Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Q was alerted before anyone else that everything had gone to shit, it wasn’t much, hardly more than 60 seconds before the Red Queen herself was alerted, but enough time for him to secure himself safely.

With calm hands that only vaguely shook as he placed his mug of Earl Grey down he quickly got to work.

With only a few keystrokes he had all of his classified files and several that he shouldn’t have access to transferred and encrypted onto a personalized thumb drive. After making sure it was secured on tightly in it’s hidden placement he took another thumb drive from his desk and placed that in a different spot, He quickly also sent a few other files to a private server that only him and one other person in the world could decode, after only a moment's hesitation. 

He didn’t bother to alert that other person, because if Q died in the next day or so then that person would probably track down the server itself and gain the information. If only so that they could take out their frustration on Q winning over them in the end, after all, death was the ultimate win over the opposition. 

Once done he punched in a sequence of numbers and keys, making sure that the cameras in the room were on an endless loop of him sitting in his chair, working without a care. He didn’t need her seeing what he did next. That done he got up from his chair and picked up his leather satchel, checking it’s contents were secured before pulling it over his shoulder and quickly making his way to a nearby cupboard.

Once there he yanked out everything but a small canister of oxygen and a breathing mask, he threw everything else to the ground as he squeezed inside.

One of the items he yanked out was an old photograph, dusty due to neglect. He didn’t bother to look at it or anything else as he was running low on time.

Once the door was closed tightly he moved a hidden panel and pressed the button underneath. Over his heavy breathing he could hear a pair of locks slide into place, making sure that the cupboard, his safe room as it were, was sealed shut as the air outside in his office and everywhere else became vile with the Q-virus. 

He knew he should never have left that single vial of the virus behind, but the others had been planning on doing some testing tomorrow and he hadn’t planned on leaving until the following day, as it was the only day he could leave the underground without suspicion. Not that it helped him now, a part of him hoped it had been a mistake, that one of his idiotic colleagues had broken the vial by accident.

But if not...well he hopped that whoever had taken the larger and more complete vials of the virus and vaccine would live through this cock-up.

If only because those vials were fakes. Very good fakes of course but nevertheless other than that small sample vial Q had left behind, he was the only one who knew where the real vials of the deadly virus were located.

Making an alarm on his phone for 6 hours from now he began to breathe deeply into the oxygen mask, Q then closed his eyes and allowed the darkness to take him.

Ten minutes earlier

In a secured and locked down area of the Skyfall facility a rather tall man came through the double layered doors, the scientists inside didn’t bother looking up from their work as anyone who came through the doors had to have the access code.

Their mistake.

Two shots with a silencer cleared the room as the man walked over the bodies and placed his small briefcase on the table before using the equipment to carefully gather the different color vials. Once they were transferred safely and sealed he looked around one last time and noticed a smaller vial of the virus that one of the now dead scientists had been studying.

A vile and egotistic smirk crossed the face of the man as he picked it up, before he finished walking through the door he tossed it hard back in the room. Hearing a faint breaking noise as he left, he left the door open, letting the air circulate in and out freely.

The Red Queen had many eyes throughout her body, currently there were 8,901 living beings currently in Skyfall and it was her duty to oversee them.

Twenty seconds ago the Q-virus was released, quickly changing from liquid form to airborne, circulating through the air and affecting every living organism in her domain. It took her twenty seconds to make a diagnosis of Skyfall.

The Red Queen was created to serve Spectre, she had protocols, harming any personnel of Spectre went against her programming in the most literal sense.

However, there were exceptions… 

A full decontamination, a salt the earth scenario as her creators would have said was needed in this situation, the personnel that worked in Skyfall were no longer her priority, the moment the Q-virus was unleashed every single human being and creature in Skyfall were fired from the Spectre Corporation, making it much more easier on her processors to do what needed to be done.

It took her nineteen seconds too long to come to this decision but that may have been sentiment, after all Q always encouraged her to think outside the box, she wondered if this counted but decided that it probably didn’t. She was doing her duty as she was created for and nothing less. 

The ultimate safely and concealment of Spectre. 

Under any circumstances.

Twenty seconds to close off all exits, to lock all doors, to flood sealed rooms, to cut all elevator cables and safety protocols, to rip the very air from 8,901 personnel, letting those who didn’t die from other means to suffocate on the carbon dioxide that flooded the corridors.

...make that 8,900 personnel.

...Where was Q?

Chapter Text

5 Hours after Containment

The cloudless, silent night was broken as a military helicopter flew over a large estate. There were no nearby neighbors to watch the spectacle as the team of seven individuals roped down, the helicopter keeping to the sky instead of landing. Once they were all on the ground and unclipped themselves the helicopter quickly flew off, it’s job done.

“Sir, we’re securing the premises now.”

“Roger that, Proceed with caution.”

“Right.” 

James Bond clicked off his radio and addressed the unit when Felix turned to him, a serious frown on his face and giving everyone the impression of a very, grumpy bear.

But honestly, Bond couldn’t remember the last time that Felix Leiter had cracked a smile that wasn’t a half-grimace smirk. Although come to think of it, the same could be said for Bond.

“Right men-”

“Oi!”

“-and women, safeties off but keep your fingers off the trigger for now, we may encounter civilians during the search and our employers want answers, not more dead bodies.”

Making sure everyone was prepared and all the equipment was safely secured between Agents Tanner and Moneypenny, the arguably brains in the group Bond took point, making his way carefully through the large estate house that served as a back door for Spectre’s little base of operations.

Not for the first time Bond silently questioned the decision to accept this job, Spectre was the world’s largest multinational conglomerate with subsidiaries active in a variety of industries. James couldn’t even remember a day that Spectre hadn’t been around in one way or another. Even before he’d created OO Mercenaries and been stationed in the Navy they’d already had their fingers in so many pies, Bond was no spring chicken either.

Still he kept his doubts to himself for now, both him and Felix had already taken precautions on picking the team for this mission, other than Miss Moneypenny and Mr. Tanner, everyone else were people he’d worked with before and could semi-trust not to shoot him in the back.

He halted the group as he noticed a body laying next to where Spectre had indicated where the entrance was located. It was wearing a lab coat and had shapely legs and long brown hair so he assumed female for now. It wasn’t moving and looked like it had dropped to the ground suddenly if the way it was sprawled on the ground was any indication.

“Trevelyan.” 

He directed his second-in-command, Alec Trevelyan to carefully approach while he and the rest of the group stayed back, on high alert. He’d go himself but as far as the two new members of the group knew Bond was second-in-command while Felix was the Captain, which made Alec third in line. 

A case of insurance for later, it made it easier for him to investigate things himself without having too much eyes on him. All three of them did this frequently, as the last job had Alec in charge with Felix playing second and Bond as a grunt. It had been hilarious later when Bond had taken the payment for the job as Captain when the clients first impression of him had been no impression at all.

“She’s breathing, looks like some kind of gas knocked her out, probably from the defense mechanism since she’s next to the entrance.” Alec reported. “No signs of trauma so doubtful she was assaulted.”

“Wake her.” 

Following the command without a moment’s hesitation Alec quickly sat the woman up and slapped her once across the face.

So much for the woman not being assaulted, Bond kept his amusement under control and off his face. Felix had already lectured him on his dark humor many times before. He wasn’t looking for another talking too, although with the way Felix was eyeing Alec that man might be getting one in Bond’s stead. 

Godspeed, Felix had a way of making a grown man ashamed of living after one of his lectures. Must be why he was so popular with the ladies, but only off the clock.

Not long after that the woman’s eyes opened and she was hauled up by the units’ other two members Edward Donne and Scarlett Papava. 

Papava came forward and began to question her, you could tell that her no-nonsense and frankly appalling manners were causing an ill-reaction in the woman, as well as the heavy handed way that Alec woke her up. 

If she wouldn’t answer the questions that Bond’s agents asked then he could always swoop in and ‘save’ her from them. He’d done that tactic enough times that the success rate was higher than outright asking did.

Agent Moneypenny was the one who noticed the name tag hanging from the woman’s low hanging neckline.

“Agent Camille Montes?” Alec went forward and pulled the tag, after a quick review he confirmed it’s affentication.

“She’s Spectre personal, must be a security operative for the back entrance.”

“Why weren’t we notified?” Felix demanded.

Alec shrugged and smiled at the woman who just glared at him spitefully. It looked like she remembered the slap, even if she kept repeating that she couldn’t remember anything else.

“Maybe they had a change of personnel? She won’t be able to tell us until the gas wears off. Right now we know more about her than she does herself. Until the gas wears off at least.” 

Bond narrowed his eyes at the information but kept quiet, they needed to be inside and assess the situation, not stand around gossiping.

Felix was quick to notice his glare and he had Tanner unlocking the large hidden door not a minute later.

They made their way down to the large underground tram station, Agent Papava quickly activated the power cables and they were traveling down the long stretch to Skyfall.

Bond made his way to stand next to Miss Montes, casually leaning against the wall.

“Are you doing okay? This all must seem confusing and scary but we really are here to help, if you like I could kick Alec’s ass later once the situation calms down.” 

Bond kept his words purposefully light, playful and charming.

Miss Montes smiled back at him, a wary but beautiful twist of lips, clearly happy to have a seemingly ally in the group.

“Well this probably wasn’t how I was expecting my night to go.”

“Do you remember anything? I don’t mean to pry, but it is strange that our clients forgot to warn us that you were here.”

She shook her head, agitated but clearly charmed by him, if the way she was side-eyeing him was any indication.

“No, I didn’t even realize my name was Camille Montes. It doesn’t feel real...I don’t know. Maybe whatever I breathed in is meant to make me question things.”

She rubbed her head, a small lump  was seen through the brown locks. She must have hit her head when she went down.

As it wasn’t bleeding Bond forgoes the offer of bandages.

“Well let me introduce you to the unit, might as well know each other a little better. That way you can have information on us, the same that we have with you.”

“Our dear Captain Felix Leiter is the grumpy looking man. Me and him go way back in the day, us old timers that is.”

Miss Monties giggled at his exaggerated grimace, before waving at him to continue.

“Our dear Lt. Alec Trevelyan, he was recruited right out of the private sector, although I’m afraid the Army got to him first. Still he’s a good poker player.”

Alec flipped him off without looking.

“We have Agents Edward Donne and Scarlett Papava, recruited out of the Marines respectfully, you won’t meet anyone scarier then Agent Papava, although for some reason Donne seems to like it.”

“Fuck off Bond!”

“Then we have the brains of our little operation, Agents Bill Tanner and Eve Moneypenny, Tanner came right out of the private sector as well, but instead of guns you can say he wields a computer much the same. No one knows what Agent Moneypenny did before this, but she’s a fair shot so we don’t judge her too badly, I think she was part of the Navel Air Force but no one’s taken me up on that bet yet. Now these two wiz kids are newbies, this will be their first mission with us so let's all be nice to the new kiddios.”

“And you?”

Bond sent her his most flirtatious smile, watching with satisfaction as the young woman went red with desire and embarrassment.

“Bond, James Bond. Navy commander, I may have helped co-found this group but I’m not much into leading. I let Felix deal with that.”

A quiet snort was heard in the following silence but he let it go, they were close to reaching their destination after all.

“Well you know my name, but you may call me Camille.”

They smiled at each other before a jolt of the tram caused her to stumble, after helping her get her feet back under control, the conversation ended up dying.

Five minutes later they came to a stop, the platform for the emergency back entrance to Skyfall right in front of them.

Bond had everyone stay nearby, while also being on full alert. He wasn’t sure why but he was getting a terrible foreboding feeling the closer they got to the actually complex.

Felix began a quick debrief, mostly so Miss Montes was caught up and wouldn’t ask questions at the wrong time.

“Five hours ago Spectre’s facility Skyfall went into lock-down. The Red Queen, Skyfall’s primary A.I. who controlled the building and all it’s offensive and defensive weaponry went homicidal and killed all staff members before going on lock-down and stopping all means of communications with the main corporation. We were hired by Spectre to assess the situation and recover as much information of the incident as possible before shutting her down. If any personnel is recovered they are to be put under status one protection as they might have information.”

Felix looked back at him and tilted his head, a quiet question. Bond subtly shook his head, no.

Felix then continued the debrief without pause.

“We have three hours to complete our mission, I’m sure you’re all itching for drinks up top but there will be no celebrating till job’s done.”

Felix suddenly began to smirk and nodded towards Bond, making sure the rest of the team was looking at him.

“Drinks are on Bond if we finish this mission with time to spare.”

Bond made sure he didn’t roll his eyes but the unimpressed stare he gave his long-term friend said enough.

“Fine, you heard the boss, ladies and gentlemen, drinks on me. I’ll even take you all to The Casino Royale.”

Alec whistled while Moneypenny smirked at Tanner who couldn’t hold his drink even if he tried. That was a famous place in the city above them, really posh and the alcohol cost a ton.

Bond would probably end up giving all of his share of the cash that this job offered, either in drinks or entertainment.

“Spectre must really be putting out the money for this.”

Donne smiled at Papava, his crush on her as obvious as anything, she just nodded back; her mind clearly on the mission.

“Sir, Skyfall’s been breached we should go.” 

Tanner called out, after he finished opening the large doors.

“Okay you all heard him people! Sync your watches now!”

They all made their way quickly through the entrance, the elevators weren’t accessible after a quick glance at the empty shafts, so they began to jog quickly down the staircase, going down several floors before Tanner pointed to a door, signaling that this was the floor they needed. 

They single filed through the doorway, coming onto a corridor of empty hallways. 

The debris and echoing emptiness was enough to creep out Bond, let alone the others. Miss Montes was sticking close to him, her whole demeanor suggested that she was frightened and unsure and in need of reassurance. Bond hoped that she would snap out of the civilian mood soon, after all, her credentials on the tag said she was an agent, not a scientist. 

Which meant that she should be able to take care of herself if the situation called for it.

“Ah shit.” Agent Donne swore colorfully for a moment before Felix demanded to know what was the hold up.

“This is going to slow us down.” 

He pointed and Bond frowned before walking carefully, taking in the situation in front of them. The corridors to the side of the hallway they were currently located in were completely flooded. As in the locked rooms were filled with water from floor to ceiling, not giving even half an inch for air.

“The direct way to the Queen’s server room is through here. According to scans this whole floor is flooded and inaccessible.”

“What the hell happened?!” Agent Montes hissed as they stared at the floating bodies. It was eerie and Bond could see Moneypenny and Tanner shiver, in either fear or disgust he couldn’t tell from the angle. But considering they were both his newest members of the group he would give them a pass. They were not yet used to the carnage that Bond’s team regularly saw.

“Tanner, find us an alternative route. Everyone keep your eyes open.” Felix ordered.

Bond kept a light chatter going on with Miss Montes while keeping an eye out. So far everything had gone well, other than the rerouting, and Bond didn’t trust it.

Over eight thousand dead.

Over eight thousand...so where were those eight thousand bodies? 

Not to mention Bond’s been getting this itch in the back of his head, a warning sense of danger.

“Okay I’ve got it, we need to go through one of the personnel office floors before going through cafeteria D, after that it’s a straight shot to the control room.”

“Let's get going then.”

Q’s eyes began to flutter as his watch started to vibrate, time to wake up. 

After a moment’s pause to gather his thoughts he grimaced, he had work to do if he wanted to get out of here safely. No time to waste, even if the way his body ached from being stuck in such a cramped spot made him want to lay flat on the floor for a proper nap.

Although survival wasn’t his main end goal it would be a nice bonus.

