clack of mechanical keyboards to cease. “The next person to mention Nathan Barley in this building will be banished to CSIS.”
Q Branch is silent but for the whir of CPU fans.
Satisfied, he kicks the cable guard again and strides back to his desk.
There’s a new message waiting from R. soooo since i cant talk about thing 1, she’s said, can i ask u if twitter failwhaling last night was u
twitter’s inability to scale has nothing to do with me, Q replies tartly. since you’re so bored, he adds, and forwards the latest batch of weapons requests.
VAUXHALL CROSS
Tuesday, 14:36
Threats, it appears, does not stop Q Branch from discussing Nathan Barley when Q seems out of earshot. He just overheard DJ use the words “early pioneer in vlogging technology” to refer to Nathan Barley completely non-ironically. As if Nathan could program his way out of a paper bag.
Q taps his foot impatiently as he waits for the kettle to boil. “I will murder that man,” he mutters under his breath.
“The head brass would disapprove,” Bond replies from out of nowhere. Q starts, and tries to smooth the movement into an intentional turn towards Bond. He finds the spy in a corner lounging against a counter, having somehow appeared there without Q ever noticing.
“I don’t mean that Canary Wharf expat Jupp,” Q clarifies, briefly rolling his eyes. “I mean that charlatan Nathan Barley, who had the gall to reappear in my life like a case of Shoreditch shingles.”
With a demure tilt of his head, Bond comments, “I didn’t think he was your type.”
Q makes a visceral exclamation of disgust just as the kettle whistles. He flicks it off in a huff. “How are you even aware of him,” he demands as he makes a sharp swing back to Bond.
The infuriating man smirks. “I talk to débutantes on occasion.”
Q looks skyward and prays for the patience of Donald Knuth. “They’re half your age, 007,” he snipes. “Go after someone closer to retirement for once.”
Bond raises a very meaningful eyebrow directly at Q. Q lifts the kettle and lets the threat of scalding hot water speak for itself.
Their silent standoff lasts while Q fills his mug. When the kettle is back on its base, Bond pushes off the counter and sheds his cavalier stance. “So,” he says to Q. “Has he offended you in any way other than by his existence?”
“It’s classified,” Q says, hiding behind his mug. He is a codename to Bond and, moreover, very few people know anything about this part of his past. He erased it thoroughly long before entering Six.
Undeterred, Bond takes a half-step back and considers Q. “You were embarrassed,” he says lightly.
Q curses his spyish perceptiveness. “I was not embarrassed,” he protests.
“Not merely embarrassed, then,” Bond says, rattling off, “Injury? Blackmail?” His expression cools. “Does he require handling?”
From Bond’s particular tone and their long acquaintance, Q can tell that Bond would truly engineer a barely legal hit if Q says the wrong thing now. With a sigh, Q lowers his mug. “He’s the grandson of a Tory grandee,” he avers.
Bond frowns. “That was not in the background.”
Tensing, Q jerks forward. His brewing tea sloshes in its mug. “Who is giving you background other than me?”
“I can do my own research,” Bond replies calmly.
“That’s not what you just said,” Q retorts.
Bond makes a barely perceptible shift. “It was Moneypenny.”
“Traitor,” Q exclaims. “She told you the rest of it, I assume?”
“I asked. She provided,” Bond answers. His mouth turns up in a scant playful smile. “I was unaware she had more intel.”
Mentally Q berates himself for his slip; Eve can expect a repeat visit in the next hour. Outwardly he stays unaffected. “At least I get to mock Moneypenny for incomplete research now,” he says with false swagger.
“Q,” Bond says, growing serious again.
Q affects a shrug. “He’s an idiot who leads idiots; don’t worry about him.”
Bond regards him. “Q.”
“If you think I cannot take care of basic blackmail, I will be very offended.”
Bond stands still, waiting.
Q sighs. “I’ll tell you if I need help, but don’t do anything rash.”
VAUXHALL CROSS
Friday, 09:01
The imposing mahogany office M calls his is an anachronism in the reconstructed Vauxhall Cross. Despite months of exposure, being perched on an antique leather armchair and surrounded by the trappings of Britannia still makes Q feel as though he has been displaced into an Edwardian novel about public schoolboys. (Q attended a comprehensive.)
“We’ve received reports of unusual interference with the press,” M says, using two fingers to push a closed manila folder across his stately desk. Q picks the folder up and opens it.
Inside is a black-and-white printout of the Instagram photo Q thought he’d thoroughly scrubbed.
“GCHQ reports that this photo has disappeared from all news websites and is impossible to enclose on any major social medium,” M states. (Q makes a mental note to add what is uploading photos to social media to the tech dummies 101 briefing.) M adds, “Do you know what technology could have caused this interference?” He leans back and steeples his fingers.
Q glances at Bond, who is soundlessly imitating a shadow in corner of M’s office. “No sir,” Q says firmly.
“GCHQ is interested in this technology and could be convinced to look the other way if provided with it,” M states. “However, if they accuse us of interfering with domestic affairs, the higher-ups would order an audit.”
There is no way Q would surrender this readily, and everyone in this room knows it. He stays silent and tries to be still.
“The man in this photo is of interest to SIS,” M says, nodding at the file in Q’s lap. His words make a vindictive glee rise in Q before he reminds himself it could be merely due to Nathan Barley’s familial connections. Continuing, M asks, “What can you tell me about him?”
“Surely our researchers have provided all necessary background,” Q says.
“His file says he is an entrepreneur, an internet celebrity since 2004 and a Guardian columnist since 2011. Your file says you were employed by him,” M replies.
Q clenches his teeth. “I only did his website.”
M makes a noise of dissatisfaction. He puts his arms on his desk and leans forward to look straight at Q. “You must have an insider perspective.”
Q closes the file and neatly places it back on M’s desk. “Nathan Barley is an immature public school fool. I’m sure you know the type, sir.” Q raises an eyebrow. M, an Old Edwardian, awards him with a hint of a smile. “In any case, we ceased our acquaintance eleven years ago,” Q says. “As my file states.”
“If I may,” Bond says, stepping forward to stand behind the armchair beside Q’s. “Barley’s grandfather Lord Smart keeps a thorough record on his grandson at his country seat.”
Q wonders exactly when Bond slipped away to Herefordshire. M merely looks unimpressed.
“Carry on,” M says. “Ensure that Lord Smart does not know we are conducting a background investigation on his relations. As for the interference, Q.”
“Anyone could have done it,” Q demurs. “It’s quite easy; the trickiest bit is that Facebook is written in bastardized PHP.”
M smiles, as if this is what he wanted all along. “Since it is so easy, I shall expect Q Branch to have the technology available to GCHQ by Monday.”
Q’s calm façade does not break. “Yes sir.”
M dismisses the both of them, and Bond falls into step with Q as he leaves the office.
“You went to Herefordshire without my knowledge,” Q says once they’ve reached modern décor. “Aren’t trust fund kids a bit below your paygrade?”
“We all have hobbies,” Bond says, reaching ahead of Q for the lift button.
Q moves a half-step aside to maintain a professional distance from Bond. “If you think you buy my favour with the carcasses of my enemies, think again.”
Bond grins.