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Q wasn’t quite sure when he had officially hit his breaking point, but he was sure that dropping the Aston Martin he had spent one year developing in the Thames definitely helped him get there. Or maybe it was ridiculously expensive supercomputer he sent out into the field only to be dropped from a ski lift. It could have also been the dozens of missing and destroyed trackers, each taking a week to remake by hand. Maybe it was the millions of dollars of innovations that MI6 lost every single year to reckless double oh agents.
Let’s be honest, it was probably all of the above and more.
At first, a young, new, naïve Q thought he could just ask nicely for his things back. That tactic didn’t last long. The double ohs would nod and smile and promise to return things next time, and when that didn’t happen they were sure it would happen this next time…or the next…or the next…or the next.
When asking nicely didn’t work, Q turned to threats. The problem was, double oh agents were trained to withstand a number of different kinds of threats and torture. They laughed when Q threatened to take their technology away, knowing those were empty words. Physical threats meant nothing when every single double oh knew they could break the man in half with practically no effort. After running through the few things he knew about intimidation, Q was at a loss. How do you threaten someone who doesn’t expect to live past tomorrow?
At one point, Q worked out a deal with M to add deductions to the paychecks of double oh agents who refused to return things in working order. The problem was, they simply did not care. Double ohs were paid enormous salaries because of their incredibly high daily risk of death, so the deductions barely made a dent in their earnings. Not to mention, nobody did that job for just the money. It was always about the power, the thrill, the greater good, so the deductions meant nothing.
Q was at the end of his rope, and had absolutely no clue what to do. Inspiration found Q, as it often did, in the most unexpected place.
It had been a particularly slow day at Q Branch, so Tanner had stopped by to check in and keep Q company. Tanner was happily talking about his daughter who had just started primary school, and Q was happy to listen. He enjoyed Tanner's company, and in a job that dealt with so much chaos, Tanner was a refreshingly sane person to talk to. Sometimes Q felt he was the only one.
“The kids were absolute troublemakers those first few weeks, but it’s amazing what those teachers can do with them, isn’t it?”
Q smiled, thinking of his own time in primary school, “It really is. How did she get them to behave?”
“A sticker chart!” Tanner raised his hands in surprise, “All it took was putting down a sticker every time the kids were good, and suddenly it became a competition to see who would be the best behaved! I’m going to have to start using one of these things at home with the kids, it’s scary how well it works!”
Their conversation was put on pause when 004 tramped in, fresh in from his mission to New York with what looked to be a new suit to boot.“004!” Q addressed him, “Do you have anything to bring me back in one piece this time?”
004 gave a slight grimace, reaching into his suit to deposit a couple screws on the desk, and then reaching down to remove his boots.
Q sighed, raising his eyebrows as he looked at the man. “Are those the screws from your long distance radio?”
004 nodded.
“And your regular, unmodified boots we gave you?”
004 nodded again, a small line appearing on his brow.
“And there is no modified suit, gun, or lock picking device in sight.”
Q was getting very tired of 004’s quiet nods as he looked over the man’s new outfit with a critical eye.
“Any explanation for me this time?”
004 shrugged, “Things got hairy out there, Q.”
Q gave a long sigh. He was too tired to deal with this, but he thought that every time a double oh came in these days. “Thank you, 004, please leave my branch immediately.”
As 004 made his quick way out, Tanner gave a dark chuckle. “Looks like the double ohs could benefit from a sticker chart as well, don’t you think?”
Q paused for a moment, considering Tanner’s joke seriously. It wasn’t like Q had any better ideas. He gave Tanner a look. “You know, that might just work.”
It was incredibly rare for all double oh agents to be off mission and at MI6. Really, it was something that happened once a year at most, but luck was on Q’s side, because only a week later the most dangerous people in Britain were all crammed into Q’s little office, looking deeply confused.
For ten minutes they were forced to wait for Bond, who was, of course, fashionably late, the spies awkwardly standing and failing to make small talk. Q was starting to get nervous, as half of these people were far too similar to to be able to get along for long periods of time. By the time Bond sauntered in, shirt half unbuttoned and wearing sunglasses inside for whatever reason, 004 and 003 already looked like they were on the verge of a fistfight, and 009 wasn’t helping, instead she was actively pushing them toward it with well times verbal jabs.
“Bond, so nice of you to finally show up.” Q said, standing from his desk and finally calling the attention of the rest of the double ohs. “You’re probably all wondering why I called you here today.”
