SILICON ROUNDABOUT
Friday, 18:55
M did not seem to think a backdoor to one of the Big Five of tech adequate penance, for two weeks later he orders Q to the very neighbourhood Q once swore to never again step foot in. An outfit Six has been tracking for months has resurfaced as a venture capital firm in Shoreditch’s tech scene, and none of their agents have the right background to quickly gain an in. None as quickly as Q.
As soon as Q mentions to any relevant acquaintance that he is finally willing to visit Shoreditch, every single one showers him with invitations from sold-out events to VIP lunches. Q turns down the more unbearable ones, and agrees to Mat Hoyle’s offer of a popular pitch night. Hoyle and Q had run in the same circles during their times in Silicon Valley and Q found him slightly tolerable for a compulsive networker. More importantly, Hoyle is now in venture capital.
Thus tonight, Q finds himself in a renovated warehouse, compelled to socialize with the entrepreneurial masses. A list of talking points resides in his head and a piece is nestled in his ear disguised as a Bluetooth headset. Q is doomed to become a Silicon Roundabout stereotype. He waits for Hoyle by a column in the steadily filling lounge and pretends to sip subpar craft beer.
Hoyle finds him first. Years and an ocean ago, Hoyle had always worn the Valley uniform: a Patagonia vest over a startup t-shirt du jour and oversized jeans. Now he’s in a smart shirt and pressed trousers.
“Chris! I am so glad to see you here,” Hoyle says. He claps Q’s back with enthusiasm and Q struggles not to spill his full bottle of beer. “How are you?” Q opens his mouth to reply, but Hoyle keeps talking. “You have to meet Spencer — Spencer!” he shouts across the room, waving, and a man in a crisp shirt and jeans makes his way past a few groups of people to reach them. Hoyle does introductions. “Spencer, this is Chris Penrose; you must have heard of him. Chris, this is Spencer. He’s the founder of InnoLabs and he knows everyone.”
Spencer Rhys, aspiring kingpin of London’s Tech City, reaches out for a firm handshake. Q returns it. “Our most famous recluse!” Rhys booms, bouncing on his feet. “Mat’s mentioned you before. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you — the man, the myth, the mystery!”
“This man is respected in the startup scene?” R asks in his ear. “No wonder you stick to Home.”
Q manages to keep a straight face. “Busy hacking,” he says dryly. He means it, but it’s also the way tech entrepreneurs proclaim they are building yet another dime-a-dozen app. “You know how it is.”
“Of course, of course,” Rhys says. “Stealth-mode startup, can’t talk about it.” Rhys waggles his eyebrows. Once again Q thanks startup founder paranoia for his go-to excuse. Rhys continues, “Are you looking for investors then?”
Q quirks his lips; the one thing SIS doesn’t lack is funding. “We’re covered,” he says with a smug quirk of his lips.
Hoyle puts an arm around Q’s shoulder as if Q was his shy younger brother. “Chris here was an early employee at Vidtube.”
“Vidtube!” Rhys exclaims, nearly spilling his drink. “Have you thought about being an angel investor? Our Demo Day is coming up soon.” Q can tell what Rhys means is: you must be rich and my incubator needs another investor with more money than sense.
“I prefer to stay on the operational side of things,” Q says with an affected shrug. “I’d rather leave investing to the people who have the time.”
Thankfully, they barely have time to exchange more small talk before Rhys is called away by someone else wanting to make introductions.
Hoyle turns his attention to Q, and gives him an unnerving stare. “You never told me you knew Nathan Barley.” He has the casual tone of someone who’s been waiting the past fortnight to ask, but didn’t want to seem too invested by committing his query to email.
Q deploys the neutral tone he’s been practicing all week. “We’re acquainted,” he says.
Hoyle laughs as if Q’s said a witty joke. “Bleeding-edge video tech out of London? Should have known it was you, but everyone thought you went to America directly out of uni.”
“I did,” Q says, casual and final. He wants to end this line of conversation now.
Hoyle isn’t deterred. “I’ve always wondered, what happened to the missing trashbat.co.ck videos? There was a bounty for retrieving them when I was at Oxford; I spent a summer trying with no luck.”
“Envy would like it noted that anyone good would have realized they were ‘gone gone’ within five hours,” R says. (The fact that Envy — Niko — of all people had a look when it happened makes Q want to grimace. Niko’s good, though, if not as good as Q, and Niko found nothing.)
