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Chapter Text

An unseasonable wind broke through her window. Cold. She felt it in her sleep. She tossed and turned but it was no use. The chill forced her awake. Her two blue eyes cut through the darkness of her bedroom.

Mathilde Swann got out of bed to close the window. She and her mother spent their summers here deep in Norway. Her mother grew up here. Despite their life taking them all over Europe together, she always made time for them to come back here. Every summer of Mathilde’s twelve years was spent in this house. No one is around for at least a half-day’s drive. Mathilde could hike deep into the woods and not see another face. As far as she knew, no one was aware this house existed.

No one except him.

Mathilde re-opened the window. She listened through the choir of bugs and the rush of the wind. All the sounds of nature tried to block her out, but Mathilde knew what she heard.

A voice. A voice she knew. A voice buried deep inside of her. A voice she heard every time she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. His voice. The voice of her long-dead father. A man who Mathilde knew only from stories passed down to her from her mother, and the radiant blue eyes he gave her. A man who was in and out of her life so quickly it felt like a dream. That was all her father was to her. Just a dream; a dream of her eyes looking back at her in the night.

She had to get outside. The window is on the second-floor of the lake house. Jumping was too dangerous. Walking out of the front is out of the question. Too much noise. She’d certainly wake up her mother, and that was the last thing Mathilde wanted.

It was too far for her to jump out of the window without injury. But a climb was possible. All she needed was something to secure herself. She looked through the room. A television. A bookshelf. A dresser. No, no, no. Then she saw the bed.

With as little noise as possible, Mathilde stripped her bed bare. She tied all of the sheets together, and wrapped one end around her waist. Two knots on the end around her. She tied the other end around the handles on her dresser. She tested it. Once. Twice. No movement.

Mathilde had one shot at this gambit. A wrong move ends everything. She first put her head through the window, followed by her arms. Mathilde was still small enough to maneuver through tight spaces. Her legs were the last piece. She hung onto the windowsill, then let go. Falling. A big pull on the improvised rope — and she was down.

Stay still. No movement. Not yet. Mathilde needed to listen. She heard nothing coming from the house. Her mother must still be asleep. None the wiser to what her daughter was doing. Mathilde released the sheet from her waist and walked towards the small lake located on the property.

Each step Mathilde took, the voice got louder. It was a sound she heard off and on her whole life in her sleep. In dreams, the voice comes from inside of her. Her mother tells her dreams are illusions of the mind; they need not be feared or worshiped. Her mother meant well. But that did not change the feeling inside of Mathilde.

Sometimes the voice was tender and soothing. Other times, the voice was cruel and vindictive. The worst was when the voice was sad and broken. But some things were constant with the voice. Deep tone and steady pace.

She stood at the edge. She stood where the water met land. She stood where the cold wind was its strongest. She stood where the voice was its loudest. Mathilde listened to the night, and she heard the night speak back to her.

“You’ll never see me again.”

This was new. She always forgot what the voice, only remembering its tone. Now, there were words. Clear and understandable. The voice was no longer in her but around her. It was next to her. She looked around the darkness.

“You’ll never see me again.”

Each word hit Mathilde. Hit her deep inside. She had to find it. If no one is outside, she reasoned, then perhaps the voice came from the depths of the water. She took a step into the lake, and kept walking until the depth got to the point where walking changed to swimming.

“You’ll never see me again.”

There it was! It came from the bottom. He was there! Her father is at the bottom of the lake. It doesn’t make sense but nothing about him ever made sense. All she had to do was dive. All she had to do was—

“Mathilde!”

A hand grabbed her. Pulled her back at the last second from plunging into the freezing water. The hand of her mother, Dr. Madeleine Swann. The hand that pulled her back from the voice of her father, James Bond.

Beneath her the water crashed against the rocks. It was dangerous to dive from her current position, but there was no other option. Anywhere close had rocks in the sea. Anywhere close had risk.

Her white wetsuit covered her head to toe. She contrasted to the black night. If anyone looked from the castle now, they would spot her. But this was not the real threat. There was no light beyond the moon here in the open field on the cliff opposite Glen Castle.

Long ago, the towering structure served British rule over Ireland. But it fell into disrepair over the decades since its abandonment until purchased by the wealthy oil billionaire Charles Davis who restored it for personal use. After his death, it fell into hands of his son and only heir to his powerful Davisco conglomerate: Sir Isaac Davis.

Blue waited. She watched the water. Steady motion. Soon his personal nuclear-powered superyacht — the Leviathan — will emerge from the horizon. In that moment, the cliff the castle was built upon will split in two for an elaborate underground dock for the craft. In that moment, Blue must make her dive to break in and board the Leviathan.

For two years she trained. She molded her body into peak physical condition, while also honing her mind’s sharpness and focus. Two years since she shed her name and walked alone. Two years leading to this moment, her one and only shot to make things right.

Generations struggled. Temperatures rose and weather patterns became unstable. Resource crisis grew in the developing world which led to conflict. But the wealthy nations turned a blind eye and refused to help.

Everything changed with the smile of an heir to an oil fortune. A man determined to use his blood money to fix what was broken and restore what was lost. He divested Davisco’s oil assets and lobbied governments to invest in green infrastructure. But these were only gestures compared to the might of Project Sol — Isaac’s greatest dream.

Blue took a deep breath of the salty air, before attaching a portable rebreather to her face. The goggles were tinted black which concealed her piercing blue eyes. She was nothing but a white speck in the night.

A banner appeared under the moon. A red circle marked on it with a black heptagram caught inside. Blue recognized this symbol as her cue. The Leviathan emerged.

The rocks began to split. The process took ten minutes which was not a lot of time, considering she had to dive off the cliff and avoid the rocks before swimming across the cove to make it to the opening. Research told her the rebreather, absent a heavy backpack of equipment, lasted for just as long.

