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Disclaimer:
This page is an unofficial site that exists only for the fun of it. All characters and situations from the television show "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." are property of Norman Felton and Warner Bros. Nothing ill is intended by this use of any television characters in these amateur efforts. Any fiction linked to these pages is the intellectual property of the amateur author who created it and is not presented here for profit.

Classification: T for Teen (or used to be PG-13 or so)

Author's Notes: Only a handful of agents went through Survival School with
better marks. Why does everyone seem to think she's a THRUSH mole when
no one questioned the others?

Pairing: Unknown

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Cheri was not happy about the trip. Maine was not her idea of a wonderful state.
She hated cold and wet. Right now, all of Maine seemed to be the epitome of those
states. Bundled in a fur-lined trench coat over wool trousers, she scrunched into her
seat and tried to be as unobtrusive as possible as they rolled past Arkham and the
Miskatonic University campus. The chill outside crawled into her coat with her putting a
definite damper on anything approaching enthusiasm for this outing. She kept telling
herself there was absolutely nothing wrong with Arkham or the University or with a
defunct fishing village called Innsmouth that could not be explained by a THRUSH
intrusion.

Unfortunately, there was a frazzled part of her mind that kept nodding and going
“Uh-huh. Yeah. Right.” in a most annoyingly most skeptical manner. That and
the term “weirdness magnet” kept running through her head. Meanwhile, neither of her
mentors felt it was appropriate to share the driving with her. Was it because she was
female? Or was it because Illya Kuryakin was unwilling to let go of his hostility?

“Does your writer have anything to say about this locality?” Napoleon asked
out of the blue. Or gray, given the consistency of the cloud cover above them.

“Arkham? Home of the Miskatonic which has more tomes of forbidden and archaic
knowledge locked in its restricted stacks than any other university on the planet?”

“Forbidden?”

“I could reel off the titles, but I can’t recall half of them. Starts with
the dreaded Necronomicon of the mad Arab Al-Hazred and gets worse. Most of them
are translations of older texts. Some are annotated. All of them are pretty much inimical to human
kind. And a major state mental institution is here.”

She didn’t miss the look that went between the two men. She was missing
something here. Something happened or they found out something while she was researching the
best way to get where they were going. Illya was openly much more hostile than he had
been. Napoleon, well … she wasn’t certain. He wasn’t any warmer, but he wasn’t
any cooler either. She wished she knew what they’d found and then unwished the wish.

They arrived on the outskirts of Innsmouth as the clouds burst forth with a
major downpour. Cheri went through a litany of cuss words in every language she could
think in. None of them passed her lips. She didn’t want to shock anyone, now did
she? They peered out at the grimy, dead looking village. The rain wasn’t making it look
any better.

“So, how obvious do we want to be?” she finally asked. Both men turned to
look at her. “Well … sometimes the best way to find out what’s going on is to…
be the goat.”

“We don’t sacrifice our agents.”

“You don’t rescue me, I will haunt you. OK?” The grin that went with this
assurance lightened the atmosphere for a moment.

Napoleon looked at his partner. “Ready to get wet?”

The two men vacated the car leaving Cheri to strand herself in the middle of
town if that seemed appropriate. They headed directly for cover as Cheri clambered into
the front seat, put the car in gear and puttered on into the deserted village. The
first thing they both noticed was the smell. Even inside one of the better preserved
buildings there was a smell of death and decay. They exchanged uncomfortable looks and
moved on, keeping as much to damp but not rain soaked interiors as possible.

The fourth building they entered was the worst of the lot. The walls were
covered from the roof down with a black mold. Illya took a look at the interior and balked at
entering. Napoleon cocked an eyebrow upward. With a look of disgust Illya just
shook his head. Napoleon leaned toward him. “Tovarish?”

With a deep breath and a shudder, Illya quietly advised that the mold was
potentially deadly. Napoleon eyed the furry looking growth. “OK. Next building?” They
moved on.

Behind them, a section of wall pulled back and slid aside. Four men in
decontamination suits moved through the exposed opening. Once outside, they pulled up the
faceplates, breathing cleaner air. They muttered among themselves and moved out toward the
countryside with a strange shambling gait.

In the abandoned village square, Cheri stopped the car and sat, waiting. What
she could see of the village gave her the creeps. She was having trouble believing that
even THRUSH would base a project here. A patch of clear appeared between her and the seawall
at the harbor. She frowned as she recognized weathered masts rising into the air beyond
the drop to the water. They left their boats? Fishermen left their boats? She had trouble
processing that concept.

