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“007, glad you could make it,” 001 greeted with the politeness of hell freezing over.
“001,” Bond returned.
The whirl of the multiple fans in the room grew loud as the silence stretched between the two double-o's. For a moment, Bond felt stripped of all defenses as he met his fellow agent's look. It was akin to perhaps what Mycroft Holmes had given him that one time he had entered the Diogenes Club in an attempt to intimidate the other man for information.
He knew he radiated uneasiness, wondering if 001 had betrayed them along with light confusion as to what he saw in the large room. He focused on 001. It was not as sophisticated or refined as the Holmes brothers tended to do, but it was a form of it – honed by his years in intelligence and field work. To pick up clues in his environment. 001 barely moved from his computer and instead, kept himself rather rigid. Something was off about the agent, but the lack of environmental clues did not give him an answer as the other man kept his body language deliberately casual.
He quickly concluded that 001 was definitely hiding something.
“Bond,” 001 broke the silence with a tilt of his head, eyes not straying from the computer screen in a manner reminiscent of Q's persona, “if you will, please divest yourself of all of Q branch's items.”
Bond hesitated, glancing back at the guard holding him before wrenching his shoulder out of the firm grip. He stepped forward and shed his watch onto the glass table between him and 001's workstation. It was quickly followed by a small pocket-sized radio transmitter, his Walther PPK and last, but not least, a ballpoint pen that gleamed a slightly unnatural silver that was uncommon for pens.
“That's unique,” 001 had a mild expression of interest on his face as he stared at the pen.
“I certainly don't have the posture to walk around on stilettos,” Bond replied with a mirthless smile as he stood back, hands loosely at his sides.
001 made a humming noise in the back of his throat as he waved an absent hand to the guard. “We will be fine, Eloise. You may return to your other duties.”
“Sir-”
“007 will keep, won't he?” 001's eyes turned towards him again, the expression still mild. Bond returned it with a shrug. He still could not figure out if 001 was aiding and abetting whatever was going on in this island or was a prisoner. It was wholly unlike knowing Q. The man who wore his face, expressions and had ghostly remnants of mannerisms was almost alien to him at this very moment.
As if Q and 001 were two different people inhabiting one body.
Bond decided to test the waters a little. “Guards tend to make things a little more complicated.”
001 snorted quietly – a sound similar to what Q always made, but it did not sound quite right – and focused on his monitors, his fingers clacking across the keyboard. “Very droll of you, Bond.” His eyes flicked towards him, but it seemed more focused on the female guard behind Bond. “Eloise, it is all right. Bond won't do anything at this very moment. Not until he has more assurance of what's going on. We are safe.”
Bond narrowed his eyes a little at the mention of 'we'. As much as a part of him wanted to deny that 001 was a rogue agent; was somehow truly involved in...whatever this was...he could not help but feel the stab of betrayal; almost like Vesper all over again.
Coerced or otherwise, it hurt.
He glanced back to see the guard purse her lips for a moment before nodding once and turning on a heel to leave. He watched as she stood outside of the glass doors, hands held behind her at parade rest, eyes trained forward. He turned back and tilted his head.
“So, what now?” he prompted.
“What now indeed,” 001 replied in an absent manner before hitting a few more keys. There was the edge of a smile on the corner of his lips – one fairly recognizable to Bond when Q was succeeding in something.
“Success, Ian?” Dr. Taylor walked over from where she had been carefully examining the Q branch gadgets Bond deposited. She fiddled with the pen in one hand.
Bond watched with a detached interest at the way the doctor slid up to 001, her free hand slipped inside the man's jacket in a rather sensual manner. Bond would not have batted an eye at the clear indication of seduction except for the slight tightening in 001's jaw at the movement. Bond looked again and saw the hand flexing a little across what was 001's ribs underneath the jacket. The hand was withdrawn and rested across the jacket, but there was something light about the touch.
“Almost there, Helen,” 001's voice did not change as the other man glanced down and widened his smile into a slightly unkind-looking one a little before looking back up and typing some more.