No wasted breaths. No missed opportunities. Blue stepped toward the edge of the cliff and took one jump off.

Project Sol was the most ambitious project since the race for the Moon. Isaac needed a team of people in a variety of disciplines. He sold them on the potential for this to be the greatest feat in human history, something that cleaned the planet forever.

Over the last five years since he had the idea and spoke about it at universities and government forums, it took shape in tangible facilities and tens of thousands of employees across the globe. While not complete yet, Project Sol would create a new world shortly.

Unless Blue succeeded tonight.

His altruism was a lie. Project Sol held an ulterior motive. Isaac wanted to consolidate all control of global energy under him. No democracy. No accountability. One man above all others. Governments were already submissive to him, and his ownership of media ensured negative stories were buried. The only way to stop his future was direct action. She had to put herself on the line.

She forced air through her body. She swam faster than ever before, using all of her physical training to push beyond her limits. She was too small of an object to appear on the Leviathan’s radar so they had no chance of detecting her from the outside. All she had to do was keep swimming, keep moving, keep going.

Blue arrived at the hole simultaneous to the Leviathan. She swam toward the ship and used the grip on the wetsuit’s hand coverings to cling to the side. The latest in CIA technology — the woman she stole it from could always get another.

As the vessel came to a stop, Blue started climbing up the rear. Now was why she needed a white wetsuit. A traditional black one would give her away while scaling the Leviathan’s exterior. With this: any crew either boarding or leaving were unable to see her if they looked in her direction.

 Blue hoisted herself up on the railing and dropped onto the deck. She laid flat on the floor until shimmying to a wall and slowly easing up against it.

Beyond being Isaac’s personal vessel, the Leviathan served as a central hub for Davisco operations. Aboard was a sever room containing vital information on the security firewall for Project Sol. Her objective for the night was to infiltrate the server room and duplicate the firewall. With this she was able to decrypt anything related to Project Sol, including the schematics she stole two years ago.

Blue dropped the skin-tight hood of the wetsuit. Dirty blonde hair tied into a single knot. Hidden in it was the only equipment she had on the mission — a storage drive. On this was a program capable of duplicating the firewall and storing the result. The wetsuit kept more than her hair safe and dry.

She proceeded down a hatch to get below the surface. Slow, careful movement down the ladder to ensure no sounds of approaching footsteps surprised her. When she reached the bottom she laid flat with her ear to the floor to hear.

While docked, the vessel was silent. In this part of the Leviathan the only thing audible would be the loud fans from the server room. She used this to get her bearings, then scooted herself against the wall to move along the wall in the direction of the noise. The interior matched the exterior. As long as she stayed on the wall, she had a few critical beats of concealing herself before reacting in case anyone appeared.

Yet as she moved toward the noise, Blue found no one. Not even a light crew. Not a single person. She lived enough life in to know there was no such thing as luck. This anomaly happened for a reason — a reason Blue was afraid meant they suspected something.

But she went on. This was her one and only shot. Time ran out on stopping Project Sol. The chance of this being a trap was worth progressing than the certainty of Isaac getting what he wanted.

No door above the Leviathan was locked. No security of any kind was found aboard the craft. Davis preached a belief of trust in his employees and crew. Anyone who worked for him must be committed to the cause so much they would never double-cross him or step out of line.

Blue entered the server room. She plugged her device into a terminal at one of the server racks. All of this moving to get to this point, now she had to stand and wait.

Once complete: her escape posed its own complications. From the dock, there was no one back to the sea without opening the cliffside — something one could only do from the bridge or a control room in the castle. Breaking into either of these places had too much risk for Blue. Instead, she planned on simply hiding in the depths of the Leviathan as a stowaway. Isaac never stayed in one place for long. In his next departure, Blue will escape into the water before swimming to freedom with the necessary information to bring it down.

Her program finished running. She had cloned the firewall. Now she just needed to —

“My swan flew back.”

That voice. Loud and confident enough to project through the deafening noise of the servers. An accent with both sides of the Atlantic on it. A voice she recognized anywhere.

He was not here. This was just an illusion. One of those visions she had as a girl happening again. A guard, maybe. One of the crew perhaps. But not the man. Not him.

"Hello, Tilly."

The name he gave her. A name he whispered, yelled, and moaned. A name she left behind with him.

Blue turned around and had her fears confirmed. Hair a bit thinner than she remembered. It looked like he started dyeing it blonde to maintain his natural color. Face a little older. But it was him. Undeniably him. The custom-tailored suit fitted onto his stocky frame. And his smile. A smile that belonged to only one man. It was him. It was Isaac.

She refused to speak to him. She wanted to end him, to bring his lies to the light. To ruin him the way he ruined her. But now here she was, reunited with him.

Blue clenched her fist. As hard as she could. Let out years of anger onto his face. Before he reacted, Blue ran. Stumbling fast out of the maze of servers aligned here.

She heard Isaac snap his fingers. Standing in her way was a mammoth of a man, one she recognized from long ago. Stone. He blocked her from the exit before gripping her. Hard. Stone possessed more than enough strength to squeeze her dead. She saw it done before. But that was not his order. His massive hands dug into her arms as he lifted her off the ground.

As Stone lifted her, the device fell out of her possession. Isaac pointed at it, and Stone promptly crushed it under his foot before bringing Blue to Isaac.

He wiped the blood off his face with a pocket rag before looking right into her blue eyes.

“Welcome home.”

The old chandelier hung low from the ceiling. Years earlier, Isaac modernized the fixtures with LED lighting to promote energy efficiency. The bulbs emulated a real flame.

On the long, wooden table: a feast. Several courses of elaborate cuisine prepared by the chefs under his employ. All sustainably sourced. No factory farming, no exploitative animal husbandry. No flesh killed for this meal. The meat all a product of Davisco’s investments in synthetic meat and the dairy from nuts grown through genetically-modified trees to require a minimal amount of water.

