[Some Assembly Required] Cat Out The Bag

Tristan Evans-Mensah had always believed that panic was a failure of preparation. In his opinion, fear was natural, fear was data, and in this business if you didn’t act because you were fearless. You moved inspite of that fear. Panic, however, was what happened when one allowed the flashing warnings to become the entire room.

Q did not panic.

Tristan did not panic.

He categorically refused to panic, even when James Bond had been declared dead. This wasn’t the first time James Bond had been declared dead, and as the man himself loved to joke, his favorite hobby was resurrection.

However, MI6 had gone very still in the way it only did when everyone was pretending not to feel the same gaping absence, even when there had been no body, no confirmed extraction, no clever last-minute signal from 007, no impossible message left in a place only Q would think to look.

Bond was dead.

That was what the report said but Tristan knew a deep instinctual certainty that the report was wrong.

Tristan had not said that aloud because Q Branch was full of people who respected evidence, and M respected evidence, and Eve Moneypenny respected evidence with a soft voice and eyes that missed absolutely nothing. But Tristan knew the shape of Bond’s survival like he knew the shape of a fault in code. There was something wrong about this, something didn’t about this entire situation didn’t sit quite right with him.

Unfortunately, he did not have the luxury of unraveling it because someone had started hunting him.

It had begun with oddities.

A watcher outside Vauxhall who moved when Tristan looked too long. A failed intrusion into one of his private servers, not good enough to succeed but good enough to be noticed. A car that followed him for six blocks through Westminster before peeling off the moment he turned toward a police station. Then his flat’s security system had pinged twice while he was still in Q Branch, and by the time he had pulled the feed up, it had gone dead.

So Tristan went home because Turning and Lovelace were there, and he could live without many things, but he could not live with leaving his cats alone in danger.

By the time he reached Notting Hill, the city felt wrong. London was still moving around him, but every reflection seemed to have an eye in it. Every passing car seemed to slow a second too long. He kept his face blank, and picked up his pace as he made his way home. His hand tightened around his phone in his pocket.

He stopped for half a second under the awning of a closed bakery and tried to unlock it. His phone screen remained blank as it refused to turn on.

“That,” Tristan muttered, “is inconvenient.”

He made it to his building through the back entrance, which should have made him feel better, but it didn’t. The lock on the service door had been tampered with. It wasn’t broken or forced, but it had been opened.

It had been opened and then carefully reset by someone who had wanted time and silence more than theatrical entry.

‘Lovely,’ Tristan thought to himself.

He quickly climbed the stairs instead of taking the lift. Tristan did his best to keep his breathing even, to not give in to the panic that was building despite his best intentions.

Bond was dead, his flat had been tracked, his devices were down and the most troubling of all: his cats were still upstairs.

By the time Tristan reached his door, he already had his keys in hand, one tucked between his knuckles because Miss Parker had once told him that if he insisted on looking like a beautiful Victorian orphan who had been adopted by a server farm, he should at least learn how to weaponize household objects.

He unlocked the door and stepped inside.

The first thing he noticed was silence, and that only added fuel to his growing panic.

Turning usually complained the moment Tristan entered. His orange tabby usually gave a loud and vehement sermon about abandonment, starvation, and whatever minor inconvenience he had to face that day in the form of loud meows and yowels.

Meanwhile, Lovelace, a white and grey tabby, was more dignified about her emotional manipulation. She usually appeared on the bookshelf and judged him until he apologized for existing outside her supervision.

However, tonight none of his cats appeared.

Tristan closed the door softly behind him.

“Turning?” he called. “Lovelace?”

A small sound came from under the sofa, and Tristan’s stomach dropped.

He crossed the room quickly and crouched. Two pairs of golden eyes stared back at him from the shadows, wide and terrified. Turning’s fur was puffed so dramatically that he looked twice his size. Meanwhile, Lovelace was pressed against him, ears flat, tail tucked.

“Oh, no,” Tristan whispered.

He reached for them, and, Turning, who normally objected to being handled as if Tristan were committing a war crime, scrambled into his arms with claws digging through wool and shirt. Lovelace quickly followed, obvlious shaking.

That was when Tristan smelled it: a faint metallic burn.