001 snickered, probably at the horribly cliche line, and if Q wasn’t trying his best to look serious he might have laughed too.
“Orgy?” 005 asked.
“Funny for a man who couldn’t manage to seduce his target for the past two missions in a row, 005.” Q responded, completely monotone. 005 had the decency to look cowed, Bond barely hiding his laugh. Q was on a mission today, and he would not allow any double ohs to detract from it.
Q looked each and every one of these trained spies with a license to kill, making eye contact with each one as he spoke. “Agents, we have been having a serious problem with tech return these past,” Q checked an imaginary watch on his wrist, “oh, let’s just say all of the months I’ve been Quartermaster.”
None of the people gathered in his room reacted, all of their faces stony and impassive. They were trained well.
“Therefore, I’ve decided to implement a better system to incentivize higher return rates.” Q reached under the table, perhaps a little dramatically, and pulled out a large piece of white cardboard. On it were 12 rows, each marked with a number, ranging from 001 to 0012, and many small empty boxes in that same row. At the top of the cardboard, meticulously written in Q’s handwriting, was the title, “Tech Return Successes.”
Q watched the training falter. 005 let out a small confused laugh. 002 closed her eyes slowly, refusing to open them. 009’s eye twitched, along with the corners of her mouth.
“The way this works is simple,” Q began, holding up the cardboard in a way that was very reminiscent of a teacher displaying a picture book, “For every item you return intact, you will get a star on this chart.” With another hand, Q pulled a sticker pack out from under his desk, a rainbow selection of stars shown on the front cover. “If you return all of your tech, you will get a shiny star.” Q set down the cardboard to momentarily flip to the back of the sticker book to display the shiny stars, before picking up the cardboard again.
“This will be a competition between all of the double ohs. Whoever has the most stars at the end of four months will receive a prize.” Though the double ohs did their best to look bored earlier, Q didn’t miss how some of them perked up at the idea of a prize. He was quiet a moment, waiting for someone to ask.
“And what prize would that be?” Bond asked, as if it was an offhand comment. Q knew it wasn’t.
“The ability to take home one item from Q branch, under a certain price point.” Q watched as a couple of the double ohs glanced in the direction of the car garage, their faces falling at that second part, but the gleam not leaving their eyes. The mood in the room seemed to shift from bored tolerance to something a little more energetic. He didn’t miss how 004 and 001 straightened, and 0010 started tapping his fingers against his side.
“Forgive me if I’m wrong,” Bond drawled, his voice saying anything but, “but it seems like you’re treating us like children, Q.”
Q had to struggle to avoid any of the easy digs he could make to that response, some along the lines of, if you didn’t break your toys like angry toddlers I wouldn’t have to treat you like one, but instead, Q opted for a level smile, “If you would rather give up this easily and make it easier on your fellow agents, feel free 007. You always were a team player, weren’t you?”
From the look in his eyes, Q knew he was going to come to regret that jab one day. Luckily, Q knew today was not that day, because he was about to ship 3 double ohs out to 3 different continents in 5 hours time, and with mild protests from the crowd quickly ushered the confused double ohs out of his office, hoping his well placed carrots and sticks might actually make an impression in their stubborn skulls.
The first star added to the chart was for 0011. Q wasn’t all that surprised, she was one of the newest double ohs and felt like she had something to prove. She didn’t bring back much, her earpiece was charred and looked like it had been through hell and back, but it worked, so Q gave her a little bit of leeway as the first one.
0011’s grin was brilliant as Q pulled out the sticker sheet, arbitrarily picking an orange star and putting it in the first square by her name. He smiled back at her, “Congratulations 0011, you’re the first one to have received a star. You’re well on your way to winning if you keep this up.”
“Thanks, Q!” She said, smiling harder and practically skipping out of Q Branch in delight. Q had watched her mercilessly kill two men with her bare hands not three days ago in Argentina, the flip in personalities practically giving him whiplash. Competition did interesting things to people, he supposed.
His hypothesis would continue to gather evidence, as 008 was in a foul mood during that afternoon’s briefing after seeing the sticker chart hung where everyone in Q branch could see. Instead of his regular quips and flirtations, the agent seemed to be paying extra attention to Q’s briefing.
“Felling alright, 008? You don’t look like your usual self.”
“Fine, Q.” Was all he muttered before gingerly grabbing his items and rushing out of the branch. Five days later a beaten gun and a bloodied tablet would find their way onto Q’s desk, giving 008 two stars and a cutthroat grin as he walked out. If Q felt any trepidation looking at that smile, it was shadowed by the joy he felt at actually getting some of his gear back.