Next to Blue’s plate — Isaac’s bloody rag.

His face swelled from her punch. She did not get out of that scrape clean either. Her arms were sore from where Stone grabbed her. His grip digging so deep they certainly left their mark.

He sat at the other end of the table with eyes locked onto her. A contradictory blend of tenderness and inspection.

Blue focused on his face. Everything about this was too familiar. The way his nose furrowed when he smirked. The low-glow of the light. The food. The cold night air sneaking into the dining room through the castle’s stone. His suit. Everything was a memory she was unable to escape.

“You still have a place here,” Isaac said. He spoke with the same charm he had five years ago. A 20-year-old fresh out of university leaving it all behind for him. Career. Connections. A name. A mother. All gone.

Blue poked around her plate. An assortment of vegetables roasted in oil sourced from one olive grove in southern Italy. Every color represented. Lab-grown chicken grilled and plated with a thick sauce made from berries, oil, and wine. While he had some fine spirit at his end of the table, for her nothing but water just as she always requested.

He remembered all of this: the meal from her last night.

“I dreamed of you coming back,” His voice softened. The way he used to talk to her long ago in the old life. In hotels and in his villas. On mountaintops and beaches.

He gave her his smile. No matter how much changed, his smile stayed the same. It made her believe all his lies were promises; believe that his vision was as altruistic as he claimed. She followed that smile all around the world, taking her places she never thought she'd go. A smile that pulled her from her mother. A smile that changed Blue into someone she hated.

Her plan failed. He caught her, and her device was pieces of scrap scattered on the floor of the Leviathan. The data was gone and she had no way of recovering it tonight — or any night. Now her only objective was to get out of here without making the same mistake twice.

A fork and a spoon were all she had. It seems Isaac was not afraid enough to bind her to the table or keep a guard in the room, but had some fear inside.

Blue went back in her memory. Years had passed since she last set foot in this place she thought she would never come into again. She traveled the world training, gaining experience and knowledge. She lived a lot of life — life she knew would approach his again, but not cross. Not intersect.

Now here she was again. Spending another night with Sir Isaac Davis.

“You really haven’t changed,” He looked at her. Only her. “You are afraid of what must be done.”

A breath escaped her lips. Here it was: the man the world was ignorant of. The man only she knew.

“The world dies more each day. We have the power to save it, but the nations all debate philosophy. What good are principles if they lead everyone to death."

The door behind her. Even if Isaac had some panic button at his side, she would be out before they arrived. But then she’d spill into the winding hallways of Glen Castle. Even if she did not get lost, she needed a way of dealing with the dozens — if not hundreds — of people responding to his alert.

There was another way. She was not equipped for it at all, but it allowed her to bypass everyone outside the dining room.

Behind Isaac was a door leading to a balcony. A relic of the castle’s history that overlooks the sea. The chance of rocks below, or the certainty of what waited for her if she stayed at this dinner.

Get to him. Get to the door. Open the door. Stand on the rail of the balcony — and hope the wind and waters give her a favorable course to go out and get another chance.

Her words had to be precise. Not too many, but not too few. Enough to string him along long enough for her to make her move, but not drawn out too much where he gets inside of her head. Every conversation with Isaac had that risk.

“I have changed,” The sound of her voice drew his attention. Blue drank the water at her place but left the food alone. “Occupation. Preferences,” She put down the glass. “Name.”

“Yes, I’ve seen the falsified passport for Jeanne Blue,” His smile turned cruel. Twisted. “Familiar initials. Was that by design, or just another happy accident of your life?”

She brought him into secrets kept between mother and daughter. She did this out of trust and understanding. She gave him the knowledge of her life. Secrets of her father, the man she never knew. Mathilde made that mistake. Blue never will.

She felt a tension inside. She focused on her breath. Settling the rhythm. She had to keep calm; to keep the upper-hand between them. He had everything in this castle and its grounds. He had everything except her. She must keep it that way.

She stood up and took slow, deliberate steps toward him. Toward the balcony’s door.

“It must hurt,” She arrived at his place. Blue extended out her hand and with two fingers touched the spot on his face where she punched him so hard he bled. The mark was still warm to the touch as her fingers ran down it.

“Time heals all wounds.” His eyes locked onto hers. Beneath the tough confidence he tried to project it was obvious she still had some power over him.

Isaac reached into his shirt as she stood above:

A hidden gold-chain necklace with a diamond ring hooked to the end. The gem was so pure she saw her reflection in every facet: Two blue eyes looking back at her. They were tired.

“You used to glow,” Isaac said. The menace rose in his eyes as he gazed at her reflection in the diamond. “Now you've faded. You forced yourself into becoming something you and I both know you are not. You are his daughter, but you will never be him. That's not what you were to become.”

There was a woman she was before. Her mother shielded her from her father's world. She wanted her daughter to never hold a gun, to never see the death the two of them saw. But despite Dr. Swann’s best intentions, Blue was born.

“You know nothing of him.”

“Neither do you.”

In the reflection, Blue saw Isaac. His face distorted by the facets as it loomed over her own. He was focused on the image before him. Too focused. So focused he was blind to the clear shot of the balcony door behind him.

“Maybe it’s the diamond,” Blue said exactly what he wanted to hear. “How about you take a look at the real me.”

She squatted down to Isaac's level and lined her face up with his. A touch of foreheads, before bodies pulled closer. Right before lips met, Blue whispered:

“Because you’ll never see me again.”

She shoved him down in his chair and sprinted toward the balcony door. It struggled — the wood warped over the years — but eventually gave way to her force pushing against the night wind.

As she made her move to climb atop the balcony’s edge, she looked through the doorway back at Isaac. He got up, pushed the chair back in, and watched her.