He stood with both cats clutched against his chest and looked toward his desk. Every monitor was black, and his secure backup tablet was dead. Not only was his router dead, but his landline was dead as well.

“EMP,” Tristan said, and proceeded to swear in at least three languages.

Someone had used an electromagnetic pulse in a residential building in Notting Hill to isolate him.

For one absurd second, Tristan was offended.

Beyond the fear, Tristan wasn’t just horrified but truly offended that someone had tampered with his devices. They didn’t even try to challenge with a good hack, no, they bloody cheated and cut off his devices.

“That is unspeakably rude,” he said aloud.

Turning made a strangled noise into his collar.

Then someone hit his front door so hard the wood jumped in the frame. Tristan froze, and then another hit came, harder this time. The lock held, but not for long. There were at least three people outside, possibly four, and from the rhythm of the impact, one of them had brought a ram.

He backed away, cats in his arms, eyes scanning the room. He didn’t have any functioning devices, and there was no way to contact MI6 or an easy access to a safe exit unless he wanted to try the window (which would be a spectacularly stupid idea from this height with two cats and men already on the street below).

Bond was dead, his flat had been compromised, but what really pissed him off was that his cats were terrifed. The poor dears were shaking against his chest.

And then an oval shaped door appeared in the middle of his sitting room.

Tristan eyes went wide with shock as he stared at the door standing impossibly in middle of his sitting room.

The door that hadn’t existed seconds ago , stood tall and elegant and impossibly solid, its edges carved with glowing golden runes that pulsed like embers under glass. Golden light spilled from behind it, warm and soft and completely impossible, painting the floorboards and the underside of his bookshelves.

The attackers hit his front door again and a crack split through the frame.

Tristan looked at the impossible door and then back at the door. He felt a headache coming on.

“No,” he said.

The runes glowed brighter and Tristan glared it. “No, absolutely not. I do not do unexplained dimensional architecture under duress.”

The front door cracked again and Turning yowled as his claws dug in claws into his shoulder and poor Lovelace made a soft, frightened sound that went through him like a blade.

Tristan swallowed as he thought about his options.

There were several possibilities: one, he was hallucinating under stress. Two, the EMP had somehow triggered a neurological event, unlikely but not impossible. Three, this was a trap by the people currently breaking into his flat. Four, this was magic, which was unfortunately a category that existed because his cousin was Kendis Black and his life had never recovered from that revelation. Five, the universe was a badly written farce with no respect for scientific process.

The front door exploded inward and Men in tantictal black poured in like a swarm of angry hornets.

Tristan made a decision.

The oval door opened before his hand touched it, and golden light swallowed him whole as he ran through the door clutching his cats for dear life..

For half a second, there was nothing. There was no darkness, no light. Nothing in a way that made his bones feel like they had been briefly translated into a language with no vowels.

Then his boots hit polished floor and his knees nearly buckled as he stumbled into a round room full of doors.

Tristan blinked as his graze traveled around the room. It was enormous and elegant, circular in a way that made his brain itch because the geometry did not match the space it should have occupied. It looked as if a secret society, an ancient temple, and an obscenely wealthy architect had conspired to offend physics. The doors lined the wall that resembled the same oval door that appeared in his living room. Expect there was a shiny black circular plaque that had the names of cities: New York, Houston, Beijing, Athens, Milan.

Tristan looked up and saw warm amber light traced the ceiling in perfect rings, catching on bands of glowing runes overhead and spilling down curved stone walls etched with delicate golden symbols he could not read.

Which immediately annoyed Tristan.

Breaking up the montomony of the oval doors where three normal rectangular black doors. Each door had a brass plate that said: Mudroom, Main Entry, Kitchen.

At the center of the room were dark brown leather chairs circled a glossy black-and-gold table tea set and biscuits, because apparently even extradimensional nonsense came with hospitality.

Tristan clutched his terrified cats closer, stared at the polished black marble floor veined with gold, and decided that whatever this place was, it was gorgeous, impossible, wildly illegal, and in desperate need of documentation.

Because of course, his cousin had a magical transport hub decorated like old money had married a secret society and developed excellent taste.