When 009 brought back a laptop, she specifically requested orange stars for the remainder of all of the gear she would return, and 002 requested that she be the one to pick the stickers for herself, picking red the first time she brought a gun back, and then orange and yellow when she successfully returned her tactical gear and a tracking device. Though it took a while for some double oh agents to get back to MI6 after their missions, soon 001, 003, 004, 005, 0010 and 0012 all had a sticker as well. It was the highest return rate that Q branch had ever seen since its inception, and Q was terribly proud of himself.
“You know, I’ve got you to thank for all of this.” Q said over a lunch with Tanner in the man’s office one day.
Tanner only laughed, “I thought I was seeing things when you showed me that chart, a month in and we actually have double oh agents returning their gear? It’s a miracle.” He paused, halfway through sipping his coffee before giving Q a look, “How long do you think it’ll be before this turns sour?”
“Don’t jinx it, Bill!” Q cried, practically spilling his tea on the man in agitation.
“It’s just,” Tanner gave Q a look, “double oh agents tend to not do things by half measures. How long did you give them for this competition?”
“They’ve got three more months,” Q said quietly, uncertainty creeping in. Tanner grimaced. “You’re not very reassuring, you know.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine.” But Tanner’s confidence sounded forced.
After Q’s briefing with all of the agents, 007 was deployed on an uncharacteristically long mission, so it was a couple days after Q’s lunch with Tanner that Bond finally rolled into Q branch for the first time. He’d been back in Britain for a few days, taking his time to come into Q branch, evidenced by the fact that he looked far too put together for a man who had just gotten off of a plane.
“007,” Q greeted him, looking the agent up and down for tech, “Have you brought me anything back from Albania?”
“Will you accept a postcard?”
Q’s amiable smile fell flat, “Nothing for me today, then, Bond?”
“It was a brutal mission.”
Q gave a disappointed hum. Of course he knew it was a brutal mission, he watched as Bond sustained 3 different gunshot wounds during his time there. Nonetheless, all missions were brutal missions. At Bond’s news, Q’s eyes flicked to the chart hanging up in the branch. Bond’s eyes followed his.
“You’re really still doing this?” He said, amusement coloring his voice as he walked over to examine it closely.
“It seems like your coworkers enjoy this infantilization.” Q said, drily.
Bond’s brow furrowed. “Only Trevelyan and I haven’t returned any tech yet?”
“That’s how it looks to be, yes.”
“Hmmm.” Bond gave an unhappy noise.
“What, Bond, feeling a little regretful about how you treated your toys last mission?”
“Don’t get your hopes up yet, Q.” Bond said, still examining the chart. “It takes more than children’s games to motivate me.”
Q frowned, but Bond was out of the door before he could say anything else.
It was a couple hours before he noticed one of 0011’s stickers were missing, if not for the imperfect tear he would have never noticed at all.
Q began to keep a secret pad of paper in his desk with a tally of all of the stars. Tanner was right, things were beginning to get dirty.
“009, there are two hostiles coming in from behind, and two coming from the top of the street.”
“Got it,” She grunted, suddenly dipping into a side alley between two tall buildings. It was dark, practically midnight, so there was nobody around to stop the men from going after her. The local gangs had started to get onto her, after the weeks of poking around it was only a matter of time. Q pitied the men as they slowly turned into the side alley, their body language revealing how easy they thought this kill would be. Only Q knew what a big mistake that was.
He switched to a different CCTV feed, luckily one was right inside the alley giving him a perfect view.
009 whirled around, looking scared and confused. She clutched her purse tightly, rolling her ankle slightly on her high heels. Q smiled at the act, he’d seen the woman run miles in heels taller than that with no problem.
“Oh, excuse me. I seem to have gotten lost.” Q rolled his eyes at how cliche her phrasing was. She’d always had a flair for movies.
The four men men looked at each other, grunting as two of them circled around behind her, effectively caging her in. “We know who you are, lady, and we don’t buy a word of it.”
“Oh, fuck off.” 009’s voice lost its falsetto, her form instantly straightening. Within a second, one of her heels was gone and jabbed into a man’s neck. Soon the second man met a similar fate, the brightly colored heel clashing terribly with his blood. Stocking feet now on the wet ground, 009 whirled, going to grab the gun holstered under her skirt. As she pulled it out one of the men caught her by the arm, sending it flying. It was only a minor inconvenience, as she used his motion against him, propelling herself up and ramming her shoulder into his face. When that didn’t take him down, she did it again, and he fell properly. The final man, realizing his companions’ mistakes, had taken off running.