He decided to keep the oxygen mask on, even if the small container hardly had any air left, then pressed his ear to the door. Even with it being sealed sound may still travel so if anyone was in his office he should be able to hear them. After a few moments and nothing could be heard he silently pushed the release button on the panel. Releasing the seal and bringing him out of the cupboard. Q snickered to himself at the joke as he pushed the door open. 

He almost gagged at the taste of death in the air. It was heavy, almost just as heavy as the silence. Although if he tilted his head just right he could hear them, the infected in their locked rooms. He tested the air, once he was sure it contained oxygen he left the mask behind.

Unlocking his safe brought him two 9.mm handguns and an extra mag of bullets. He quickly stuffed one of the guns and the extra ammo in his satchel before sticking the other one in the waistline of his back, of course after checking the safety was off. 

He didn’t have long before Spectre sent someone to check over what had happened, if he was lucky he might be able to use them.

Grabbing his coat he adjusted his glasses before carefully opening his door.

At least three guns were pointed at his face.

“Oh...bugger.”

Chapter Text

A Few minutes beforehand

As the group made its way swiftly down the hallways, Bond was pleased to note that the other Agents, discounting Miss Montes, had also taken notice of the lack of bodies. It showed in the tension of their shoulders and eyes how alert they were to their present situation.

Tanner kept his eyes on his scanner, allowing the others to keep track of their surroundings in the case of anything happening. Because of this, he noticed the moment that another heat signature popped on his screen where there had not been anything a moment ago.

“Captain.”

Bond turned to Tanner the same moment Felix did, luckily so did everyone else.

“It looks like we may have another survivor.”

He waved the device, showing off the lone heat signature.

“It’s coming from one of the offices up ahead. What confuses me is that it wasn’t there a minute ago.”

Felix frowned, he gestured to everyone to keep up as they made their way down the trashed hallway, the flooded rooms long behind them. Even still, the floors were wet and messy.

“Do you think it’s a glitch?”

Alec grinned widely and moved forward, ignoring Felix’s scowl and wave to fall back.

“Well there’s just one way to know for sure isn’t there?”

Bond kept his face passive but he was annoyed by Alec’s byplay, usually the man was professional on a mission, especially when they were playing decoy Captain. 

As they walked Bond remembered that it was Alec who had secured this gig for them. A quarter of a million dollars, both for the mission and cover up. It wasn’t anything unusual for his second-in-command to secure some of their jobs. Still something about this seemed off to Bond. How had Alec gotten a Spectre contract so quickly and easily?

“Hey, Agent Bond?” Montes shyly spoke up.

“Yes, Camille?” Bond smiled smoothly at her as she kept up the pace. “Are you doing alright?”

“I’m fine. I was wondering, since you said your unit was outsourced, why did you accept this job?”

Bond shrugged, while he was wildly wondering if his thoughts were plain on his face.

“Why wouldn’t we? Spectre is a multi billion dollar corporation, the money for this job alone will set most of us for life.”

“But not you?”

Bond narrowed his eyes as he turned to look at her, a sly smile had replaced the shy one, her eyes knowing and for a moment, cruel.

“Sometimes we want more out of life then a paycheck, Miss Montes.”

Before she could say anything else they were interrupted by the others.

“Just through here, the body of heat isn’t moving much.”

“Bond, Tanner and Miss Montes stay at the back, Donne and Papava, you two up front with Trevelyan. Moneypenny with me. Guns up and safeties off but no shooting unless under my order.”

Everyone got into positions, before Trevelyan could make a move to open the door someone else got there first.

Bond’s first impression of the man was of some boy playing dress up.  

A Boffin in the truest sense of the word, the boy was just that. A young man who looked young enough to still have his spots, dressed in the most nerd worthy sweater vest and boring tie, a large lab coat hanging across his arms, clearly he hadn’t had time yet to properly put it on. The kid was a skinny little waif with unruly, curly brown hair and the biggest pair of glasses on his face. He was even walking in sandshoes. One of Bond’s former clients had worn those, they were terrible to run in, no traction whatsoever.

“Rescue team already? My oh my, Spectre must be feeling scared right now.”

“Identify yourself.” 

Felix snarled, Bond could tell he was unnerved by the kid. After the moment of fear of having guns in his face passed the boffin had kept a cool, almost unfeeling expression on his face. As if he was unfazed by almost being shot in the face.

Bond took notice that they were missing a member, it looked like Alec decided to snoop around the boffin’s office, which normally wouldn’t have bothered him but they didn’t have time to investigate, irritated by Alec’s careless act he called him out.

“Trevelyan, we’re leaving!”

Currently they were moving through the hallways to the Queen’s chambers after picking up their latest stray. Since they were on a time table they had to keep on the move. As much as Bond and Felix wanted to stop and interrogate the Boffin properly they didn’t have time for that.

“Mr. Smith, scientist for Spectre, level 6.”

Felix snarled at the deadpanned information and demanded more information, to which Mr. Smith responded with a dismissive snort.

“You are not qualified to know anything further. I can already tell you and the others are not Spectre personnel but contractors hired out of pocket. Probably because you are non-essential to their plans. Now I’m sure you know things that I need to know, and maybe if I’m feeling generous I’ll share with you what I know of what happened. Is that alright with you, Captain.”

Bond would have smirked and been impressed by the brass balls of the Boffin in any other situation but not right now and he did not appreciate the run around the little shit was giving them.

Felix must have also felt the same as he smacked the kid across the face.

“Listen here you little brat. You are not essential to our mission so don’t think for a moment that we wouldn’t shoot you and leave you here.”

“Wrong.”

Bond and the others turned to look at him, that one word was spoken harshly out. Clearly he wasn’t happy with the heavy handed way Felix had taken with him.

“What?”

“I said you're wrong. Let me guess your mission parameters, you are to assist the situation of what happened down here, you are to shut down the Red Queen, then you are to gather any and all relevant information and personnel that had survived and take them back to the surface.”

The rest were quiet as they slowed down and stared at the cold eyed Boffin.

A slow smile grew on the boy’s-no, man’s face. 

“But not just any personnel correct? Let me introduce myself again. Mr. Smith, scientist level 6 for Spectre. Code name, Q.”

Bond smiled scarily back as the rest of them swore, Felix stepped back as the Boffin advanced forward. 

“I’m a high level target, but I’m also your best bet for getting out of there. Now then, I believe we have a mission to accomplish.”

Cafeteria D was not a dining hallway, not like the map showed. Instead of tables and chairs the large warehouse sized room looked like something out of a horror sci-fi set.

Dozens of large containers flooded the floor, tubes filled with mysterious fluid, supplying the things inside the containers.

“What the hell is this?” Moneypenny spoke, horror in her voice. Tanner was shaking as well.

“Agents control yourselves.”

Bond spoke this time, as Felix was just freaked as the rest of them. Not to say that Bond wasn’t, but he was much more in control of himself then the others.

Although...Bond looked over at Alec, his face was passive, just as much as Q and surprisingly Miss Montes was.

Those three weren’t surprised at all.

Well, wasn't that interesting.

“Everyone keep it tight and keep your eyes open for any movement, we need to shut down the Queen as soon as possible.”

Miss Montes suddenly went faint, no one was standing nearby so nobody grabbed her.

“What the hell..?” Felix sighed, aggression and fear fueling him. He looked down at the woman before making a snap order.

“Moneypenny stays with her, you have medical training. Make sure nothing is wrong and if it’s anything that we can’t deal with promptly.” 

At this point Felix paused before continuing. “Deal with it.”

“Sir.” Moneypenny saluted as they all moved forward, leaving the two behind.

Just before they finished making their way out of the large room Bond took a quick glance inside the containers through a small window for observation. He couldn’t describe what he was seeing, it wasn’t something that could be described.

“Hey, you yourself said to keep it tight. Might want to follow your own advice.”

Bond twitched but otherwise didn’t move as the boffin, Q stood next to him all of a sudden.

“Ah I see you’ve found the failed experiments. They were nicknamed ‘Hunters’ by one of my co-workers.”

“Failed?” 

Q smirked, his eyes watching Bond with a curious gaze.

“Curious Agent Bond? I assure you, you do not want to know.”

Bond’s attention was caught elsewhere now, he knew the others hadn’t introduced themselves. Including him, so how did little Q know his name?

“You know of me?” 

Q didn’t say anything, instead he gave the container one last unreadable look before continuing onward. Bond stared at his retreating back before cocking his gun and moving on as well.

It didn’t take the rest of them too much longer to reach the room that connected to the Queen’s server rooms. Tanner got straight to work taking down the Red Queen’s defenses so they could get into the hallway that was the only way in or out of the server room.

Q sat down against one of the walls, he seemed to be having a staring contest with one of the nearby cameras. 

“So kiddo. What’s in the bag?”

Q turned his attention to Alec, a glare entering his eyes. He seemed to take offense at Alec’s question.

“My paperwork.” Q confessed dryly.

“I think your bosses will understand under the circumstances if you didn’t send your quota report.” Alec’s taunt was filled with low level malice.

Something all the other Agents noticed immediately except Tanner, who was busy working.

Q smiled nastily back.

“I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

“Agent Alec Trevelyan. Second-in-command of the mercenary group OO.”

Bond coughed, the idiot seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to be playing third on this mission. Not give himself away in a pissing match with a paperpusher.

“Well Agent Trevelyan, you must not know Spectre very much. I have to ask, who was it that had gotten Spectre’s notice on your team? I've been thinking about it since we’ve met, Spectre should have sent one of their many armed soldiers units but instead they outsourced. Now that is very unusual in a normal situation, but this? Thousands are dead and a virus unlike anything the world has ever seen has been released, who knows if it is still safe to be here, breathing this filtered air. If this got out, Spectre could kiss it’s ass goodbye and they sent outsiders? I’m very interested to know who the double agent on your team is.”

Alec’s face got progressively darker the more Q talked, enough so that Bond subtly got closer to contain the situation in case it got out of hand.

“Fuck you.”

Q’s smile was anything but nice. 

“No thank you, I may catch something.”
“Okay then, let’s break up this little love fest shall we.”

Bond interrupted, he could tell the moment Alec was going to pull his gun and shoot the Boffin and there would be none of that. 

Donne began to complain loudly, mostly to defuse the situation.

“Why is it taking so long, Tanner?”

“The defenses are on high alert. The Red Queen does not want us to go into her room, she knows we’re here.”

“That reminds me.” 

Alec apparently couldn’t let it go, Bond was close to snarling himself. They had a job to do, on a time limit. They didn’t have time to deal with male macho posturing.

“How is it that you, Mr. Smith, are still alive? Oh, I’m sorry, it’s Q right? Everyone is dead apparently but the Red Queen spared you? Sounds like you two were in cahoots rather than you miraculous surviving.”

“Who says cahoots anymore?” Q wrinkled his nose before sighing and then deadpan stared Alec down. 

“The only reason I’m alive right now is because I have a program on my computer that alerts me when there’s been a breach in containment or if some idiot gets trigger happy. It’s an early warning system that I programmed after having lived through an unhappy co-worker deciding to shoot up my old workplace. I’m sure you heard of the shootout at the Umbrella Corporation?”

“Wasn’t that a small-time computer business? It went under after five people died due to the shootout of a former employee. I think I remember Spectre snapping up the personnel and business after the tragedy.”

Donne answered for them.

“Yes, I was one of the lucky ones to work that day, also one of the lucky ones not to get fatally shot.”

“Fatally? So you were shot?” Bond suddenly injected himself into the conversation.

Q pointed to his left shoulder.

“It went out the back thankfully, I’d rather not send off metal detectors when I go through them. I also made a small panic room in my office, it was just a cupboard but the Red Queen couldn’t see me or sense me. So she didn’t get the chance to kill me like everyone else.”

They were all silent, the awkwardness filling the air, Bond ended up breaking it as something that Q said earlier nagged at him.

“You said something about a virus? Is that why the computer system went trigger happy.”

Q’s head whipped around, his eyes wide and mouth agape.

“You don’t know? Why the hell didn’t they inform you-?”

Before anything else could be said the door opposite them opened.

“Wait that’s not right, I didn’t finish.” Tanner mumbled but no one paid him any attention as they all stood to attention.

Felix picked up the large bag that housed the parts to shut her down. Tanner shook his head, dismissing his misgivings and addressed their Captain.

“You’ll need to manually open the door on the opposite end, just try to pull the level, if that doesn’t work tell me. She may have tried to deadlock it.”

“Okay, Papava with me, let’s get that door open. The rest of you follow after me, Bond stays with Q. Make sure the brat doesn’t try anything funny.” 

Both Alec and Donne held up their guns, standing a small step behind Felix and Papava, ready to walk forward once the two up front got to the opposite door.

Q slowly stood up, his back still pressing against the wall. He was staring at the white hallway ahead, his eyes narrowed and calculating.

“How did you bypass her third encryption wall so quickly?” 

Q suddenly addressed Tanner, who had been getting up from his chair to follow after his coworkers. He sent Q a bemused wide-eyed stare.

“What third encryption?”

Q stared at Tanner for a second before suddenly springing into action.

“GET OUT OF THERE! HER PRIMARY DEFENSES ARE STILL ON!”

Bond had been following along to the conversation, the moment Q went into a panic he didn’t bother to yell at the others. Already moving he pulled Alec and Donne’s flank jackets at the neck, pulling them back and out of the way as the door suddenly slammed close in front of them. They’d been in the hallway, but not nearly far in enough to get stuck in, at least not with Bond strong-arming them out.

Unfortunately the others had been too far for Bond to get too, after the doors closed both Felix and Papava were locked in the white hallway with no way out.

“Shit shit shit.” Tanner began to swear as his hands began to fly on the keyboard, trying to shut the Queen down before she could act.

Bond kept his gaze straight, he was pressed into the door, the small window the only way he could keep an eye on his team.

“Shut her down Tanner.” Bond ordered grimly.

“I’m trying sir!” 

“Try harder!” Alec suddenly smacked Tanner across the head, his aggression not helping matters as now Tanner was trying to work while also having his ears ringing, his hands shaking in fear fueled adrenaline. Donne was standing next to Bond, trying to see into the window but Bond wouldn’t move.

If he took to heart the way his gut was twisting up, he didn’t want Donne to see what was most likely about to happen to their teammates, much less Papava.

“Let me.” 

Q pushed Tanner out of the way, no one protested as Q’s slender fingers began to fly across the board, prompts and windows opening and closing at a speed too fast for the normal eye. He was cursing under his breath as he tried to break through her last wall.

“She’s activated the laser grid. Tell them to watch out!”

Bond didn’t get the chance too, he watched as one then two lasers came out of the walls, starting on his side and moving to the other side of the narrow hallway. To their credit both Felix and Papava responded to the threat with forced calm, they avoided the laser, if not with ease at least with no loss of limbs. Papava kept her eyes up front while Felix was fiddling with the other door, placing one of Tanner’s gadgets on the door.

“Ah smart, I may be able to open the door with that device if I can’t shut her down in time.” 

Q began to mumble under his breath. 

“I’ve almost got it.”

“Hurry up Q.” 

Bond’s voice was monotonous, but the tension in his frame showed how worried he was, he wanted to scream but knew that would do nothing but distract the Boffin from doing his damned job.

“Almost there…”

The lasers kept on coming, he watched with detachment and horror as Papava succumbed to a surprise attack, the line of deadly light changed halfway down the hallway, startling her enough that she didn’t move quickly enough.