He did nothing but watch her. He called for no help and signaled no alarm. He did nothing but watch her take a dive back into the sea from where she came.

Blue no longer had the anonymity of her new identity on her side. Isaac knew it was her, and that guaranteed him using all of his wealth and connections to ensure tonight’s failure remained. He was not going to accept her of all people embarrassing him.

But tonight, she escaped. She lived for another day. Isaac had to be stopped, and she was the only one to do it. Even if the whole world fell for his spell, she never would again. She refused to fall for any man's spell again. This world was not the place for that, it belonged to liars and thieves.

The black sea consumed her. The cold water embraced her. Blue in white swam away from the castle, she swam away back into the night.  

Chapter Text

The soft night grabbed him. Adam Kaul stood on the balcony of his 17^th-floor suite at the Casino de Culpa in Rome. At this point in the city, he saw where old met new. This was something the cities of the Americas lacked. Everything there was developed, with history buried under steel and concrete. But cities like this had sections forgotten by time.

Below: the lights of a city bustling with activity. Above: the velvet-black night sky. Light pollution obscures the stars in the city. But they are still there.

Kaul felt the wind pass through his robe. It was cooled by the Mediterranean, but not cold. A pleasant breeze. He wished this moment could last forever, but he had a job to do.

Into the bathroom. He could not leave his wavy, black hair down tonight. It was a risk. Some occasionally told him to cut it all off. Get a regulation cut. Something practical. But he liked growing it even if he seldom kept it down. He liked its size, how it hit against his shoulders and framed his face even if no one but him saw it. Out in the field, he had to keep it out of anyone’s reach. He tied it up as he always did: one knot in the back.

Next was the stubble on his face. Too much time on the road made him look unkempt. Kaul shaved his face clean and caught a glance of his eyes. They were dark-brown, a color blending to his skin tone. They were tired. Too tired.

Kaul dropped his robe to the ground, and opened the closet in the suite’s bedroom. These places required a certain costume. He had to play the part of one who belonged. They dressed up; he dressed up. Tonight’s attire: grey suit, light-blue shirt, and a navy tie. Something to blend into the crowd.

He put on his suit. Perfect fit on his tall frame. A well-tailored suit sold the image he needed. People here do not buy off the rack. They do not throw an outfit together at the last minute. Everything is a choice, a statement. The suit made for the individual only looks right on the person who commissioned it. No one else could wear it right. It belonged to him.

Before heading down to the casino floor, Kaul needed one last thing to complete his outfit. He grabbed his suitcase and slid his finger underneath the lining before unlocking a secret compartment.

Walther PPK. Six 9mm rounds in a magazine. Standard issue sidearm of His Majesty's Secret Service. For generations, this weapon has been the tool of British intelligence. A tool with one purpose. Only one purpose. His only purpose.

 Short black hair, falling a little bit over the right eyebrow. A scar on his face. 183 centimeters tall. Slender, but well-conditioned.

One month prior, Kaul saw a photograph of this man. The first time he saw this man, which was also the last. Until tonight. Until he completed his mission.

M, the leader of British intelligence, summoned Kaul into her office. A dossier in a black folder on her desk with “For Your Eyes Only” printed on the front. A black folder meant one objective — kill.

John Smith. Once, like Kaul, an MI6 agent. He swore the same oath Kaul swore, to protect the Crown and its interests. But he violated his oath. Hidden amongst the adversaries of His Majesty were embedded British assets. Smith acquired a roster of names, and sold their true identities out. He betrayed the Service. Nothing was worse than that.

Time was of the utmost importance. Each day meant more of his colleagues were at risk. Each day brought new threats. Kaul had to find the man, and kill him.

Kaul mingled around the casino floor. He knew no one here, but acted like he was a regular. Easy to convince an inebriated crowd of a lie. A little bit of small talk goes a long way.

It took a month for Kaul to track Smith. A month of crowds and places like this. A month of people with the means and need for the names he possessed. The dead agents indicated which groups had the names, from there it was a matter of Kaul working through the individuals financing these groups and finding one weak enough to talk under the right amount of pressure. He found out Smith did his business in casinos, and his next stop was in Rome. Sources told Kaul this was Smith’s biggest deal yet.

The irony made Kaul laugh. They call it “field work” but that meant parties and dinners and galas. The real threats, Kaul learned quickly, were not in warzones. They were in country clubs and board rooms. They were here.

Long ago, the Casino de Culpa was rundown and abandoned. It was forgotten in the past. A consortium of investors purchased the facility and renovated it to become Italy’s highest-class casino. They spared no expense, and Kaul noticed it. From the carpet to the playing tables to the chandeliers. Everything here radiated style. One look at the diamonds lining the roulette table told Kaul these fixtures cost more than he made in a year’s salary.

Waiters offered him free drinks but he refused. The house must not find value in sober guests, because more and more staff came by to offer him bigger and boozier free drinks. He knew to not take anything would raise suspicion, so he grabbed something at random from the tray. Kaul was never one for alcohol but got skilled at nursing a drink to make him look like he belonged.

He hated drinking. He hated anything that altered his senses or emotions. Focus was not just everything, it was the only thing. All of his training and experience taught him that distractions breed inattentiveness, and inattentiveness leads to failure.

Failing in Kaul’s line of work meant death.

Five years. A lifetime ago. Kaul was a nobody. One anonymous soldier in a crowd. Five years since he was deployed with his unit to a refugee crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Five years since he discovered a mole in a non-governmental organization working with them. Five years since he followed the mole, and found a human trafficking conspiracy in the organization to create a population of slave labor. Five years since he met her, who was already on the case to take it down. Five years since she gave her a choice to step into the shadows and use his power for good.