“He’s too far gone, and his getaway car isn’t far away. You’ve got three minutes, max, until you have a lot of angry men on your trail, you have to get out of there and to the safe house now.”
“One sec, Q.” 009 grunted, pulling her heels out of their respective necks and gingerly putting them on. “I hate the feeling of wet stockings.”
“Now’s not the time, 009. Two minutes.”
“All I need is one.” She muttered, eyes scanning around the alley.
“009 I don’t know what you’re doing but you need to stop, now. You are going to get yourself killed.”
Suddenly she found it, reaching down past a trash can and pulling out her gun. She turned, and winked at the security camera. “But I also got myself a sticker!” And then she was gone in a dead sprint, leaving only an exasperated and stressed Q clutching his desk on the other side of the world.
009 would not be the last to endanger a mission for the sake of getting a sticker. 002 practically got her arm blown off in order to preserve her specialty made USB. 005 almost got caught and discovered not once but twice when he kept going back to retrieve his listening devices.
Q had to buy more pain medication for his new stress headaches.
Q had to hand it to them, though, luck was always on the side of these double ohs, and record amounts of equipment were still being returned. Everything they risked their lives for made it back in one piece, and more and more stars were added to the chart.
Moneypenny walked by his office one day, just after 0012 did an incredibly risky maneuver to get his gun back, and took in Q’s work station, “You’re a little young to be going grey there, aren’t you Q?”
Q lifted his head up off of his table where he had slammed it a few minutes prior. He gave a tight smile, “We’ve been able to cancel the budget expansion meeting for the year that I do recall you were required to go to, so I think a thanks is in order.”
Moneypenny circled around to look at the chart. 009 and 005 were neck and neck, 009 currently in the lead with 25 stars and 005 with 23, but they frequently flipped positions between missions. 002’s rainbow was going strong, and at 3rd place with 18 stickers, there was still a chance she could take the first place seat. The rest of the double ohs hovered between 8 and 16 stars, with increases at regular intervals. The only outliers, however, were 006 and 007 who staunchly seemed to not want to be a part of the program. By now the program had been going for almost 3 months with one left to go, and 006 had returned tech a grand total of once, a dramatic decrease from his regular output. 007, however, was distinctly in character, with 0 stars and no hope in sight of climbing any higher.
Letting out a little laugh, Moneypenny seemed to have come to the same conclusion that Q did, “006 and 007 always were troublemakers weren’t they?”
“You have no idea.”
Moneypenny gave him a sympathetic look, “10 out of 12 playing along, though. That’s not bad at all. An 83 percent success rate among the most stubborn people I’ve ever met is pretty good if you ask me.”
Q didn’t have to answer, because not for the first time he was interrupted by an intrepid double oh, this time it was 005. He’d just come back from a successful mission in Egypt, and Q had his sticker book on the table in anticipation. 005 hadn’t seen too much action in the field, and Q had anticipated on most, if not all, items being returned on time.
Much to his surprise, 005 seemed to be avoiding his eyes as he walked into the branch. Normally he would walk right up to Q’s desk, but instead he seemed be taking his time as he approached.
“005!” Q greeted, trying to make the mood a little more energetic. “What do you have for me today?”
“Er…” 005 ran a hand through his hair, finally looking at Q. The man looked guilty, Q realized. “There’s been a hiccup.”
“A hiccup?” Q asked.
“Everything was fine when I left Egypt,” 005 began, in a way that made Q think he’d been rehearsing this speech for some time now, “But when I finally got back home and opened up my bags, everything got horribly banged up. The people loading my baggage must have been practically drop kicking it from the damage that happened to everything.”
005 opened his bag onto Q’s table to reveal a mess of parts and pieces, everything was completely decimated. Q’s mouth was agape, and Moneypenny seemed just as shocked in the background, but that quickly turned to quiet laughter.
“005,” Q began slowly, “I don’t know what to tell you. I didn’t realize the airlines had such a vendetta against you, but you do actually have to get the equipment onto my desk in one piece for me to award you a sticker.” Q knew that 005 had taken great care of his equipment in the field, but if he let the man get away with it now he’d have 11 other double ohs about to pull a mutiny on him.
“I understand,” 005 said quietly, leaving the branch with the same trepidation he left with.