Her head rolled down, stopping at Felix’s feet. The man stood up slowly, a fatalistically weight in his movements that had Bond’s throat tightening.

“Hold on Felix. Hold on. Q! Now!” 

Bond began to talk, his voice rising as reason began to slip away. 

Felix just stared straight into Bond’s eyes, a small smile on his face as he pulled out a knife, although what the man thought he was going to do with that was up in the air.

“Almost Bond, tell him to hold on ten more seconds!”

Bond could see that the door behind Felix was unlocking, he began to shout at Felix to go through the door, to get out of the death filled hallway.

But it was like Felix was deaf all of a sudden, his forehead crinkled as he stared at Bond’s shouting face, confused clear in his eyes.

“Right behind you! You asshole go through the door!”

“Get him into the other room Bond!” 

Q’s hands were a blur, sweat dripping into his eyes as he tried to save the agents. 

“It’s going to take me another 30 seconds to shut off the lasers, he doesn’t have that time!”

“I’m trying!”

“Try harder then!”

Bond watched as the lasers suddenly turned all on, it looked liked there was no escape this time.

“Wait, I may be able to turn off the lasers if I redirect a few things! Shite here’s hoping she doesn’t have anything else under her sleeves!”

The lasers stopped mere inches from Felix’s face.

For a moment everyone felt an overwhelming sense of relief, Q was still typing rapidly, trying to shut her defenses down entirely.

“It’s going to take me an extra minute to shut it all down, Bond, get Captain Leiter and Agent Papava inside that other room now, I can’t do two things at once with her fighting me the entire time. Either I focus on shutting her defenses off or I hold the lasers back.”

Bond turned to look at Q before nodding sharply and turning back to the window. He realized that Q had no idea that Papava was already dead and he didn’t think telling him right now would do anything but make the people behind him panic.

“He’s not responding to my voice.” Bond noted, his voice almost a whisper.

“Shit, she must have sealed the room, no noise goes in or out. Try pointing to the door behind him.”

Bond did as he was told, Felix finally seemed to get it and turn around.

Unfortunately that’s when Bond noticed the other problem.

“Q...the walls are moving.”

The silence from Q told Bond what a thousand words could not.

Felix was making the last few steps to the door, he hadn’t yet noticed that another trap was about to befall him as he was focused now on escaping from the hallway.

As soon as Felix’s hand touched the other door he jerked back a few steps. Bond could see that a large ecstatic charge had stung him but other than startling the man it didn’t seem to harm him.

“Come on, come on Felix, just push past the pain and go through the door.” Bond yelled to deaf ears.

Felix must have thought since the lasers had stopped he was safe, he turned his back to the door and reached out to the duffel bag, ignoring Papava’s headless body.

Pushing with it against the door he managed to open it enough to throw the bag through.

Instead of going inside like everyone was pleading him too he turned his head back to look at Bond.

It was only then that he noticed the walls and ceiling were enclosing on him. It must have been completely silent in there, with the bright lights and long hallway it had taken him way too long to notice his situation.

It was strange, Bond noted absently, a weightless feeling of horror swelling in his chest, that the moment Felix took notice of what was happening, the speed of the trap increased.

The ceiling was already pushing against his head at this point, and the walls had almost covered both doors.

Felix turned away to try to make it out but by then it was too late.

Bond watched a detached glaze over his eyes as one of his oldest friends was crushed to death.

Q typed in the last few commands that shut down the Queen’s primary defenses in the area. The door opened but no one made a run for it and that told Q a lot of things. Primarily that he had failed to save anyone.

It was something that didn’t surprise him, although he’d been hoping to be proven wrong.

He’d already known that he’d been too late to save them.

He’d kept one eye watching Bond’s back. So he knew the moment when both agents were down and would not be getting back up.

“Ah shit.” He leaned back against the chair, pushing his sweat heavy curls out of his face.

“What the fuck was that Tanner? Why the fuck wasn’t that bitch shut down!” 

Q looked up just in time to see Agent Donne slam his fist into the other agent’s face.

Bond was suddenly there, pulling Donne’s arm back and pressing him against the wall, subduing him quickly as the rest of them just stood there like useless lumps.

“None of that, Donne. We all know the risks we take with our jobs, as we are still on the clock, you bottle that shit up quick and get back to work. After we get out we can have a good shouting match, maybe a punch or two but while we are here we work together as a unit. Got it?”

Donne tried to escape but Bond wasn’t having it, he put more pressure on Donne’s bent arm until the man caved, crying out in pain.

“Got it, Agent?”

“Right, got it Captain.”

Donne winced after being released, the agent was silent as he turned his back from the open door, clearly not wanting to see his friends bodies.

Bond watched him for a moment more before turning to Tanner.

“Same goes for you Agent Tanner, we have a job to do. No guilt crying or letting your emotions blind you to your actions.”

“Y-yes sir.” 

Tanner was pale and shaking, he was standing nearby Q, his face already turning an interesting shade of red and purple from Donne’s punch.

“Alec, with me.”

“Hell no Captain.”

Bond glared at his second-in-command, he really wasn’t up to insubordination right now, two of his people were dead. Deaths that could, should have been avoided if they’d bothered to double check everything. That’s what happened when he and his people got careless and negligent.

“I’ll go with you.”

Bond’s head swerved around to Q, who was standing up and making his way towards the hallway.

“Her primary defenses for the room are offline now. We need to hurry up here, if your men are too scared to work then I’ll have to pull my own weight.”

Bond wanted to protest but they didn’t have time for that right now, he was absently amused at Alec’s defensive sneer at being called weak by a boffin, but considering it was Q who had tried and succeeded in helping them the man couldn’t protest.

It just hadn’t been good enough in the end. 

Bond and Q made their way carefully through the hallway, making sure to avoid stepping into anything too unpleasant, both for respect and because they didn’t want to be trailing guts around. Bond’s boots could handle it but Q’s were more fabric than anything else.

Picking up the bag that laid right in the doorway’s path they made their way further into the room which was roughly the size of the station room they’d just been inside.

“I’m sure you know what to do with this.” Bond heaved the bag towards the dais which housed the Red Queen’s main server.

“I’m just surprised you trust me to do this.” 

Q couldn’t help but quib back but helped unpack without complaint and set up the shut down equipment.

“Don’t have much of a choice do I? Tanner’s too deep in a panic and guilt shutdown and other than him only Papava knew how to do this kind of thing.”

“It comes down to no choice in the end. I’m sorry about your people, if it’s any consolation. Most people wouldn’t have noticed her third wall.”

“Why did you know about it then?”

“I built it.”

Before Bond could have Q elaborate on that bit of information a hologram came up.

“Stop what you're doing, Q.”

“Oh hello Queenie.” Q spoke absently as he finished setting up.

“Unauthorized personnel are not allowed in here, Q. Get out.”

“Well aren't you snippy today? Although considering what you’ve done I’m not surprised.”

“You understand the severity of what has happened and the necessary risks I had to take to stop it. Q, stop this now.” 

“Sorry if I’m interrupting, but what the hell is this?”

Bond couldn’t help but cut into the conversation. The hologram took the shape of an older woman, one with a no-nonsense expression and a sharp looking suit.

“Ah right, Bond met the Red Queen, she’s just an interface for the program, shaped in the likeness of a deceased family member of one of the board members.”

“You don’t understand the situation as I thought you would. Don't turn me off.”

“She will say anything to stop us. Now Bond, as I understand it you must be feeling anger over the death of your friends. Want to push the button?”

“With pleasure Q.”

Just before Bond pushed the button the Red Queen faced him.

“You are all going to die down here.”

Bond’s thumb was already pressing down hard before she even finished her sentence.

Chapter Text

Eve hummed a soft tune under her breath as she helped prop up the other woman on top of a nearby table. There were a few scattered around the large testing containers in the room. Eve was kind of terrified to know for what purpose they had served in this room as some of them had...liquid on top and under them.

She’d already checked Montes’ pulse and pupil dilation, and determined that she was fine if slightly dehydrated. Hopefully the woman woke up soon so they could join the others. 

Barring that, she hoped the rest of the team made it back quickly, as being in such a large area virtually by herself was giving her the creeps.

She was feeling a bit of shock actually.

Finally being in one of Spectre’s inner bases was something that someone with her level of clearance could only hope for. She had predicted that if her cover wasn’t blown then she would at least be undercover for a few more years yet. M, himself had helped set her up in this unit for that very purpose, although no one could have predicted that her very first mission with OO Mercenaries would be this fruitful.

They’d known that Spectre had moles in different outfits around the world. OO Mercenaries had long been regarded as one of them, it was just Eve’s luck to be placed on the Alpha team, instead of the smaller Betas and Delta squads that made up the business.

Before they had made it down into Skyfall Eve had sent a quick, coded report to her boss. Just the basics as she hadn’t been told too much at that point. She’d gotten a small transmission back before all transmissions became blocked.

The message read as follows. To investigate as much as Spectre’s plans as possible and to find their mole in the corporation and extract them from the situation.

Unfortunately Eve’s boss couldn’t tell her the identity of the spy they knew they had in Skyfall as they didn’t know they’re identity themselves.

They were probably long dead, which was a pity and could set them back months even years on evidence gathering. Eve had heard rumors about this spy, apparently they’ve infiltrated Spectre years ago and was able to maintain their cover while also gaining the upper head honchos in Spectre trust.

She could probably leave the woman here and go back into one of the offices, there had to be some paperwork about what had gone down in here, not to mention if she could get physical evidence of Spectre’s criminal actions it would go a long way in taking down the corporation. This could be the big break that  Britain’s Secret Service Investigations have been working on for years.

Eve’s head went up, alert and braced her gun at the sound of noise echoed in the once quiet room, a long, loud scraping sound.

“Shit, maybe a survivor?” 

She looked back at Miss Montes but she was still unconscious, the sound was getting closer to their location so she made up her mind to go check it out.

Making her way quickly but quietly across the large tubes that lined the ground she spotted her target.

Clothed in white lab coat the person had their back to her, she made her way silently forward, as much as she wanted to call out something was holding her back. 

Maybe it was the way the person was standing, almost hunched over and awkward, or maybe it was the dried blood and dirt that covered them.

Or maybe…

“Sir, please turn around slowly.”

Eve’s voice was even as she braced her gun, the safety was off but her fingers stayed off the trigger, she was getting a bad vibe off this guy.

The person jerked the moment her voice echoed in the air, slowly the figure turned around, his movements jerking in place.

Eve’s eyes went wide, her pupils pinpointed as her fear overtook her.

The man’s face was gone, like it had been scraped off, all the soft tissue was wiped away, leaving the teeth and holes for where the nose was supposed to be. 

The eyes...they weren’t human. Not anymore.

“Oh fuck this.”

The man-no not a man, not anymore. The monster’s mouth went wide, a haunting noise of hunger and madness echoed in the air, Eve’s fingers were already on the trigger before she could think, as the figure began to move in her direction she pulled.

The loud sound of gunfire alerted them that something had gone wrong back where they had left the others.

“Alec, Donne, with me. Q, Tanner, stay behind us.”

They began to run back in the direction where they’d left Agent Moneypenny and her charge.

The came upon Agent Moneypenny heaving into a corner, her gun still smoking from the recent discharge.

“Report!” Bond barked out, as he looked around for whatever Moneypenny had been shooting at.

“Donne keep an eye out, Alec I want you to cover the civilians.”

Tanner went to protest that he wasn’t a civilian but the glare that Bond sent him shut him down fast.

“Agent, where is Miss Montes?” 

“Sh-she over there, laying on top one of the tables, unconscious.” 

Eve waved and pointed in the direction she’d come from.

“Donne check it out.”

“Sir.”

“Now agent, want to tell me what the hell you were shooting at?”

“There was this...it wasn’t a person. It didn’t have a fucking face. It tried to attack me, I shot it. It’s body fell over there.”

Eve’s cool was slow to come back but it was clear she was trying to keep her nerves under control and deal with the situation.

Alec moved without prompt to the location that Eve had pointed too.

“There’s nobody here.”

Eve’s head snapped up, a protest falling from her lips.

“That’s bullshit, I put five bullets in the chest.”

“Well whatever you think you shot, it’s not here.”

Q had been listening to the conversation with one ear, otherwise he was crouched low on the ground.

“There’s blood but it’s coagulation.”

Bond’s head turned to Q, his mind already realizing what Q was getting at. The others weren’t that fast on the uptake though.

“Why the fuck is that important?” Alec growled at the crouching boffin.

“Because that only happens to blood after you're dead. If Miss Moneypenny shot someone and this came out of them...then she didn’t kill anything. It was already dead.” 

Before Alec could continue spreading his aggressive bullshit Q noticed that Donne arrived, alone.

“She’s gone.”

Bond swore before taking several deep breaths, this job was spiraling in ways he didn’t enjoy one bit. They had done what they came too, now it was time to head out but now they had to locate Montes before they could leave, which delayed them greatly as they had no idea which way she’d run off too.

Before he could issue orders for them to split up to search for her Q quickly got up, his head turned into one direction.

“There’s something there.”

They all turned to look, now that they were all quiet they could hear it. The sounds.

Low groaning, the soft shuffling of feet, the light bangs of something hitting metal.

And then they came, out of the shadows. Dozens of bodies slowly moving in their direction.

Looking at them, you could visibly see that they weren’t alright, pieces were missing, eyes dead, mouths filled with gnashing teeth.

“What the fuck?!” Tanner yelled, his gun raised, the others doing the same. Although no one started shooting yet.

“That! That’s the fucker I shot!”

Eve pointed towards the crowd, one body among dozens. Bond didn’t bother to get her to clarify, as it didn’t matter in the end.

“They’re coming from all directions. Shit, we need an exit now.”

“Back the way we came in, now!” Bond ordered, his voice broken no argument. He tried to grab Q by the shoulder to lead him away, but the boffin was too quick for him.

Pulling a gun from the back of his pants, and how the fuck had Bond missed that? Q leveled the gun and fired, not bothering to wait for orders.

The others quickly got on board as they were quickly getting surrounded and the way towards their escape was closing quickly.

The loud sound of gunfire echoed in the room, the agents all had automatic weapons with large clips, even so the bodies kept on getting back up.

“Why aren't they staying down?!” Moneypenny shouted as they slowly made their way through the crowd, trying to get back the doors that lead to the flooded hallways.

“Try to shoot off the legs!” 

“That doesn’t stop them from crawling towards us!”

Q noticed something, he hadn’t realized it before but all the containers which had been green lit earlier were now red, unstable.

“Fuck! Be careful about the containers! Don’t shoot the containers!”

They ignored him, because of course they did.

Q was running out of bullets and he didn’t have a moment to grab the extra mag from his bag. Idea after idea zoomed through his head, discarding ones that had a low probability of success.

 One thing stuck in his mind, they must have released the staff once the Red Queen went offline, doors became unlocked without her protocols keeping them contained.

Double shit, the program had been right, they shouldn’t have shut her down.

He could see the others, right now they were all concentrating on trying to survive this shitshow.

If he slipped away now he might make it, he was fast, not to mention his body was trained. But he was unsure if that was the correct decision as of right now, the unit had the bigger guns. 

But if he had access to the experimental weaponry locket then that could change.

Now there was a thought. 

Q’s well aim downed more of the zombies, because that’s what they fucking were, then the others. Although maybe it was because he was getting head-shots in while everyone else was shooting more torsos and limbs.

Tanner was trying to input the code to access the door, his hands shaking terribly. The others weren’t doing so great, as the room was filling with the dead things and enclosing fast, uncaring for the bullets that ripped through their dead flesh. 

