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~ There is no greater pain or punishment than that of a memory ~
Present Day
Q hated funerals. Absolutely despised them. Also, what was up with the fact that it almost always seemed to rain whenever one was being held? As if in some sort of twisted way, the sky was also crying along with the mourners down below. Q knew that was a stupid way of looking at it, but ever since he was seven years old that’s how he saw it – how he coped with having to attend a funeral at the young age of seven.
26th June 1997
Q (who was not called Q then, of course, but Matthew, a name that is now buried so far deep it no longer exists at all) was spending the weekend at his neighbour’s house. His parents – well his father – needed to travel to Westport, Ireland for business, his mother was supposed to be staying back and looking after him. That was until his kind, elderly neighbours offered to take him in for the weekend giving his parents the chance to go spend some quality time together. His father was only supposed to be gone a day, fly over Friday evening, be back Sunday, but they had decided to extend it to a full weekend, and fly back Monday. Q’s neighbours even offered to drop him off at school that day too.As it turned out, he did not have to go to school that day.Instead he got to spend the day talking to a blur of people, police officers, social workers, counsellors, and many more who’s profession he could not remember. Q wasn’t sure if he were really there, to be honest, he only caught bits and pieces of information before his mind would shut down for a couple of minutes, and then reboot, and the process repeated on and on.
“We’re terribly sorry.”
“There’s been an accident.”
“Unfortunately your parents won’t be coming home.”
“No living relatives.”
“Foster care placements.”
“There’s great counsellors to help you through this tough time.”
“At this stage in the investigation it looks as if there was a passenger on-board who had some form of bomb.”
(that last one was directed at his neighbours, not at him, but he still managed to hear it)
Bomb.His parents were dead.As much as his neighbours cared for him, they were just unable to take on and raise a seven-year-old child, and so the last he saw of them was when they accompanied him to his parents’ funeral – where it poured rain – and Q’s hatred for funerals developed.
5th July 1997
He was placed into a group home for boys whilst awaiting a foster family, unfortunately the list was long and he didn’t expect to be leaving the place anytime soon. It was a two story brick house, with white window panes and a raised entry way with an arched door. Q hated the place before he even stepped one foot inside of it. Besides him, there were 5 other children living there – a five-year-old, an eight-year-old, a ten-year-old and two twelve-year-olds. Q was told their names, but he honestly did not care all that much. When he met them for the first time however, he couldn’t help but notice how dead they all looked in the eyes.It didn’t take him long to realise why.The home was being run by who he assumed were a couple, a man named Clarence who was in his early 50s and sported a beer belly and thin, greying hair, the woman was named Marlene who was in her late 40s, strong features and jet black straight hair. But he didn’t care that much for their names either, as he later went on to just call them evil in disguise.They were strict, the rules they had to abide by seemed more suitable for inmates in a prison rather than for children, they had a time they were to wake up, a time to eat breakfast, a time to shower, a time to “play” – Q used that word very loosely, a time for outdoor time, a time for dinner and a time to go to sleep. Any variations to their strict schedule earned them a whack upside the head. But that wasn’t the worst of it.Everyone seemed to abide by the rules and the schedule the best they could, and Q thought that would’ve pleased Clarence and Marlene, but instead all it seemed to do was make them even angrier. So they started creating stricter rules, rules that seemed like their only purpose was to be unattainable. They were only allowed to chew their food a certain number of times, swallow their drinks a certain number of times, they had to eat within an allocated time and if they weren’t finished by then – too bad – their food was taken from them, which only resulted in them scoffing their meals down as fast as they could when they were handed them, which then in turn resulted in them getting a whack for not chewing the allocated amount of times.Q loved school, he enjoyed it even before his parents death, the learning aspect that is, he wasn’t, and still isn’t, all that fond of the social aspect. He preferred to keep to himself, spending his lunchtimes alone studying or just finally being able to sit somewhere quiet and think without being overcome by the fear of being hit for breaking some obscure rule.After a while the rules stopped really being relevant at all, because it no longer mattered how good you were, or how obediently you followed them, you would get hit regardless. Always in places that weren’t visible, and the few times that a black eye occurred or a split lip blossomed up, you were suddenly “sick with the flu and won’t be in all week.”It didn’t take them long before they became skilled at inflicting abuse, at perfecting the excuses needed for when they had to turn up at the emergency room with a child who had a sudden broken arm or bruised ribs, or even a concussion. Q was unlucky and got to experience all three of those emergency room visits.
“I fell down the stairs”
“It was a kid at school, no I don’t know their name.”
“I slipped and hit my head on the coffee table.”