“Kendis,” Tristan said, shouted out loud. “I am going to need a scientific explanation immediately or I am going to become very unpleasant.”

The kitchen door opened and standting there was his cousin in all of her glory. You wouldn’t think this feminine presenting person standing there in a gray cropped Pantera t-shirt, ripped black jeans, and combat boots to be a powerful magic user.

But according to Kendis most wixens didn’t dress like Worst Witch rejects.

Beside her was Tony Stark in a shirt that looked expensive enough to fund three Q Branch prototypes, his expression already sharpening into something dangerous.

“Tristan?” Kendis said.

The sound of his name, familiar and startled, nearly undid him.

He tightened his hold on the cats and tried not to give into the emotions that washed over him. Tristan was used to compartmentizling. In his line of work compartmartlizing was required or you wouldn’t last long. But all of the emotions he had been repressing swelled up inside him, threatening to swallow him whole.

“My flat was attacked,” Tristan said, his body shaking despite himself. “There was an EMP. My devices are dead, and there are armed men in my sitting room. James is missing and also? Your door kidnapped me! “

Tony blinked, “Kidnapped feels harsh.”

“It appeared in my flat without consent.”

Kendis stepped closer, eyes flicking over him, then the cats, then the door behind him. Her face changed in a way Tristan recognized from the first time he had learned she had once been a child soldier in a magical war. The softness did not disappear, exactly but instead it became armored.

“Are you hurt?”

“No,” Tristan shook his head.

“Cats?” Kendis eyes darted to Turning and Lovelace in his arms.

“Terrified but intact,” Q sighed. “Thank god.”

Tony lifted one hand slightly. “Okay, first of all, good. Second, I am deeply interested in the EMP. Third, I need to know if the bad guys can come through the door after you.”

As if summoned by spite, a shout echoed from behind the golden-lit oval.

Kendis’s expression flattened,“No.”

Her voice wasn’t loud or dramatic but it still made every hair on Tristan’s body stand up.

Another figure appeared from one of the black doors. Natasha Romanov moved like silence given human shape, red hair pulled back, green eyes already assessing the room. Behind her came Miss Parker dressed immaculately in a red skirt suit, and lethal in six inch heels. Her blue eyes landed on Tristan with one sharp sweep.

“Oh,” Miss Parker said. “Absolutely not.”

Tony pointed at Tristan. “See? That’s the correct energy.”

“I have questions,” Tristan said.

“You can have a full nervous breakdown about magical transit logistics later,” Kendis said. “Right now, give me your address.”

“You know my address.”

“I know your legal address.” Kendis said, with a lift of her eyebrow. ” Give me the operational details.”

Despite everything, a tiny, absurd bloom of pride rose in his chest. His cousin had learned.

He gave it to her quickly, including entry points, sightlines, likely number of attackers, location of his emergency supplies, and which floorboards creaked in the hall.

Tony’s eyes went slightly unfocused in the way that meant he was listening to his A.I. on a communications channel no one else could hear. Natasha and Miss Parker both checked their guns. Miss Parker shoved a clip into a very nice 9mm smith and wesson.

She shot him a smile that almost made Tristan feel sorry for the men in her flat.

Kendis turned toward an oval door with blank plaque. “Is that—”

“Yep, this is the door to your flat.” Kendis answered, but Tristan didn’t how she could tell that door from the rest of the doors that were labeled.

Tristan shifted Turning higher against his chest. “You are not seriously going back through the unstable glowing murder portal.”

Tony gave him a look, “You came through it.”

“I was being chased.”

“Great,” Tony smirked at him. ” We’ll chase back.”

“That is not how risk assessment works.”

“That is exactly how marriage works,” Tony said, with a shrug.

Kendis glanced at him.

Tony pointed at her. “Do not tell me I’m wrong.”

Kendis rolled her eyes but a small smile curled her lips. Natasha looked at Tristan gave him a stern look.

“Stay here.”

Miss Parker’s gaze softened by a fraction, “Breathe, tech boy.”

Q and Miss Parker werent’ close friends. He got the feeling that there were only a few people she allow to get past her walls but there was a kindship there. Of people born into impossible families, of facing ordinary monsters everyday. Miss Parker reminded him of so many of the agents he worked with and he couldn’t help but feel a type of comadarie there.