Moneypenny walked back over to Q’s desk, examining the parts and pieces. “Hmm,” She said, picking up a particularly jagged piece of metal, “must have been some pretty angry people handling the luggage.” She gave Q a side glance, “And not at all anything nefarious that has to do with well trained and physically fit spies”
“You of all people should know how luggage gets tossed around sometimes.” Q said, not fully wanting to believe her or Bill’s warnings. “We’d better all hope that this is just some fluke one off, and be grateful that 005’s mission went smoothly.”
Moneypenny raised an eyebrow. “If you say so. Your tech, not mine.”
Luckily for 005, it did seem to be a one off event, because the next few missions went smoothly, leading to many more stickers being added to his chart. Unfortunately, that was not the case for 009. Just like 005, she’d had a great stretch of successful and for the most part nonviolent missions, wonderful for tech return, but a series of unfortunate events impacted her scores greatly.
First, a dejected and drenched 009 came in with a waterlogged tablet. She preferred to walk to MI6 that morning, and someone in the busy crowd rammed into her, catching her off balance, and she fell into a nearby fountain.
Next, an enraged 009 came in, explaining her bag had been stolen from her on the Tube. It was just as people were boarding the train, and the thief made it out before the doors closed. The thief was lucky, 009 never got a good look at them, or they probably would have been dead by now with a stiletto sticking out of their neck. All of her tech from that mission was in there, and it was a lot of extra work for Q to have to activate their remote detonating devices.
After that, 009 got wounded in the field, a shot to the side that was bad enough she had to be forcibly evacuated from Italy. She’d been diligent in protecting her tech, even with the wound, but in the chaos of her evacuation it was all lost, and nobody seemed to know where it was. Instead of feeling annoyed, all Q felt was pity, as Medical said she wouldn’t be able to work for at least a month, and by now these setbacks had put 005 solidly in the lead. There was no chance that she’d win, despite the hard work she’d put in. Q made a note to give her a nice gift nonetheless, perhaps a couple boxes of chocolates.
After 009’s series of catastrophes, things seemed to slow down. Unfortunately, with two weeks left in the competition, the number of items being returned slowed as well. Normally, 004 would return at least 3 items at a time, but soon he was only returning one at most. A few days later when 001 returned from his mission, he seemed to be struck with the same affliction, only being able to return his tactical gear. When the exact same thing happened to 0012, Q finally began to get suspicious.
He cornered the man after his mission, standing between him and the door, asking, “Tell me 0012, you had such a good streak going and suddenly you lost everything again. What happened?”
0012 raised his eyebrows. “Well, you know what they say. Can’t have a good day every day.”
“Previously you’ve done three other missions like this, bringing back all of your equipment each time.”
0012 didn’t break his gaze, and Q got the feeling this was where the double oh training came in, “I am human, Q.”
Q didn’t budge. “You’re also a double oh. That comes with a certain set of standards when it comes to capabilities and performance.”
If that did a hit to his pride, it only reflected in his eyes for a second. “I’m sorry for not living up to your expectations. I’ll do better next time.” He said, flatly, before shoving past Q and out of the branch.
Later on, when he had lunch with Tanner, Q would complain about the stony demeanor.
“He’s hiding something. They all are, suddenly acting weird like that.”
“If they’re hiding anything, you’re not going to know until they tell you.” Tanner said, definitely speaking from experience.
“I’m a little worried you’re right, that all of this is suddenly going to go bottom up somehow.”
Tanner checked his watch, “How much longer do you have now? Two weeks? If something’s in motion, there’s surely nothing we can do about it now.”
“Somebody’s playing dirty,” Q muttered into his salad, “and I’m certain it’s worse than I think.”
Tanner made a face. “At lets you’re getting your tech back.”
“At least I’m getting my tech back,” Q repeated, not entirely as excited as he should have been.
Much to Q’s displeasure, though not returning to original lows, tech return rates began to steadily decline for another week and a half before stoping completely. The only outlier was 005, solidly in the lead, and returning 5 more items in that time. He’d wanted to declare 005 the winner on the spot, but in the spirit of fairness he’d decided to wait the full two weeks. Perfectly, that was also when the final mission of the month, 004’s, would return if all went well, a fair way to wrap up to the long competition.