Bond thought back to what he had read, heard and knew about 001. Adler had mentioned something about 001 disliking the seduction he had to do. Was the other man's grimacing smile indicative of that?
“If I did not see it myself, even after giving you my credentials, I'd say you were stalling,” Dr. Taylor's voice was still a purr before she sighed and walked back over to the table where Bond had deposited the gadgets. She picked at the watch, examining it with a purse of her lips before setting it back down. One of her lacquered nails tapped its face in an absent manner.
“Contrary to popular belief and media portrayals, hacking is not just a magical thing, my dear. There is an art, but there is also a science to it,” 001 replied mildly, his eyes focusing on the screen before him. “That explosion was messy and traceable. Why do you think I warned about MI6 finding us and sending their best double-o? One always has to be careful to not leave any traces.”
“But you left traces, Ian,” a new voice, soft-spoken and mild-sounding made Bond turn to see a man roughly 001's age enter. He was dressed in a comfortable looking sweater and collared shirt combination. A modern, if somewhat youthful look. His face might have been beautiful in a uniquely ethereal way except for a hideous mass of raised scars covering one side from neck all the way up past the man's eyebrows.
“For Queen and Country,” 001 did not seemed bothered. “The sniper's shot was the only way to take down Thomas Ashleigh.”
“It was quite a beautiful one too. Your skills had not dulled in the intervening years since you've worked as a minor government official,” the man approached Bond and looked at him with an appraising eye. “I see this is the famed James Bond. Lyutsifer Safin, at your service.”
The man stuck his hand out and Bond raised an eyebrow before cautiously shaking it. The grip was firm, but not too strong. “Nice scar,” he commented, but did not feel any difference in Safin's grip as the other man released his hand and took a step back. A polite smile stretched across the puckered skin.
“Ah, yes,” Safin gestured towards the scar. “Courtesy of my dear Ian here years ago when he killed my family.”
Bond glanced at 001 who had not reacted and turned back to look at Safin who chuckled lightly at his reaction.
“Ian was whisked away at my behest after the explosion at Paddington, but he is no more a prisoner here than Dr. Taylor. In fact, if he truly wished to leave, he could do so any time. I am not holding him here. He is here of his own volition.”
“To do what?” Bond asked, forcing himself to be casual and take note of everything around him. He supposed he had found the origin of the explosion, and confirmed 001 presence as the initial mission parameters were suggested, but what to do was still the biggest question. There were too many unknowns to make a decision.
“Ian?” Safin glanced back to 001 who continued to type.
“Hacking into the CDC to take all research done on pathogens and mutations to recreate the samples here to create a first-strike weapon.”
“For terrorist cells?”
Safin answered. “Possibly, but because you have taken down SPECTRE quite beautifully, Mr. Bond according to my sources, there is a void.”
“And you intend to fill it?”
“No,” Safin shook his head, his voice still soft-spoken and melodically pleasant. “I was thinking the British government or perhaps the CIA would be amenable to perhaps purchasing such technology. After all, what if they could use it to wipe out scores of enemy troops, or cripple them so that diplomatic talks or perhaps the unnecessary loss of life from actions could continue in the interim?”
Safin gestured towards Dr. Taylor. “The good doctor here is also researching ways to enable mutations to just target certain DNA strands. What if say an inert form of smallpox can be spread through identified leaders of Boko Haram or the Taliban? Targeting certain individuals that are of high priority to parties of interest? To incapacitate or kill them? We'd of course, create the cure first and ensure that it does not get too contagious, but...there are always some collateral when it comes to sacrificing for the greater good.”
Bond raised an eyebrow. “The greater good?”
“I hardly do not advocate for the survival of the fittest, but...” Safin gestured towards his own scar and smiled blandly. “Things happen...”
“Seems a pity you survived,” Bond replied equally bland. The after action report regarding the whole Black Sea incident was as sparse as Mycroft Holmes could make it.