And from the few times Q had met Jarod, Miss Parker seemed to know how to navigate a relationship with a person who’s high IQ and their tendenacity to overthink everything could get the best of them sometimes.

“I am breathing.”

“You are vibrating.”

“I have been EMP’d and transported through illegal architecture.”

“Then vibrate quietly.”

Before Tristan could respond, the four of them went through the oval door into his flat.

The door remained open for three seconds. Tristan stood there alone in the rotunda, fighting his cats increasing struggles to get free. He heard shouting, then a crash, and a sound like someone being introduced to a wall at speed.

Tony saying, “Hey, that was my favorite borrowed cousin-in-law’s bookshelf, asshole.”

Then the door shut and silence fell.

Tristan stood in the Rotunda with two traumatized cats, no working phone, no Bond, and absolutely no acceptable explanation for anything that had happened in the last four minutes.

The main entry door opened and something large and black padded into the room.

Tristan turned.

A Cane Corso stood in the doorway, her massive head tilted with grave interest. Alke, Kendis’s beloved menace of a dog, looked at him, then at the cats, then back at him.

“Oh, good,” Tristan said faintly. “A wolf disguised as a domestic animal.”

Alke’s tail wagged once.

Lovelace lifted her head.

Turning made a noise that suggested betrayal on a biblical scale.

“Do not start,” Tristan told him.

Alke approached slowly, with surprising gentleness for an animal built like a judgment from God. Lovelace watched her, ears forward now instead of pinned. Alke lowered herself onto the floor several feet away, chin on her paws, as if to say she understood the rules of diplomacy.

Lovelace wriggled in Tristan’s arm.

“No,” he said.

Lovelace wriggled harder.

“Lovelace, we have just survived an attack. This is not the moment to defect to the Americans.”

She ignored him and climbed down, landing lightly on the floor. Alke did not move. Lovelace approached with dainty caution, sniffed Alke’s nose, then rubbed her cheek against the dog’s muzzle.

Tristan and Turning stared.

Alke’s tail thumped, once again, very carefully.

“Well,” Tristan said. “That is emotionally devastating.”

Turning hissed and Tristan pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yes, I agree. Undignified.”

A voice above him said, “Sir, would you like medical assistance?”

Tristan nearly jumped out of his skin.

“JARVIS,” Tristan said with a put upon sigh. “I didn’t think you would be intergrated with this whole magic hub nonense.”

“I am intergreated anywhere sir requires, Mr. Evans-Mensah.”

Tristan opened his eyes and found a sofa, because apparently the magical door room also had seating for post-trauma existential collapse. He sat down carefully, Turning still clutched in his lap like an orange, vibrating loaf of rage. Lovelace settled beside Alke as if they had been childhood friends separated by war.

“Traitor,” Tristan muttered under his breath as he took a seat in one of the leather chairs. Turning settled in his lap and his hands were thankfully now steady enough to for him to pour himself a cuppa. If there was every time for a good cup of tea, then this was it.

Tristan sipped his earl grey and sighed as he felt some of the stress start to fade away.

Time seemed to stretch on and it felt the minutes were more like hours. As he sat there, Tristan’s panic came and went in waves. He hated being cut off, hated not knownig was going on. Even when Tristan was traveling, he was never disconnected from Q branch for this long.

Then after what felt like eternity, the oval door opened again.

Kendis came through first, and there was a smear of blood at her temple that Tristan hoped that it wasn’t hers. Tony followed, looking irritated and exhilarated in equal measure. Natasha came next, serene as ever. Miss Parker was last, dragging a man in tactical gear by the back of his collar as if he were an inconvenient bag of laundry.

The man was unconscious.

Tristan looked at him, and then at Miss Parker.

“He was rude,” she said.

“I see,” Tristan answered but decided that it was better for his mental health and burgeoning headache not to ask.

Kendis crossed to him. “They’re contained. We wiped the immediate threat, secured the devices that survived, and Tony grabbed their hardware.”

“Most of it was garbage,” Tony said. “But malicious garbage with ambition, which is always worse.”

“No casualties in the building,” Natasha added, “A neighbor called police because of the noise.”