Years went by, and by the time Q was thirteen years old he had started dragging a razor blade along his skin that he'd retrieved from a smashing up a shaving razor. He was confused as to why he enjoyed it so much, he would've thought that the last thing someone who was experiencing pain daily would want is to then experience more pain, but this was pain he could control, this was his pain, and he felt better whenever he did it. So it became somewhat of a habit, whenever he felt as if he couldn’t breathe, he’d slip inside the bathroom and watch his own blood run down his thigh.Despite the persistent abuse, his rapidly declining mental state and the constant terror of never knowing what was going to happen to him when he walked through the doors after school, Q managed to excel well in school. He had just started fourth form and was really enjoying his IT class, there was just something about computers that he really loved, maybe it was their predictability? their stability? the fact that all you had to do was give them a command and they obeyed it, if the code was accurate, they would do as instructed. They were simple. Q didn’t have to constantly second guess their intentions.Pity he didn’t get to stay in that class long enough to really enjoy it.It was a few weeks later, around 10pm at night when they were all supposed to be sleeping, except for some reason Q was lying in bed wide awake. Running through different alterations he could make to a source code he was developing when he heard it. One of the others had made a pained noise a few doors down causing Q to freeze in his bed. He heard the noise again, and again, and again. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to block the sound out, but it was so loud and he’d never heard this much pain coming from one of them before.Before Q knew what he was doing, as if his body was suddenly on auto-pilot, he was getting out of bed and quietly making his way down the hall to the bedroom where the sound was coming from. It was Oliver’s room – the once five-year-old he initially met, but now twelve-year-old. The door wasn’t closed fully and so Q peeked his head in and instantly paled at the sight before him. Clarence was on top of Oliver and Q almost lost his dinner onto the floor right there, he must’ve made some sort of sound because Clarence glanced over and shot daggers at him.“Get.” He snarled.You didn’t have to tell Q twice, as that’s exactly what he did. He rushed straight back to his room, grabbed the worn-out duffel bag from underneath his bed and started haphazardly chucking the few meagre articles of clothing he owned into it, a framed photograph of his parents (which he somehow managed to keep hidden from Clarence and Marlene), his notebook which contained pieces of codes he was working on and a USB. He stopped and stared at the USB in his hand for a moment, deciding whether he wanted to use it, before he shoved it into his bag and zipped it up. He grabbed his sneakers, shrugged his outdoor coat on and took off as fast as he could whilst also trying to be as quiet as he could as well. Duffel bag slung over one shoulder, shoes in one hand and out the door he went.He got halfway down the block before he stopped and quickly slipped his sneakers on, the ground was cold and wet and his feet were burning, but he had to keep going. He couldn’t begin to imagine how ridiculous he would’ve looked, a skinny fourteen-year-old boy in his pyjamas running down the street at half past 10 on a Tuesday night. He didn’t care.He had to get away.For someone who was the polar opposite of athletic, scrawny and carrying a duffel bag over one shoulder he could run pretty fast. He kept going until he made it to the petrol station that was a few blocks away, there was a restroom off to the side and he quickly slipped inside and locked the door. Once again reminding himself that time was not on his side, he pulled his pyjamas off and threw a hoodie and sweats on, slipping his coat back on over the top and sliding his sneakers back on.He took a second to glance in the mirror and stare at his reflection and wasn’t surprised to see how horrible he looked. His hair was a mess from changing so quickly, his face was red and blotchy from running and his eyes were red rimmed behind his glasses. He doesn’t even remember when he started crying but apparently he must’ve started at one point. Tearing his eyes away from his reflection, he picked his bag up and exited the restroom. He had no idea what he was going to do now, he needed a computer and he needed money, and he needed both fast, but he had neither nor a way of getting them.That was until he was approached.“Hey darling, how much?” Came a voice from behind him, startling him so much he spun around and managed to drop his bag on the ground in the process. In front of him was a man, early 40s, dark hair tied into a pony-tail, baseball cap, dirty clothes – trucker?“W-What?” Q managed to get out, utterly confused as to what was going on.“How much? Nobody your age and that pretty hangs around petrol stations at 11pm at night unless they’re offering.” The man said, smirking and taking a step closer to Q.Realisation dawned on him. This man thought he was a prostitute. Q was about to tell the man to shove it and that he wasn’t, when he remembered – he needed money.Q swallowed audibly.“£50 for a.. uh, a blowjob?” He had no idea what he was doing.The man whistled. “Steep, but I guess you’re pretty enough.” He pulled out a crumbled up note and handed it to Q who awkwardly stuffed it inside his sweats pocket.Q walked towards the man and started to crouch down in front of him before he was hauled back up by his arm and shoved towards the restroom.“Not out here you moron.”Panic flashed through Q’s eyes at the thought of being in a private, enclosed space with this stranger who he had just agreed to provide a sexual favour for, but he pushed the fear down and followed the man inside the restroom. Once again crouching down onto his knees and performing his first ever blowjob on someone.Q hated every minute of it.Once that was over, he grabbed his bag and took off running towards the main part of town, he knew it was risky as he didn’t want to be seen, he simply wanted to just disappear, but it was late at night and not many people should be around. Plus, this was something he needed to do.He made his way inside the 24/7 internet café, the owner gave him a wary look but accepted his payment to use the computer for half an hour – he didn’t need that long, but that was the apparent minimum, so he paid the £2 for that and went about doing what he came here for. He grabbed the USB out of his bag and plugged it into the computer, there was only one document on it and he opened it up. In front of him was a detailed timeline of events that occurred whilst under Clarence and Marlene’s care. All the times he was hit, all the times the other boys in the house were hit. The real reasons for the countless medical visits, there was several pages of information typed up and he just hoped it would be enough to have something done about them and an investigation sparked. He didn’t really feel much towards the other boys, he didn’t consider them siblings, they weren’t really even friends, they just had shared trauma together, but nobody deserved to go through that. Plus, Clarence and Marlene deserved to be punished themselves for what they did.Q quickly added one more event – what he witnessed tonight – before saving the document, and emailing it to the local police department, the supervisor of the foster care system that he was in, and to the principle and the guidance counsellor at the school that he and the others attended. He really hoped that this was enough. Sighing, he pulled the USB out, and threw it back in his bag. Next he brought up the bus timetables, after a quick browse he found one that he could afford, and that was also relatively soon. Logging off the computer he headed off towards where the bus depot was located.He brought his ticket, which left him with around £35, he knew it was going to be next to impossible to live off that on his own, and he had no idea how he was going to rectify that. Within 40 minutes the next bus to London had arrived – his bus – and he climbed on-board, by now it was well after one in the morning and so the bus was pretty much empty besides him and two other passengers. Q closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, he made no move to look out the window as they started driving away from the city. He planned to never look back.
