By Mihir Mathur
[Prompt] “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do Mr Bond. I’m going to stick you in a spacesuit with a radio, and strap you into one of my cars. Then, while mankind watches, I’ll launch you into space. The last thing you’ll hear before leaving this earth forever, will be their applause.”
Bond slipped in and out of consciousness. He did not know whether the hot sticky liquid coursing down his forehead was his sweat or blood. He tasted copper in his mouth, and his bruises stung with every movement. He was sure that he had dislocated his left arm and had a broken rib or two.
All in all, just another day of work for him.
Musk stopped pacing and walked up close to him, clearly annoyed by Bond’s lack of a reaction to his diabolical plan to kill him. As far as over the top ways to kill him went, this was certainly up there. Literally.
“Where is Mueller, Musk? Just tell me.” Bond said, though he knew that he was not in a position to interrogate. Still, he was counting on his arrogance to tell him exactly what he needed to know, right before he dropped him in the proverbial shark tank. And he always came back.
Musk let out a loud laugh. He pulled out something from his pocket. Bond thought for a moment that Musk had skinned the poor man alive, but no, it was a mask. Bond groaned.
“I never thought that you, of all people, could be so easily fooled!” he said, sounding very excited about it. Bond nodded. “Take him away!”
A couple of his henchmen stepped forward and started to untie him from his chair. Bond thought about grabbing a gun and fighting his way out of the facility, but he was outnumbered and outgunned. He could not summon the strength to stand, let alone fight. His knees buckled as soon as he was yanked to his feet.
“Have a nice flight, Bond!” Musk called, as he was dragged away.
He was not completely awake for the next few hours, as his limp body was stuffed into the white spacesuit. He was still wearing his three-piece suit underneath, so it was a very tight fit. Musk was there too, directing his men to seal him up tight. At gunpoint, he was marched to a dark and empty hangar, full of huge machinery that were presumably part of Musk’s’ other projects. They directed him to a red sports car, opened its door and made him get behind the wheel. Musk looked on as his men strapped him in and duct taped his hands to the steering wheel.
Musk walked over and patted the roof of the car. “This is my car, did you know that? One of the first ever made,” he said, bending down to talk to him. “And now, it will be shot at eleven kilometres a second into the heavens, where it will revolve around the planet for eternity, with you in it.”
“Does you insurance cover it?” Bond quipped.
Musk let out a loud laugh. “I would have loved to get to know you,” he said as he started walking away.
“I will come visit you every day in jail!” Bond quipped again.
“Showtime!” Musk shouted, as the dark visor of the helmet clicked shut in front of him and the windows rolled up. A crane lifted the car into a container. Once the final piece was put in, he was in the dark. He could only hear the sounds outside.
The hangar that had been empty a few moments ago was now seemingly full of activity. He could hear various machines in operation, various horns and beeps of vehicles, chatter and PA announcements. The noise of industry, crescendo-ing to the peak as they got closer to what would be, to them, one of the proudest moments of their careers. Then, his world shook.
“Mr. Bond, you there?” he heard Musk in his ear over the radio. A heads-up display winked into life on his visor. He could see that he was connected to ‘CMDCNTR’. “You are being loaded onto the Falcon Heavy rocket. One of my finest creations. The first of many to come. It is a shame that you won’t see them.”
The shaking continued. He heard several shouted instructions. Bond’s MI6 training kicked in, stopping the panic from taking over. He took several deep breadths. He needed to be in the correct headspace to solve this problem. That is all is was. A problem.
“This is a momentous occasion that you are a part of, Mr. Bond,” Musk said over the radio,” a moment that humanity will remember as the day we conquered the Final Frontier. I almost envy you.
“Almost.”
The interior of the assembled container was dark. The suit was bulky, and he was perched awkwardly at the edge of the seat, owing to the huge equipment compartment on his back. There was a faint smell in the suit, something that seemed really familiar. The shaking stopped.
“T minus one hour,” came the announcement.
“Hear that, Mr. Bond? One hour. In one hour, you shall lead the charge to the heavens. You will become a sacrifice at the altar of the Gods in the stars. You should thank me for that, Mr. Bond. Many would have gone willingly.”
Time passed surprisingly quickly, considering the circumstances. Bond was at the edge of desperation. He should have escaped by now. Some incredible stroke of luck, some surprising mechanical failure, an unexpected betrayal, anything.
“T minus one minute,” came the announcement.
Before he knew it, he heard a deep and thunderous roar. He felt the vibrations in his bones, his stomach churning. Bond gripped the steering wheel tightly.
“Good-bye, Mr. Bond,” Musk said, an instant before the launch.
He had driven plenty of fast cars in his lifetime, often chasing or being chased. Nothing even came close to sensation of the acceleration that he felt now. His head was thrown to the back of his helmet. It felt as though someone was savagely pulling at his face, trying to rip it off. His broken rib sent jolts of pain as his chest cavity was compressed. It took all his strength to draw breadth. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears. Mercifully, he passed out soon after to the sound of David Bowie’s Starman.
“James? Ca…ou…ear me? …mes?” Bond heard a familiar voice call out to him, filtering in and out, lost in the static. He had an intense headache, and the various wounds on his body were stinging even more. He struggled to open his eyes. When he succeeded, he wished he hadn’t.
The planet stretched out in front of him in a breathtaking vista. At the horizon, he could see the moon, half covered in shadow. If he was to die here, he couldn’t have asked for a better view. But he decided that he wasn’t going to die. Queen and Country demanded that he finish the mission, and by God was he going to finish it. He was going to then grab a drink, any drink, whether shaken or stirred.
“Jam…? Come…mes. James?” the voice in the radio said again. Now that his mind was clearer, he focused on the voice again. Someone was trying to contact him. He felt a glimmer of hope.