007. Three numbers that mean nothing to the British public. Even military types like Kaul did not know what they meant. But in the world of intelligence, those numbers are legendary. The identification of a woman named Nomi. Member of the 00 Section, the premiere classification within British intelligence. 00s answer only to M and exist off the books. No member of Parliament or any reporter will ever know of any 00’s identity. 00s are given the jobs no one else in the Service can accomplish. 00s set their own rules of engagement. 00s live with a licence to kill.

Most agents take over a decade to get to this point. But Nomi broke this trend by becoming 007 right after she turned 30, only a few years removed from her recruitment into the Service. No one before or since has matched her rapid rise in the subsequent two decades. No one except Kaul.

Now it was time for him to become a 00. Just like her. The only thing he had left to earn his rank was two kills in cold blood. Smith will be his first.

He killed before for his government, but they were always hot. They were in fights, killings of self-defense. This was different — he had all the power here.

Kaul arrived at the back of the casino. A cloaked room only open to invitation. Kaul showed his to the bouncer. There were no bright lights here. No flashing distractions. This was a room for real players. This was a room where the only obstacle stopping someone from winning was themselves.

He was certain Smith was here. Private, but not too private. A place where the most valued guests congregate. The people who value the names he possessed were here. This was where deals happen.

In the center was a large table. A thick, dark wood with that shade of green found only on poker tables. A crowd of a couple dozen stood throughout the room watching the game unfold.

Six players sat at the table with space for a seventh. A high-level game. Kaul felt an urge to take that empty seat and join them. Poker came easy to members of the Service — it is a game of information warfare. Withhold information. Send misinformation out to the competitor. The player is not playing their hand; they play the hand their opponent believes them to have. Great poker players do not understand the game. They understand people.

But he had a job to do. A man to find. A man to wait for.

The job is not glamorous. Nomi made that clear years ago. All the traveling, the secret lives, mingling among the wealthiest of the wealthy and the most powerful of the powerful seems attractive. But the bulk of the job is not excitement or action. It is waiting. Waiting in meeting rooms and conference rooms and lobbies and hotel suites. Waiting for a plane to land or a train to depart. Waiting for people. All of the training so the body and mind do not atrophy in all of the waiting. All of the preparation to be ready for the brief moment where one must strike.

The bouncer let a man into the room. A man with short black hair, and a scar running down his face. Right height. Right build. Right everything.

Kaul watched Smith. He came into the audience, and took a drink from one of the waiters inside. He made quick work of it before asking for another. He only casually followed the game while making no effort to talk to anyone in the room.

This perplexed Kaul. He was here to make deals. He was here to sell names. He was not here to get drunk or loiter around watching card games. None of this fit the pattern.

But Smith was one of them. Smith knew all of Kaul’s steps, he had to remember this. Perhaps this was all an act to throw Kaul off his game. He had to know how hot he was now; he had to know someone was coming from his past to finish him.

“The real action isn’t in betting on cards, it’s betting on the players,” Smith came over to him. Alcohol’s stench in his breath announced his presence. He’d been drinking long before he entered the game. “I do not recognize you.”

“Kaul,” He replied. “Adam Kaul.”

“You do not look to be more than a child,” Smith began. “Yet they sent you here by yourself.”

Smith stayed close to Kaul. Close enough to slip something into his dinner jacket. “The game is about to start,” He backed away from Kaul. “You know where to find me.”

Kaul felt inside his jacket. Right next to his gun — a card. A room key. Suite 26A.

Everything was new about the Casino de Culpa. Everything except the elevator. It looked nice, but it made a horrible noise as it creeped up each floor. It was stable but it took far too long to move. Kaul clung to the rail inside the elevator waiting to hit the 26^th and top floor.

Unlike the main floor, everything was quiet when he got out of the elevator. This floor only had four suites, with them built at the end of each cardinal direction on the floor and the elevator coming up in the middle. Kaul went north to “A”.

It was too easy. A month of nothing but then he fell into Kaul’s lap. As he walked down the hallway, Kaul wondered if he was walking into a trap. Smith knew this world. He knew what awaited him once Kaul arrived. Welcoming it seemed illogical and irrational — unless there was another angle to it.

Pull out. Make contact back to MI6 and let them know there was too much risk. Thoughts echoed in fear. The door approached and Kaul did not know what waited for him on the other side.

No. He had no choice. The man was here, so Kaul must join him. He scanned the keycard to the door. It unlatched. Kaul pushed the door open and took a step inside the suite’s living room. Far bigger than his room several floors down. It was clear Smith had been staying here for a while. More like a home than a hotel. Clothes were thrown about everywhere. Furniture had been moved to fit his needs.

These suites had a dining room. Only Smith converted his into a bit of an office. In the corner he built a makeshift server rack, and had a couple workstations on the dining table. Wires strung everywhere on the floor. Little regard for cable management in this set-up.

Between the workstations, a blue folder caught Kaul’s attention. He opened the folder. These pages were fresh, still a little warm from the printer. The top page listed a name — Nomi.

Kaul hesitated. Secrets are the currency of this life. It was wrong to open this file. He only knew her for a brief but transformative moment.

But he opened it. Temptation took hold for a fleeting second. He had not seen or heard from her in these five years. The feeling was too strong. Dates of postings, assignments, and targets. People to kill and people she killed. Her entire life inside the folder.

Near the back: Operation Trident. Something from twenty years ago in 2020. Unlike all of the other assignments summarized, this one had no details. It was hidden. Kaul regained control and closed the folder before he reached back deeper into her past.

Kaul progressed toward the bedroom. The door was closed. Kaul tugged on the knob. Locked. His keycard did nothing for this one as it had an old lock that required an old key.

Shooting the lock or breaking the door down were not wise due to the resulting noise. He had to keep it quiet. Picking the lock might work. Kaul ripped Nomi’s dossier apart to take the metal clips out of the folder. He bent two of them into a straight line, and then inserted them into the lock.

These improvised tools were not the best for the job. They were weak. They were flimsy. Twisting too forcefully would jam the lock. A single wrong move breaks the metal and renders the lock unusable. 