22nd November, 2005
London was expensive, Q learned that rather quickly. Hell, living was expensive. There was no way he was going to afford a place to live, let alone a computer on top of that. The £35 he had when he first arrived was long gone, he thought about begging for money but there was one problem with that.Q was now officially considered a missing child.He was only fifteen and so there was nothing he could do about that. There was still a whole year before he turned sixteen and could present himself to the police and tell them that he was fine and not in any danger, so they could stop looking for him. He felt bad that they had to put resources into searching for him, but unfortunately he couldn’t exactly go in and tell them that he was living on his own – because at fifteen they’d just throw him right back into foster care, and that was something Q didn’t want to roll the dice on again. So not only did he have to somehow survive with no money, he had to remain out of sight of anyone that might recognise him and notify the police of his whereabouts.So that crossed out getting a job – he had no ID either so that wasn’t really a possibility anyway. He didn’t even have any money to use the internet cafes, he had nothing but the few articles of clothing stashed inside his dirty duffle bag.Q hated himself for the decision he made next.It was surprisingly easy finding johns, which Q found unsettling as he knew it was the fact that he most likely looked a lot younger than fifteen. The thought made him sick most nights. But he desperately needed the money, and he’d prefer it be him than some actual twelve-year-old kid instead. At least that’s what he told himself to help get to sleep at night.It only took a couple of days and Q had amassed a good £600, he somehow found a hole in the wall that only cost £290 a week, and he thanked a God that he didn’t believe in that he now had an actual place all to himself, allowing him to finally sleep without having one eye open. Living on the streets was rough – especially when you looked like Q did. He made sure to move around most nights and never stay in the same location for too long, but it was still rough. It was cold, it was damp, it smelt, it was dehumanising, and Q hated every bit of it. Thankfully, once he started seeing johns most of them paid for a night in a motel for him.But now he didn’t have to worry about that, now he had his own place. It was bare, but Q didn’t care. It came with a pretty worn-out sofa and a bed that he was sure was minutes away from breaking, but it was better than the cold, hard ground, and so Q was happy with it. He started putting money aside for rent and also for a laptop, and for the first time in a very long time Q possessed a tiny slither of hope that things might be okay.Sleeping with johns whilst still maintaining his bad habits – namely cutting himself was a tad annoying, he didn’t care for the words they said when they noticed the scars alongside his hip and thigh, he also didn’t care if it repulsed them. Luckily, not many really seemed to care that the boy they were fucking appeared to be somewhat mentally ill. As long as he was a good fuck, that’s all they really cared about. That didn’t bother Q. It took sleeping with 8 more johns until he had enough money to buy a second hand laptop from cash converters. He wasn’t too impressed with the specifications on it, but it’s all he had the money for and he didn’t want to have to wait any longer. He fiddled with the thing for a few days, tinkering away at it day and night, before the finished product was a little more powerful than it originally had been. First thing he did was get himself an ID – a fake ID of course – he couldn’t really plaster his own name on the thing with that darn missing person report still out on him. Once that had arrived he got himself a bank card – now that was a little more difficult, but he eventually managed to get one, which meant no more sleeping with johns anymore.Within the next day Q had managed to transfer small amounts of money from multiple different banks into his account, completely untraceable and almost undetectable unless you went looking specifically for those transactions. Q was now officially a criminal.He now had £5000 sitting in his account. Which was the most amount of money he had ever laid his eyes on before. He withdrew £2320 and paid the next two months of his rent in full. He went out (wearing as much of a disguise as possible) and brought groceries, new bedsheets, some lamps, and other miscellaneous household items that he desperately needed, he brought himself a mobile phone and even debated about upgrading his laptop but found he couldn’t bring himself to do it, this piece of crap he had at home was his first and he felt somewhat attached to the darn thing. No matter how slow it was at times.He had an ID now, so there was the possibility of looking for a job, but he still had a handful of months before he turned sixteen and could revoke the missing person out on him. So he didn’t really want to risk the chance of being spotted before then so he decided he’d just lay low until then. He could always continue pilfering small amounts here and there from multiple banks, but he had a better idea.Opening his laptop up, he typed in a few things, made sure his IP was bouncing all over the globe and logged onto the dark web. Browsing forum after forum, he connected with a few people who were looking for some low level hacking jobs that paid well. By the end of the night he had acquired several jobs and had opened up his own bitcoin account. This went on for months, he was earning extremely decent money through his illegal activities and he even found himself enjoying it. The thrill he got from hacking was indescribable, pulling apart codes, getting into places he shouldn’t have been in, it was exhilarating and Q was absolutely in love with it.He’d even made a name for himself. Online he was known as Spectra.Q turned sixteen not long afterwards and went straight down to the local police station, told them who he was and that he was not missing, but that he was a runaway who was doing fine on his own and had no intentions of returning back to his old life in foster care. The police looked like they wanted to say something, but unfortunately for them there was nothing they could do, Q was officially of legal age to live on his own and that’s what he intended to do. The missing person on him was removed and labelled as solved.Q finally felt free.But like most good things in Q’s life, the feeling didn’t last long.It was around 2am when there was a loud banging on his door, he woke up completely terrified and felt around for his glasses only having just put them on his face when his door was kicked in and his room was lit up by multiple flashlights. Q thought he might pass out.
“Police! Don’t move!”“Hands in the air! Slowly get out of the bed and onto the floor!”
Q couldn’t move, but it didn’t matter because he was soon hauled out of the bed and thrown onto the floor, his arms pinned behind him and placed in handcuffs.Shit.Turns out one of the hacks he did on a government corporation was dodgy, and they managed to trace the hack back to his IP address, which Q absolutely kicked himself for. It was bad enough that he had slipped up and done a terrible job hacking, the one thing he considered himself good at, but to make matters a thousand times worse – he was also now getting arrested for it. He was sentenced to 1 year 11 months in a juvenile detention facility, not to be released until the date of his eighteenth birthday.Q no longer felt free.
6th February, 2008.