“James? Damn…mes!”, the voice said. It was definitely not Musk. No, it was a woman’s voice. He had heard it before, very recently. In fact, the owner of that voice had said the same thing as it is now, albeit under very different circumstances.
“Emma?” Bond responded hoarsely.
There was some excitement on the other end. “Found him, Dr. Mueller!” she said, speaking to someone else in the room. “Where the hell are you, you scheisse?” she shouted at Bond. “Musk has launched his rocket, with his car on it! He’s streaming it to the whole world!”
Bond could faintly hear Starman playing in the background. “I found Mueller as well. Musk introduced us. We are both in some underground facility, in a cosy prison cell. We hacked into your suit”
Given her sarcasm, Bond could tell that the BND operative was scared out of her mind. “Yes, quite the predicament there, Mr. Bond,” Mueller said. “I hope that suit is comfortable. I designed that myself.”
Bond tried to get his head around the scientist’s jovial tone, but he solved that mystery, “Well, since you are about to die, I think humour might ease your passing somewhat.”
He heard a smack and a grunt of pain. Bond was sure that Emma had just hit the scientist in the head. “We have to get him down!”
“Well, he has a remote-control air walk assist module and about forty minutes of oxygen, twenty of them are gone. I don’t see how that would help.”
That glimmer of hope died again.
“We can’t give up!” Emma shouted, “We have to get MI6 to him, then!”
Mueller spoke to him again, “We saw you come in to rescue us on your satellite’s feed. That was very brave.”
And just like that, Bond had an idea. He could make it down after all.
“Do you know where the satellite is?” Bond asked, as he struggled to free his duct taped hands. He extracted his feet and placed them on the steering wheel to get himself more leverage. Finally, the tape was stretched enough to free himself.
“Found your satellite, Mr. Bond,” Mueller said, “What now?”
Bond undid the seatbelts and pushed himself out of the car, but not letting go completely. He navigated to the back of the car and held on the spoiler.
“What are you doing, James?” Emma asked softly.
“Getting the MI6 to get me down,” Bond replied.
“Alright, Dr. Mueller, what is the distance and bearing of that satellite?”
“600 miles, due North Northeast.”
“Good, take me there.”
There was a pause. “What?”
“You said ‘remote control’, did you not? Come on, my dear man, time is short!” Bond said.
There was a flurry of typing as the captured scientist took control of Bond’s suit. He heard the jets sputter to life and push him and the car towards the satellite. He remembered Q telling him not to get the new and experimental spy satellite deployed over the area of operation destroyed, or he would have to send an unmanned shuttle to repair it, which was a great amount of paperwork. It had seemed as just another warning from the old man not to break his precious equipment, even if it was thousands of miles away from him. Q would definitely not be happy about this.
“Okay, you are out fuel, but you will intercept the satellite any minute now,” Mueller said. “You are going way too fast, Mr. Bond! You won’t survive crashing into it!”
“Dr. Mueller, I owe you a round at the pub.”
Bond slowly navigated back to the driver’s seat. He figured that this would be the safest place. He gripped the steering wheel tightly again. He saw a dot that was the satellite grow bigger and bigger in his windscreen. He braced for impact.
The car crashed into the satellite, but made no noise in the dead of space. The air bags smacked him in the face, but was dampened by the suit. Mueller’s aim had been nearly perfect. The nose of the car had lodged into the side of the satellite.
“You have 3 minutes of air left in the main tank, Mr. Bond. And six more in the reserve. I hope you know what you are doing,” Mueller said.
All he had to do now was wait, and hope that the repair shuttle arrives before he ran out of air. He looked around for it, but to no avail. Suddenly, the heads up display lit up red.
“Mr. Bond, your main tank is depleted!”
Bond decided to save his breath, literally, and did not respond. He could hear Emma panicking and whispering reassurances and offering prayers as well. Finally, the shuttle arrived, and crashed into the back of the car. Bond just barely got out before the car was crushed. He navigated the wreckage towards the shuttle. The shuttle was a lot smaller than he remembered.
He found the hatch to the detachable lander module and went in legs first. The cabin was lit by a red light, indicating that it was depressurized. He closed the hatch behind him, and found the radio switch and flicked it on.
“Who in the Queen’s name is this? Tell me, or I swear on the Queen’s corgis I will crash this shuttle in the Sun!” Bond had never been more relieved to hear Q’s voice on the radio of the lander.
“This is why Abigail left you, Q. You swear too much,” Bond said.
There was a stunned silence on the other end. “James Bond, is that you? What on Earth are doing in there? How did you get in there?” His voice was rising in pitch with every syllable. “And what the hell did you do to my satellite?”
“Turn on the air recycler, will you Q? I’m gasping here,” Bond said. Before removing the helmet, he said, “Emma? I’m coming to get you and Mueller out of there. Second time’s the charm, I think.”
“Thanks God you’re alright,” she said, “Don’t you dare do that again.”
“No promises.”
The helmet came off with a hiss. The lights turned green as the cabin was repressurised. “Q? Take me down, please.”
“You have gone ahead and damaged the shuttle. Hold on,” he said with considerable vitriol.
The lander module was buried in the rear of the car, so the take-off engine for the shuttle burned away to extricate it. They detached the lander module, and set it on course for re-entry. Q complained about the loss of the satellite all the way down. Bond counted himself lucky that he passed out again as he descended.
He awoke to the sound of seagulls. He started to dissemble the suit off of him, and opened the hatch. The men on the fishing boat that had come to investigate were surprised to say the least.
On the way back to the coast of the Sicilian town, one of the fishermen who knew a bit of English asked who he was. Bond smirked.
“My name is Bond. James Bond.”
By Mihir Mathur