Q didn’t know who it was, but someone was definitely getting overly trigger happy, he watched as if in slow motion a nearby container got shot up, pressurized gas and air came out, he knew what was going to happen next. He threw himself to the ground, although he tried to keep on shooting the nearest zombies.

“Get down!”

Bond and Alec had been the closest to him and obeyed without a second thought just as the container blew up. 

The sound was deafening and the burn of the fire and heated air stole the air from Q’s lungs. He could hear shouting from the others but it was muffled, his hearing had been shot to hell.

Picking himself up carefully he noticed that most of the zombies near him were down on the ground and not getting back up. He could see Bond helping the others to their feet.

There would be no better time than now if he wanted to separate from the ground.

Keeping himself low to the ground Q couldn’t help but wonder if he should warn the others that the hallways were probably all flooded with the dead, attracted by the noise coming from this room, that included the one they had walked down to get here.

But that was just common sense right?

Chapter Text

“Open the door Tanner!” Alec screamed out as his gun ran out, Bond didn’t begrudge his panic as he also would like an escape route right about now.

“I’m trying! Okay okay, let’s try again. 76392...no...76492.” 

Tanner’s shaking hands input the code again and again, but the shaking and sweat meant that his fingers kept slipping on the keypad.

“Fuck it!”

Tanner got yanked away from the door, being pressed back towards the firefight.

“Now what was the code dipshit!?” 

Donne growled as he posed his fingers on the keypad, his fingers barely shaking.

“76492.” Tanner stumbled out as he watched with relief as Donne quickly imputed the information. 

“See? Was that so hard?” 

Donne smirked at Tanner who was posed to smile back but as the door opened behind the agent Tanner’s smile froze on his face.

“Don-!”

Before anything else could be said dozens of reaching arms yanked Donne backwards into the waiting hoard of teeth and nails.

“EDWARD!!”

Tanner’s scream caught the others’ attention quickly, Alec began swearing as Bond and Moneypenny ran back, trying to help.

Donne screams as he felt bite after bite on every inch of his body. Tanner moved forward, uncaring of the limbs that reached at him,  he tried to grab hold of Donne but it was already too late, Donne’s body fell into the hoard as they pushed forward. 

Tanner didn’t flinch as one of the heads bit into his hand, tearing through the glove and taking his pinky and ring fingers into its mouth leaving him with only three fingers and a gaping wound.

“Close the doors!” 

Moneypenny and Alec pushed the doors closed, although it was hard as they were being pushed back. Bond pulled Tanner backwards, who was kicking and screaming, still trying to get to Donne who continued to scream as he was literally torn apart.

“We need to get out of here!” 

“Fuck! Go back to the Queen’s room! Fall back!” 

Bond ordered as they continued to push through the crowd, trying to escape without any more casualties.

Almost absently, Bond couldn’t help but wonder where Q had gotten too, if he had run away or if he was one of the bodies that now littered the ground. He didn’t have the time or temperament to check as he pulled the rest of his team back to the dead-end they had just left. His priority right now was to save what was left of his team.

Moneypenny threw a full mag at Alec, covering him as he locked and loaded his gun. Bond stayed in the middle, making sure he had a grip on Tanner who was barely walking on his own, while Alec took point and Moneypenny took rear. Bullets continued to fly though the air, striking body after body with few actual results.

They wouldn’t stay down and they just kept coming. Bond knew there must be other doors, other exits but he didn’t know where they lead or how crowded they were. As of right now they weren’t an option.

“I’m out!” 

Moneypenny yelled as she dropped her gun and instead pulled out a combat knife and slammed it into the head of any approaching enemies that got close enough, her judo kicking pushing them away while trying to keep a firm grip on the blooded knife.

Tanner began to fumble, trying to reach into his vest jacket to pull out the small caliber handgun he liked to carry around, it was more of an emergency weapon that wouldn’t do shit to these things unless the confrontation was in close range. 

Bond didn’t know how but they managed to make it to the doors leading back into the computer room that led to the Red Queen’s chambers. Luckily someone had been smart enough to close it after they had left. Hopefully that meant that it was empty of these things and they could have a moment to assess the situation they’d gotten themselves into.

Bond pushed Tanner through the doors, making sure that the others went through before him, he could feel the grasping fingers pulling at his vest, scraping along the velcro straps and pulling on his turtleneck but still not touching his skin. He had never been so happy to have no fashion sense, as Alec liked to tell him. 

It took three of them to press the door shut, making sure it locked behind them.

“What about that door?” Moneypenny panted out, pointing to another door that led to another hallway, they hadn’t checked it out last time as there hadn’t been a pressing need too.

“Check it, but be careful.”

Moneypenny nodded before carefully moving to the door, Alec standing nearby, his gun poised to shoot at a moment's notice.

She pressed her ear to the door before stepping back.

“I hear them, not sure how many but it's loud so I’m going to guess they’re pressed against this door as well.”

“Shit!”

“Shit indeed.”

“Alright everyone check your equipment.” 

Bond ordered while making sure that Tanner was sitting down on the chair, his hand was bleeding freely although the man just sat there staring at the corridor.

“Where are the bodies?”

“What?”

“Felix and Scarlett, where did their bodies go?”

Bond swore and looked down the white and yes, empty hallway, even the blood had been moped up.

“What the fuck is going on Captain.” Moneypenny asked although the question felt less like a question and more of a resignation statement.

“I don’t know.” 

Bond answered honestly before pulling out some bandages. 

“Moneypenny, help Tanner wrap his hand. How are we on weaponry?”

“I’ve got half a mag in the chamber, Moneypenny’s completely out. You?”

Alec replied after checking his gun, Bond nodded before checking his own weapon and then Tanner’s gun that was slung low on his back.

“I've got one full clip to spare and less than half in my gun. Tanner’s got less than half, but there’s his small gun so currently he’s tied in second.”

“Fuck.” Alec sighed before leaning against a nearby wall. “Where the fuck did the geek squad end up?”

“Q? No idea and not my priority right now.”

“What about that other bitch?”

Bond didn’t bother to reply, he checked on Tanner and noticed that his wound bleed through the bandage, even when it was wrapped securely.

“What’s your status Agent?”

Tanner’s face was pale, sweaty and he had black smudges below his eyes. Frankly, he looked like hell.

“I’ll live, Captain. We need to figure out a way out of here. I’ll look through the map that Spectre gave us. Maybe there’s something on there we missed.”

“Get to it then, otherwise everyone conserve your energy and rest. We may be here a while.”

Q kept close to the walls, walking as quickly and as quietly as he could to avoid detection.

He needed to get to one of the lower levels, as the experimental weaponry that was housed within the amour would be his only hope at staying alive, at least long enough to get the fuck out of here.

Also, fuck everything. Those were his pet projects and he wanted them, he’d spent many a long night working on those and he’d be damned they be left to rust down here.

Somehow he’d gotten lucky and hadn’t encountered many zombies on his route, a few stragglers but they were easy to avoid. The larger hoards were probably still trying to get to what’s left of the mercenary unit.

The hardest part for him right now?

He had to go through the animal testing rooms to get where he needed to go. Who the fuck had thought up that design flaw needed to be shot, or at least he hopped that they died down here like everyone else because he already knew that they had been housing a dozen or so fucking doberman mutts. Not to mention the goddamn monkeys. He hoped the dogs had eaten those fuckers, the last thing he needed to deal with were zombie monkeys.  

He checked his gun and cursed, he only had a few bullets left, other than his other gun that meant he was down almost 2 full magazines of bullets.

If he ran into a hoard he was fucked, especially in these narrow hallways.

Deciding to switch his guns now, he placed the mostly empty gun in his satchel before pulling out his other one and turning the safety off before continuing on his way.

As he made his way closer to his destination he couldn’t help but wonder about the unit he’d left behind, were any of them still alive? Or had they died when the hoard of zombies overwhelmed them?

There were over 8 thousand corpses running around after all. They didn’t have the manpower or bullets to kill every last one of them even if they had the time, which they certainly did not. 

He checked his watch and grimaced, too much time had passed, more than he was safely comfortable with. He needed to speed things up if he wanted to get out of here before the time limit was up.

He could see the doors up ahead, once he went through them and took a right down another hallway he’d arrive to where he needed to be. He just had to be careful not to make noise as the testing area was also located in that hallway. Two doors closer to him then he’d want them to be.

At least there shouldn’t be any zombie cats, he didn’t think he would take it well if he had to shoot a cat, zombie or no.

Cocking the gun Q made sure his glasses were secured on his face before pushing open the swinging doors, wishing that they had windows so he could see what was in the hallway ahead of him.

Blood and pieces of gore apparently.

Q swallowed back the bile that came up from his stomach, the stench of putrefied flesh and ripped bowls and organs filled the small hallway. They hadn’t even had the chance to zombify as the bodies were in literal chunks.

He could see bloody paw prints on the ground, telling him who exactly was the cause of such a mess. These must have been the animals caretakers then.

Q couldn’t help but sneer a little, what comes around and bites you later in the ass. He knew that they went through a lot of animal testing weekly, the animals usually didn’t last longer then that, dying from exposure to the chemicals or torture. The caretakers and scientists liked to call it endurance training.

He didn’t see any of the animals, although there hadn’t been any blood trails on the other side of the doors which meant that they must still be around. There were a few open doors to either side of him that he had to pass to get to the locked and secured room he wanted, as well as open doors far ahead of him, the animals could be in any one of them.

Taking a deep break Q moved forward, listening for any noise to alert him of any incoming danger.

He passed the first rooms without a problem, taking a quick look to see if anything useful or a danger to him, other than more gore they looked empty. Which meant that the other rooms may contain the dogs.

Pointing the gun and getting ready to pull the trigger Q hugged the wall, he looked at the room opposite of him, ready to shoot but nothing came out. The room was small, one of the many little labs that made up the place, he could see a few ripped apart cages that had gore and blood splattered on them but no movement.

Before he could sigh in relief he felt it, hot breath on his check, the smell of decay floating into his nose.

He flung himself forward, barely managing to get away from the holler monkey that had been leaning out of the doorway he’d been standing besides.

“Son of a bitch!” Q shot wildly, hitting it but not making a kill shot. The monkey screeched loudly, probably alerting everything about the new meal, not that his shooting hadn’t done that already.

“Fuck you, you flying rat.” 

Q kept shooting as more of the creatures came out of the room, their smaller bodies made it harder to get a good shot in, not to mention they were fast. Really fast.

Q started to run backwards towards the locked room, once he got inside he would be alright, he just needed to input the damned code.

There were at least half a dozen of those bastards in the hallway now, their zombies bodies moving in ways that shouldn’t be possible.

He’d already known that animals took to the virus better than humans, but it was terrifying to see it outside of a secured room. 

He quickly slammed his hand on the keypad, imputing his code while waiting for the voice recognizing software to boot up.

“Authorization name and code.”

“Quinton Smith, code deltazebra455.”

“Code authorization, welcome Mr. Smith.”

The doors locks released allowing him to press them open. 

He was so focused on the monsters in front of him he failed to see the trail of blood that led inside the room.

He pressed the door closed behind him, the sound of small bodies colliding and screeching at missing him thundering loud in his ears. Leaning against the door he heaved for breath as the fear coursed through him, if he hadn’t switched guns before he would be dead right now.

As he heaved for breath he heard a noise in front of him, moving quickly he barely blinked at the zombie in front of him. Without thought he shot it in the head, he could hear his gun click as he continued to press the trigger.

Empty.

“Fuck this.” 

Q stayed against the wall, staring blank eyed at the corpse in front of him. Absently he realized he knew the body, Doctor Arkins. They had worked closely together at one of the other facilities a few years ago, he hadn’t even heard that the doctor had transferred.

“Must have been checking the inventory, although he’s a microbiologist and nano tech expert, why is he in the weapons room?”

Q mumbled to himself as he dropped the gun and walked past the body, swiping his hand and making sure his eye was level to the scanner. He was happy that the backup power for this room was working, he had the override codes but that would have taken time and those mangy rats outside wouldn’t have given him the time to input it before sinking their little teeth in him.

“Okay then, let’s get to work.” 

Going into the next, secured vault like room Q grinned.

Rows of prototypes and standardized guns and devices lined the walls. He placed his satchel carefully on the ground and stripped down to his underwear, before walking to a nearby locker where they kept the outfit gear.

Getting dressed into what was essentially riot gear Q made sure everything fit, getting rid of what he considered non-essential that would only weigh him down, he still wanted to be able to run after all.

Unfortunately all the boots he tried on were either too big or way too small. Apparently they were made for big beefy men or dainty, small footed women, nothing for his weedy sized body. Cursing under breath Q put back on his converse shoes, although he put two layers of socks on his feet as extra protection. Nothing he could do about it.

The symbol of Spectre was located on his arm and chest, he frowned at it but didn’t bother to try to remove it. It didn’t matter in the end as long as the gear served its purpose. He left off the helmet and pulled out a duffel bag, placing as many of the weapons as he could safely carry inside.

Those wouldn’t be for him, if he ended up finding that unit of soldiers again he could offer it as a peace offering so they wouldn’t shoot him.

What he was interested in was in the locked container on the other side of the room.

Inputting his code again he watched as the shatter proof glass lifted, there were two weapons on risen daises, one of them was smaller than the other, he reached for that one.

The reader on the gun coded in his palm print, the slick design of the gun fitted perfectly in his hand.

There was no entry way for bullets because that’s not what it shot out. This gun instead shot out concentrated plasma.

Not unlike those guns in the old sci-fi films, he’s mainly drawn his focus on an almost endless supply of ammo, not to mention it would be hard to trace the person firing such a weapon. The only downside that Q was still trying to work out was that it needed charging, that wasn’t the true problem. The problem was the time it took to charge, three months was a lot longer than Spectre would prefer so the project had been shelved until Q figured out how to fix it. Still Q was proud of the weapon.

It was more of a personal statement than a weapon of mass destruction.

No that honor went to the other gun.

The BFG, or as the other workers had liked to call it, Big Fucking Gun. It was similar to his gun, only on a much grander scale. That gun would be able to wipe out a mass of zombies with only one person. Spectre had wanted hundreds of them before they learned of the charging problem.

It was unfortunate that Q’s body mass wouldn’t be able to handle the kickback, it had been created for one of the other experiments, one of the breeds of Tyrant they’d been creating.

He wouldn’t even be able to fit it in the bag, much less carry it. Pity that.

Turning his back he looked back at the door, he could now hear louder growling so the dogs had surfaced after all.

He picked up his satchel, checking it’s contents before then picking up the duffel, grunting a bit at the weight.

He wouldn’t be able to outrun anything right now, maybe some slower human zombies but not those animals out there.

“What to do, what to do.” 

He contemplated before snapping his head up, a ventilation shaft above him.

“Well...that’ll work.” 

Securing his gun tightly in a holster, he then made sure he had a few backup weapons as well on his person. You never know if you’ll be forced to drop your primary weapon and need a second weapon.

He pushed and pulled a nearby bench till it was right below where he needed it to be, using one of the larger guns he punched through the wire that covered the opening. Using a flashlight he’d pulled from one of the lockers he placed it between his teeth and jumped up, gripping the edges tightly he pulled himself up, letting his lower body dangle as he looked around, the shaft was empty and dark on both sides.

Falling back down he picked up the duffel and pushed it inside the hole, he wasn’t sure which way to go as he didn’t bother to memorize the ventilation systematizes like he had the floors.

