Agent Chetiri

Chapter 5

If you don't make the time to work on creating the life you want, you're going to be forced to spend a lot of time dealing with a life you don't want.

-Kevin Ngo

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About two months had passed since Alexa's first day at the Q-Branch. She had created the sort of life that she wanted everything seemed to be running smoothly and she was prosperous in her endeavors. Alexa had been given a variety of things to work on, with each day being different. Her regular duties included keeping an eye on the firewalls, decrypting long strings of code, encrypting specified files, and developing new weapons. It was rather exciting and she never knew what to expect as she walked into the room each day.

Alexa also became a bit more acquainted with the five other members of the Q-Branch and she found that it was nice to have friends. It was easy to befriend them, even in her usually shy state and she found that she smiled and laughed more frequently as a result of having real friends. Although it was a small group of techies who were about six or seven years older than her, they were more than happy to make friends with her, upon realizing that she was on par with their level of intelligence. Unlike her previous co-workers, they weren't dull and spoke to her as a friend, rather than speaking only on businesslike terms. They were all a bit strange, in some way, but it made for a light-hearted and rather entertaining work environment.

There was Michael Grimm, who was a former accountant with a penchant for algorithms and software engineering. He was a tall and broad-shouldered man who looked intimidating but never failed to eagerly present her with new photographs of his beloved two-year-old son and his wife. George Crenshaw was the stout and rather portly man who specialized in networking and programming. He had a loud and booming laugh to accompany his good-natured sense of humor.

The two other men were twin brothers from Ireland, Ryan and William Reid. Ryan was the quieter one of the two and although he did not talk very much but was quite adept at keeping the secrets of the MI6 out of the public eye. William's talents lay in developing weapons and making feasible designs that could be tailored to fit an agent's needs. He was the more outgoing man, who (if prompted) could talk for hours about his fiancée.

Finally, there was Joy Nakamura, the woman who had brought her to the building on her first day. She was a security officer (in accordance with the MI6's two man policy) with a knack for code and decryption. Alexa felt the most comfortable with her, given that she was the only other woman who worked in the Q-Branch. Joy was the person whom Alexa would spend her lunch hour with, along with Eve Moneypenny.

Alexa had come to know Eve a bit better after their first meeting, after Joy had re-introduced them to each other. Eve occupied the highest desk job in the MI6, which was being M's assistant. She engaged frequently in intelligent banter with James Bond and it was hard for Alexa to determine whether they were actually in a relationship or merely flirting with each other. Eve had eventually told her that she was dating James, even though they gave each other a few quips here and there.

The three women usually spent their lunch hour at Little Britain, getting coffee from various shops in the streets. Like regular human beings, they gossiped about their love lives (in Alexa's case, a lack thereof), crap telly, and the other people in the MI6. It was from them that Alexa had found out that Q was only eight months older than her, which was surprising since he was the boss.

In the month that she had been in the Q-Branch, it had been easy for her to figure out why Q was the boss, even if he was quite young. Alexa had quickly realized that the man was utterly brilliant, a technological genius, so to speak. She would glance up occasionally to see him working intently on a project and find that same endeavor to be finished by the end of the day. Alexa had never seen someone with his level of expertise in technology and she found it quite impressive, if not attractive. She admitted to herself that he was fairly handsome. Alexa found that she liked his tousled brown hair that never seemed to be entirely tidy and admired his striking blue green eyes. He was incredibly smart too, which was what she really wanted in a man. As the saying went, brainy was the new sexy.