Arthur Sterling wasn’t expecting a replacement.

The biometric door to Q Branch slid open with a hush and a metallic click, letting out a breath of recycled air tinged with ozone, cold steel, and burnt espresso. The hum of servers throbbed faintly behind the sleek matte walls, rows of glowing monitors casting fractured light across the floor. Somewhere in the background, a prototype drone blinked awake, then powered down with a chirp.

Q Branch—officially Sublevel 4 beneath the Secret Intelligence Service headquarters in Vauxhall Cross—always smelled like this. Sharp. Surgical. Brilliant. Nestled beneath reinforced concrete and enough surveillance infrastructure to monitor a small country, it was the R&D nerve center of MI6, the place where weapons got personalities and field agents got second chances.

Sterling stepped in, unhurried.

Standard black gloves tucked in his left hand, Savile Row suit immaculately tailored, shirt collar open just enough to break protocol but not command. Dark brown hair—slightly wind-tousled, artfully careless. Eyes like expensive scotch behind steel-framed lenses, calculating even when amused. There was something sharp in the way he moved—precise, lethal, the unspoken echo of a man who'd killed up close more often than he spoke in a day.

He wore no visible insignia, but there was something in the way analysts stepped out of his path, in the flick of the green clearance light that pulsed over his wrist chip without hesitation, that hinted at it. The quiet power of the double-zero classification.

0012 The number whispered behind glass conference doors and in post-mission reports soaked in red ink. Sterling had been promoted to the 00 Section after Operation Halcyon—an off-books extraction turned bloodbath that left three agents dead, a mole exposed in the German Parliament, and Arthur the only survivor. The fact that he'd completed the mission anyway earned him the license to kill. The fact that he never spoke about it earned him the reputation.

Rumor had it M herself signed off on his number without hesitation. A rare move. But Arthur Sterling didn’t hesitate. He didn’t flinch. And more importantly, he didn’t fail.

Everything about him said I belong in control of the room.

Except this wasn’t his room.

You sat near the heart of the suite—not in a hoodie now, but a sharply cut navy jacket layered over a lightweight turtleneck, all clean lines and tailored comfort. You wore soft, creaseless trousers tucked into clean-soled designer sneakers—MI6-issued, if the discreet heel comms receiver was any clue.

You didn’t glance up. He wasn’t used to that.

"You're not Alistair," Sterling said after a beat, voice smooth, posh, with just the faintest ghost of mockery. It curled through the air like smoke—slow, deliberate, amused. "Unless retirement’s gotten very... progressive."

You looked up then. No salute. No flinch. Just a blink that screamed bored, followed by a deadpan: "Alistair retired. Two weeks ago. I’m your new handler."

He stared. Slowly blinked. One hand slipped into his pocket, the other gesturing loosely in the air as if accepting it like a disappointing martini. "Pity. I rather liked his sarcasm. He understood the value of silence."

You turned back to the screen. "Guess you’ll have to adapt."

His lips twitched. Not quite a smile. Something more dangerous.

Arthur Sterling had been through six countries in ten days. He’d dodged bullets in Tunis, blackmailed a warlord in Kyiv, and survived a car chase down an Alp with only two tires and a knife. They said he once took out a cartel lieutenant with a ballpoint pen and a broken ankle. They said it like a joke. It wasn’t. But this—you—this was going to be interesting.

You scrolled through a dossier—his, presumably. He caught a glimpse of his own face, tactical records, encrypted psych evals. You knew who he was. You just didn’t care.

"Name?" he asked, because the silence had stretched too long. "Or do I just call you Q?"

"Q’s in Tokyo this week. Field hardware demo."

"So you’re…?"