Agent Chetiri

Chapter 25

If you don't hunt it down and kill it, it will hunt you down and kill you.

-Flannery O'Connor

_____________________________________________________________________________

It had been almost three weeks since Bartov's attack and M had made the decision to execute Bartov and his men. They posed an immediate threat to Alexa, Q, and the entirety of the workplace so they interrogated the men before killing them with poison. It seemed like a a cruel and arguably dubious decision to civilians, but in the world of the MI6, it was kill or be killed. If you threatened the country or lives of others in a big way, you had to be eliminated. It was for the good of all parties and would be beneficial for the country and its citizens.

Meanwhile, Alexa had recovered from her minor injury and was adjusting well to her new life. She frequently visited her grandmother (who was currently staying up in Cambridge with a friend) and went out on dates with Q every other night. During work, she attended daily combat training with James. Combat training was especially harsh, given that she had an idea of what she was doing. James taught her a variety of lethal techniques; some of them she had vaguely learned of, but the majority were obscure and entirely lethal. Although training was tough, she began to see improvements and forged a quick friendship with James.

Q, on the other hand, had been unable to find any traces of Katja through the facial recognition software. It seemed that everywhere he looked, there would be a null and void file that would lead him elsewhere. He was determined to find this woman somewhere and was working hard to track her down, cross matching her image with different video feeds. It was like playing the game searching for the needle in the haystack, and it was taking much longer than he wanted it to.

On that particular day, Alexa had finished her combat training and was heading down the corridor with James. Training had actually went well today, since James said she was improving exponentially and her success put her in a good mood. They were chatting about a variety of things whilst staying out of people's ways. They were heading to the Q-Branch, to see if Q had any new developments for them and if a mission would soon be in store for both of them.

"So, you two are really a thing?" he said as he led her down the hallway.

"Believe it or not, we are. He's still a little bit angry with me for faking my death, though," she said with a shrug.

"I wouldn't blame him. Eve was the same way when I came back from being dead. She thought she killed me," he chuckled.

"I guess we're alike in that aspect, then," Alexa said with a laugh, as James opened the door for her. They both walked into the Q-Branch and found that it was busier than usual. About half of the room was typing away at their computers while the others were scattered around the room, designing weapons. Q stood at his computer, typing rapidly and inspecting the information that was piled and scattered across his desk. He barely registered the fact that they had arrived and the sound of the door closing surprised him slightly.

"Morning, Q. Anything new?" Alexa called as she walked in. Upon realizing that she had rhymed, she found herself stifling a giggle. Q rolled his eyes and hid a smile, knowing that she was easily amused by simple things like rhymes.

"You're in a good mood. Did something happen?" he remarked as he continued typing out a long string of commands.

"James says I've improved since I first started," she said, glowing with pride.

"Did he really?" Q said absentmindedly as he continued to input commands. His brain was elsewhere at the moment and he was only half-listening since he was cross-matching the video data.