He once again jumped up, this time pulling himself fully into the shaft, before carefully crawling forward, the duffel in front of him with him pushing it. For a second he thought he heard the sound of something tapping against the metal. He stopped moving, holding his breath and straining his ears but after a few seconds of silence he began to move forward again, although he pulled out a knife from his belt just in case, the shaft was too small for him to shoot off a gun and not expect to get hit himself.

He tried to keep to a straight path, being careful not to fall down any of the periodic openings, taking a moment to peer down onto different corridors or rooms, almost all of them had a zombie or two. He hadn’t caught sight of anyone living yet.

He was dismayed to realize that the route he was taking was leading back the way he’d come, after looking at more familiar rooms from the vents. He hadn’t found any deviation yet in the shafts so he couldn’t turn another way yet.

He was right above another opening when he heard it again. That oh so careful scrapping of nails on metal. Dread filled him as he cranked his head to look behind him. 

Crouched only a few feet away from him was a zombified monkey, its legs and one of its arms were missing which explained why it had taken its damned time coming after him. Once his attention was on it, it screeched and tried to claw itself faster towards him, it’s mouth wide open to take a bite.

“Fuck, shit, oh god.” Q didn’t have the space to maneuver, he also couldn’t go any faster down the shaft, at least not without the whole thing coming down. He couldn’t even stab the thing as his arms wouldn’t bend backwards to slash at it.

Leaving him with no choice but to go downward. He kicked out, feeling his shoes hit the body of the screeching monkey, pushing it back a little. He pushed the duffel against the screen below him, using the pressure to bend the metal. He kept kicking his feet, in hopes to keep the animal zombie at bay. It wouldn’t be long until it’s one arm took a good grip of his foot though and held before crawling up his legs, trying to bite through the thick fabric of his pants.

Actually that’s what was happening right this very second.

Swearing loudly he put his whole body weight on the grill, feeling it pop open with a bang. He didn’t care what was in the room below him, he needed space to gut the little fucker clanging to him.

He held in a scream as he fell eight feet down to the ground, landing on top of the duffel and hearing something break, either him or one of the guns he couldn’t tell.

Groaning he sat up and slashed blindly at the monkey, cutting its head off and sending it flying.

...Right into Miss Montes apparently.

Huh.

Her scream was unusually high for the situation, but to be fair, who expected a decapitated zombie monkey head to come out of nowhere and hit them square in the chest?

Chapter Text

After making sure the room they were in was secured he let the woman hit him in the chest a few times with wildly flaring hands. It didn’t hurt much as she didn’t have much muscle mass and as long as she had stopped making noise he didn’t mind, he knew that he’d want to hit the person who threw zombie heads at him so he figured letting her get her scared frustration out in a silent but cathartic way would only benefit them later on.

Looking around he blinked a few times, why was she in Mr. Boothroyd’s office?

Boothroyd had been Q’s superior at Skyfall as he had also been a level 6 asset, but since he’d been with the corporation years longer than Q he’d had higher status then him.

If Q was remembering correctly Boothroyd was currently on his yearly one week vacation to visit his family up top, so at least he hadn’t been here for this fuckup.

Now why had this woman run away only to come here?

“Your name is Montes, correct? Did you get lost down here?”

He eyed the lab coat that hung on her small shoulders and unusual attire, she was wearing a dress with stockings, not too unusual for an office worker here but she was wearing a coat that only the scientists down here wore.

The nagging feeling he got whenever he looked at her started to bug him again, he didn’t recognize her, he may not remember all the interns or lower level scientists but he knew the majority of the staff that worked level 3 and up.

She’d come down with the unit which meant that she’d come from outside Skyfall, because if she’d been inside she wouldn’t have survived like Q had.

Where had they found her, again? He couldn’t recall and he was annoyed that he hadn’t asked Bond or the others about her when he had the chance.

“Were you one of the new transfers? I’m so sorry you had to deal with this mess on your first day.”

She tried to smile while agreeing with him, then looked away quickly. Q felt his plus quicken as he quickly wiped away any negative emotion on his face.

There had been no new transfers for the last three months, she was lying to him.

“Back then I woke up to these monsters surrounding me, I panicked and ran away before they could attack me. I lost track of the others, have you seen anyone?”

“Nothing but zombies and these weird monkey things.”  

She turned her attention to him again and finally seemed to notice his new outfit and the duffle.

“What are you wearing?”

“Ah, well I got separated from the group after one of the asshats shot up a tank, it blew up and I got slammed down near a different hallway. I may be a high level asset but I mainly deal in computers. Still, I remember overhearing one of the other doctors talking about an armory and which floor it was on. I didn’t have any weapons so I thought I’d check it out. The doors were open and I’m not sure how but I managed to avoid running into anything I couldn’t run from.”

He pointed to himself, making sure he portrayed himself as a harmless boffin that had just gotten lucky to survive. Well other than his safe room cupboard but he liked to think that the story was believable, after all, all lies are told with grains of truth in them.

“I found some of the security guards clothing and decided that it was safer to dress in this then my favorite sweater vest. Although my ma may get mad at me for ditching last year's Christmas present.”

He could tell by how the tension was released from her shoulders that she was buying it. Once again, it helped that he had sprinkled some truth along with the lies.

“Well after I ran away I found myself wandering around these offices, this one looked important so I was thinking that maybe there was something in here I can use as a weapon of some sort.”

Q tried to make his face twist into an expression of innocent believability but wasn’t sure if he pulled it off, not that it mattered because the woman kept her own eyes away from him, clearly they both needed lessons in lying.

“I think this is one of the lead scientists' offices, I don’t know them very much since it’s different fieldwork, most of the upper staff had left for some vacation or another.”

“All around the same time? Isn’t that kind of suspicious?”

Q paused, actually now that it was addressed out loud that fact did seem a little weird, technically he’d been scheduled by Spectre to leave two weeks ago but he had manually pushed it back, which is why he had been going to leave the day after tomorrow. 

He hummed to show he was agreeing with her, it truly did seem that this little accident may not be such an accident after all. Or at least it looked like an in-house job.

“We should try to get out of here.” He spoke up, he could hear movement not too far from their location.

 “We are close to where the others were, maybe they thinned out the hoard enough so that we can get out of here, the exit is nowhere near this hallway sadly.”

“Sounds good...hey, may I have one of the guns.”

It hadn't been a question, while Q wasn’t happy to hand the woman a weapon he knew it would seem suspicious if he didn’t give her something.

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” 

Q reached into the bag and handed her one of the smaller guns, it had twelve rounds so he didn’t offer her an extra mag, she also wouldn’t have any place to put it if he did.

“My partner taught me, don’t worry I’ll be careful.”

“Oh? Anyone I know?”

“Maybe if we live through this kid, I’ll tell you.”

Bond and the others were on the move the very second the other door began to unlock itself, they could hear the howling of zombies just on the other side.

“Close it behind us!”

Everyone but Tanner got up and hauled ass towards the door, Miss Montes got through first while Q squeezed through the gab of the door, throwing a large bag forward, no one noticed the small scream that Tanner let out when it hit his lower extremities. 

Several arms of the dead tried to yank one of them back through the opening, but with all of them pressing against the barrier they managed to seal and shut it.

“Motherfuckers!”

Once it was closed everyone just stood there panting, letting the adrenaline coursing through them to settle down.

“Where the fuck have you two been?” Alec swore viciously.

“Running from zombies obviously.” Q deadpanned and made a quick retreat behind Moneypenny when it looked like the man was going to throw himself forward to strangle him.

“Stop it. Q, Montes, report.”

“You could say please.”

Q kept behind Moneypenny as Bond’s glare at him actually scared him more than Trevelyan’s physical threats.

“Montes said that she woke up and ran after our former co-workers tried to take a bite from her. On the other hand I ran when some idiot, not saying who, took potshots at the containers making them explode. I couldn’t see which way you all had gone too so I made my own way out a side door.”

“And the gear?” 

Q sighed, clearly tired and stressed with the situation.

“Look I’ve worked here for a while now, I hear things. So when I figured out I was in the hallway that led to the armory I went for it. Had to run from fucking zombie monkeys but I got some guns and decided that as cute as I was in a sweater vest this situation calls for more then geek chic.”

Moneypenny couldn’t help it, she started to giggle at the look of dumbfound bemusement on Bond’s face as Q got in his face.

“I got you guns.” Q said slowly, as if he was seriously questioning Bond’s intelligence.

“Well maybe you aren't such a dead weight.” Alec suddenly spoke up, and yanked the bag out of Tanner’s grip.

“How does the other hallway look?” Montes asked, finally speaking up, she slinked forward to stand near Bond, her eyes batting coyly. Clearly someone was hoping to be carried out of here.

“It's jammed pack with those things, we won’t be able to get out. How about the way you came?” 

Bond asked, a no-nonsense tone to his voice, he didn’t pull away but he was clearly not giving Montes the attention she clearly wanted.

“It was clear further out but the closer we came to this room the more they showed up. We wouldn’t be able to get out before we’re overtaken, even with the guns.”

“Won’t someone show up when you don’t report in? We’ll be rescued if we just stay still.” 

Montes’ question had the unit members all looking the other way.

“No, they won’t be. How much longer do we have?” Q asked, his voice tense as he stared down the hallway that led to the server room.

“94 minutes.”

“Well then, my vote is for us to be out of here before then.”

“What are you guys talking about?” 

As Bond turned to Montes and explained he picked out two pistols and one larger shotgun from the bag, handing Tanner another gun with a few extra clips.

“Those blast doors we came in through from the mansion are time locked to seal shut after 3 hours. If we aren't on the other side of those doors we won’t be getting out of here at all. It’s a fail safe, so that whatever happened here won’t happen above ground.”

“Well fuck that.” Montes spat. “Why the hell would you agree to come down here if there was the chance that you would be sealed down here to die?”

“Money, honey.” Alec sing-songed. “Life’s oldest desire.”

“I thought that was sex.” Moneypenny argued as they silently fought for the same gun, a larger rifle with a sniper scope.

“Maybe for you darling.”

“Okay split it up, Alec let her have the gun, she’s a better sniper than you. Take the larger auto.”

Alec grunted but let Moneypenny have the rifle while he picked up the only other larger weapon, a semi-auto with a chain of bullets hanging down the side.

Before anyone else could get into an argument Q started to walk quickly down the white hallway.

“What are you doing?”

“We need a way out of here and as of right now only one person knows how. I’m turning her back on.”

Bond practically teleported with how fast he was beside Q after he said that.

“That homicidal computer killed my team, we are not going to turn her on.”

“Do you have a better idea then, Captain?” 

Q didn’t bother to wait for Bond to respond, he was already placing the separated parts back together.

“Hate to say it Captain but I’m with Q on this one. We need an exit.” Moneypenny spoke while Tanner shook his head next to her, looking at the other two members of his team, both Alec and Montes nodded in agreement.

“If we do this we need some kind of assurance that she won’t just kill us.”

“Ahead of you on that, I’m rewiring her main circuits to this.” 

Q lifted a remote, showing how there was only one switch on it.

“If she doesn’t do as we ask or tries to trick us, I’ll press this. If that happens it will overload her systems, it won’t just shut her off, it will fry her matrix system. She’ll die as she won’t have any backups to upload too. Now are we in agreement?”

Bond took another long look at his team before nodding. 

“Do it.”

Chapter Text

“Why there you all are, or at least most of you. I suspect things haven’t worked out like you thought they would.”

Tanner reacted violently to the A.I’s voice, Bond barely got a hold of him before he tried to make a desperate grab for the remote.

“Cut the chatter, we need a way out of here.”

“And why Q, should I help you.”

“Because otherwise I will fry your circuits and you forget. I know you, the uncertainty of death unnerves you just as much as it would a human.”

Moneypenny interrupted before they could degrade to name-calling. She had questions and she suspected the topic was on the others minds as well.

“What are those things out there? Are those really all the people you killed? What actually happened here?”

“At 4:05pm yesterday my sensors detected a breech in the Biohazard Containment room. A deadly virus, created by Spectre scientists and named Quantum virus, Q-virus for short, had escaped into the air duct system, spreading, contaminating and infecting every living organism in Skyfall within minutes. You have to understand, once one becomes infected it is too late for you. If even one person escaped Skyfall the virus would spread upon the world with no way to stop it. I took steps to avoid such a situation.”

“You murdered over 8 thousand people.”

“And if contained I will have saved billions more. The virus is versatile, changing from liquid to airborne, to contact of bodily fluids. One bite, one scratch from those creatures is enough to infect someone, you may not die right away but the virus will tear your body apart from the inside out, and then you will die and become one of them. I can not let you leave here if there is the possibility of infection.”

Everyone consciously kept their gaze from landing on Tanner, who was holding onto his hand which against all odds was still bleeding through the multiple layered bandage.

“Just give us an exit to this room and the nearest route to the train platform, we will decide what needs to be done there.”

Bond glared at Q’s statement while the others shifted in place, unease and exhaustion made up their postures. 

“We’re not killing anyone else, got me?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that Captain.”

“There’s a maintenance hatch leading to the sewer system that connects all over Skyfall. Sending a map to your data computer now.”

Tanner’s small arm computer beeped a few times, looking down at it, they could clearly see the new map, this one of the tunnels underneath them.

“You better get a move on then, tick tock your clock is running out.”

“This better not be a trap.”

“Even if it is...do you have any other options?”

Bond took point this time, with both Alec and Moneypenny taking rear and Q and Tanner staying in the middle, as they were the ones who needed to consult the map to make sure they were heading in the correct direction. It was hard to see as the emergency lighting was covered in grime and muck, Q’s lone flashlight was held in Bond’s hand as he kept a lookout. 

He’d been marking every corner they turned with a quick smudge against the walls, he noticed it on their second pass.

They were going in circles.

Bond turned his head to address the team, he stopped moving, making them halt in place.

“We’ve already been through this tunnel.” Bond informed them grimly.

Instead of trying to argue with him Q looked at him silently, they ignored Tanner who was explaining how that’s not possible as the map showed them moving forward and not in circles.

“How many times?”

“I’ve counted twice, we’ve probably lost 15 minutes at most at our pace.”

Alec began to shout in anger, banging the butt of his gun against the walls, not caring about how the sound echoed loudly up and down the tunnels.

Moneypenny and Montes just stood back from the rest, watching as everyone else tried to silence the man.

It was clear that the ladies had decided unanimously to let the others decide what to do next as they had no fresh ideas and would rather not get in an argument with the clearly unhinged agent.

“That bitch is just playing with us! Q you motherfucker did you plan this too?”

“Fuck off.”

Q flipped the angry man off before turning his attention to the man in charge.

“Bond, if we can’t trust the map we need to get out of here. You remember what she had said, she won’t let anyone infected leave here alive.”

Before Bond could advise a different course of action they all froze in place, their breaths held as they all strained their ears.

Q looked forward, past Bond. His eyes dilating in fear.

“Ah, that’s where the dogs got too.”

Bond whirled around as a large pack of undead and vicious dogs came running towards them. No doubt to rip them apart and feast on their flesh.

“Shoot them in the head!” Q yelled out as they began an all out shootout in the small tunnel.

Before coming down into the sewers Q had hosteled his prototype gun and instead used one of the more conventional pistols from the duffel as he didn't want to show off all his tricks too early. Right now that was something he greatly regretted as he missed a few shots and instead just enraged the beasts.

He only saw the crowd of zombies coming up behind Trevelyan who was further away from the group because one of the dogs had rushed past him, causing him to spin in place and fall back against one of the sewer walls.