Safin's smile did not drop before he reached into his jacket and pulled out a small vial. He extended his hand towards Bond. “The cure, if you will.”
“For...?” Bond took the vial and examined it.
“A rather virulent form of anthrax that was unleashed upon the populace of Paddington when the explosion happened. It's been about...a week, so most would start showing symptoms if not already taking a course of antibiotics. Those can only do so much considering the way the spores were engineered by Dr. Taylor here. This is the cure. The only one in existence. You can use it on one person or use it to replicate for the people affected.”
“I'm supposed to, what, deliver this to my government?” Bond frowned.
“Yes,” Safin replied. “A perfect test of my capabilities and of the people who've worked with me. If you have come here intending to...what was it, Ian, that you double-o's loved to do, 'save the world' was it? I'm sorry to disappoint. You are just a messenger, Mr. Bond. It is definitely a lot more effective than if I had sent Dr. Taylor alone, but now you can attest to it.”
“So you plan to hold the world hostage by using customized pathogens?” Bond asked.
“No,” Safin shook his head, “you misunderstand me, Mr. Bond. I've already have the means, the motive and the reasoning, but I merely wish for the governments to understand that there is an alternative means instead of sending good men and women to die. So families don't have to die in mass executions all because of one man's actions.”
He moved away from Bond and rounded to stand next to 001. Safin placed a hand on 001's lower back with a lot more force than the gentle touch of Dr. Taylor. The scarred man smiled at Bond. “After all, Ian, didn't you say 'who better to understand when a trigger needs to be pulled?'”
This time, the grimace that appeared on 001's face was unmistakable and there was pain in it.
“Or not pulled,” Bond replied neutrally, the echo of his very first conversation with Q back at the National Gallery, washing over him with something akin to clarity. “Quite hard to tell standing behind monitors all day.”
Safin merely shook his head before tilting it. The hiss of a door opening made Bond look back to see the burly guard that had initially escorted Dr. Taylor and himself reappear. “Alan, please escort Mr. Bond and Dr. Taylor back up to the surface, unmolested.”
“You expect me to believe that you are benevolently handing over the cure?” Bond asked, letting his disbelief color his tone.
“Benevolent? No, Mr. Bond. Pragmatic? Yes,” the other man replied before waving a hand for the burly guard to take him away.
Bond shot a look at 001, but the other man seemed engrossed once more in whatever was in front of him; apparently unbothered by the uncomfortably close proximity of Safin standing next to him, even with hand still on his lower back. There was no mistaking the language of possessiveness in Safin's gesture towards the double-o agent. Bond knew what he had to do then...
He tilted his head towards Safin in a farewell before heading out of the room, followed by Dr. Taylor and the burly guard. Making his way back to the elevators, he took discreet looks around him, memorizing the layout of the facility. He made a slight show of glancing behind him at Dr. Taylor, noting that the contents of her purse occupied her attention.
He considered striking then, but before he could move, she pulled out the familiar burgundy-colored booklet that was his passport and thrust her hand towards him. “Here you are, Mr. Bond.”
They had almost reached the elevator as he reached out to take it, a thin smile on his face-
And felt the cool cylindrical metal of titanium right underneath the booklet, held in the webbing of Dr. Taylor's fingers. Bond tightened his grip on his passport and looked closer at the doctor. She gave him the barest nod possible. He smiled slightly.
“Thank you,” he replied with a quirk of his lips as he completed his motion and pocketed both passport and pen.
They entered the elevator with the burly guard and once it closed and started to move, Bond acted.
A notification popped up on 001's screen to indicate the movement of the main elevator and he quietly sighed to himself. He hoped Bond was smart enough to get the cure and the doctor out without any heroics.
001 continued typing, ignoring the faint smell of sharp-citrus that he inhaled with each breath. It was a smell he might have once considered liking, but honestly had little to no opinion of it in its context – both in the past and in the here and now. The fact that Safin still wore it after all these years meant nothing to him.