Tristan exhaled slowly. It was over and Tristan and his cats were safe. He had not realized how tightly his chest had been locked until then. Kendis eyes flickered over to where Alke was laying with Lovelace cuddled next to her.

Tony came closer, holding up a compact drive. “Also, I found who is behind this.”

Tristan’s head snapped up, “Already?”

“Already?!” Tony looked offended, “I’m sorry, did you want me to take a nap first?”

“Who?” Tristan asked.

Tony’s expression lost its flippancy. “Up-and-coming paramilitary group. They’re calling themselves the Aurelian Order in some files, though that name is so self-important I assume there are capes in their future. They believe they can trigger enough institutional collapse to bring about a new world order.”

Tristan stared at him because Aurelian Order? When did Tristan’s life suddenly turn into a graphic novel.

“That is not a serious name.” Tristan snorted, “The Aurelian order?”

“I know.”

“They attacked my cats under that name?”

“Unfortunately.”

Tristan thought about how terrified his cats where. How terrified they had been and how these group of self-important wankers invaded his home. “I’m going to destroy them.”

Kendis studied him carefully and that was the trouble with his cousin. Over the years since she had been introduced to their family as his long lost cousin, Kendis and Tristan had gotten to know each other pretty well. Helping her build a new life idenity had made them close and she knew him well enough to hear the difference between fear and intent.

Before she could say anything, JARVIS’s voice returned.

“Sir, I have established a secure temporary line to MI6.”

Tristan sighed, “Why am I not surprised?”

Tony waved a hand. “JARVIS likes to show off.”

“I do not, sir.”

“You absolutely do,” Tony pointed to the ceiling.

A sleek device rose from a hidden panel in a nearby table, because apparently the Rotunda also had concealed communications technology. Tristan decided not to react to that, because Tristan was well and truly done with the obsurities of that night.

“Moneypenny,” he said the moment the line connected.

“Q?” Eve’s voice was sharp with worry under the polish. “Where the hell are you? We received a police flag at your address. Your systems went dark, and no one could reach you.”

“I’m alive.”

“That was not the question.”

“My flat was breached and they used an EMP.” Tristan replied, clipped. ” It was an armed extraction team but I’m safe for the moment.”

There was a tiny silence and then Moneypenny said, very calmly, “Where are you?”

Tristan looked around the Rotunda, at the impossible doors, the unconscious paramilitary idiot, Tony Stark arguing silently with the ceiling, Natasha Romanov cleaning blood off her knuckles, Miss Parker sliding her gun into holster, his cousin watching him with worried dark green eyes, and his white-grey cat cuddling a giant dog.

“Somewhere secure,” he said.

“Q.”

“I know. I will explain as much as I am legally and physically able to explain when I have a framework that does not sound like a psychotic break.”

“Are you injured?” Moneypenny asked, concerned.

“No.”

“Are you alone?”

“No.”

“Are you with Kendis?”

Tristan’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know that?”

“Because impossible things happen around your cousin, and you use that exact tone every time she is involved.”

Before Tristan could respond, Moneypenny gasped.

His blood turned to ice, “Eve?”

“Oh, my God,” she whispered.

Tristan stood so quickly Turning launched from his lap with an offended yowl.

“What happened?”

“Q,” Moneypenny said, voice breaking around the edges. “We found him.”

Tristan gripped the device. “Who?”

But deep down he already knew was found but he had to hear the words anyway.

“Bond,” Eve said. “They found Bond.”

“Condition?”

“Alive,” Eve said quickly. “Injured, badly but alive. We have coordinates. M is mobilizing a team, but—”

“I’m coming.” Q stood to his feet.

“Q, your flat was just attacked,” Eve protested.

“And now we know why.”

“Q—”

“I am coming,” he repeated.

The voice that came out of him was not the voice he used in the lab. It was not dry or exasperated or clipped with professional irritation. It was something colder and older. It was something he had learned from Ejo Mensah and Llywelyn Price and every dangerous person who had ever loved him enough to teach him survival as a second language.

He ended the call before Eve could argue.

Kendis was already watching him.

“No,” she said softly, shaking her head.

“Kendis,” Tristan said, with a sigh. “I have to go.”