A second thought took hold. What if they weren’t really gone? She shook her
head to clear the cobwebs that were gumming up the thought processes and considered the view
again. What if THRUSH was using stage dressing? That made more sense than figuring on
monsters and mayhem. Well, monsters anyway.

As the squall blew further inland leaving behind a dripping set of dilapidated
buildings, Cheri grabbed the camera she brought for cover and stepped out of the car. The
35mm in her hand felt odd as she took several shots she was certain would be far too dark to
print. Then she threw herself into the “freelance reporter” act and moved around
the square looking for interesting or quaint sights to photograph. Twenty minutes later her
bold rummaging in the trash for something to photograph bore fruit. It wasn’t
exactly the sort she wanted, but it was human.

A shadow fell across where she was rummaging and she looked up into the
depthless black eyes of Royke Darnall. Oh, Fuck! was her first thought. The rest degenerated
from there. She smiled brightly. “Hi! Damn, you gave me a fright! There’s not supposed
to be anyone in here! I’m Cheri Yuconovich ..” She babbled. As she did, the scary look
softened to one of boredom. The shark was buying it. “.. I thought this would make a good
photo essay. The timelessness of fishing, the way modern life is cutting out older
ways of living, that sort of thing,” she burbled.

“You should leave.”

“What? I mean, why? The town’s deserted … well, except for me and you.”

“It’s not safe.”

She looked confused. Her wide-eyed, innocent look took in both Darnall and the
buildings around them. “Oh, you mean the buildings. I wasn’t going inside. I mean,
that’s just creepy, in a sad sort of way. Not the sort of thing I was looking for,
y’know.”

The shark eyes met hers directly, the chiseled planes of his facing looking like
flesh colored stone. “It’s not safe,” he repeated in the same sort of monotone.
“You should go.”

“Right-o! Going now.” She stood up, dusted off the front of her coat, gave
him a bright smile and turned toward the car. She was relieved when he didn’t make a grab
for her. Sliding into the driver’s seat, she turned the key in the ignition as she
pulled the door closed beside her. Nothing. She gave the engine some gas, turned the key
again and nothing. Shall we go for Nada 3, she asked herself and tried once more
before reaching for the inside hood release.

She took a deep breath and stepped out of the car. Odd smell, she thought. A
mixture of decay, death, the sort of mucuousy stuff on the scales of fish … she
quickly derailed that train and opened the hood to look at the engine. For just a
moment, she wondered where all the hoses were. This engine looked way too simple for a
new car. Quickly checking coil wire, spark plugs and battery cables, she determined
that there was nothing wrong with the connections she could examine.

What really spooked her as she frowned at the car was hearing the halting steps
of Darnall approaching. She’d expected him to come over, but silently, like the
experienced assassin she knew him to be. Instead he was making noise. Quiet noise, but
noise. She looked around at him, an exasperated look on her face. “You’d think they’d
keep rentals in better repair. You can bet they are going to hear about this. Is there a
phone … “

His hand closed on her upper arm like a vise clamp. “Hey…” she pulled away
and was rewarded with the clamp tightening. “Excuse me?”

“Come with me.”

“Look, I know you’re trying to help, but … ow! You’re hurting me …”

He turned back toward the building, dragging her along with him. “Come with
me.”

“I’m coming, I’m coming! Honest. You don’t have to break my arm …
Leggo!” she snapped. She was surprised when he stopped. For a moment she thought he might actually
release her, but no, he just frowned as though in thought and then continued forward.

“Hey! That doesn’t look safe!” she objected loudly as they neared a
building badly in need of repair even compared to the others surrounding it. The door hung from
one hinge. Black stains that were resolving into some sort of mold as they drew nearer ran
halfway down the walls. Something about mold tickled in the back of her mind as he drew
her inexorably closer to that door.

He stopped again, drew out a relatively clean handkerchief and handed it to her.
“Cover your nose and mouth,” he whispered. For just a moment, the flat opaque gaze
deepened into something human. It was gone just as swiftly.

Taking him at his word, Cheri held the cloth over her lower face as they entered
the building. She took care not to touch anything furry with mold as she fought off
a wave of terror-induced panic. Dammit, she was a trained agent. She could do
this. She just hoped her mentors were somewhere close enough to be of help when the
time came for action.

What was she thinking? Napoleon and Illya were the best. Of course, they
wouldn’t sacrifice a shiny new … pawn .. would they?