“I can see why you...care for him deeply, Ian,” Safin's voice was still the quiet, smooth rumble from long ago. “I would have too if he had come into my life instead of you. A rather charming man, this James Bond. History of violence, license to kill, long-held vendetta and personal grudge from a time of innocence. I could be speaking to my own reflection...”
001 grimaced against the pressure of the hand resting on his lower back. It pressed against the ribs that had broken and fractured from the explosion. Wrapped up tightly enough for him to be mobile, it also kept him from being able to exert much strength or draw long breaths.
“Hurts does it not? To see someone you care for realize you've betrayed them,” Safin murmured close to his ear. “I once felt that too...”
001 did not answer as he concentrated on his screen. It had taken him longer than he expected to get to this point in his mission – his health and injuries in the immediate aftermath of the explosion not withstanding – but he supposed Lyutsifer Safin was cautious after everything. It also took 001 this long to hack his way into the CDC's research database to pull all necessary information even with Dr. Taylor's credentials.
“You don't feel anything now,” 001 replied mildly, fingers flying over the keyboard before he nodded mostly to himself. “It is done...”
Safin hummed an agreement and the hand on 001's lower back pressed a little more insistently. This time, he could not keep the hiss of shooting agony that rippled through him from emerging past his lips. He felt more than heard the curve of Safin's smile against his ear before the lips moved.
“Good job, Ian,” Safin murmured. “A little slower than I expected, but well done...” The pressure increased and 001 felt sweat pop on his forehead as he tried to keep his breaths from heaving at the spike of pain skittering through him.
He refused to place his hands against the table to brace himself. Refuse to give into the pain and what Safin wanted to see – the acknowledgment of weakness.
“Does it hurt? Do you feel it? I cannot...not after what you did so long ago... You need to use your words and tell me if it hurts, Ian...” Safin asked conversationally.
001 grunted through clamped teeth, staring past his monitors. He almost missed the moment when he felt the man's other hand wrench his jaw to the side. He knew what was coming next and braced himself just as a bruising hard kiss was planted on his lips. The hand on his back tightened and he could not help the yelping scream of pain that was swallowed by the other man's mouth on his. In the forced kiss, 001 felt something invade his own mouth, a tongue holding an oblong shape – a pill – before another squeeze against his back had him screaming again. The pill was shoved deep into his throat and he involuntarily swallowed it down.
Safin wrenched his lips from 001's, his smile malevolent as he absently wiped the spit that had been exchanged in the rough kiss. 001 drew shallow breaths as he tried to will away the spots of blurriness from the pain he had endured in the last few seconds. Drawing heavier breaths was hard with his broken and bruised ribs. He merely stared at the other man, trying to keep his composure.
“I did promise you the cure, but I'm sure Dr. Taylor can create another one soon enough. Let's just keep you compliant for now.” Safin's breath ghosted against 001's lips. “Use your words, Ian...I cannot know if you feel anything if you do not use your words...” Safin said softly. The hand that was holding his chin in place let go with a gentle pat on his cheek as he drew back.
“What next then?” 001 ignored the other man's words. It was a part of Safin's own brand of psychological coping – to do things to others and ask them to use their words as to how they felt. A coping mechanism that had been borne by the years of having the section of his brain that registered any type of physical feeling or sensation severed by what had happened when 001 had blown up Safin's family facility all those years ago.
“I'd like for you to be able to keep an eye on the various governments if possible. See if there are remnants of the Nine Eyes program that MI6 had dismantled. It was one of the more interesting projects SPECTRE had commissioned. With your skills, I am sure you are able to utilize it to at least keep tabs on what the governments of the world will do once your double-o returns to them.”
001 turned back to his computer, finally feeling the hand on his lower back lift away, the pain dulling as he brought up a new window and started to type.
“Not even curious to why I'm asking this of you?”
“There is no gain,” 001 replied flatly.