Q tries to focus on the mission. With measured nonchalance he says to Hoyle, “I wouldn’t know for sure, of course, but with these things it’s always a faulty disk or an electrical short.”
Hoyle tsks in disappointment. “Perhaps it’s for the best. Nathan Barley said recently that he was freed by having to start again from scratch.” He adds, proudly, “I’ve been telling my founders that.”
Q wonders if he should pity Hoyle’s portfolio companies, but it’s a good opening to steer this conversation back to the script. “Are you still at Rhydon Capital?”
Hoyle puffs up. “Made junior partner last year.”
“I heard the market was getting more competitive,” Q continues, prodding. “Too much money floating around, nothing like it was in our day.” It’s a basic restatement of Hoyle’s most recent Medium thinkpiece — Q couldn’t care less.
Hoyle lights up. “I know!” he exlaims. “Some founders think they’re hot shit and want to dictate all of their terms, as if they’re any different from the hundred other founders I’ve met that same day. But now PB goes around writing cheques to any Tom, Dick, or Harry that can put a few buzzwords in a slide deck.”
“PB?” Q queries, as if he does not have terabytes of data on them back at Six.
Hoyle leans in and lowers his voice. “The PB Fund,” he relates in a gossipy tone. “Came out of nowhere throwing money around like it’s candy. No one knows any of their partners and their principals are all straight out of B-school. It’s abhorrent.”
Q makes a noise of false sympathy. “No operating experience?”
“None,” Hoyle agrees. “And their deals don’t make any sense. It’s like they don’t care about making money at all. Terrible to deal with. I try to drop out of funding rounds if they get involved but it’s not always possible.”
Q hums. “I know a good forensic accountant.”
Hoyle expresses interest, so Q puts down his untouched beer, and removes a metal card case from his pocket that doubles as a lockpick set. He presses the more benign hatch and the case springs open to reveal a stack of assorted business cards. Q thumbs through a few and slips out the plainest one, containing 007’s latest alias.
Hoyle takes out his phone and shows off an app — one of his portfolio companies’ — that reads the card and creates a contact. He hands the card back to Q.
Job done, Q lets the discussion fade into catching up on Hoyle’s latest investments and their mutual acquaintances still in America, until one of his founders calls Hoyle away for introductions.
“Do you think Hoyle knows any more about the target?” R asks.
Taking out his customized mission phone, Q types a quick no. He adds, maybe his senior partners do, but that’s up to 007 to discover.
Q begins to mingle, and is finally settling into a sense of safety when R’s voice returns to his ear. “Nathan Barley at your five o’clock.”
Q takes one last moment to exhale deeply.
“Who’re you texting?” Nathan Barley says, popping up in front of Q. With no sense of decorum, Nathan leans into Q’s personal space to look at Q’s screen.
Q has to hold back his instinct to jump away. “No one,” he says. He suppresses his instinct to hide the screen wholly and suspiciously, as it’s designed to look like a vanilla Android texting app and Q has been careful.
Nathan continues undeterred. “A girlfriend?”
R, who knows too well Q’s complete disinterest in girlfriends, chokes back a laugh.
Nathan’s presence makes every single aspirant and hanger-on in the room flock to them. Q is unable to escape through the ring of people, not when Nathan is so insistent about filling him in on his latest media startup exploits and Spencer Rhys has returned to capitalize on Nathan Barley’s name.
“You must come by InnoLabs to give our startups a talk,” Rhys is saying. “PB Fund is interested in investing, and we want to prepare our startups the best we can for Demo Day and fundraising after that.”
Oh fuck, Q thinks.
“Get yourself an invite,” R orders in a rush, as if Q were a complete newb.
“I haven’t heard you give a talk before,” Q says to Nathan, going for a curious lilt. It’s blatantly transparent and possibly false, depending on how one classified trashbat.co.ck videos and Nathan’s speeches for or about Claire Ashcroft. Nathan, of course, falls for it.
“Of course I’ll give your startups a talk, it’ll be well ice,” Nathan says to Rhys, before turning to Q. He puts both hands on Q and it takes everything Q has not to flip him to the concrete ground. “You gotta come, promise.”
“Sure,” Q says, and manages to make himself smile instead of scowl.