Happy Birthday to Q.The last two years were absolute hell, but Q had been through hell before and so he could go through it again. It was surprisingly better than the horrors he experienced with Clarence and Marlene, sure, he got beat up a few times – he was the scrawny looking kid who looked like he had no hope in hell of defending himself. All he had to protect himself with was his intelligence, and that didn’t really go over well in a juvenile detention. So he shut his mouth and just took what he got, they eventually got bored of him because he refused to give them the responses they were looking for and so they moved on to other kids, and Q was left alone.He was handed a name whilst in there by one of the other kids, he had heard that Q was in there for cybercrimes and this kid had a contact on the outside who was apparently looking to hire a hacker for his band of misfit criminals. Q almost declined the offer, but then realised he would be absolutely dirt poor once released. He no longer had a flat, his computer was seized as evidence and his bank accounts absolutely drained and confiscated as proceeds of crime. He had nothing to his name. His real one or his fake one.So Q accepted the piece of paper with the words: Isaac Sinclair – 44 7700 900519Q owned nothing, since he was arrested wearing his pyjamas, upon his release he was given a few articles of clothing from a charity bin that were a couples sizes too large for him. He had no person belongings, nothing, but I mean, at least he could beg on the streets now without having to worry about being identified. Right?He shuddered at the thought, he really didn’t want to have to do that, and he definitely did not want to go back to sleeping with johns for money, and so he did the only thing he really could do – he called the number for Isaac. Q told him that he had gotten the number from a Jimmy Cuffaro in the Genest Detention Centre for Youth, and that he was in there for cybercrimes and had heard they were looking for a hacker to join their crew.Within a few hours he was meeting Isaac, and by the end of the night he was officially hired. Which is something he would later regret for the rest of his life.At first it was alright, Isaac preferred all of them to stay in the one location, which was some sort of condemned building that they had claimed as their own, and so Q finally had a place that he could sleep at night, but feeling safe was still a whole different matter. Q didn’t trust any of the men that he worked with, they were a bunch of distasteful characters, in total there was five of them, Q was told what each one brought to the table but he’s pretty sure the information went in one ear and out the other, as he didn’t really care all that much who they were. He remembered their names though, there was Isaac, the one in charge, Mike, who seemed to be his right hand man, and then there was Kyle, Carlos and Ruiz. He didn’t really care to get to know them, or socialise with them all that much, as he only planned on sticking around for a couple of months until he had earned enough money to get himself back on his feet.Earning easy money was addicting, and so was hacking, despite being arrested for it, Q still loved it. It was one of the few things in his life that managed to bring him a slither of joy. So the months started rolling on by, Q didn’t really mind the work, he was building himself a nice little nest egg in the process too. The jobs they were having him do were simple enough, transfer money to these accounts, get the personnel records from this corporation, it was all pretty boring actually, he had no idea what they were even working towards, what their end goal was, and quite frankly he didn’t really care as it all seemed to be run of the mill petty criminal stuff. That is, until the day they asked him to hack into MI6 and Q thought he was hallucinating the request.“I’m sorry, what?” They couldn’t be serious could they?“Aw what? Is it too difficult for you?” Mike sneered, causing a few of the others to chuckle.“No. Of course it isn’t. I don’t understand though, why do you want me to hack MI6?”“We need contact details so we can arrange a purchase. We need to know what MI6 have on a Daniel Cortez, find out if he’s still in the game or not. Can you do it?” It was Isaac talking to him now.Q reluctantly agreed and was soon bypassing MI6’s security and into their mainframe. He did a quick search for the name and immediately felt like he was going to be sick as he read the words on the screen in front of him.
Daniel Cortez:
Arrested as of 18/09/2006
Extremely Dangerous Subject
Known international trader of explosives.
Q stopped reading after that, getting pushed aside so that Isaac could scroll through the information, he let out a growl as he realised that Cortez has been arrested and would no longer be able to facilitate a purchase between them.“I need you to search MI6’s database, or whatever the hell it’s called, and find me a suspected explosives dealer who is not in their custody.” The anger in Isaac’s voice was starting to scare Q, and he knew he no longer wanted to be a willing participant in this anymore.“No, I won’t do that. I think our relations together have reached an end. I wish you all the best with your future endeavours, but I think it’s time for me to go –” Q was cut off mid-sentence by a rough hand snaking around his upper arm and yanking him towards the computer that he had just parted from.“Oh I don’t think so. You’ll get me the information I want, and you’ll get me it now.” Isaac pretty much spat in his way, his words laced with anger.“No.”Isaac let out another angry growl and backhanded Q so hard he almost toppled out of the chair, before he could even react he was backhanded once again.“You don’t get to say no to me, boy. Now do as you’re instructed!”“I quit.” Isaac and the others all roared laughter at this, and Q was starting to get worried.“You quit? Good luck walking out of here. You’re ours now, and you’ll do as you’re told. I want you to find me an explosives dealer and I want you to find me one now.”“No.” Q has done a lot of illegal activity, he’ll admit to that, he’s nowhere near close to being classed as a saint, but he absolutely refuses to help aid what seems to be a terrorist cell procure explosives.“Carlos, take him out back, remind him who he’s dealing with here, and then let’s see if his answer changes.” Isaac pulled him from the chair and roughly shoved him in Carlos’ direction.Q just laughed. It was out of place, and it made the other men all look at him as if he’d finally snapped and lost his mind or something. “You can beat me up all you like, my answer is and always will be no. I won’t help you, not with this.”“Oh we’ll see about that.” Isaac’s tone sent a chill up Q’s spine.It took numerous beatings, Q was pretty sure he had some fractured ribs and his body ached all over from where he was punched, kicked and even grazed with knives. But his answer was still a defiant no, which downright infuriated Isaac.So Isaac changed tactics.Q was waiting in his cell – which he longer considered his bedroom – it was now his cell to Q. When Mike came in with one of his arms behind his back, Q was expecting another beating but the disturbing smile that Mike wore on his face worried him for some reason. Mike just continued smiling like a madman, tilted his head to the side and slowly pulled his arm out in front of him revealing a needle filled with a tan coloured liquid.Q felt his stomach drop at the sight of it.