The trick to locking picking is sound. Filtering through the hum coming from the server, Kaul listened to the mechanism. Locks have a song. A noise they harmonize with the key. The lockpick must mimic the movement to get the right sound.

Deeper. The lock relaxes. Built for only one key, the locksmith tricks it into accepting another. Each twist of Kaul’s hand made the lock feel like everything was normal. The pins moved under Kaul’s control. He reached the final turn, the last twist. With one flick of his wrist —

Click.

Kaul took a cautious step inside the bedroom. The gun weighed heavy on his chest. He felt it with each breath. The lights were low. Moody. Kaul turned them up to brighten the room, and saw a mess of papers scattered about the floor.  

Kaul went down to the floor. He looked at the scattered pages. Each one had names and sensitive information of MI6 personnel. Some names he recognized. Some he did not.

“You came.”

A waft of an artificial smell bombarded Kaul. Something to mask him. Smith stepped out of the bathroom in the room, wearing only a robe tightly secured around his waist. He went over and pulled the blinds on the floor-to-ceiling window in the bedroom.

“Wouldn’t want the neighbors seeing,” Smith said before sitting on the edge of the bed. His grey-green eyes were a shade Kaul never saw before. He felt Smith’s eyes on him. They were dull. They lacked the light found in the back of his own eyes.

“She brought you into all of this,” Smith said. “I thought you’d like to know more about her.”

Do not talk. He sought to bother him, to distract Kaul. Do not make him a person any more than he already has become. Keep him an assignment. Keep him distant.

“Even the great 007 has things to hide,” Smith scooted back on the bed. Relaxing his posture. “We all do.”

Smith reached into his robe and produced another file. He slid it across the floor towards Kaul. While maintaining eye contact with Smith, Kaul picked it up before standing. Inside he saw a familiar name written: Adam Kaul.

His whole life on the document. The Service, the military, the before. Bits of his life being sent to his uncle in London. Bits of his life he tried not to revisit.

“An orphan,” Smith said. “A lot of us are. I was luckier. I had no memory of them. You’re different. You remember them.” Smith loaded up his last line. “You were there when they died.”

One shot. Through his eyes. That is the professional way to do things. That is the cold way to do things. He is a killer belonging to a league of killers, but they are not brutes nor beasts. They do not kill in emotion. They do not feel emotion. They have a job, and they do the job. No more. No less.

“Do it,” Smith face twisted. “It’s why you came.”

Kaul reached for his gun. Pushed it right up against Smith’s forehead. Brought Smith down to his knees. Kaul took off his belt and tied Smith’s wrists up behind his back. Tight.

“Behave, Mr. Kaul, behave,” Smith tried to move his wrists, making sure Kaul saw him verify the binds. “Unless you want to make this serious.”

Pull the trigger. End this. Go back.

But he stayed still. Kaul’s hesitance gave Smith a way in.

“You can’t escape,” Smith looked up at Kaul’s erect frame towering above. “Kill me. Kill anyone. Kill whoever she tells you to kill. One day it will come for you. Dance with death too long and she’ll take a liking to you.”

Kaul stood silent. Unable to talk. Barely able to listen.

“That’s our problem. We signed ourselves away without knowing what we gave up,” Smith continued. “You saw the one out there. For your 007. She knows all about what happens even to the ones who get out.”

“I made this choice,” Kaul engaged. He knew he shouldn’t but he did. His chest tightened. Emotions flamed up. He pressed the gun further into Smith’s forehead. “Just like you.”

A thin smile formed on his face. “Look where that ends.”

Smith laughed as he stood up. He ripped the belt in two, freeing his wrists. He took steps towards Kaul, backing him into the wall, which caused him to lower his gun. He got close — close enough Kaul felt his breath — and whispered: “Show me how far you’ll go for her.”

Smith produced something hard from his robe. Something that cut into Kaul. Sting in the abdomen. Sharp intensity.

 “Show me who you are.”

The shock to the system caused Kaul’s grip on his gun to release. Smith, holding his knife, used his other hand to grab Kaul’s gun and stuff it into his robe. He twisted the knife ever so slightly to make it hurt even more.

Agents do not ignore pain. They use it. Pain is a valuable physical response to a situation. Pain is a teaching tool, a heated anvil to shape a man. If this was Kaul’s first time being stabbed, then he would get weak and collapse down to his knees.

 But this was not his first time.

Kaul shot out a quick exhale. He used his free, right hand to pull the knife out of his abdomen while his left held tight on Smith. As he pulled out the knife, Kaul tightened his hand on Smith.

His blood dripped off the blade. Some got onto his nice, black shoes. A combination of blood seeping from the open wound and sweat saturated his shirt. Kaul had to be quick.

 Smith twisted out of Kaul's grasp and stepped back. He steadied the gun — Kaul's gun — and aimed right at him.

Neither option was ideal. Dive to the opposite side of the bed in the middle of the room for cover and become a stationary target, or close the gap between the two men and engage but put himself in point-blank range.

Quick processing keeps an agent alive in the field. In normal circumstances, taking cover at the bed would be the correct position. Flip the bed and use it at a makeshift shield. But the pain in his side told him he lacked the strength to pull off such a move right now. The only choice was moving toward him.

Kaul crouched — which intensified the pain at the wound — and turned the knife around in his hand. The blade was at an angle, pointed at the ground. He rushed toward Smith and engaged him.

 Every attack Kaul dealt, he blocked perfectly. Smith kept the knife from ever making contact. He limited the impact of Kaul’s blows. Of course — he went through the same training as Kaul. These techniques were not new.

 But as the encounter progressed, Kaul noticed Smith not trying to make up ground. He never went on offense. He resisted Kaul’s attempts at disarming him, but he never did anything more. He never tried to bring him down. His finger was on the trigger but he never fired. Every move Smith made was designed to keep the fight in stalemate.