SOMEWHERE IN LONDON
Saturday, 07:30
His living room is still dim and shrouded by curtains when Q hears a smooth, “Hello, Q.”
He slams at the light switch. “Christ, Bond!”
In a black v-neck cardigan and tailored grey chinos, Bond fits in better with the orange fabric of Q’s retro lounge chair than Q himself. Bond is perfectly at ease reaching down to pet Kirk, currently rubbing orange fur all over his trousers. Spock is nowhere to be seen, likely sleeping. Q envies him right now.
Q, feeling exposed in his pyjamas, crosses his arms. “I suppose a gadget as simple as a doorbell is beyond you.”
“Perhaps if I had incentive,” Bond replies. His tone and face are studiously neutral, but Q knows exactly how Bond operates.
“No,” Q declares. He retreats to the kitchen and busies himself fishing out two mugs, a teapot, and a Whittard’s tin from his cabinets. Bond is unnervingly silent, and only as the electric kettle starts to burble does he speak again.
“Last night was illuminating,” Bond says.
Startled, the spoon Q was holding drops with a clink into a mug. He spins around. “You were listening in?”
“It is my assignment,” Bond replies. “You hide the fact you’re a startup millionaire fairly well.”
“Hid,” Q grumbles, trying to fade into the kitchen counter.
Bond’s mouth twitches. “Not yet. I tried looking up your former name — Chris Penrose — but it returned precious little.”
“Good,” Q says with virulent vindication.
The kettle whistles. Q pours its water into the teapot, and Bond lets him pretend to measure sugar and milk while it steeps.
Three minutes later, Q has run out of polite excuses. He hands a mug to Bond and sits in the matching chair.
Bond takes a polite sip and places the mug on the side table. “Why didn’t you stay in industry when you returned to London?”
Q scoffs into his tea. “If I wanted to be a rich immoral arsehole with a trophy husband I’d just have stayed in the Valley; I wouldn’t have bothered moving back. But the former Q wanted me quite badly.”
“Ah,” Bond says. “You didn’t like industry.”
Instead of responding, Q tries to drink his tea. It’s still much too hot, and he has to hold back a sputter. Bond simply looks on, and his eyes sparkle with what is probably amusement. Q lowers his tea to his lap in defeat.
“How did you get from online video to cybersecurity?” Bond asks. “I may be ancient according to you, but I do know they’re not the same.”
“It was more the other way around,” Q says. “Video protocols were a detour.”
Kirk, satisfied with his redecoration of Bond’s shins, jumps into Bond’s lap and nuzzles into Bond’s arm. Bond indulges him with a few scratch behind the ears.
“You once told me you had a mortgage,” Bond remarks idly. “I can’t believe you lied to me, Q.”
“Interest rates are at a historic low and there are better uses of my money than letting it be locked up in a flat,” Q replies.
Bond looks amused. “Here I thought you were a secret anarcho-communist and you turn out to be a tech millionaire libertarian.”
Q raises an haughty eyebrow. “I’m a SIS department head, the definition of authoritarianism — and, no thanks to your equipment losses, government largesse. Additionally, I pay my full share of taxes unlike some people I could name. Call me a libertarian again and you will mysteriously lose your non-dom status.”
“I don’t live here three quarters of the year.”
Q sniffs. “But we’re civil partners, that’s impossible. Or so the HMRC will say.”
“I could divorce you,” Bond says. A hint of amusement flickers across his lips.
“And I could get rid of the non-domicile loophole,” Q retorts. “It’s so easy to manufacture a grassroots campaign nowadays.”
“Please do,” Bond says. “I’m not allowed to go after Ben Goldsmith myself.”
Q harrumphs.
PARSONS GREEN
Saturday, 08:07
Bond, who apparently does possess some manners, offers to treat Q to breakfast in return for the morning harassment and tea. It doesn’t prevent a moue of disapproval from appearing when Q orders beetroot and turmeric juice.
“You don’t have to convince me you consume those awful health drinks,” Bond says. “I know you prefer tea.”
Q rolls his eyes. “I can like more than one thing, Bond. I don’t know how you’ve survived this long subsisting wholly on caffeine, alcohol, and red meat.”
“Surely I am more sophisticated than that,” Bond says.
A barista calls Bond’s double espresso. Q coughs.