The night before the last day, Q was at the branch late, working on finishing up some projects that ended up going long. As a quick brain break, he stood up and looked at the cardboard, taking in 4 month’s work of progress. Though there had been numerous hiccups, Q was proud at the sheer number of stars that existed on the board. Ignoring the weird decline in the past week, most agents now had a pretty consistent return rate of 1-3 items every mission, and was saving the branch millions in lost and replaced item fees. He was happy to see how many agents had taken a shine to the competition, and tactfully ignored Bond’s blatantly naked row. Though the murmurings of infantilization had continued throughout the competition, there was no doubt in Q’s mind that this sticker chart had worked, and he already had plans on how to continue it’s use in the future.
If the room hadn’t been as quiet as it was, he would have missed the sound of the door opening behind him. Q turned round, surprised to see James Bond of all people coming into Q branch.
“Bond?” Q asked, concerned. “What are you doing here so late? You don’t have any missions for another two weeks.”
Though it was dim in the branch due to the late hour, it was hard to miss the agent’s sly smile.
“I know it’s late, but I wanted to return some things of yours.”
“But your last mission was over a week—”
Q was interrupted by Bond pulling out a comically large bag from behind his back, and dumping the contents onto his desk, sending papers flying and creating an awfully loud noise. On his desk now sat a massive pile of guns, tablets, tactical gear, phones, laptops, tracking devices, earpieces, and some more specialized tech. Q was shocked into silence. Bond only watched him with a self satisfied smirk.
After a moment, Q finally had the wherewithal return to his desk, reaching out to examine some of the tech. He picked up one of the guns, and easily recognized that this wasn’t what they regularly issued Bond.
“Some of this is 006’s.”
“I don’t remember you specifying who’s tech I had to return, Quartermaster.”
Q narrowed his eyes, digging deeper into the pile. Though a good majority did belong to Bond and Trevelyan, some belonged to 004, 001, and 0012. The gears began to turn in Q’s head. He was sure that if he dug deeper he would find things from the other agents as well.
“Bond, have you been bullying your coworkers?”
“It’s pretty bloody hard to bully a double oh, you of all people should know that.”
“Hard, but not impossible.” Q muttered, still sorting through the items. Short of 009 and 005, he was right, there was gear in there from every other double oh agent.
“How long have you been planning this?”
“I have no idea what you mean.”
“Your shit eating grin says otherwise, 007.”
Bond made no effort to fix it.
“Tell me, was it challenging getting to 005’s luggage before he did?” Q said, making some assumptions and letting Bond fill in the rest.
“Trevelyan tells me that airport security really isn’t what it used to be.”
“I do hope he didn’t hurt himself too badly sabotaging his fellow agent and costing me large sums of money.”
“He might have made the mistake of trying to body slam the luggage once.”
“Deserved it,” Q half laughed before sobering up again.
“Shoving 009 in the fountain?”
“I was in a rush to get to work, you understand.”
“And the theft on the tube?”
“It’s so easy to pick up the wrong bag sometimes, isn’t it?"
“Tell me one of you didn’t put the bullet in 009.”
Bond’s face went solemn, “No, we didn’t do that. As much as we messed with her, we actually like 009.”
“And not 005?”
“MI6 isn’t immune to hiring arseholes sometimes.”
Q wouldn’t disagree, as he strongly felt he was dealing with one right now.
Q looked up from his pile. He’d been sorting things while he talked to Bond, and had already counted more than enough combined tech to set him well over the current maximum and make him number one. As annoyed as he was, Q was impressed. It seemed that once Bond had got his big idea, he’d saved just about every single piece of tech from every mission in the past four months. It was definitely both a record for him and MI6, not to mention how he somehow convinced nine other highly competitive double oh’s to add to his pile. Q was sure that had been no small feat. He looked up at Bond, who was still giving a proud smile, and decided to put all the pieces together.
“So you and Trevelyan decided early on to start pooling your tech for a grand reveal at the end, but then you decide to play a little dirty and start sabotaging the people at the top. Much to your good luck, the popular winner gets taken down, and you use the general dislike for her successor to rally the rest of the double oh’s to add to your hoard just so everyone can get a slice of the satisfaction of beating him. Am I missing anything, 007?”
“Probably a thank you for bring back so much of your tech. You did say I was a team player after all, I thought you’d be proud.”
Knowing he was in danger, Bond had already made a start for the door by the time Q found something to throw at him. Spinning around, Bond caught the pen in the air, it was the first thing Q had found. He gave it a thoughtful look, “You know, I hope you’ve still got some of the exploding ones back there as my prize.” And then he had pocketed it and was gone before Q could yell “Get out!”
Q sighed, looking at the pile on his desk and the cardboard sheet hanging in the branch. He was going to need another sticker book.