 Kaul had to break it. The bloodstain on his shirt grew deeper and larger. He needed something unusual, something unorthodox. Something outside the bounds of training.

He moved his fist — the one with the knife — for a strike, which Smith predictably blocked. Kaul used the opportunity to raise his other arm parallel to the ground and pin it against Smith. Then: he threw the knife. Not at Smith, but at the wall.

Smith looked backwards. A little confusion. A little smug. He smirked back at Kaul, perceiving that he meant to hit him with the knife.

But that was not his intention. With his now-empty right hand, Kaul grabbed onto Smith and moved his left hand to match. Adrenaline pumping additional strength to his muscles. Kaul lifted Smith off the ground.

 The wall cracked as the knife entered. These walls were weak. Likely placed atop older material during the casino and hotel’s renovations. A little bit of give and it splits.

He flung the man into the wall. Kaul’s gun slid across the floor — until he stopped it with his feet. With his gun back in hand: Kaul aimed right at Smith.

 Blood on his head, blood in the indentation on the wall. Bits of drywall and dust clinging to him. Kaul saw the man he was sent to kill. He saw the man stagger back onto his feet, with his eyes glazed. He saw the dazed man step backwards away from Kaul. Toward the window.

The first stood before him. After tonight was the second. A little bit of rest and recovery time. New clothes, new gear. A new part of the world. Another target. Another name. But before that, he had to do this.

Smith spoke through painful breaths: “You have become—"

One shot fired through Smith’s chest that pushed him out the window — raining glass below; crashing onto the pavement down 26 stories.

Chapter Text

Names etched into stone. Names forgotten. Names from decades ago. Names fresh in the wall.

It stands in a courtyard at MI6 headquarters. Blocked in on all sides by the building. Serves as a bit of greenspace within the structure. A large skylight hangs over the courtyard to give a natural light at the heart of the office.

The wall predated this MI6 building. After a 2012 terrorist attack left that building unusable the government removed the wall and kept it stored until their new headquarters opened in 2026. Once they installed it into the new building they got to work on the backlog of names. Since then, the names get added with an annual ceremony.

Nomi brought him here five years ago. Before he made a commitment to the Service, he needed to feel the stakes and not just know them. She demanded he look at these names. Whenever he was in town between assignments it became part of his routine to come back here. He always wanted to feel it.

He refused to forget. Names. Lives. People who died for their country. People who died to protect a world, or the idea of a world. People whose deaths were anonymous, and whose lives disappear for a cause they did not care about. Kaul imagined they were like him — here because this was all they could do.

“Kaul,” A voice behind him. Richard Collins, M’s executive assistant. Once he was an agent like Kaul, but a bullet that just missed his heart ended his career in the field. “She’ll see you now.”

Friendship was too dangerous for a field agent but it was important to identify allies. People who were sources for information within the Service. People who were unafraid of reality. A mutual respect existed between Kaul and Collins. They saw a survivor in each other.

“I’m surprised to see you up so soon,” Collins said. “Your injuries sounded serious.”

“This little thing?” Kaul tapped against his abdomen where Smith stabbed him. “It’s nothing.” Kaul stopped walking. He ensured no one was around them. “I need you to dig through the archives for me.” Kaul was not one to ask for help, but something Smith told him rattled around in the trip back to London from Rome. “An old job.”

“One of yours?”

“No. 007.”

“00 missions are beyond your purview,” Collins countered with the official line. Even for an agent like Kaul, the 00 Section was not to be pried into.

“Of course, of course, but I am right there—” Kaul stopped talking as someone passed them. Once they were back alone, he resumed. “It has to do with my last assignment, and I believe you do owe from that activity I did outside the scope of my posting in Cairo.”

Collins whipped around to look at Kaul. His voice dropped. “You said there were no strings attached.”

Nothing illegal. Nothing that would get either man fired. But M wouldn’t look too kindly at an agent scaring a hotel into blocking off their penthouse for an international security reason only for it to be used for Collins and his wife to go on holiday.

“There weren’t, there aren’t, but...” Kaul said. “It’d be appreciated.”

Collins relented. “What is it?”

“Operation Trident.” He kept a few steps behind Collins as they walked through MI6 headquarters. Something about that last job lingered in Kaul. All of the uncertainty. A man who used to be one of them corrupted into the enemy. Smith once walked through this building. Smith once took orders from M. Smith did everything — until it changed.

As they passed through the bustling halls and offices of intelligence personnel, Kaul wondered if they saw these questions on him. An agent was to have none of what he felt. An agent was to be disconnected from the job. They were to become a tool, an extension of the government. They were not supposed to remember.

Time weathered an agent to become the perfect instrument for MI6. First Smith, then his second. Then he’d be a 00 and have countless more assignments. Each one of these smooths down the heart. Kaul reassured himself that in the future these walks will be easier.

M’s door opened. Out came Dana Banks, a representative of the Prime Minister appointed to advise M. Kaul had a few encounters with her. She was a career bureaucrat who was reassigned to this role as part of a political compromise.

“Hello, Ms. Banks,” Kaul stood up to greet her. One important thing Nomi taught him: stay in good graces with the suits, as you never know when you’ll need a favor.

She took a beat too long to answer. He was familiar with this experience — someone awkwardly searching for a name. Kaul was used to a name getting forgotten, or butchered. He hated it.

Banks took too long. Kaul passed her by, and entered M’s office.

One month away made it all look different. Kaul reminded himself it was the same. The same dark blue carpet. The same big desk that had been in the office forever. The same massive painting of the old MI6. The same window overlooking the courtyard in the middle of the MI6 headquarters, the courtyard with the memorial wall.  Nothing had changed. Nothing except him.