“Surely there was some? After all, why did you come out of hiding for so long? A mere minor government official...still for Queen and Country, but now pushing papers. You are not as indifferent as you think you are, Ian. I know you...” Safin leaned down towards him again, lips brushing against his ear. It might have been sensual if 001 really put his thought towards it – it was once sensual in the days where he had seduced a very young Lyutsifer Safin in order to infiltrate the family business.
Now...it was-
“I've always known you, Ian...And I still do...” Safin's emphasis on the word was a clear reminder of what had happened between them just mere days ago when he had still been recovering. The words were supposed to evoke shame, embarrassment, perhaps a sense of pity – after all, it had been Safin's promise to do whatever had been done to him tenfold.
But 001 was a trained agent as well as a Holmes. Clinical analysis with utter detachment was his specialty; in more ways than one like his long-lost sister Eurus. If he had been incapacitated while Safin had taken him in what was the other man had hoped was a shameful manner, it was Safin's opinion. 001 merely saw it in a clinical light and chalked it up to his body's physical reaction that he could not even muster any care for.
Shame was a deleted emotion.
“I know you are not broken, so why help me?” Safin asked, resting his chin on 001's shoulder. The agent felt the breath ghosting against the soft hairs behind his ear as he typed in several command lines to prepare for his next hack.
“You are my mission,” he replied just as alarms began to blare across the facility. He lifted his eyes from the computer monitor and glanced towards the direction where the main lifts were. It was not what he had hoped for, but it was something he had expected when 007 made his appearance. And it would have to do...
“What...” Safin pushed away from him and looked around before glancing down at 001. “Bond.”
“And Dr. Taylor,” 001 replied with a mirthless smile.
The Walther that had been sitting on the table was snatched up immediately and pointed at 001. He merely stared down its barrel and into the furiously angry face of Lyutsifer Safin.
“What did you do?!”
“Nothing,” 001 replied with a careless shrug.
“No. You did something-”
“I told you that MI6 would send their best. I told you MI6 would send 007. You knew this, you had me look up his file and you read it. Yet you decided to delude yourself into thinking that 007 is like me. Why you think I could cared for him.”
He scoffed. “What you do not understand is the only thing 007 and I have in common is we both do what we do for Queen and Country. And in that, there is one thing 007 is better at than I am.”
“What?” Safin sneered, eyes blazing with rage.
“One can always count on 007 to complete his mission, no matter what,” 001 smiled as beyond Safin, the female guard, Eloise, fell to a single, expertly placed gunshot. Bond burst back into the room, borrowed gun pointed at Safin.
The other man tried to fire the PPK at 001, but it lit up red as it locked. Safin furiously tried to squeeze the trigger several more times before turning to face Bond he advanced towards them. Safin held his arms away from his body in a universal gesture of surrender even as the alarms continued to blare around them.
While 001 was familiar with his fellow agent's modus operandi, he also knew that there was a very good chance Bond would actually follow orders this time and leave Safin alive because of what had happened – how he knew about SPECTRE leadership, how he plotted the various attacks across London, what he was planning to do...
001 acted the moment that Safin's attention was fully rooted upon Bond's unwavering advancement. He leapt from his seat, ignoring the pain that blazed across his senses. He ruthlessly pushed it aside and grabbed the barrel of the gun. At the same time he seized the man's wrist with his other hand, leveraging his own momentum to crack the bone with a twist and application of his hip and feet planted firmly on the ground. Safin's scream of pain was muffled as 001 kicked the man viciously in the chest and ripped the gun away from limp fingers.
He finished his turn and pointed the Walther PPK at Safin who had half collapsed to the ground, cradling his broken hand. A half-sneer, half incredulous delight of mania was on his face. Safin laughed, what should have been high-pitched and hysterical was subdued and resigned.
“You had one chance. There won't be another,” 001 said coldly before the palm-print grip lit up green and he fired twice. The bullets tore through Safin's head, killing him instantly. 001 watched as the other man slumped to the ground, finally dead after all these years.