“I hear withdrawals from this can be an absolute bitch, so we’ll give you a few days enjoying the high before we yank it away from you and watch you plead and beg for a fix, and you know the only way you’re going to get that right?” Mike laughed as he took in the wide-eyed, panicked look that had quickly formed on Q’s face.Q tried to back up, tried to get away, tried to do anything but let Mike grab him and put that into his veins, he screamed and thrashed about, screaming out the words “No!” and “Please don’t!” over and over until he felt his throat go raw. His attempts were all in vain because Mike was ten times stronger than him and it only took a matter of minutes before he was soon pinned to the ground with a needle sliding into his arm.It didn’t take long for Q to lose consciousness.The next few days were an absolute blur to Q, he came in and out of consciousness, he vaguely recalled Mike coming and going and shooting him up time and time again. He was so out of it, and he hated himself for actually enjoying the feeling that the drugs gave him. Q hadn’t felt like he was free for a very long time, there were those few precious months after his sixteenth birthday before he got arrested, but before then and after then he had never really felt as if he was free.That is, until now, even though he is ironically not free at all as he’s being kept in this god forsaken room against his will, but the drugs – the drugs let him escape. When he has that golden liquid coursing through his veins he’s no longer in this room, he’s no longer a prisoner, he’s free. His mind is free and he no longer feels pain, he no longer feels anything at all besides pure and utter bliss, and he hates himself each time he sees Mike enter the room and a surge of happiness shoots through him at the thought of getting shot up again.Q’s not sure how many hours have gone by but he’s starting to get restless, Mike should be here soon with his next fix, but the hours roll on by, and Mike does not arrive. Q buries his head into his arm and groans, where the hell is Mike?A whole day goes by and Mike does not arrive with Q’s fix.At this point he’s in absolute agony, he’s sweated through the clothes he was wearing, his hair is damp and sticking to his face, his glasses keep sliding down his nose from all the sweat, and his whole body feels like he’s just run a marathon and then been hit by a semi-trailer afterwards. It hurts to move his limbs but he can’t stop tossing and turning, he’s in so much agony. He just wants it all to stop. He long ago emptied whatever contents had remained in his stomach, and so now all he is managing to bring up is stomach acid, which just makes him feel even more nauseous.He can’t help himself from moaning in relief when the door opens and in walks Mike and Isaac, he can barely focus his eyes but he notices that neither of them have a needle in their hand, so they haven’t come to give him his fix it seems. Q groans and rolls away.“Now, now, did you think we were just going to hand it to you so easily?” Isaac makes a tsk tsk noise with his tongue. “You have to do something for us first and then you’ll be rewarded nicely for your troubles.”Q just groans.“Are you ready to hack MI6 for us again?”“No.” The strength with which he says that surprises him.Isaac glares at Q, startled at the response, he was so sure that this would be the boy’s undoing that he’d come begging for a fix willing to do whatever they wanted. “Very well, have it your way, just call out to us when you’re finally ready to change your mind, your drug will be out here waiting for you.”It takes roughly another 6 hours before Q is screaming, pleading, begging for them to come back, that he’ll do it, he’ll hack MI6, he’ll give them what they want, just please make it stop, make his skin stop crawling, make it all stop.Within seconds a laptop is shoved under his face and Q can barely focus on the screen, but he does as he’s requested, he manages to get back into MI6’s systems and does a search for any known explosives traders and he almost sighs in relief when the response comes back negative, they’re all either incarcerated or dead, or overseas with no means for Isaac’s local crew to contact them and arrange a purchase.Once again, Isaac growls as he reads the results on the screen. “Try again!”“The results won’t ch-change.” Q manages to stutter out through his clattering teeth.“Just do as you’re bloody well told and search again!” Isaac practically screams into his ear.Q does as he was told and does another search, and another when Isaac just glares at him in anger, the results are always the same – there’s no one for Isaac to contact to buy explosives off of. Seething with anger Isaac storms out of the room.“Wait! You - You said if I searched I could… I could get…”“Shoot him up and shut him up would you.” Isaac orders to Mike, who follows Isaac out of the room only to return a moment later with the needle that Q has been dreaming about for the past two days straight now.He puts up no fight as Mike sinks it into his arm, and sighs as he feels it flooding his veins.This goes on for months. Q gets drugged, Q gets taken off the drug and goes into withdrawal, Q is forced to do another search of MI6’s systems in the hope that something has changed – nothing ever changes. There’s still no results, Isaac is getting angrier and angrier, and Q is just falling further and further into his addiction.Kyle starts sneaking into his room some nights, Q is too exhausted or too high to even put up a struggle, even though he knows it’s pointless because at this point he’s probably 120lbs soaking wet and he’d be easily overpowered. He just lays there and drifts off to someplace else, someplace where he can finally be free, but it should concern him that when he closes his eyes and tries to find this place all he can see is black.Q is pretty certain a year or so has passed, he can’t be too sure though, the drugs leave him with barely any sense of time most days and it’s not as if anyone is telling him anything. He hasn’t had his fix in a while now so he assumes the routine hacking of MI6 will commence shortly, and he isn’t wrong. Within the next hour Mike and Isaac enter the room, Mike carrying his beloved drug and Isaac with the laptop.“Time to check.” Isaac says as he shoves him the laptop.Q just sighs, but goes about hacking MI6 for the what? 312th time now? Q is expecting the same result as usual – no new results – but his stomach drops as he reads the results on the screen. There’s been chatter that a Jorge Barrett, one of the most wanted explosives dealers in the world is heading to the UK with a shipment of both PETN and RDX. Q feels as if he’s about to throw up the meagre dinner he gets fed all over the laptop.“Get me more info on this Jorge guy, now!” Q can practically feel the excitement radiating off of Isaac.Q can’t do this; he won’t participate in terrorism. He starts typing on the laptop as if he’ s pulling up the requested information – he is – but he is also simultaneously turning off the VPN that is bouncing his IP address and he’s deliberately being sloppy and extremely brute as he lurks through MI6’s files. He hopes they notice. He reluctantly gets the additional information that Isaac wanted, and Isaac immediately sends Kyle off to god knows where, probably to somehow try and set up a meet with Jorge.Isaac pats Q on the back, “Well done kiddo. Give him what he wants.” He instructs Mike, as he leaves the room, most likely to go off and start planning his attacks that he’s been waiting for months? years? to pull off. Q really hopes MI6 are on top of their systems.Q doesn’t want the drugs. It’s the first time in forever that just the thought of them alone makes him want to be sick, but he supposes the fact that Isaac finally found himself someone selling explosives might factor into his sudden nausea too.Mike shoots him up regardless, and Q drifts off into his drug induced comatose-state, once again praying to a God that he doesn’t believe in that MI6 realise they were hacked and that they send a team of agents to investigate.Q’s prays are answered.Within the hour there’s a team kicking down the front door and storming the building, Q is barely conscious but can hear the sound of gunfire, he subconsciously curls himself into a tiny ball and places his hands over his ears to try and drown out the sounds.In the end it doesn’t really help, because within minutes there’s a team of agents kicking down his door and swarming his room shouting at him, but Q’s so far away he can’t even make out what they’re saying, all he can tell is that they’re angry at him, but then again, everyone is always angry at Q so there’s no surprise there.Q quickly loses consciousness.