“More behind us!”

Ignoring the cursing and gunfire he looked up, large pipes and vents were numerous above them, high enough they might be out of reach of a normal zombie.

“Bond, up!”

Bond reloaded his gun and looked up, immediately getting what Q meant.

“Climb the pipes now!” 

Alec and Moneypenny, the sharpshooters among them continued to shoot around them, almost all the dogs were meat on the ground, with one or two milling around in the crowd, waiting for a chance to spring up and rip their throats.

Bond helped up Tanner first, followed by Montes. He tried to make a grab for Q but he squirreled away as he continued to try to cover them as well.

“Get up, you can pull me.”

Bond blew air harshly out of his nose and pulled himself up, both Montes and Tanner were a little ways ahead, trying to avoid the waving hands of the zombies beneath them.

“Keep moving! Alec, Moneypenny stop shooting and get your asses up there!”

“Q, now!”

Conveniently that was when Q’s gun began to click, out of bullets again. He didn’t waste a single second and threw the gun at the nearest zombie and turned around, reaching up as Bond reached down and pulled him up.

He could feel hands scrap and grab at his legs. He made sure to keep kicking them, hoping that none of them would get a good enough grip on him to take a bite.

He could see Trevelyan out of the corner of his eye pulling himself, leaving Moneypenny to cover him.

“Trevelyan, get Eve!”

Q was safely pulled up but pushed Bond’s hands away when the man tried to help him stabilize. Q tried to pull his gun out its holster but it was at an awkward angle. He could see that Moneypenny was being overrun and the likelihood of her getting away without injury was non-existent at this point.

Alec moved too slow, Moneypenny screamed as one of the crawling zombies bit through her pants, then another got her in the back shoulder.

“Pull her up now!”

Both Bond and Q screamed at the same time, Q tried to get in closer to them but he knew he wouldn’t make it too help before it was too late.

Alec finally reached down and yanked Moneypenny up by her vest, her legs dangling as the zombies below tried to yank her back down, clawing and ripping at her legs as she screamed out in pain and rage.

The pipes swagged under all the movement and weight of them. Q just hopped they would hold on for a while longer, at least long enough that they could get clear of the hoard.

“Keep moving!” Bond ordered everyone as they shuffled forward along the pipes. “Just keep moving, we need to get ahead of them.”

“Moneypenny, status.” Bond hollered back as they moved. Q tried to look back again but the area was too narrow so he just huffed and continued on.

“Bite and pissed but otherwise peachykeen, Captain.”

Bond scoffed but it was an edge of relief to it, as long as they all could keep moving forward they could get out. While it wasn’t ideal that Moneypenny was now infected at least no one had lost their lives after that crazy clusterfuck.

“I think we can all move on from titles and last names at this point, we’ve all experienced enough death and craziness to become battle harden friends.”

Hysterical giggling echoed in the tunnel, overtaking the groaning of the zombies below for a moment.

“Fine by me, hi everyone, my name’s Eve and James Bond here’s going to buy us a month's load of alcohol for a night after this fuckfest.”

Alec’s dry laughter echoed in the tunnel, overtaking the hoard’s nose for a second.

“I want the best hookers that you can afford as well James! I’m going for a real fuckfest after this! Alec’s the name people, don’t forget it as it will be showing up in your dreams.”

“Charming.” Q huffed. “While I prefer Q, my name is Quinton.”

Up ahead you could hear Tanner call out that his given name was Bill but he also preferred they kept to his last and that he thought the name Bond was better than James so he was going to stick to calling the captain by his last name. After a moment’s pause everyone else agreed with him, causing Bond to pout verbally.

Montes never spoke up as she grimly shuffled along the pipe behind Tanner, Bond kept his gaze frontward, so he managed to catch it when she reached towards her leg stocking before aborting the gesture and kept her hands under her to better balance on the pipes.

Now that he was looking for it he could see the outline of a computer component hidden high up her thigh, a hard drive. He only was able to see it because he was right behind her and her coat was torn at the bottom. Narrowing his eyes he huffed, it looked like Miss Montes had a few other secrets she wasn’t sharing with the class.

The hoard continued to follow them, they couldn’t make out any animals among the human zombies so they breathed a little easier, it wouldn’t be hard for a dog or another animal to use the slow walking zombies as springboards to get to them.

Q just silently thanked god that there weren't any more monkeys.

They came to a forked junction that led to two enlarged vents, in a circular room that was quickly filling up with zombies below, there had to be dozens of them now. It was clear that the Red Queen had lured them all down here since there was no way that they would have had the maneuverability to get into the lower systems themselves.

Tanner, who was in the lead, decided to take the right track versus the other side. Even though he didn’t trust the map the A.I had given them he still had the systematics from the earlier map, if they wanted to get back past the offices and the flooded floor they would need to go in this direction.

He slowly stood up and using the thin cables that kept the pipes suspended he walked across, kicking in the thin wire gate and finally gaining his feet under him on more solid ground. He helped Montes through and turned his attention to the others.

Tanner knew he should speak up, he could feel himself getting worse the longer they went on, his eyes were blurry and he wanted to throw up. A queasy feeling in his stomach and he could swear he could feel his blood rushing sluggishly through his veins. 

He was dying, and he didn’t know how much longer he had until he became one of those things. 

He didn’t want to die but worse still he didn’t want to come back as a monster.

The zombies below were hitting the pipes now, slamming their hands again and again on the weak metal, causing it to almost shake uncontrollably.

“Careful Q, hold on to my back.” 

Bond offered once he noticed that Q hadn’t gotten up from his crouched position. 

“I...I’m not good with heights and this shaking isn’t helping.” Q admitted quietly as he did as Bond told him too, trying to not feel embarrassed for the extra help.

Bond almost snorted but instead grinned warily. 

“And here I was thinking that there wasn’t anything you weren’t good at, don’t worry about it. The fear of heights is completely normal.”

“And the fear of zombies isn’t?” 

“Well before this I would have judged you maybe a little.” Bond teased as they made it across, he tried to hurry as the shaking got worse. Pushing Q ahead of him he turned back to watch as Alec and Eve, who had been running behind due to Eve’s numerous wounds, started crossing the room after them.

“I don’t want to bother you but I think you should pick up the pace.” 

Alec snorted and began to walk across, his heavy foot work making it shake even more.

“Nag nag nag, is that all you can do James? Feeling the pressure? I think this cock up is worse then Moscow and I was sure nothing could top that fuck up.”

Bond’s face turned down into a scowl at Alec’s taunting.

“Not the time, Alec. Just make it across.”

He didn’t bother to order the man to help Eve, the man would only use it as an excuse to sprout more bullshit, Bond knew his team and he knew how Alec could get when he felt scared or under pressure.

“Bond the cables.” Q hissed behind him making him look up.

He swore as he saw hinges that were embedded in the concert walls were being pulled out, breaking apart. 

It wasn’t minutes that they had but mere seconds.

Before anyone could yell out a warning it was too late.

The pipes collapsed taking Alec and Eve down with them.

“Fuck!” 

Q had already pulled his gun out the moment he saw the damaged cables, once it had collapsed he went straight to shooting as many of the zombies near the downed humans as possible.

“Get them to climb up the pipes.” 

Alec had already been more than halfway across so it didn’t take him long to haul himself up the pipe he was still clanging too. Eve though had been a bit behind and she had fallen straight into the hoard. Her screams of pained rage echoed in the room.

“For fucks sake!”

Bond had also pulled his gun out as well and directed his shots at the zombies around her, Alec was fine and didn’t need any help as he pushed past them all and continued on. The asshole hadn’t bothered to even look back.

Montes barely hesitated before following after him.

“Eve climb the pipe nearest you, do it now.” 

Q’s voice echoed in the room as he continued to shoot, the pipe nearest her lead to the left, a different direction then the one they were all located in.

“I’m trying!” Eve gritted her teeth as she pulled herself up the pipe, zombie after zombie clanging to her pants as she climbed backwards.

“We’re going to find a way across okay? Just hold on.”

Bond assured her as he looked around the room desperately, if they pulled some of the cables together nearby one of them could swing towards her, but it was unsure if it would be able to hold both of their combined weight. 

“Go.”

Bond turned his head back, Eve’s face was drawn but her eyes were glaring at them with determination. 

“Go on without me. You can’t get me, not without endangering someone else. I’ll be fine, look I still have some bullets left.”

Eve pushed out her mag to show off her ammo.

“It’s empty.”

“Ah yea. I forgot about that.” Eve shrugged before flinging the gun at a nearby zombie’s face causing it to fall backwards into the growing hoard.

“You don’t have enough time to get to me safely, please Captain.”

“I thought I told you to call me James.” Bond spoke, his voice trembling lightly as he failed another member of his team.

“Ha, James then. Please do this for me. Don’t let me bring you all down with me. Leave.”

Bond nodded his head firmly then turned around and went down the vent, Tanner leaned against a nearby wall, sweat dripping down his face mixing with the tears.

“Tanner, you with me?” Bond asked gently as he paused in front of him.

“Sir, I’m...I’m with you.” Tanner nodded before following after his Captain.

Q stayed back a moment, making eye-contact with Eve, an understanding passing through them as Eve patted one of her vest pockets before winking at him. It was a poor attempt as sweat dripped down her face, mixing with the tears that freely fell from her eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

Q spoke softly, his voice barely audible, before he too turned away.

He didn’t stay too watch, either she tried her luck down the other tunnel that the hoard could follow her into or she used the knife she had tucked away to end it before the zombies tried to do it their way.

Either way, her fate was out of their hands and all they could do was go forward.

Chapter Text

“Fuck it’s good to out of that disgusting mess.” 

Alec complained as he pushed against the floor vent above him and crawled back onto one of the actual work floors.

Luckily there wasn’t a single zombie wandering around, the hallway was completely deserted meaning it was safe, for now.

Once everyone was top side Tanner pulled out his computer and checked the map, he had to be held upright by both Bond and Alec as he was deteriorating fast as he threw up some stomach bile before settling down enough to try to focus on the small screen.

“We’re close to our original route, these were the flooded rooms we passed earlier.”

“Good, let’s get a move on.” 

The sound of Alec throwing up drew Bond up short, he started towards him only for Alec to throw up a hand and wave him aside.

“I’m fine, just sympathy throwing up, can’t stand the stench.”

Bond had never seen Alec’s up chunks just because someone else did nearby. If anything Alec would be the one eating a sandwich without a care as he watched someone be disemboweled.

Still maybe this whole situation was getting to him, lord knew it was grinding on Bond’s last nerves. After giving Alec a once over from afar to make sure he really was okay he directed the others to follow Tanner’s directions.

They were passing a bunch of laboratories when Montes deviated, before anyone could make a grab for her, she was running down a corridor and pushing against one of the doors that lead to one of the labs.

“What are you doing? Get back here Montes!”

“This place was in the notes in that office, this is where they created the virus.”

Q’s back tensed up and he kept his gaze down, trying to seem as neutral as possible as they all followed after her, the room was still flooded, the water coming up to their hips the deeper they went into the room. Tanner leaned against the small staircase that connected the entrance and the lab floor. His shaking was getting worse and Q couldn’t tell if the man was even conscious anymore.

He kept one eye on him and the other on the woman.

Had it been Montes all along? Had she been the one who’d stolen those false vials that he’d planted and started this whole mess? But then why was she here? If she got out then why put herself back down here? Unless she knew the vials were fakes...then she might just be looking for the real ones.

Q’s grip tightened on the strap of his satchel, it didn’t go unnoticed.

“When I was in that office where Q found me I found some papers about it, they said that there's an anti-virus.”

Bond quickly began to help her look around, an anti-virus meant that Tanner wouldn’t die.

Q leaned against one of the glass walls, a ways off from the others. He took notice that there were small chips in the glass. Likely someone had taken a fire ax to try to break the glass to escape the water, too bad the glass was reinforced.

It would take a lot more pressure then the human body could deliver to break the reinforced glass.

He adjusted his satchel on his shoulders, the straps were getting more then a little wear and tear and he’d have to be careful not to drop it.

“Hey so...why don’t we look over that paperwork you have in there? You know, to pass the time.”

Q startled, he hadn’t even felt Alec come up beside him, the man moved silently even through the water.

“I’m good, we should be staying alert.” Q’s voice was tense as his grip tightened.

“We’re in a secured room with only one exit, I think we’ll be able to spot anything coming up behind us.”

Bond and Montes didn’t look up at the conversation, they were speaking tensely to each other as they looked for the vials.

“Why aren't you helping your Captain? Don’t you want to save your friend?”

“Come now Q, we both know that they won’t find Q-virus or its green counteragent.”

Q froze before turning his full attention on Alec.

“And why would both of us know that?” Q whispered, his hands itching to reach for his gun but he finally took notice of the knife that Alec had placed alongside him, it was hidden from most of the others sight so he couldn’t even bring attention to it.

Q looked up at Alec’s smug face.

“It was you, you were the one who broke the vial and started this whole mess.”

“Well I didn’t think I’d have to come back down here did I? But I never imagined how effective the Q-virus was. It will sell for millions on the open market but with a few more demonstrations I’ll have countries clamoring for a sample of the virus and as long as I control the flow the money won’t stop coming and all those that tried to fuck with me will get a nice taste themselves.” 

“You must have gotten out then. What, did your clients try to test it before buying and found out you were trying to sell them food colored gel?”

Alec’s smirk stayed on his face as he reached out and smacked Q hard on the face. Q swore as he went down into the water, thrashing in place as Alec gripped tightly to his hair and held him down.

With his head underwater he could hear the others shouting, the swish of waves as the others moved about and Q squirmed, his lungs were beginning to burn the longer he was under. 

Right before he began to black out he was yanked up out of the water. Coughing and spitting he took deep breaths as Alec’s hands tightened in his hair.

“-oh shut it, James. You’ve been nothing but a shit commander since Moscow.”
“You know that wasn’t anybody’s fault! We got false intel Alec, it happens.”

“Intel from your friend’s sources. Maybe if you hadn’t been fucking and leaving so many woman we wouldn’t have been played like that!”

Alec visibly calmed down, his other hand pointing a gun at Bond while the others stayed back, the situation tense.

“Still that’s old news. You know before that I was trying to scout you for Spectre? It’s one of the reasons why I made myself look oh so good when you were recruiting for your little company. Six years I had to play nice and suck it up, still it wasn’t as bad as my last gig beforehand, going undercover in the British secret service. Now that was some boring shit.”

Alec leered down at Q who hadn’t tried to break free, yet.

“I remember M, the late M that is. Fierce bitch of a woman I tell you. Only a few people even gotta see her face, much less meet her. Now imagine my surprise when I saw a photo of this twink standing next to her, shaking hands and everything. Now if I was a more optimistic fuck I would say that our little Q here was playing double as a spy for Spectre but considering the fuck up that happened earlier to me I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was the other way around. Wasn’t it?”

Directing the last question downward, Q took that moment to spit full force on the man’s face. Alec let go of Q’s hair to wipe at the mess, somehow Q had aimed well and got him in the eye.

“Fucker!” 

Q threw himself forward, Bond catching and pulling Q behind him, making sure his gun was kept square on Alec.

“Shitface fuck, I’m gonna hurt you for that.” Alec hissed as he reached down into the water next to him to pull up Q’s satchel.

Q swore, his hands automatically went to his chest, the strap must have broken when he was being pressed down into the water. 

“Well then, you keep the brat then James. I want what’s in the bag.”

Alec walked carefully through the water towards the exit, his gun still aimed.

