John 15:4 (NLT) -
Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in Me.
Here’s one of the things I’ve been talking about for a while. Inspired when @a-forger-and-a-point-man and I were talking about how annoying it must be to clean up after James Bond, 007, assassin extraordinaire (*insert Q making a snarky comment about being an “extraordinaire pain in the ass, stop smiling at me like that, Bond, or you’re getting a water gun next mission”)
It’s all under the cut (and it turned out way longer than expected).
Ok so you know how there’s a Q branch and there’s the 00 branch and there’s a shit ton of other branches headcannoned? Well, the people who clean up the scene after one of the double oh’s have blown through and murdered literally everyone in sight are called the "Afters", and they make up the people of A-Branch.
These people are usually former NSY forensic identification officers or former double oh’s, but they have been hired out of university forensics programs before. MI-6 also has a summer student program for students who are willing to give up their entire summers (or take a sandwhich year with them, in the case of forensics students) and be on call to help out in the Intelligence branch. (The students are sworn to secrecy and are allowed to put it on their cvs but no one can know what they were doing so they usually end up putting the job title and that’s it on their CVs) There’s an unspoken rule in the I and A branches that they keep tabs on the former students, and the person may be hired back after they’ve graduated university.
All A-Branchers are also sworn to secrecy (like all government organisations) because no one is supposed to know that they are actually with the British government and there to clean up all the messes the double oh’s make. As a result, they have case knowledge, not at the clearance of the higher ups but they know the randomest stuff about each case.
And each 00 gets a specific A branch pair assigned to them, that usually leaves on the next flight after the double oh has left and goes straight to the location of the first scene. If it’s a long con, the A pair gets to stay grounded for a bit until they get word from A (who gets it from Q-Branch) that they are given permission fly out.
A is in charge of the A branch, and she, Eve, Q, Tanner, and I (from Intelligence) meet up weekly to bitch about stuff the double oh’s have done, any new administrative stuff M has decreed the Branch Heads fill out, how Q never stops bitching about 007 (”You guys should get a room”) or chat about the lives they lead outside of work. Topics include: some of Eve’s newest conquests, development’s in Tanner’s kid’s life and his marriage, how I’s house renovations are coming along, how A’s photography is coming on, and making bets on Q’s love life (”Bond and Q will be declaring a partnership before the year’s out.” “No we won’t, Moneypenny.” “I’m not sure; I think she’s right. I mean, why else would your ears be red?” “I hate you all,” Q groans from where his face is against the table.).
Sometimes the lunches are long and they’re able to walk all the way back to Q branch with Q before they’re called off for a mission and sometimes the lunches are cut short due to an urgent mission that one of the double oh’s are going on. A can usually tell what type of lunch it’s going to be - if I shows up on time, then it’ll be a long lunch, if he shows up late, it’ll be short one (that means the iPids are busy pulling information on something and are sending information to the Minions). Sometimes I doesn’t show up, and only sends J or Z to come collect Q and A and give them mission debriefings. When I doesn’t show up, Tanner doesn’t either.
On those short lunches when I shows up, both Q&A are called away, Tanner producing folders from his tray and Eve joins in to help debrief the heads as I scurries back to his branch to make sure all the intelligence is ready for the Minions.
A-branch is in a different area of MI-6 than Q-branch is, so Tanner and Eve will walk with Q&A until they split at the elevators; sometimes Tanner goes down with Q, and sometimes Eve does. The other remains with A and they walk to A-branch, filling A in on what the mission entails. Q and A have comms and are always linked with each other, making it easy for A to hear the details of what Q is telling the agents - when A hears that the agent has been sent on the plane and has left the office for the airport, she contacts the A-branch pair assigned to that agent. Sometimes, like when 006 (whose specialty is short missions, usually no more than a week) is sent out, the A006 pair is contacted right away and sent out.
And it's like "Ok A006 we're deploying you out to Fez because 006 left on the flight that just went out so you guys have to be on the next one to keep up."
For agents that do longer missions (like 002), the A002 pair is called and informed that they will be going out on a mission soon and to stand by for further instruction.
What A really doesn’t understand is how none of the 00s know about the A branch. The double-oh’s are supposed to be really observant and one’d think that they would not be suspicious at all that evidence they left behind at the scene ends up in Q-branch if it’s tech related or I-branch if it’s intelligence related. But they might not know because the A pair is usually really far behind them and only has lockers to store stuff.
A is the only one with an office, which is pretty spacious. She uses it to debrief her A-teams (*cue the A-Team theme* (side note: all the A-teams have the A theme as their ringtone for when A calls. Q also has that ringtone for A on the rare chance she is at the office and he isn’t)) and compile the information gathered by I-Branch and Q-Branch into relevant details about where the A-Team will have to be at what time. She also provides kits full of forensic evidence collection equipment, strong solvents, and genetically engineered DNA from D-Branch to plant at the scene, as well as lots of gloves, hair nets and shoe coverings. She provides hard copies of the mission information and outlines the weapons (if any (and if you’re A007, you need equipment)) they’ll be needing. Using the comms link, Q is able to hear what weapons to provide and he outfits the A pairs because what if the enemies try and clean up the bodies and attack the pairs then (Don't ask about 0012's original pair; they went down valiantly).
007's A pair really hates him because he either makes a mess or is dead for 3 months; there's no in between.
What the A pairs do when they’re not following messy double oh agents around the world varies. A keeps tabs on new developments and techniques in the forensics fields, and she sometimes will send an A-pair who is grounded to go check out the talk and take back notes. If the A pair isn’t sent to a talk, they’re in the R&D labs, testing out new ways to get various stains out of everything imaginable, as fast as possible.
A collects all of their results, and modifies the solutions. Once, A made a breakthrough in how to remove 98% of blood stain traces. She was so shocked she repeated the experiment and ended up dumping a bottle of BlueStar over the area. Even with the contents of the entire bottle on the ground, there was 2% luminescence of blood in the bloodstain area. That was one of the rare times she was allowed to patent the solution. M secured a deal with a chemical solution maker and ensured that only MI-5&6 get to use the solution.
As with all intelligence organisations that have agents in the field, the A team has to under go physical as well, to ensure they are strong enough to remove the corpse of the people who were shot; these are usually done on the same day as the double-oh they are paired with takes their physical. The pair are given their standard kit and are tested together, which makes their physicals are slightly different; even though there is lifting weights and shooting, like the double-oh’s, they also are tested on endurance, where they have to move a sand bag that is the approximate weight of a dead body and run with it for a while, on cleaning speed and accuracy, and doing teamwork tests where they are under attack from an enemy who has stuck around while trying to minimize the amount of evidence they leave behind.
A usually joins M, Eve, Q and Tanner to watch these tests because she takes notes on what works and what doesn’t. She’ll usually spend the next day locked in her office, pouring over the new data, and then migrate to R&D where she tries out new concentrations of chemicals in her cleaning solvents and gets the grounded A pairs to test them.