24th April, 2010
Turns out Q has missed two birthdays. He’s now 20 years old.He’s currently sitting in what looks to be an interrogation room, which he assumes means that MI6 traced his hack and raided the compound. He hopes Isaac is dead. But is soon disappointed to find out that he’s not, Isaac, Mike and Ruiz are also in an interrogation cell, Kyle wasn’t there when the raid happened – lucky fucking bastard, and Carlos is dead.Q feels nothing when he learns of Carlos’ death. The man beat him to a bloody pulp numerous times, so for all Q cares he hopes he burns in hell.“What’s your name?” The interrogator in front of him asks, she’s a pretty enough looking woman with dark black hair cut to just below her jaw with sharp green eyes.Q pauses. It takes him a lot to even process what she’s asking – considering he’s now going through what seems to be withdrawal, and this time Q bets he won’t be getting a fix anytime soon unless MI6 seem to be feeling extra generous. Q almost laughs at the thought before he remembers he was asked a question. His name? As if a computer searching through deleted files, Q tries to remember, that part of him he buried a long time ago.“Matthew. Matthew Hall.” The name tastes bitter in his mouth.She’s quite for a moment, no doubt waiting for whoever is also listening in to run a search on the name and bring the results back to her. Within the span of less than three minutes, a man enters the room and hands a dossier over to her. She opens it up and Q can see that his picture that was taken just before he entered juvenile detention is pinned to the front page. Ah, so they managed to find him.“Matthew Hall, born on the 6th of February 1990, correct?” She asks.Q just nods in response.“I see you spent some time in a juvenile detention centre for cybercrimes? Seems to be a reoccurring thing for you, does it not? committing crimes with computers?”Q just shrugs a shoulder, “I guess so.”“But going from what looks to be low level hacking to assisting a domestic terrorist cell hack into MI6 to obtain explosives, seems to be a bit of leap does it not?” She looks at him inquisitively.“I didn’t want to help them with that.” Q says, looking away. He’s utterly fucked, what he’s done amounts to cyberterrorism and probably even regular terrorism on its own. He knows that holds a lofty prison sentence, that is if MI6 even let him live long enough to face a trial.“And yet you did?”“I had no choice. I tried to refuse, at first yes, I willingly helped them, but I didn’t know they were terrorists! I was given their contact details whilst in juvy by a guy in there who said they were looking to hire a hacker. I know, illegal, but I was desperate, I needed cash. I was only going to stay with them for a little while until I had enough money to try and live some semblance of a normal life, at first they just had me do low level hacks like acquiring information, transfer of funds, it wasn’t until they asked me to hack MI6 that I told them I wanted no part in it –”“But yet you did hack MI6.” She says, interrupting him.“There’s more to it. I complied at first, they were looking for information on some Cortez guy who was known to them, they wanted to buy explosives off of him but when I searched for him in your database it revealed that he was incarcerated. Once I knew what they were planning on doing I told them I wanted no part in it and I wanted to leave. They wouldn’t let me, they told me they wanted me to find someone else who could sell to them, when I refused they beat me, numerous times, I still refused. It wasn’t until they started drugging me that I –” Q had to pause and take a deep breath, before he could bring himself to confess how weak he was when it came to the drugs.“Once they started drugging me, I’d go through withdrawal and I tried, I tried so hard to refuse and to fight it but god, it was horrible. I just wanted it to stop and so I agreed, I agreed to hack into MI6 again and look for someone for them.”“Again? How many times did you hack into MI6?”Q just shrugs his shoulders. “I lost count, maybe three hundred times? Anyway, then –”“Three hundred times!?” The interrogator looks absolutely taken aback by this.“Yes, but anyway, I searched and there were no results. This went on for months, they’d drug me, I’d go through withdrawal, I’d search, there’d be nothing. It was so repetitive I don’t even know how long it went on for, but apparently awhile since it’s now 2010 and I don’t even remember getting to 2009, but that’s beside the point. Eventually I hacked in and a name popped up, a Jorge Barrett, they wanted more information on him and so I let you in. I became sloppy and I left traces of where I was looking, hoping you’d follow it, and you did.”“That sounds like a convenient story, the one time you are caught hacking MI6 you tell us that you deliberately got caught so we could what, come and arrest the men you were working with?” She looked as if she wanted to laugh.“I wasn’t working with them, and I can prove it to you, bring me a laptop right now and I’ll get into your systems without you ever knowing.”“We’re not giving you a laptop.” She had barely finished saying that before a man entered the room with a laptop, placing it in front of Q. “Tanner! What the hell?”“Orders from higher up. We want to see what he can do.” Tanner replied, taking a seat alongside of the interrogator, across from Q, watching to see what he would do.Q looked at the new person sceptically, before opening the laptop up and getting to work, it took an embarrassingly small amount of time before Q was in their systems, and he was right, nobody had noticed. Tanner had even called down to Q Branch to check and they told him that no, there was nobody inside their systems that should not be. Tanner felt like firing the whole department right there and then on the spot, because obviously there was.“This interrogation is over, please take him back to his cell.” Tanner says swiftly, taking the laptop from him and leaving the room.Q is led back to his cell and wonders if demonstrating his skills like that was the worst thing he could’ve ever possibly done. Now they’ll definitely want him locked up, or worse.
