Chapter 1 Q's Orb

"I bought almost everything back. Come on M you can't be that upset." Bond protested as he followed M's purposeful march through the corridors of MI6 on the way back to her office.

Bond was irritatingly tossing a spherical object up in the air and catching it as he followed her trying to explain his actions in Crete. As they entered her office Bond lobbed the sphere into the air for Tanner to catch with confusion on his face.

"What is this?"

"I don't know, I just got distracted by M's new perfume while in Q branch and started playing with it."

"Trying to flirt your way out of trouble again Bond?" Eve Moneypenny was standing beside Tanner with her files and took the device out of Bill's hand. "Whatever this is it belongs to Q and you stole it, 007 you pirate."

Bond looked taken aback. "A pirate you say? Triggering some deep dark fantasies of yours Moneypenny?"

By this time M had poured herself a drink of water and moved to sit behind her desk. Dreaming up a punishment as Moneypenny inadvertently triggered her imagination. Bond as a pirate...on some ludicrous cover of a bodice ripping book that could be located at the checkout of any market.

"A pirate? I picture myself as more of a Viking than a swashbuckling pirate. What about you Tanner? Sports hero? Viking? What were you as an imaginative child?" Bond asked.

"None of your business." Tanner said sternly. He was becoming ruffled by Moneypenny's flirtations with Bond. "But if you must know, a spy."

"A spy!? As in what we actually do?" Bond said in amusement and shock.

"You do it Bond. I however, am here with M. Besides it was a certain point in time I wanted to be a spy in anyway."

"A time thing? I would change places with you mate. I wouldn't mind being around our thoroughly entrancing boss all day every day." Bond said wiggling his brows in M's direction and he leaned across her desk provocatively.

M choked on her water and had to wipe a tear from her eye. "Bond...I will have you committed." M said in mock threat. Will Bond ever stop his flirting and inappropriate behaviour?

"Threats, threats and I've done nothing wrong. I couldn't help that the bomber was successful in blowing himself up along with his compatriots. The building is still standing and no collateral damage. As for Tanner, what time period are you talking about?"

"If you must know; the sixties. I like the aesthetic of the sixties."

M scoffed and chuckled as they looked down at her. M might have been here in the sixties. The three of them could only imagine the things she had likely done and seen.

M stood a grabbed the orb that Eve was looking at and held it in her hand. "You should leave Q's inventions alone Bond." M said with a worried tone.

M placed the orb on her desk and picked up the file reading it and allowing them to continue their discussion, as she wandered away from her desk to the window. With some distance from their inane chatter M was better able to read the file in her hand.

"What about you Moneypenny? Fantasy?" Bond asked raising his brow at her.

"If like Tanner, you are asking about where I would go if Q invents time travel, I would have to say that I've always been interested in what happened during the American Revolution."

"Really, I would have pegged you for the old pirate fantasy, don't all women have those? Being abducted by the rogue handsome pirate or so the book covers would lead me to believe."

M had to look up as Bond just described exactly what she had been thinking of earlier. "Fun as this conjecture may all seem, abduction was never romantic and the past was full of disease and unsanitary conditions. Pirates and Vikings raped and pillaged. I don't know why novels try to romanticize it all. Bond as you well know as part of the Royal Navy...they said that in the past it was all...rum, sodomy and the lash."

M placed the report back on her desk, waiting for this conversation to run it's course and get back to work. M was still mentally working on a suitable punishment for Bond's effrontery to the Cretan authorities.

"Yes, well I like the rum part and the Caribbean would be nice too." Moneypenny said with a smile.

M picked up the orb and turned the item over in her hand. In her curiosity she tapped on it with her pen and then her fingers. Nothing.

M gave it a twist and was about to place it back on her desk but at that moment it began to light up. Green and red lights flashed in quick succession. M looked at it more closely when it began to warm in her hand. A sudden dizziness seized her.

The four of them looked at it, as M suddenly began to collapse. Tanner was standing closest to her and caught her as the orb hit her desk. Bond snatched the offending item up and instantly felt dizzy. Bond suddenly pitched forward sprawling on top of M's desk.

The orb left his loosened grip and rolled along the length of the desk. Eve grabbed it to prevent it from falling. Once she touched it, the warmth emanated from it and tingled up her arm, as she to began to fall.

Tanner laid M on the floor and rounded the desk to grab Eve. The orb was crushed between him and Eve, as Tanner eased her to the floor. Tanner had a few seconds to hit his mobile and call Q, "HELP! M's office…"

Tanner touched the orb to remove it from contact with Eve's hands as the tingling sensation moved up his arm and he fell prone beside Eve.

The mysterious orb rolled out of his outstretched hand….

Q rushed into the room looking around in shock. He put gloves on and turned off the orb. His assistants came clamouring in after with a metal case and he placed it inside. Q was on the line to medical and urged them to hurry.

"Damn and blast 007, you have no respect for other people's property! Now look what's happened!"

His assistant ran into the office behind Q. "Q sir; I'm sorry, I didn't notice that he had taken it from the case on my desk. How long do you think they will be affected?"

"I'm not sure Quinton." Q said to his young assistant.

"I'll wait until we get them off to medical for observation. Looks like we've got a running test of my limbic system orb after all." Q sighed, a bit worried about M and Eve. He had designed the device to work on heavier males and not friendly or smaller specimens. He wondered how long the combined effects of the drug and the effects the vibrations from the LSO had on those who came into direct contact after it was activated. This was completely untested and new. Why the hell did end up here!

"Bond! Damn your absent minded fidgeting. I designed it to appear like an object of power, something that one would feel compelled to touch. I never thought anyone would end up taking it! He must have absently grabbed it in his haste to explain his actions to M and took it with him."

"I will go to the lab and get all the notes. Maybe we can speed up the reversal process."

"Yes do that. Meet me in medical."

The medical crew arrived with four gurneys to take them down to the medical lab. Q had already notified them of the basics of what had happened.

Q himself notified the PM's office and a committee member, Gareth Mallory was personally coming to oversee the operations until M woke and took back her position upon clearance from medical. Naturally, Q would be responsible for a detailed report of what had happened to immobilize the upper echelons of MI6.

One thing was certain, it was going to be a long night.