Hair cut short, and wore suits sharp enough to kill. Her eyes were cold, but not cruel. They were the eyes of someone who lived in tough decisions. Someone who had to be detached from her emotions. Someone who perfected living in this world of shadows.

Kaul sat opposite her. She kept her desk clean, almost too clean, and organized. Everything had a place. Everything arranged. Everything square. Kaul heard once they kept drinks in M’s office. This M put a stop to that custom.

”Tell me about Rome.”

M was not a person. M was an identity. There had been an M for almost a century. Each individual called into this role became this role. M did not just lead MI6. M was, to the public, MI6. People like Kaul or Nomi were ghosts in the public eye. They did not exist. M was the one who went before Parliament. M was the one who answered when things went wrong. M was the one who buried fallen agents.

M had the role for a little under ten years now, selected after the retirement of her predecessor Gareth Mallory. There was a joke around MI6 that to even be considered for the position your last name had to start with an M. Oliva Mansfeld. Miles Messervy. Maybe there was truth to it. But M was not the joking type.

“You left a mess in there. A body dropped onto a city sidewalk. It’s not a pretty sight. The Italians want answers we cannot give them.”

Kaul gave all the details on his report: Smith luring him up the room, the information he scattered throughout his suite, the fight. M saw his wound. She authorized his medical treatment. She had everything.

But she did not want a report. She did not call him into her office to re-state what she read. She wanted something bigger. She wanted to asses him.

“The situation deteriorated,” Kaul forced composure out. He needed to appear as unemotional as she was. He needed to be a man not shaken. “But I responded and completed the mission.”

“You don’t make that assessment.”

“You sent me to kill him. I did it.”

“Not how we taught you,” Her words bit at him. “You weren’t ready for the next step.”

Kaul came to the edge of snapping. But he pulled back. This was not the moment. This was not who he needed to be.

“He expected me,” He exhaled. Kaul matched his eyes to hers. Showing any further weakness — more than his words — was unacceptable. “Set the whole thing up. It was a trap to get under my skin.”

“And he did,” M pointed down to his abdomen. “You were afraid. It made you careless. It almost killed you. It will kill you if it happens again.”

From her desk, M revealed another dossier. For Your Eyes Only. Black folder. Before Kaul grabbed it, M pulled the dossier back.

Kaul focused on M. He focused on the job, whatever it may be. He focused on his purpose of becoming a 00. He focused on the names that came before him on the wall. The ones who did not turn. The ones who did their duty. He knew Smith got under him. He knew Smith was too close. That will never happen again.

His silence told M everything she needed.

“What have you heard about Project Sol?”

“Initiative the Commonwealth has in conjunction with Davisco,” Kaul began. “Bringing low-cost solar energy to the whole globe and eliminate the use of fossil fuels in the developing world.”

Everyone in the nation knew about Project Sol and Sir Isaac Davis, the leader of Davisco with limitless wealth. Knighted for his charity work at such a young age. Davis swept up all the most powerful countries and wealthiest families in his vision to fix the world.

“It is the future,” M said. “A future our government has spent a lot of money on.”

He endowed schools. He gave grants to arts programs. He funded parks. He advocated for struggling children without a home. All of these initiatives wore his name. But for his signature project, Sir Isaac Davis turned to the public treasury. Even a billionaire has his limits.

“Project Sol is the most extensive international collaboration in generations.”

“Let me guess,” Kaul started. “Certain parties may not be interested in seeing such collaboration.”

“Someone broke into Sir Davis’s property in Ireland, Glen Castle,” M said. “They recovered what they stole, but not before they got away.”

“An agent from a nation opposed to Project Sol?”

Kaul was no international relations scholar, but his experience in the field taught him about what states prioritize. Some would value the investment opportunities by Project Sol, but others would see it as a new imperialism; as a way for British interests to re-conquer what they lost a century prior. Beyond the governments ideologically opposed to Britain and her bloc, there were others who would want to make a bold statement asserting their sovereignty and reminding all associated with Project Sol they are equal players on the global stage and not subservient colonies.

“We thought so too,” M re-read the dossier. “But everything we have indicates a rogue. A lone wolf. Davis believes this perpetrator may plan something bigger.”

“Not too much bigger than breaking into the man’s property.”

“An attempt on his life.”

That was what necessitated the black folder. Death was the universal settlement. All of these rich and powerful types, those who never got their hands dirty and spent their life far above everyone else were always afraid of it coming to them. A fear, of course, split from their actual reality. 

One detail did stick to Kaul — whoever broke in got away. But Kaul thought it unlikely they actually intended on killing Davis. If they wanted him dead, Kaul reasoned, he would already be dead.

“We work on belief now,” Kaul said.

“We are when the PM asks.”

“The PM’s involved?” This job started to feel bigger than Kaul. All eyes of the state on him.

“He and Sir Davis go back,” M answered. “University classmates.”

“A job of such importance sounds like 00 work.”

“003, 004, and 009 are on assignment, 005 is recovering. 002 has special training for her next assignment.”

“What about 007?” Kaul pushed. Prying into 00 duties was beyond the scope of his role, but reading her dossier at Smith's brought her to the front of his mind after years of not hearing from her since she brought him to MI6.

“Not your concern,” M was not amused. “You are all we have right now. That is all you need to know.” She handed him the dossier.

One last assignment before he reached his goal. One last trip until he became a 00, before he became just like 007. Kaul now recognized the important symbol of this mission — this is 00 work, and M trusted him with it.

“Tomorrow morning report to Q Branch. They’ll have all you need for your travels. Study this document. Learn everything from it you can.”

Kaul opened the dossier. Nothing prepared Kaul for what he saw at the top of the page where they place an image of the target:

The target wore a mask in the photograph, from wherever MI6 obtained it, so the bulk of the face was obscured. But the mask did not hide her bright blue eyes.

Her.

His next target, his last step to becoming a 00 — a woman.