“What do you think?” Tanner says, leaning back in the chair in front of M’s desk. “The kid is extremely bright. But do you believe his story?”“Which one? It seems there’s many.” M’s expression is hard to read, Tanner has absolutely no idea what she thinks in regards to the scrawny kid who hacked into their system in the same amount of time it usually takes someone to make a cup of tea.“Do you think he deliberately botched that hack job?” Tanner asks.“Hard to say, it could very well just be a cover-up for getting caught, he seemed to be as high as a kite when we brought him in, so maybe he was too high to know what he was doing and messed up. It’s definitely a convenient story if I’ve ever heard one.” Tanner sighs, “That’s true, his file is definitely depressing though. Both parents deceased when he was seven, placed straight into foster care until the age of fourteen where it reports he was reported as a missing child after running away from his group home the same time an investigation was launched into the allegations of abuse there. He pops up again at 16 to announce he’s not a missing person, who knows what happened in that year in between, and then he’s off to juvenile detention for close to two years for cybercrimes. Then two years with this terrorist cell, I have to say it does seem like a leap, to go from hacking corporations for confidential information to becoming a domestic terrorist?”“Orphans always were the best recruits.” M says, leaning back in her chair.“Wait, you’re thinking of hiring him? To work for MI6?” Tanner is shocked.“Possibly. I want him to be evaluated by psych and I want the report brought to me immediately. If he’s telling the truth, and he did botch that hack job he not only handed us three criminals to arrest, but he’s got a brilliant mind. I think it’d be a waste to lose that potential, he could be extremely useful here.”“Q Branch?”“Possibly, later on, I’d like to start him off doing freelance work, working for me directly. Only you and I will be privy to the fact that he’s even working for us.”“Can he be trusted?”“Nobody can ever be fully trusted in this line of work. I just want that psych eval.” With that, M had dismissed Tanner.Tanner looked kind of hurt at that statement, but understood the truth to her words, trust wasn’t a word that got used often when one dabbled in espionage. Sighing, he got up to go and set up the psych appointment for Q.Two hours later and M was staring at what could’ve quite possibly be one of the saddest psych evaluations she’s ever had the displeasure to read, and she thought some of the Double Ohs gave back worrisome evaluations. Q seemed to be a cornucopia of problems.
Suspected major depressive disorder, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, drug addiction to what blood tests reveal to be heroin, chronic suicidal ideation, engages in deliberate self- harm behaviours, determined to be extremely mentally unsound, medication and therapy is strongly suggested, inpatient treatment also advised to treat multiple presenting disorders.
The kid was definitely a mess, that was for sure. M picked the phone up on her desk, pressing a button on it, “Matthew Hall, I want him transferred out of the cells and up to medical. I want him to remain there until he goes through his withdrawal, whatever medication is necessary to help that process I want used. I want regular appointments with our psychiatrist, and the reports to be given to me after each session, any negative change in his physical or mental health and I am to be notified immediately, do you understand?” M sighed, hanging up the phone once she received the affirmative to her instructions. “This darn kid is going to be the death of me.”Detox was an absolute bitch, but Q managed to get through it, thanks no doubt to the copious amounts of other medications he was given whilst in the medical wing. He wondered why he was moved up to medical, instead of being left to go through withdrawal lying on a cot down in his cell, but he honestly didn’t care, and he definitely wasn’t complaining.What happened next certainly shocked him.A woman with short grey-blond hair and piercing eyes came and stood at the foot of his bed. “My name is M, I am the head of MI6 and I would like to offer you a position here with us.”Q just stared at her, quite possibly resembling that of a fish out of water with his mouth hanging wide open, and closing a fraction every couple of seconds as he tried to get his brain and his mouth on the same page, he was in utter shock. “You - You want? Me? To work… here?” Q cursed himself for how unintelligent that sentence sounded.“Yes. You have quite a brilliant mind and I think it’d be a great asset to us here, you would work for me directly. Are you interested?” M’s gaze on him was unwavering.“Yes.” Was all Q could say, his brain and mouth seemed to be still trying to connect to one another.“Excellent. Once you have fully recovered, Tanner, our Chief of Staff will be down in a few days to get you up to speed on what is to be expected of you and what your duties are. You will report to me or Tanner, nobody else. You will speak to nobody else in this building unless I instruct you to do so. Do you understand?”“Yes. I understand. Thank you.” Q managed to smile at her.“Don’t make me regret this.” Was all M said before leaving the room.Even though she was out of earshot, Q still responded, “I won’t.”