He breathed shallowly for a moment, staring at the puddle of dark red and grey matter leaking out of Safin's head. Movement out of the corner of his eye made him point the Walther at the approaching 007.
But just as fast, he let his grip hang loose, a single index finger on the guard to support it as he closed his eyes.
“...001,” Bond's voice was guarded as 001 felt the gun being taken from his hand. He did not need to know his fellow agent still kept his other gun trained on him, though it was not quite pointed at any spot in particular.
“Bond,” he returned slightly breathy with pain as he opened his eyes. He grimaced as his ribs continued to protest with a zapping feel of pain that shot across his body. “Overrides as the Quartermaster,” he replied to the unspoken question that he knew the agent had regarding his personalized Walther.
“Handy,” the agent replied as he finally lowered his second gun, the Walther stuffed back into its shoulder holster underneath his jacket.
001 nodded, taking another shallow breath before turning to face his fellow agent. James Bond looked rather unruffled, though there were some spots of blood on his collar and a small streak marring his beautiful dark grey jacket. Some blood was on the the toes of the man's shoes, but 001 supposed it could not be helped.
“I'm sure you have a lot of questions,” 001 could read the plain confusion and hesitant trust on the agent's body language. He smiled mirthlessly and gestured lightly towards the doors, suppressing another grimace at the staccato of pain. “Safin's men, at least the ones on the other side of this compound would probably be honing in our location.”
“Dr. Taylor's securing a vessel for our escape.”
“She's more than likely to abandon us here on the island.” 001 shot a look at Bond who shrugged. He could tell the other man suspected it as much, but decided that stopping Safin was more important. He decided to clarify his statement to Bond.
“She is the daughter of Dr. Obruchev, though the doctor does not know of her parentage. SPECTRE knew and tried to recruit her. Most of the details of how she ended up in Safin's employ would have to wait until she has been debriefed. She utilized herself as a honey trap both for her skills as a pathologist, connections to the CDC and her parentage.”
“What do you need to do here?”
001 hid a smile as he read the hesitancy slowly melting away from Bond's posture. He could see the urge to ask questions, but the agent was also professional enough to know that they had limited time.
“I, intend to purge all of the information and destroy this base. You, need to get topside to get that cure to HSA.”
“I'm sure you'll get far with three broken ribs and four fractured ones,” one eyebrow rose over the icy blue eyes of the double-o agent.
“Dr. Taylor told you,” 001 stated flatly.
The smirk returned to him made 001 roll his eyes and huff a little before pressing his lips together to suppress the wince of pain at the movement. “Be it on your head, 007,” he glared at the agent before walking a few steps over and swiping the watch and radio transmitter from the glass table. He handed the watch over to Bond, but pocketed the transmitter.
001 then made his way over to where the guard, Eloise, had fallen and relieved her of her handgun and a couple of spare magazines on her tac belt. Stuffing them into the pocket of his pants, he quickly dropped the gun's magazine, checked the number of bullets left before slamming it back home and chambering a round.
“They'll be coming down through the two emergency stairwells. We can take the north one to the left of this room. It is the quickest route to the central server room.” 001 would not admit it, but he felt better with the veteran agent at his back. He originally intended to take everything down once Bond and Dr. Taylor were topside, but he also knew that the chance of 007 not leaving such a dangerous man alive was more probable than anything else.
“Always love destroying things,” Bond quipped lightly as he lifted his gun and took point.
001 followed, resisting the urge to smile at the familiar banter thrown at him. Q was not running this mission in Bond's ear. Instead, 001 was present and as much as he could tell that Bond was trying to discern between the two, he would not indulge in the other man's oblique prodding.
They encountered the first wave of guards right as they approached the north stairwell. It was hardly a fight as 001 immediately sought out the most vulnerable points in each guard that was armed and shot a single bullet per guard in an economical way. The body language he once would have used to read a person became weaponized and targeted for maximum lethality. In front of him, Bond engaged the guards that he was not able to target when he hid behind parts of the stairwell and its various entrances to the floors.