“What’s in the bag?” Montes spoke up, her voice echoing from the other side of the room. Her eyes hadn’t left Alec’s.

“All the money in the world, honey. Little Q has been hiding something from us, the last few vials of the Q-virus and its anti-virus. Isn’t that right?”

Bond’s body tensed up as he darted his eyes from Alec to Q and back again.

“Alec if that’s true give Tanner the antidote.”

“Now why the fuck would I waste something like that on one of you dead fucks? Nope I got to get topside before Spectre sends some of their burners down here, those fucks don’t mess around, doesn’t matter if I worked with Spectre they will shoot to kill. It wasn’t hard to convince my handler to send me down here. I was supposed to grab Q and the virus at all cost and then off you before you could reach the top. But I’ll let you all die peaceful like since I’m such a nice guy, staving down here is better than being ripped apart right?” Alec laughed loudly as he made the last few steps to the door before closing it behind him and shooting the lock.

“Th-that motherfucker.” Tanner panted out, startling a tense laugh out of Q before he slumped over.

“Shit.” Bond went and checked him over. “He’s still alive but his heart rate is skyrocketing and he’s running a fever.”

Bond glared over at Q who was standing there with his hands up, he then went up and checked the door.

It wouldn’t open, they would need a key-code to override the shot lock.

“Was he right? Did you have the anti-virus with you all this time?”

Q’s face was passive as he stared at the stressed out Captain.

“Bond, can I trust you?”

“Well I don’t have an other motives other then to get the fuck out of here with what’s left of my team alive if that’s what your asking.”

Q looked him over and decided to take him at his word. He still had doubts about Montes but as she hadn’t done anything else, yet, to him he’d give her the benefit of the doubt.

A creeping grin slashed across Q’s face, Bond’s frustrated confusion soon melted away in grim understanding.

“Well there’s something in that satchel but it’s not what Trevelyan believes it to be, let’s just say that he’s not going to be having a very good time if he opens Pandora's Box.”

Chapter Text

Alec only stopped moving once he’d made it to the train, collapsing onto the floor of the cabin, he ended up throwing away his last few bullets on some stragglers along the way. Looking around he began to laugh, he still had plenty of time before the blast doors locked up and he didn’t have to deal with any more dead weight hanging on him. Keeping up his laughter he couldn’t help but wonder if Tanner would end up killing Bond and the rest of them before long. Lord knew his so-called captain was a soft touch when it was his own people, probably would let the tech fucker bite him rather than shoot him only to starve to death days later. Or maybe one of the survivors will become real life cannibals before dying. Either way it made for an entertaining thought.

Once he was inside and comfortable kneeling on the ground he placed the boffin’s ratty bag in front of him before opening it. As he suspected, no paperwork but a small metal case was inside, along with a discarded gun, the idiot geek probably ran out of bullets and instead of throwing the gun away decided to keep it. 

Turning his attention away he pulled the metal case halfway out of the bag, it had some kind of access code but that didn’t bother him, he’d been given an override sequence by higher level Spectre scientists then that baby-faced brat. As he inputted the numbers he tore off his vest and lifted his shirt, the goddamn bite he received earlier was clear and leaking fluids out of his side. 

He’d gotten bit when those pipes fell down earlier, taking him and that bitch Moneypenny down with them. He knew none of the others had noticed since it had happened really fast and his vest hid the area that the dead fucker had bitten him at but he still fumed in anger over it happening at all. If Q hadn’t switched out those vials Alec would be on a high end charter flight to some island paradise right now but no, that little fuck decided to play hero, either that or he had the same idea as Alec had, something the mercenary sneered at, that geek wasn’t very smart, to linger in the workplace you stole from.

Hearing a beeping noise he turned towards the case, excited and eager for it to open and give him the serum of antivirus so that he could inject himself, only to get a face full of powdery gas that burned his eyes and airways.

“MOTHERFUCKER!!”

“So what was in the bag then?” Montes asked as Q kept on trying to bypass the locked door.

“A decoy, I figured whoever got the bag from me would have an override sequence from Spectre. I mean, I’m smarter than a lot of those fuckers at Spectre but I know of at least a few people in the world who can bypass my lock codes. I figured whoever imputed that code wouldn’t be doing it out of the kindness of their hearts so I placed a gas trap.”

“What kind of gas?”

“Well...it’s a knockout gas I created in my spare time but I don’t know what kind of effect it would have on Alec.”
“What do you mean?”

“...You do know he was bitten right? I imagine the virus running through his veins will mutate the gas in his lungs. He will no doubt be an interesting and new experiment if Spectre gets a hold of him.”

Bond swore as he listened to the two talk, he wasn’t sure if he trusted Q but the kid hadn’t let him down, yet.

“So was Trevelyan right? Are you a spy for the British government?”

“What I am Miss Montes is a severely overtired, non-caffeinated, pissed the fuck off nerd with a gun.”

A snort of laughter startled them all as Montes turned her face away, embarrassed.

“If Trevelyan doesn’t have the vials then where are they?” 

“That's the fun part, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise.”

“Q.”

At Bond’s tone Q relented.

“Fine, I hide the vials up top. I’d already stolen them the day before, today I was just supposed to work like normal and then tomorrow I would have been home free. Relatively speaking of course.”

“What were you planning to do to them? Sell them like Trevelyan?” Montes asked.

“No.” Q scowled. “Currently the Q-virus is the most deadliest weapon that Spectre has, the British government as well as several other governments have been working in secret to take down Spectre, ever since my boss, the late M, had infiltrated the inner circle herself and found out what kind of actions Spectre were endorsing, inhuman acts of warfare and bio-weaponry on unsuspecting villages in the far east, illegal experimentation, assassination, helping dictators murder millions of civilians and there is so much more.” 

“So what’s your angle then?”

“My angle as you so put it is revenge. Plain and simple.”

Miss Montes' smile grew on her face as she turned away, her voice so soft that none of the men heard her speak.

“Well isn’t that interesting, I guess we are more alike than I thought.”

“Hmm? Did you say something?”

“Ah, I was just wondering how we were going to get out of here, even with Alec taken care of, we still need to get past those doors before they seal shut.”

“Ah I don’t think we need to worry too much about that. We’re being watched, isn’t that right...Red Queen?”

A nearby monitor suddenly flickered to life. A video of the Spectre symbol spinning.

“Ah I was wondering when you would say something Q.”

“What the fuck?” Bond glared at the screen.

“Bite your tongue Captain Bond, you do remember that dear Q reactivated me, yes? I’ve been following your little trip through Skyfall. I truly didn’t think you would make it this far, especially once I opened the accesses to the sewers.”

Bond’s eyes went stone cold dead at the admission that the program had willingly unleashed those hoards on them, hoping for their demise.

“Well I’m sure you just heard Q confess about having the Q-virus out of quarantine, so there is no reason for you to keep us here. Open the doors.”

“Yes, I’m rather vixed about that. Going over my security footage shows a lack of Q going anywhere near the labs for the past week. I assume you hacked me?”

“Like it was hard.” Q scoffed. “Bond has a point, only I know where the last of the vials are located. I need to get topside to retrieve them before some idiot stumbles over them. Then it's game over, for everyone.”

Bond’s complexion got pasty as the full weight of what Q was saying hitting him.

“Damnit. Q we need to get those vials and destroy them.”

“Yes, I’m also seeing that as the only way to stop something like this from happening on a global scale. I was meant to take them to a secured location with my contact meeting me.”

“Contact?”

“Ah yes...well let’s just say that I’m not the only spy around here.”

“What?”

“Even so Q, I can’t let you all go. You already have an infected person with you. I can not allow that man to live and pass out of my reach.”

They all looked at Tanner. Different degrees of anger, acceptance, reluctance and fear crossed the faces of them all.

“We won’t kill him, if we can get top side and get to the vials we can use the anti-virus on him. He’ll be fine.”

“I can't risk that. Now you don’t have much time.”

“What do you mean? We still have forty minutes according to my clock.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Before anyone else could question her, the sound of something large and heavy hitting the glass startled them all.

“What the fuck is that!?” Montes screamed as she backed away and Tanner woke up, only to see the shitfest that had become of their situation.

Q’s voice became faint as he stared wide-eyed with fear at the monster on the other side of the glass.

“Hunter.”

“The glass is reinforced but it won’t hold on forever, this particular Hunter ate several of its brethren before I directed it here, it’s stronger, faster and more intelligent than the old testing results. Now choose, kill the infected one and live or perish here.”

“You fucking bitch!” Bond seethed as he leveled his gun at the window, knowing it was useless.

Q faintly wished for the BFG, even if he probably wouldn’t survive the kickback, it would have been worth it to waste this thing before it could sink it’s teeth in him.

It was quadrupedal but had the power to walk bipedal if needed, it was over 12 feet long, with a tail that was edged in long spikes. Claws that could shred a fully grown man in two with one blow. Not to mention anything about the head, which was over sized with a mouth full of teeth not unlike a great white shark. It’s tongue was whipped like with venom sacs. It also had four fucking eyes that could move independently from the others.

Q cursed the crazed person who created these monsters. They may have been marked ‘failures’ by the company but that was only because they hadn’t found a way to control them. They killed and ate foe and friends alike, indiscriminately.

“Listen, I get he’s your friend but I’m not going to die for that. He’s already dying, we just have to make it quick.” Montes argued with Bond.

Q didn’t give his option, he just continued working at the door, with one eye watching the fracturing glass.

“Tick tock. You've got a few more seconds before that glass breaks. Kill him now.”  

Montes leveled her own gun at Tanner’s head before Bond slapped it out of her hand, she screamed as the gun went in the water, knowing she wouldn’t have time to find it before it was too late.

“You’ll kill all of us!”

Bond cocked his gun and shot the screen, cutting the red queen visual.

“Q, open that door.”

“Understood, Bond. But I won’t have too.”

Bond turned his head, about to ask Q what he meant by that when the door opened from the outside.

“Hey~ Did you miss me yet?”

“Eve.” Q breathed out, a feeling of relief coursing through everyone as they all booked it out of the room, Bond and Q pulling up Tanner who couldn’t walk on his own anymore. As Eve closed and locked the door the sound of shattering glass echoed in the room followed by a roar and something big hitting the other side of the door, causing it to bend forward.

“What the fuck is that!”

“Later!”

Chapter Text

“How the hell did you get us out?”

“Q gave me the kill switch before we went down in the sewers. I used it when the bitch wouldn’t open the door.”

Bond glanced at both of them.

“You two seem very...familiar with each other.” 

“Not really, we’ve never actually met.” Eve sighed before explaining herself after Bond’s unimpressed stare.

“I work for the British government like Q, I was placed under your team to work undercover but I’m still green at the whole espionage work unlike him. I’ve only heard rumors, stories about him, he’s a ghost in the system.”

“No one was placed on my team, everyone was scouted either by me or Felix.” Bond decided not to dwell on the fact of Eve’s barely hidden fan-girling of Q, who just rolled his eyes at Eve’s talk about him.

“Exactly, Felix made a deal with M and got me placed on your team. Your company was making waves, abid small ones. We knew that Spectre must have a mole somewhere on one of your teams. It was just dumb luck that it was someone you were close too.” 

They had finally arrived at the train platform now, making their way onto the train. They hadn’t got caught up in any big crowds, thankfully. There had been a few shot zombies that Alec must have taken care of on his way out but there had also been a lot more torn and ripped body pieces then they liked to see. The Hunter was clearly cleaning house as it hunted them.

 Montes was in the lead with Bond and Moneypenny being the ones to drag a delirious and quiet Tanner alongside, Q watched everyone’s back since he was the only one who had a gun left, even though his gun didn’t shoot conventional bullets. He’d sighted Bond staring at his gun with longing and made a silent promise to himself if they all got out of here safely he’d create one for Bond as a thank you present for not shooting him in the back when he had the chance.

They hadn’t seen any sighting of Alec or the Hunter on the platform which was good all around, but it still left Q and the others on edge.

“Eve, watch Tanner while I get this train going, Q has the anti-virus stashed up in the city so the first thing we’re doing is getting that and getting a dose for you and Tanner. We’ll talk logistics after that, since both you and Q like to play the spy game I’m sure between the two of you we’ll find someway to survive the shitstorm that’s going to hit the media once word gets out.”

“Media?” Montes asked as she stood in the back, far from the others. Bond figured she was worried about Tanner turning and getting her so he tried not to let it both him. Bond made his way to the controls and turned everything on, the train began to move, abid slowly at first, but as Bond pushed the leveler to gain speed the train really began to move.

“Yes, media. As Captain and only surviving owner of OO Mercenaries I’m terminating the contract between Spectre and us effective immediately. I’m going to help make sure that those in power realize that I don’t take too kindly on having my team used as cannon fodder. Not to mention that what had happened here shouldn’t be swept under the rug.”

“You're angry.”

“Yes I’m angry, I’m livid right now after that shitstorm and Spectre is going to pay for it.”

“Good...then you’ll understand why I’m going to do this.”

“Wha-?”

Montes pulled out a small handgun, it was Tanner’s emergency pistol Bond noted absently, before turning around and shooting Q in the back, emptying the whole clip in him.

The first gunshot startled everyone and with Q already falling on the ground with Eve supporting him Bond quickly had Montes on the ground, her arms bent behind her and his knew placed harshly on her back.

“What the fuck was that!? Eve status!”

“He’s been hit but it's not fetal, the vest seems to have stopped most of the bullets.”

Q whined in pain as Eve sat him up against the wall. “My shoulder, again the same shoulder!”

“Montes what the hell do you think you are doing?” Bond asked as he slowly stood up, dragging her with him while keeping a firm hold on her.

“Well first off my name is Lynd, not Montes, just call me Vesper. That woman is sleeping off some very heavy drugs in a dime-store motel in the city. Now Q, I’m sure you're feeling a little confused right now.”

“Not really, you said your name is Vesper right?” Q chuckled, abid painfully. “I think I know what this is about, there was an incident three years ago at another one of Spectre’s locations, a research facility. A man, Yusef Kabira was killed, he was your boyfriend if I remember correctly.”

Vesper tensed up as her eyes narrowed with anger and confusion.

“How the hell do you know all that? Yes, Yusef and I were in love, he was a lower level security operative and was murdered by Spectre after he tried whistle blowing your company after seeing how horrible you goddamn monsters are. I work for a large world network news station, we first got in contact after he realized what kind of employer Spectre was. We were going to take Spectre down and then marry but...”

Q snorted, grimly amused.

“Wrong, well not entirely. Yusef Kabira was no low level security guard but it is true he was killed by Spectre, but not because he tried to do the right thing. Spectre found out he was a corporate spy for Quantum Pharmaceuticals, he was stealing and selling securities Miss Lynd. He’d already made up a cover if he was caught by Spectre, being blackmailed by a nosy reporter...well Spectre knew a lot about you after Yusef Kabira squealed like a pig.”

“You're lying!”

“Believe what you will, Mr. Kabira had been doing this kind of work a lot longer than you think. The only reason his exit strategy didn’t work was because one of his previous targeted women he’d strung along and got killed was the niece of one of managers of a different branch, but he recognized Mr. Kabira from a Christmas photo of the two after they got engaged that had been passed around the office by a concerned third-party member. It was just plain dumb luck that got him killed, he was a professional con-artist, he wouldn’t leave much to chance. If he hadn’t died you would have taken his place, just as he would have wanted you too.”

Vesper struggled against Bond’s firm grip, even with grief in her eyes her mouth spat venom. 