2nd September, 2013
Q had been working for MI6 for almost two years now, the first year after his arrest however had been rocky and he ended up slipping up a few times, so M thought it was best to postpone his hiring and instead focus fully on getting him in a better place mentally. He spent majority of that next year in and out of treatment centres, learning healthier coping methods and ways to deal with his trauma instead of using self-destruction.Once he finally completed all of his programs, and psych had cleared him as being as mentally sound as he was ever going to probably be, he finally started his job at MI6, and as a result he finally felt somewhat free. He had his own apartment – provided by MI6, he was earning his own money (legally for once!) and he actually felt content with his life.M still scared him half to death, but Q found himself looking up to her and respecting her to an insane degree. Tanner, on the other hand, slowly lost his scariness, probably around the time the two of them started becoming actual friends (Q had never had a friend before!) and had started bringing him Chinese takeout and a few beers to share after a hard day at work. Q was limited with who he socialised with, especially with M and Tanner being the only two who even knew he existed inside the walls of MI6, but that didn’t bother him.Q loved doing freelance work for MI6, it allowed him to do what he loved most – hacking, taking apart codes, finding vulnerabilities, and with the added bonus of actually benefiting the safety and security of his country in the meantime. He finally felt something he hadn’t felt in a long time. Happiness.
18th August, 2018
Q had been with MI6 for the past six years when there was an explosion, MI6 was in utter pandemonium, he had heard reports of numerous casualties, with even more injuries, and everything was basically going tits up. M and Tanner were off trying to deal with the mess, and so Q was left by himself watching it all from the sidelines feeling as if he were utterly useless. He wished there was something he could do to help.Two days later and Q was being called down to M’s new office to be told that he was being promoted. Q was ecstatic, he assumed this meant that he was finally going to become an official part of Q Branch! Which had been something that he’d been wanting to happen for years, he was starting to think that he’d never move past just being a freelancer, but it was the next words out of M’s mouth that shocked him more than anything.“You’re officially our new Quartermaster, congratulations Q.” M said, giving him a small smile.Q couldn’t even get his mouth to work to form a response.
He’d officially been Quartermaster for a couple of months and he was thoroughly enjoying the position – he loved everything about it. The amount of freedom he had when it came to coding and accessing the resources that Q Branch had was absolute heaven to him. Socialising with more than two people was also nice, Q got to finally meet a bunch of field agents and the Double Ohs, plus he absolutely adored all of the people down in Q Branch who surprisingly took to his quick appointment as Quartermaster fairly well.There were of course a few who were sceptical of his skillset and whether or not he deserved to be Quartermaster, considering he wasn’t even a part of Q Branch before being given the title, and there a few of them that believed the promotion should’ve went to someone already within Q Branch. However, he quickly shut all of their doubts down once they witnessed how skilled and talented he was. But like most things in Q’s life, it didn’t take long for him to fuck everything up.Silva – an ex-MI6 agent had surfaced and was looking to extract revenge on those who had wronged him, specifically targeting and focusing his anger on M. Whilst it wasn’t a convenient situation, with M’s life being in danger and all, Q was excited to be working with 007. He wasn’t sure why though, there was just something about the agent he couldn’t place his finger on that seemed to fascinate Q.He’d heard all of the stories of course, about all of the different things that 007 had managed to get up to throughout his time as a Double Oh, and of course, the fact that he had just returned from the dead. Ever since their first meeting at the National Gallery Q had begun to feel some sort of way towards the agent. He chalked it up to attraction – I mean, everyone was attracted to James Bond – and so he pushed down whatever feelings managed to stir up in the pit of his stomach whenever Bond directly spoke to him. Q partly blamed his annoying attraction on what happened next. Bond was there, down in Q Branch, watching Q try and get into Silva’s laptop and it was exhilarating, some part in the back of his mind wanted to impress Bond, wanted to show him how smart he was and pathetically, some tiny part of Q wanted to get the agent’s approval. Q did not know why.So it was because of this – and also because of Q’s arrogance – that he stupidly plugged Silva’s laptop directly into MI6’s servers and as a result aided in Silva’s escape. He tried as hard as he possibly could to try and fix things, he placed the breadcrumbs that Bond had requested him to, and he sat back and waited, hoping and praying that this would be enough, and that this mess that he had caused was somehow salvageable.It was not salvageable. M died in Bond’s arms that night – Silva died too – which was great, but it by no means made up for the fact that M, the one person who, despite all the odds, had saw some potential in Q, but who was now dead as a result of his carelessness.Q didn’t think it was possible to hate himself more than what he currently did.
Present Day
Q needed air and a cigarette, something stronger would’ve been nice too but he shook those thoughts out of his head before he could dwell on them for too long. Excusing himself from the gathering of people inside, he headed out around the back of the Chapel and leaned up against the brick wall, out of sight from everyone’s prying eyes. Reaching into his pants pocket Q pulled out a pack of cigarettes – he hadn’t smoked in many, many years, but he needed something to help calm him down, so he lit one up, leaned his head back against the brick wall and closed his eyes.He stayed there for a couple of minutes, just leaning against the wall taking drag after drag of his cigarette, his mind was still running a thousand miles a minute, assaulting him with memories and events that he’d rather never think of again. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn’t seem to shake the guilt and blame that welled up inside of him whenever his thoughts drifted to M and the cause of her death. It was his fault.
It was because of M that Q was alive, and it was because of Q that M was dead.
Q sighed, his cigarette was almost finished and as if on autopilot he reached down, cigarette still in between his fingers, and rolled up his shirt sleeve to just below his elbow and pressed the remaining part of the cigarette onto his arm. He screwed his eyes up, clenched his teeth and hissed in a deep breath but he left the cigarette there for as long as he could stand. After a handful of seconds he removed the cigarette, opened his eyes and stared down at the damage he had just inflicted onto his arm, he rolled his sleeve back down and flicked the butt of the cigarette onto the ground. He needed to get out here, and now.Q pushed off the wall and took off in the direction of the exit, deciding he’d had enough of funerals to last him a life time, and he didn’t want to be inside chatting with the others. He just wanted to go home, and so that’s where he headed. Completely unaware that there had been a pair of bright blue eyes watching him ever since he exited the Chapel and went outside.
~ I believe that hell lives inside people, it's the stabbing, excruciating pain in your chest that refuses to leave. The darkness that consumes your every waking moment, the memories of a haunted past following you around everywhere you go ~