001 rarely partnered up with any agent during his missions; highly used to operating independently, but in this case, he also knew from long experience in running 007 what the agent's weak spots were and filled in the gaps when he could. He let Bond deal with the more hand-to-hand combat portion when the agent ran out of bullets both in the borrowed gun and from the Walther he kept in his holster. But by the time they made it up several levels to the central control room floor, there were scores of bodies between them and the stairwell they climbed.
001's injuries were also causing him to see some black spots with each shallow breath drawn. It also did not help that he could feel a sense of heavy malaise within him – not from his injuries – but definitely from the antibiotic furiously attempt to suppress the worst of the symptoms he had within him.
So when he stumbled into the control room and sat himself down at the central console for admin operations, he did not realize he had sat quite as heavily as before until Bond's voice rumbled above him.
“001?”
001 placed the emptied gun onto the console as he looked blearily up at his fellow agent. “You know why I insisted you leave with that cure?”
He watched the icy blue eyes narrow for a second before a flash of comprehension ran across the older man's rugged features. “You're infected with the anthrax.”
001 let the bitter smile play across his lips before he gestured absently towards the cure which he knew was sitting in Bond's pocket. “You hold the only cure. To either replicate it or to use it on someone.”
Something incomprehensible flashed across the older agent's features. “How long?” the other man bit out. 001 noted that Bond's tone was tight with barely restrained emotion. He could not quite tell what it was, but he honestly hoped it was not something so base as sentiment.
Sentiment was for fools. (Sentiment was for Q...which 001 was not...him.)
“I can keep. I was given, I think, antibiotics,” 001 replied, “the last dose was just a few minutes before I shot Safin in the head.”
“It's not working,” the agent stared.
001 sighed and winced, hand reaching down to gingerly touch his bandaged ribs. “It'll do for now.”
“Dr. Taylor,” Bond stated flatly.
001 looked back up and nodded once. He saw the other agent's lips move in a wordless curse. 001 turned and typed in some commands into the computer and a series of doors unlocked on the far side of the control room.
“Freight elevator shaft. It will take you directly up to the surface.”
Bond nodded once, adjusting his grip on a small submachine gun he had picked up while fighting up the stairwell. There was no need for an 'I told you so' between the two of them, but it hung unspoken in the air. Bond had foolishly left her to her own devices; believing that she would be securing them transport when she was more liable to escape after having both delivered a small vial of the cure and an escort out of Safin's lair without anyone stopping her.
While 001 was confident that the researchers employed by the British government would be able to replicate the cure; it would take time. Bond knew that as well as he did; this was a targeted attack and those who had been infected when the explosion went off at the apartment complex, there was only so much the current strains antibiotics could do – especially if they were resistant to this particular inhalation version.
Dr. Taylor could readily recreate the cure faster than it would take scientists to replicate the one in Bond's pocket.
001 watched as his fellow agent headed out, wary for any opposition, when the agent stopped just as he was about to disappear around a corner. Bond turned and nodded once at him, the faintest hint of a pleased smile on his normally taciturn expression.
“It was a pleasure to work with you, 001.”
001 smiled, the feeling genuine. “The pleasure was all mine, 007.”
“I do have a message to pass on from our Quartermaster...he does like having all of his equipment returned in one piece if possible. I'd hate to incur his wrath if that radio transmitter you're carrying is damaged in any way.”
Before 001 could even reply to that, the agent left, leaving him to shake his head, wincing in pain at the movement before he turned back to the computer. The message was received and 001...no, Q supposed that perhaps sentiment in this case wasn't so bad after all.
But before Q could conceivably return, it was finally time to bury 001's past for good. And so he got to work: fingers flying over the keyboard, utilizing the program he had embedded within the lines he had used to hack into the CDC's database. The information he had pulled over – Dr. Taylor's research into specific mutations and targeted genes – would have to be completely erased. He knew it would set gene therapy and other treatments back several years, but better for such therapy to be created by more benevolent means than to have someone of Dr. Taylor's caliber and Lyutsifer Safin's psychopathy influencing such research.