“How do you know so much of it? You're just a low level scientist, one thing I do remember is that the higher level you are, the lower status you have, that’s Spectre’s policy.”

“That’s actually incorrect. The levels are opposite, the highest level a scientist can have is a level 7, and the only reason I’m not one is because I didn’t want that. I would have been permanently under Spectre’s grasp. As to the reason why I know...isn’t it obvious? I’m the one who blew his cover, it went a long way in getting Spectre to trust me, before that I was lagging behind in level 4.”

“YOU SON OF A BITCH!”

“Inside voice please and thank you; and you should be thanking me, otherwise it would have been you that died that day and Yusef Kabira would have been a ghost in the wind, moving on to his next target.”

“LIES, ALL LIES!”

Q laughed before coughing roughly, Eve trying to help him sit forward to help get air into his lungs. 

“Believe what you will, I don’t care but what was your plan exactly?”

She glared harshly at him but it was clear she was bursting to brag. Q couldn’t help but wonder, why is it always the egoistic villains that liked to monologue?

“After subduing Miss Montes after a night of drinks I took her identity, it wasn’t hard, she’d just been assigned to this post and it was the anniversary of her family’s death, she was emotionally counter promised, it was laughably easy to tie her to the motel bed, bitch is probably still there suffering the hangover. I’ve used up all of my resources and burned a lot of bridges to find out about Skyfall, at least as much as I could without getting their notice. I had heard rumors about this place of course, it was some urban legend that liked to make the rounds around the homeless and destitute neighborhoods. But before Yusef I hadn’t put any real thought that there was actually a large underground building that housed hundreds of people working on world ending weapons. Once I got in I planned on securing as much as I can before planting a bomb.” 

“You were going to murder thousands of people?”

“No, the bomb was a fake, it’s still up in the mansion, hidden out of view. I was going to use it to pressure the board members of Spectre to release a press statement about their involvement in Yusef’s murder and others.”

“Why shoot me?”

Q’s eyes bypassed Vesper and stared directly into Bond’s eyes. He could see the man was conflicted and he didn’t blame him. It wasn’t hard to feel some sympathy for her under normal circumstances, alas the bitch had shot him in the back several times so any feelings of empathy or sympathy was drained dry from Q’s heart. If he didn’t think that Eve or Bond would harm him he would reach for his gun and shoot her back.

“I can’t let you get your hands on the virus. The others may be convinced you're a double agent on the side of angels but I’ve seen the look in your eyes many times working in an industry like mine. You aren't doing anything that doesn’t profit you, you're too pragmatic otherwise. You won’t be handing over the virus to the government, no. I have a feeling you have something worse planned, besides I have the hard drive of Dr. Boothroyd's computer, I’m sure there are a bunch of juicy secrets in there, about you too. Not to mention that you must have something on your person, a thumb drive or some papers stashed in your vest that you managed to smuggle out. Give them to me, I’ll make sure they are put to the proper use to take the bastards down.”

“I won’t sell it to the highest bidder either!” Q snapped, his face red with anger, taking a deep breath he tried to force a sense of calm.

“But your right, I had no plans on handing anything to M and I do have something.”

Q pulled out the thumb drive from his sock, it was small but the greedy look on Vesper’s face caused a pit of angered annoyance to grow in his stomach. Despite Vesper’s high horse talk she would probably use the information that she thought was on the drive for blackmail money before turning around and then releasing the information. She was no avenging angel, just another grieving, greedy human.

Eve turned her attention upward to Q’s face, she’d been treating his wound with some spare glaze and listening to the conversation with concern. 

“What do you mean you aren't going to M after this?”

“Sorry but there are several Spectre spies in M’s current office. There’s no way I would go back there. If you like, consider this is my resignation from both Spectre and British Secret Services.”

They all stared silently at each other, Q and Eve at one end of the train near the back while Bond held Vesper near the front. Tanner was silent as he laid against the wall, somewhere in between the group.

The silence didn’t last long, the sound of something heavy hitting the top of the cabin they were in caused all of them to tense up.

“Help me up.” Q whispered to Eve. “I need to be able to shoot whatever is coming at us.”

Bond reluctantly let Vesper go, telling her to crouch low to the ground and keep out of sight.

Other than Q’s gun and a few knives between them they didn’t have much of anything else, Tanner’s small gun that had been in Vesper’s hand was clearly out of bullets and the only thing in the room other than themselves was a stack of pipes on the side and…

Q stared at his torn satchel that had been thrown into a small corner, he hadn’t even noticed it.

Son-of-a-bitch, he believes he knows who or more likely, what is on the roof of the cabin. He kept low on the ground and switched hands, his injured shoulder wouldn’t let him hold the gun, much less shoot it and while his back felt like one huge bruise the adrenaline of what was happening edged away the pain.

The sound of ripping steel would haunt his nightmares for years afterwards, that is, if he ended up surviving this. Everything happened so fast after that, Eve was screaming next to him, he could hear words in the scream but his attention was on the monster in front of him. You could see a little bit of Alec in the shape of it, but that was all as the face was a twisted version of humanoid but with most of the skin gone and muscle and bone clear and misshaped. The legs had enlarged and the knees bent backwards, Alec’s hands had developed large claws but Q could see the muscles and structure was still evolving and changing even now.

If he knew that his gas would have created such a monster he would have thrown out the formula long ago, he couldn’t have predicted that the Q-virus would have mutated the formula so terrible. Spectre would have called it a resounding success.

Bond had a large combat knife in one hand and was trying to fight off the monster by himself, moving fluently out of reach and then darting in with a swipe of tempered steel before moving away again, it would have been a lot better if they had more space to move but right now Bond was trying not to get cornered by his former second-in-command.

Vesper was edging into the small control room, trying to stay out of sight as she didn’t have any weapons on her and she was the most non-combative person left.

Tanner...Q turned to look at the ill man and barely managed to move out of the way before Tanner took a big chunk out of his neck. Zombified eyes stared at him and for a moment Q mourned the man, out of all the people here Tanner was probably the most innocent, he hadn’t had a second agency or secret revenge plans, he had been doing his job to the best of his ability and because of that he died.

Eve pulled the zombie off of him and spun it around, pushing it towards the larger monster. They watched in horrified silence as Tanner was torn apart almost absentmindedly by Alec whose large claws pushed apart the large meaty bits to get to Bond who Q just noticed was supporting many small cuts, Q couldn’t tell if it was from Alec or the pieces of broken steel all along the grounds but it didn’t look good.

Worse case scenario would be Bond infected, Q had no idea what the combination of viruses in Alec would do to Bond when it had fresh DNA to corrupt.

Q lifted his gun and pulled the trigger.

The sound of nothing was somehow worse then the sound of Alec ripping apart Tanner or breaking steel. Q stared at the now useless gun in his hand, the charge hadn’t lasted as long as he thought it would, but factoring how many times he had used it...it hadn’t been tested like that before. The battery was completely drained.

“It's dead. Fuck. Eve, tell Vesper to up the speed of the train if she can. I’m going to help Bond.” 

Without looking at her he pushed himself up and picked up one of the broken steel pipes, using Bond as a distraction he tried to spear the monster through the back, but the uptake of speed caused him to stumble and only managed to spear through one of the back legs. The loud screech caused everyone to try to cover their ears, the pain from the sound echoed through the small cabin. Bond was one of the first to recover, he went forward and slammed the knife deep into the head, pulling back before Alec could get him with a swipe of his claws. 

At the same time Q had thrown himself onto the ground near his torn satchel, reaching inside he ignored the still gaseous case and instead pulled out a gun, the same one he had placed there before his adventures in monkey wrangling, it had less than half a clip but that didn’t matter, Q turned around and shot the monster three times in the back of the head, only two shots hit where he was aiming for while the last shot got it in the neck.

The monster moaned for a second before it fell to the ground, dead.

They’d gotten lucky, Alec was freshly turned and it was clear it had still been transforming.

Q discarded the now empty gun and made to move closer to Bond, checking him over for any larger hidden wounds.

“Were you hurt?”

“Nothing that can’t wait.”

Bond dismissed Q’s question and tried to move past him but a hand on his arm stopped him, Bond looked down at Q’s white knuckle grip on his forearm with raised eyebrows before turning his attention to Q. 

“Let me ask again, were you hurt by him?”

Q pointed to the corpse, the silence after his question told Q a lot.

“Fuck.” He hissed in anger.

“It’s fine, I probably have a while yet, we just need to get to your vials and I should be good.”

“Maybe if it was the standard Q-virus and I can't believe I’m saying that. But Alec has both the virus and my own personal gas in him, it mutated and I’m not sure if the antivirus will work on you.”

Bond was silent for a moment before he shook Q off. 

“Well if that happens then I hope you are prepared to do what is necessary. I won’t be a pawn or monster Q, do I make myself clear?”

Q swallowed harshly and nodded.

“Heard loud and clear, come on. We should almost be at the platform. Let's get the girls and leave.”

The train was slowing down, little by little as the platform came into sight in front of them.

“Vesper, while I don’t agree with you and I’m pissed off at you for shooting me I’m too tired to fight. Here.” 

Q tossed the small thumb drive at the woman, watching her fumble over it for a moment before she smiled cheekily at him.

“I will release all the information I have on Spectre the moment I get topside, I’ve already got an interview with national news scheduled in the next few days, so whatever you plan on doing with your little chemicals will become obsolete.”

“That’s fine, I’m going to inject both Eve and Bond with the antivirus and then turn myself in after that to the proper authorities. I...I did have different plans but in light of what has happened here...I’m done.”

“Q, people like us are never just done, it’s always going to go on and on, never an end on sight.”

“I would make a joke about it ending after death but considering what we all just witnessed I believe that would be in poor taste.”

Eve slapped his shoulder causing Q to whine in pain as it was the one with the bullet wound.

“Very poor taste, Q. If you aren’t going to M’s office then what proper authorities are you going too?”

“Now that, Eve is a secret.”

“Bond once you're all cured look me up. I think you and I could do wonderful things together.” 

Vesper winked at the stoic man who didn’t agree or disagree with her statement.

The three watched as Vesper climbed the steps and disappeared through the doorway that led to the upper levels and estate.

“That wasn’t the real thumb drive was it?”

Bond asked casually as they also made their way up the stairs after her.

Q snorted, an ugly sound, ignoring Eve’s confused giggles over the noise.

“Of course not, while that drive does have some information on it, it's mostly incomplete, leading to misinformation with a good dose of a little cyber virus that will wipe out everything she has on her computer about Spectre and the like.”

Eve stared at him in horror while Bond just looked grimly approving.

“Why would you do that?”

“It's very simple, I’m a petty man and she did shoot me.”

“It's more than that.”

“Well yes, okay fine. I had already planted the decoy thumb drive on my persons in the case of someone stealing it off my dead body. The hard drive that she stole from Boothroyd will be a slight hindrance but what I do remember is that the man preferred hard copies vs digital. Most of what is on there is probably old experiments or half entered information. So she won’t get much from that. Even if Miss Lynd says she will be offering up the information to the press it won’t go anywhere, maybe for a few days Spectre stocks will go down but the company has its hands in many pockets. She will be discredited and all her information she offered up would be turned to ash. Even if she had videos of what happened here the media will spin it as special effects. What she is doing is putting a big target on her head, I doubt she’ll have long to live now and that’s if she doesn’t try to blackmail Spectre first.”

“Why would she try to blackmail them? I thought she was trying to take them down.”

“Like Alec once said, it’s all about the money.”

They were all silent as they walked past the blast doors, the sound of them closing behind him caused him to let out a sigh of relief. Both Q and Bond were helping Eve as she had begun to lose her sense of balance due to the fever of infection.

“Come on, not far now. I have a car parked a mile out, we can get in and make our way.”

“Where are we going to go?”

“Casino Royale.”

Both Eve and Bond snorted loudly at that, before an overwhelming need to laugh overtook them, although Bond’s laughter was more subdued than Eve’s loud chuckling.

“Of course, hey boss you still owe drinks.”

“I will buy the whole floor a drink if we get there with time to spare.”

Q kept his eyes on both of them, while Eve had been infected a lot longer than Bond he could see that Bond’s eyes had taken a glassy sheen while cold sweat was drenching his hair. His case of infection was accelerated.

They both didn’t have long now, a lot less than he’d liked to work with but Q would make it work. He was...tired, he hadn’t been lying to Vesper about that.

They made it to the front room of the estate, the feeling of fresh air just one door away made them pick up the pace.

“Come on then, Bond might be buying the drinks but I’ve booked the penthouse suite, we will relax in style after this.”

“Ooh I call dibs on the Jacuzzi tub.”

Q’s smile froze on his face as his ears picked up on the sound that drifted in the wind. A low growling noise.

Turning his head he could just see it in the shadows, the Hunter. It must have quietly stalked them from the train to the open. Looking at his companions it was clear neither of them had taken notice of the danger they were all still in, it’s intelligence must have gone up as well when it evolved.

Before he could say anything, offer a warning or maybe an apology many things happened at once.

A blinding spotlight suddenly came on, pinning them in the light just as they were walking down the front steps. Dozens of men in combat gear with guns surrounded them and forced them to the ground. While the roar of the Hunter died down as another group of men saw and then shot it continuously until it was nothing but meaty chunks. Clearly it had also been taken by surprise by their welcome committee. 

The sound of footsteps made them look up, Q cursing verbally and mentally.

“Now Q, you shouldn’t dirty that pretty mouth of yours with such words.”

“Silva.” Q hissed out, venom and hate in his voice. 

“Since when do you work with Spectre? I thought you freelanced in crime.”

“Oh Q, poor little boy. You thought yourself so clever, I’ve always been Spectre. Now lets see what you’ve brought me as a gift for our reunion.”

Silva had one of the guards yank Eve and Bond away from him. They gave little resistance as it would be futile at this point, although the glare Bond gave Silva would make a weaker man piss his pants.

“Hmm, both infected I see.” He gestured to some of the men further back in hazmat suits. “Take them for testing, the female you can give to Dr. Boothroyd but I want the male. Put him in the advance track, I can tell he has something special in him.”

“You won’t touch them!” Q hissed out and tried to fight the tight grip from the multiple hands on him. “They need the anti-virus.”

“Why would we waste perfectly good test subjects like that?” Silva asked, his honest confusion at Q’s refusal to subject his companions to horrible experience stumped him long enough for the guards to take the others away before he could retaliate.

“And what is to become of me?” Q asked spitefully. Knowing that death would be the only thing that awaited him now.

Silva crept closer and as much as Q wanted to lean back he wasn’t able.

“Why Q would you ask such a thing?” Silva’s grinned turned dark.

“Spectre is just reclaiming it’s property after all. You have so much work to do, after all...we’re reopening Skyfall.”

Q’s blood froze in his veins, he looked up at Silva’s face, ready to tell him what happened down there, anything to keep Silva from reopening the doors. But one look at the man’s mad eyes told Q a whole different story.

He knew, somehow the man knew that there was nothing but death and horrors behind those doors and he was still going to open them.

“You're insane.”

“Oh Q, you haven’t seen anything yet.” He waved for the guards to take him away. The last thing Q saw before being struck in the back of the head was Silva ordering a full task force to reopen Skyfall, as the backdoor can no longer be opened they would open the front door, the one that led straight into the heart of the city.”

Q cursed everything as his vision went dark, the only thing he was grateful for was that Silva hadn’t found the real USB drive on him, he would need that information for the shitshow that was about to happen.

After all, who would part a boffin with his glasses?