Although it’s far from Q’s first time at this café, he’s halfway followed Bond to a table in the back before he remembers to be indignant about Bond’s presumption. Bond, as usual, sits against the wall, and Q makes do with the aisle seat. It’s not long before the dark wood of their table is decorated by large plates of food.
Bond cuts into his poached egg and dips a bit of toast into it. “Tell me about him.”
“Who?” Q asks, as it is eight in the morning and his brain is not yet online. Despite the government job schedule, his circadian rhythm is still very much a hacker’s. He probably should have ordered a chai latte.
“Barley,” Bond says.
“Shh,” Q vocalizes a bit too loudly. The table next to theirs turns around and stares. Bond gives them a look that’s just pleasant enough to be polite, and they turn back to their breakfast. Q, on the other hand, gets an unimpressed look.
“You’ve seen his — résumé,” Q hedges, as they are in public.
Bond shifts, infinitesimally, and into the role of an executive or investor discussing a hire or prospect. “Who a person is on paper is very different from who they are in reality.”
Q takes a bite of his rusticata. “He’s a — personality,” Q says, trying to sound professional now that this is a fake work conversation.
Bond raises an eyebrow.
“He’s the worst,” Q exclaims. “He’s never been disabused of the public schoolboy notion that there’s no such thing as consequences. Everything’s always worked out for him, no matter what. I know I haven’t worked with him in years, but mental development stops by the mid-twenties, and he’s gone from a buzzy semi-underground website to published bestselling author in that time. When he ought to be in jail.”
“That’s a strong statement,” Bond says, all mild manners. Dangerous, when it comes to Bond.
“I mean it,” Q says. “Some of those videos — he’s lucky they’ve disappeared.”
Bond gives him a look. “I was under the impression that was your doing.”
“Who told?”
“Your department are incurable gossips,” Bond says.
Q takes a sip of his smoothie. Those videos are gone from the collective conscious and it’s better that way. Q is glad he got out before he could suffer a nervous breakdown like the Ashcroft brother.
Bond, seeming to understand that he won’t get anything more about this out of Q, changes tack. “For someone who advertises that he made his fame through the world wide web, Barley seems to lack technical knowledge.”
Q is unsure if Bond is saying that to appease him, or if even a troglodyte like Bond has noticed Nathan Barley’s total incompetence. Maybe Nathan’s pompous bragging is a giveaway to the spy.
“There’s any number of new graduates willing to work for him, with the money he has.” Including Q himself at one time, Q leaves unsaid. “And he’s very good at claiming credit for himself. You repeat a few buzzwords and plaster your laptop with geeky stickers and suddenly, you’re a ‘hacker’ and a ‘disruptor’ with a Guardian column. Collective amnesia at work.”
“But collective amnesia works so well,” Bond says, and Q laughs.
“Are you admitting you need a handicap finally?”
“It’s deployable knowledge,” Bond claims, with one of his trademark smirks.
Q has an excellent retort that he cannot deploy as they are in public, which only makes Bond more insufferably smug. He pointedly ignores Bond and goes back to atomizing his rusticata.
Bond, however, is not finished. “It surprises me, with your dislike of nepotism and incompetence, that you came to work for your current employer,” he comments, completely abandoning their ruse of executive weekend brunch.
Q raises an eyebrow. “After working for one of the most morally corrupt people in the UK, my current employment is wonderfully pleasant.”
A chai latte appears on their table, as if by magic or co-opted serving staff, just as Q notices his smoothie has run low.
“You’re just showing off now,” Q accuses. He’s not too proud to pick it up and drink it, and savour the warm spice on his tongue.
“You once accused me of being inconsiderate,” Bond says. “I’m simply rectifying it.”
Q takes another warm, indulgent sip. “Next time, we’re going somewhere I can expense,” he says.
Bond cocks his head. “Who says I can’t expense this?”
“I pity Finance, I really do.”
Soon the cup of chai is gone, as is Bond’s second espresso. Despite sitting in the aisle and thus closer to the exit, Q still ends up following Bond out of the café. Bond even gallantly holds the door open for him.
“If you glare so much, you’ll get frown lines,” Bond teases.
Q sniffs. “That’s rich coming from you.”
Amusement teases in the lines of Bond’s face. A breath later, there’s a brush of chapped lips and beard bristle against Q. Then Bond is gone, disappeared into the streets of Fulham, and Q is left with a hand hovering at his mouth. He won’t be able to return to this café for months.