1961
Jun 18, 2013 16:27:31 GMT -5
Post by M on Jun 18, 2013 16:27:31 GMT -5
M had a habit of shuffling papers in order to look brisk and busy even when it was not strictly necessary; these were the files she intended to peruse for her next meeting, but they were already in perfect order. Perhaps it was only to alleviate the auditory monotony. Speaking of which. "Again, 006," she said, at the moment her current top agent was about to open her office door.
Agent Alec Trevelyan, 27 years old and in top condition, who had just returned from a famously successful and rather well-publicized mission in the Baltic to handshakes from every other top agent and admiring looks from the underdogs and secretaries (which M had little doubt he intended to take advantage of, but it was none of her concern or indeed interest what her agents did as long as it did not cause scandal, and after a few years in his position Trevelyan had learned this), turned back with an unexpectant, charming smile.
He was a loyal agent, far less modest than he appeared, but whose apparent modesty won one over quickly; not at all flamboyant, and, in spite of an extremely traumatic pubescence, he did not give the impression of acting out like a boy from a broken home, instead one who had clung to a home that gave the impression of being whole and given it his all.
Unlike the young agent she was about to receive, but nevermind. A bridge she'd cross in about fifteen minutes, whether she thought she'd enjoy it or not. In the meantime she was going to have coffee and think of the best way to word what was ahead.
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Again, I commend you on a job well done. You do this country proud."
His smile widened, almost imperceptibly. He thanked her again.
She knew that despite his efforts to fool her and everyone else that he craved the power and fame that came with his good work almost as much as he craved the sense of family and belonging that came with working for MI6 as the effective older brother or even father figure to the entire nation; she knew that in spite of the face he put forward to everyone else when his back was turned he would boast and purr about his greatness to disposable women and doomed villains as he was on the verge of outsmarting them. This didn't bother her. There was a streak of madness in all of them; that was why they were there. They were safe here. Elsewhere they might run amok.
As long as they had what they required to function they functioned brilliantly. She assisted this, in subtle ways. There was no need for Agent Rodriguez to come so early other than for him to stew and think about his flashy mistakes and the reaming he'd probably get - and to run into current golden boy 006, fresh from success. It might make an impression on Rodriguez. It would certainly give Trevelyan an opportunity to impress. It was what both of them needed, or what she needed of them. They had similar proclivities - fortunately, or unfortunately, as they'd caused trouble in the past - and certainly similar personalities.
She sighed when Trevelyan had left, poured her coffee, drank it black. She'd served this country during wartime and wartime rationing had killed her taste for sweet things. War had done so too, differently.
Sometimes it was so frustrating to deal with them, the children of that era, who had grown up devastated but sulky and entitled all at once - if they weren't traumatized shells, that is. Childhoods with parents at war had starved them all for affection, for fun, made them all scavengers, some of them - many of the ones she dealt with - dangerous scavengers.
Enter one such youth from Gibraltar, enormously feisty, no father that he could remember, just the shame of a Casanova of the SS whose name was disgracefully prominent on the world's stage; his teen mother long dead, he'd been raised by a strict aging matriarch that M would have hoped could have prepared him for her. No such luck. You had to do things the hard way in this life. Many of her agents enlisted or were plucked from the army, from school campuses, but this one she had found by accident, herself. A low-level smuggler and already a proficient con, his specialty apparently to present enormously sad dark eyes and a tanned young body to unhappy wives and ingratiate himself into madame's household only to run off with valuables later.
Both goals served one purpose in the end - the acquisition, legal or not, of varying technological parts. A genius in that end, lord knew what would eventually come of the hobby, but she'd brought him on for something else entirely.
Coffee, then, for now, to steel her nerves. The only reason it wasn't bourbon was because she was saving that for afterward.
Agent Alec Trevelyan, 27 years old and in top condition, who had just returned from a famously successful and rather well-publicized mission in the Baltic to handshakes from every other top agent and admiring looks from the underdogs and secretaries (which M had little doubt he intended to take advantage of, but it was none of her concern or indeed interest what her agents did as long as it did not cause scandal, and after a few years in his position Trevelyan had learned this), turned back with an unexpectant, charming smile.
He was a loyal agent, far less modest than he appeared, but whose apparent modesty won one over quickly; not at all flamboyant, and, in spite of an extremely traumatic pubescence, he did not give the impression of acting out like a boy from a broken home, instead one who had clung to a home that gave the impression of being whole and given it his all.
Unlike the young agent she was about to receive, but nevermind. A bridge she'd cross in about fifteen minutes, whether she thought she'd enjoy it or not. In the meantime she was going to have coffee and think of the best way to word what was ahead.
"Yes, ma'am?"
"Again, I commend you on a job well done. You do this country proud."
His smile widened, almost imperceptibly. He thanked her again.
She knew that despite his efforts to fool her and everyone else that he craved the power and fame that came with his good work almost as much as he craved the sense of family and belonging that came with working for MI6 as the effective older brother or even father figure to the entire nation; she knew that in spite of the face he put forward to everyone else when his back was turned he would boast and purr about his greatness to disposable women and doomed villains as he was on the verge of outsmarting them. This didn't bother her. There was a streak of madness in all of them; that was why they were there. They were safe here. Elsewhere they might run amok.
As long as they had what they required to function they functioned brilliantly. She assisted this, in subtle ways. There was no need for Agent Rodriguez to come so early other than for him to stew and think about his flashy mistakes and the reaming he'd probably get - and to run into current golden boy 006, fresh from success. It might make an impression on Rodriguez. It would certainly give Trevelyan an opportunity to impress. It was what both of them needed, or what she needed of them. They had similar proclivities - fortunately, or unfortunately, as they'd caused trouble in the past - and certainly similar personalities.
She sighed when Trevelyan had left, poured her coffee, drank it black. She'd served this country during wartime and wartime rationing had killed her taste for sweet things. War had done so too, differently.
Sometimes it was so frustrating to deal with them, the children of that era, who had grown up devastated but sulky and entitled all at once - if they weren't traumatized shells, that is. Childhoods with parents at war had starved them all for affection, for fun, made them all scavengers, some of them - many of the ones she dealt with - dangerous scavengers.
Enter one such youth from Gibraltar, enormously feisty, no father that he could remember, just the shame of a Casanova of the SS whose name was disgracefully prominent on the world's stage; his teen mother long dead, he'd been raised by a strict aging matriarch that M would have hoped could have prepared him for her. No such luck. You had to do things the hard way in this life. Many of her agents enlisted or were plucked from the army, from school campuses, but this one she had found by accident, herself. A low-level smuggler and already a proficient con, his specialty apparently to present enormously sad dark eyes and a tanned young body to unhappy wives and ingratiate himself into madame's household only to run off with valuables later.
Both goals served one purpose in the end - the acquisition, legal or not, of varying technological parts. A genius in that end, lord knew what would eventually come of the hobby, but she'd brought him on for something else entirely.
Coffee, then, for now, to steel her nerves. The only reason it wasn't bourbon was because she was saving that for afterward.