Chapter Text
“What’s your status Q?” James Bond asked over the coms from Q branch.
He was rewarded with a snort, “I suppose your voice in my ear is a direct result of someone thinking it funny to have us communicating the other way round.” Q sounded amused. “I’m just finishing up, why?”
Bond kept his voice calm and even, “There’s been a bomb threat. The MET is evacuating everything within a block radius of Pimlico Station. Your current location is within the evacuation zone.”
“Hopefully it’s just a threat,” Q replied. “I’d hate to have my experimental node go up in smoke before I had time to test it properly.”
“Well I’d hate to have my Quartermaster go up in smoke so I strongly suggest you get moving Q.”
James watched as Q’s location indicator on the London map currently up on screen in the operations room started to move.
“I suspect they will be sweeping in from the station side so I’ll let myself out through the Office for National Statistics,” Q commented.
The dot indicating Q’s location was under the south end of the National Statistics building when Q spoke again, “Now that’s vexing.”
“Access blocked? Since we seem to have traded roles you could just shoot the lock,” James teased.
“No 007, I’ve found the bomb.”
James looked at R who was busy converting her monitoring of the MET’s communications into a two way link.
“Get out of there Q. We’ll dispatch the nearest Bomb squad to that location,” James ordered.
“Don’t bother,” was the level reply. “If this timer is correct they won’t get here before it goes off.”
There were movement sounds over the coms but Q’s dot stayed put.
“Q?”
“Hmmm. It’s like a puzzle you see. You have to figure out which piece does what and how they connect. Oh, someone has been clever. They’ve got a mercury switch to set it off if it gets moved.”
There were more movement sounds and a couple of metallic clinks. R was talking rapidly in a low voice, presumably to someone at the MET. James didn’t say anything for fear of startling Q.
“Very sophisticated,” Q continued his monologue. “Redundant triggers, dummy wiring, they didn’t want to make this easy. Luckily there’s a finite number of ways you can set something like this up and…Ah!”
There was silence for several seconds followed by a distinct snip. James assumed it was the sound of wire cutters slicing through one or more wires. Nothing exploded. There were several more snips then silence.
After 10 seconds or so James ventured a simple “Q?”
There was an audible breath followed by Q’s, “It’s disarmed now.”
“And your status?”
“I’m O.K. James. I must say however that I prefer doing things the normal way.”
“Field work isn’t for everyone Q,” Bond replied.
When thinking about it later Bond had to admit that the flip side of that statement was also true.