It was what he liked and what he was good at; doing damage that set advances and gains back a few years for the greater good. It was what 001 excelled when a bullet to the head was not the only means. He went through the CDC's files and selectively purged what Dr. Taylor had worked on and what her colleagues had extrapolated. At the same time, another window was opened and erasing every single one of Safin's files in the computer servers he had in this base. The ones connected to a network he flagged for the Q branch to search and tagged it with Nine Eyes – using the knowledge he gained from Safin for the others to continue to search and destroy the program.
The alarms continued to blare around him, but he tuned it out, working as fast as he could. In a scant few minutes he sat back, drawing a deep breath before stopping as his ribs protested. He bit his lip and nodded. It was done. A quick glance around showed that no one had come into the control room, which meant that either the guards were chasing after 007, or a majority of them had been killed and the stragglers were trying to figure out where to go.
Either way, he had one more job to do before making good on his unspoken promise to Bond – to return the equipment that he borrowed in one piece.
He stood up, a lot slower than previously. His wounds ached and the firefight had not helped. The feeling of malaise was heavier now, but it would soon be over. He walked over to the front of the control room where he typed in a few commands to detach the base from its struts in an emergency protocol. Ocean water would flood in, destroying everything and all of the computer servers. The computer flashed a final query and he hit the enter button.
A new set of alarms started to blare and a countdown popped onto all screens while a voice spoke over the speakers in the facility to evacuate due to imminent detachment. 001 moved, headed back to the north stairwell to grab a handgun and climbed up the stairs some more. Fiery waves of pain rippled through him at each ascent of the stairs; Safin had not bothered to give him any painkillers since he had woken up, preferring to use his pain as a natural part of the torture he had endured. 001 suppressed the urge to cough, knowing that if he did, then it would be over for him.
Instead, he tried to keep his breath as even and as shallow as possible, but it was getting harder as he could feel the urge to cough grow stronger. He seriously hoped Bond was able to find Dr. Taylor, but knew he could not worry about that now. 001 climbed until he could not suppress his body's need to cough and did so.
The taste of copper filled his mouth and he spat to the side, barely muffling the scream of pain at the involuntary violent movement. Black spots danced across his vision, his hearing giving out for a second against the wailing of klaxons and alarms. He came to himself to hear the countdown for the detachment in the twenties and going fast. Swallowing the rest of the blood back down his throat, he pushed himself off of the railing with a grunt, hunching over and hurrying to where he knew Safin kept a single-seater escape pod in his suite of rooms.
It was the only one within the base.
He punched in the door code to the rooms and pushed in, stumbling for a second as he felt the first of the explosions rock the base. The ominous screech of metal as it twisted and started to fall apart echoed across the area. 001 weaved unsteady steps around the furniture and sundry items.
He barely took notice of the remnants of a medical bed adjacent in Safin's bedroom where he had woken up after the explosion. Safin had not said he was a prisoner, but merely gave him the offer of being a willing collaborator or to die by an acute form of targeted anthrax.
001 reached the section of the wall he knew the single-seater escape pod was and punched in Safin's personal code. The man had not so much given it to him, as much as he hinted at what it was after 001 had let the other man seduce him to bed even with his injuries. He smiled grimly as a small circular entrance opened up against the wall. He quickly gripped the sides and braced himself as the room suddenly tilted, explosions sending tremors across the floor and spidery cracks across the ceiling. It was time to go.
He crawled in, trying hard not to pass out each time his ribs made contact with the ground. The groans and creak of metal was getting harsher and harsher and he barely got his own feet in as he heard, more than felt the ground give way beneath his legs. Hitting the button to close the escape pod at the same time flicking on the radio transmitter in his pocket, he felt the gears shift before the compressed air shot him out.
001 only had a split second to regret that he had forgotten to belt himself from the force of the ejection before white-hot agony engulfed his senses and he passed out.
~END~