“You were just attacked.” Kendis glared at him. “You just can’t go back there.”

“James is alive.”

“And the people who attacked you may have wanted you away from him, or dead before you could help him.”

“Then they should have done a better job,” Q sniffed.

Tony made a small sound, “This is why he is my favorite.”

Kendis shot him a look.

Tony lifted both hands, “Not helping. I know.”

Natasha stepped closer, “You need backup.”

“I need speed.”

“You need both,” Miss Parker said, straightening to her full height. She adjusted her jacket and then walked over to him.

Tristan gave her a long look.

Miss Parker returned his look with the flat, unimpressed gaze of a woman who had survived monsters in human suits and did not tolerate male martyrdom when there was work to do.

“I’ll take him,” she said.

Kendis’s mouth tightened. “Parker—”

“Tristan knows the system, he knows Bond, and he knows whatever classified MI6 nonsense we don’t. But Tristan is also running on adrenaline, trauma, and cat-related rage.” Miss Parker crossed her arms. “I can work with that.”

“I am not experiencing cat-related rage,” Tristan said.

Turning hissed from under the sofa.

Miss Parker arched an eyebrow.

Tristan sighed, “Fine. I am experiencing a measured and justified amount of cat-related rage.”

Kendis rubbed both hands over her face. For a moment, she did not look like Lady Blackmere or the village’s terrifying center of gravity or the woman who had walked into his flat and removed armed attackers from existence as a practical problem.

She looked like his cousin. His cousin who was worried, protective, and probably already calculating how many people she could bring, how many laws she could bend, how much danger she could put herself in before anyone stopped her.

“Tristan,” she said.

He softened despite himself.

“Do not tell my parents.”

Her eyes narrowed. “That is what you’re worried about?”

“Yes,” Tristan said. “Mum will worry, maame will mobilize MI5, and tad will become insufferably calm, which is worse. None of this will help me get James home.”

Kendis stared at him.

He stared back.

“Please,” he added, quieter.

That did it. Tristan knew that Kendis was weak to family asking honestly. It was one of her best and worst qualities.

Her jaw worked before Kendis finally said, “I hate this.”

“I know.”

Tony stepped beside her and slipped a hand against the back of her neck, grounding but not restraining. “We’ll keep digging on these Aurelian clowns. JARVIS and I will feed you what we find, and Nat can coordinate from here or shadow if needed.”

Natasha nodded once, “I’ll be close.”

Miss Parker opened one of the black doors. Tristan did not recognize what lay beyond it, but he saw a flash of London grey on the other side.

He looked down.

Lovelace had finally abandoned Alke and returned to him, winding around his ankles. Turning crept out from beneath the sofa with wounded dignity.

“I have to go,” he told them.

Turning stared at him with flat betrayal.

“I know.”

Lovelace blinked slowly, which was kinder and therefore worse. Alke stood and nosed Lovelace gently, then sat beside both cats like a solemn, oversized guard.

Kendis crouched down to scratch between Alke’s short pointed ears. “I’ll watch them.”

Tristan looked at her.

His throat tightened, which was inconvenient and unacceptable.

“Thank you.”

Kendis stood and pulled him into a hug before he could prepare for it. He stiffened for half a second, then folded into it, one hand gripping the back of her jacket.

“You come back,” she said against his shoulder.

“I intend to.”

“That’s not the same thing.”

“It’s the best I can offer.”

She let him go, unhappy but understanding.

Miss Parker waited by the door.

Tristan straightened his coat, wiped all softness from his face, and stepped toward her.

He had been hunted, his home had been breached, and his cats had been threatened. Bond had been found alive, and somewhere between the EMP and the impossible door, fear had burned clean into purpose.

Behind him, Tony was already speaking rapidly to JARVIS about paramilitary funding trails, shell companies, weapons procurement, and the sort of digital violence Tristan would have admired under less personal circumstances.

Kendis watched him with worried green eyes.

Tristan gave her the smallest nod, and then he followed Miss Parker through the door.

He was going to bring James Bond home and after that, he was going to find the people who had thought targeting Tristan was the beginning of their new world order.

They were about to learn what that crossing Tristan was their worst and last mistake.