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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 took a few minutes to get used to breathing again; occasionally
choking up remnants of the goo she'd fallen into. As Napoleon and
Illya watched her captor turned ally head off to round up his men and
go locate the missing members of the project, they noted that there
were quite a number of people who weren't apparently THRUSH personnel.

They exchanged a look between "huh?" and worried. Helping Cheri to her
feet, Napoleon asked the obvious question. "Who are they?"

Cheri leaned against the railing and looked at him curiously. "What do
you mean, who are they?" She spared a glance for the twenty or so men
huddled at the far side of the room. There was something about the
oddly fitting clothing and muttering that sounded warning bells in her
head. The muttering had an odd susurration to it, as though it was
more than just disgruntled bad guys discussing failure. "I have a bad
feeling about this."

"That makes three of us. Let's get you out of here."

"Leave the burning to THRUSH?" she quipped with a chuckle that turned
into another deep hacking coughing fit. She leaned heavily on both of
them, movement splintering drying goo off her coat. "Coat. Off." she
suggested, heaving in deeper breaths.

They took a moment to remove the encrusted and saturated coat,
dropping it on the walkway before proceeding down the stairway. Cheri
stopped at the stairs and looked at the vat. "Uhm, guys. Does that
look more … well … liquid?"

Napoleon looked as well. It did. "Move." He was trying very hard to
ignore the really peculiar bits of this assignment. It was moving fast
enough that he wasn't getting time to think about what he was seeing
and hearing. Just riding herd on his partners was keeping his mind
occupied.

As they reached the bottom of the steps, the building shuddered. The
THRUSH agent they recognized came herding his people out of a doorway
and sent them running for the stairway up to ground level. Several of
the others tried to catch and stop the fleeing personnel and were
knocked aside for their effort. They went sprawling, revealing limb
and facial deformities that made the eye flinch.

The THRUSH leader stopped for a moment as Napoleon reached him. "I've
set the self destruct. Cordelia … The Satrap leader was insane, Mr.
Solo. I'm destroying all of the experiments. I'd run if I were you."
There was something in his voice and look that told Napoleon he was
telling the truth.

He swooped Cheri up over his shoulder, gave Illya a shove toward the
stairway and followed as swiftly as he could. Only Illya and Darnall's
help kept him from tumbling back into the now exploding room below as
the stairway collapsed below him. For sanity's sake, he shut out the
screeching shrieks of the people still in the room. They had done
nothing to save themselves, just continued that peculiar sibilant
muttering as they were engulfed by the destruction of the installation.

The entire village shook as explosions went off in the underground
rooms. Napoleon stopped to set Cheri on her feet. Both were looking
toward the harbor as the abandoned houses and buildings began to
collapse, many falling into the earth. Cheri's eyes widened as she
took in the lack of masts where she had seen them before. She tugged
on Illya's jacket, and pointed.

"Uhm – guys. The last time I saw something like that, it was really
wet and really messy a few minutes later."

"Does the Atlantic have tsunamis?" Napoleon asked half rhetorically as
he grabbed Cheri's hand and dove for the car. The THRUSH personnel
were already running out of the town.

Cheri tugged back. "It won't work," she started to explain as Illya
slid behind the wheel and turned the key. The engine came to life
without hesitation. She gave the car a very old-fashioned look as she
allowed Napoleon to bundle her into the back seat where she collapsed
gratefully.

They sped past the still fleeing THRUSH people, noting that they were
helping their weaker members, mostly haggard looking women, on their
headlong rush out. A couple of trucks appeared off side streets,
stopping long enough to gather up anyone who wanted a ride and then
accelerating out of the village, up the slope to higher ground.

At the top of the rise, all three of the vehicles stopped, watching as
a wall of water rose out at sea, a huge wave, cresting, slamming down
into the harbor and then across the seawall into the fitfully burning
remains of Innsmouth. The sea put out the fires, covering everything
in the valley and then rushing up the slope toward the vehicles. It
stopped about six feet below them, held and slowly began to recede
back toward the harbor.

Cheri watched out the back window as the water took the town. She
envisioned water pouring down into the room with the vat, the stuff
that had tried to claim her life mixing with the salty water. The idea
shook her. A vision of the entire area surfaced in that stuff made her
shudder. Surely it couldn't make a transformation of that much
seawater, could it? It was probably lucky that she was unaware of the
same question running through the minds of Napoleon, Illya and Darnall
at the same time.

For just a moment, her gaze met that of the man she called Darnall.
His brows pulled downward as he looked at her, as though she triggered
some sort of memory he couldn't quite pull up. She popped the back
door and stuck her head out. "Hey." He looked at her again. "You're
Royke Darnall, aren't you?"

Something flickered across his face before it became stone again. "No."

"No?" She considered her options. No point in annoying him as he'd
just helped them out. "Sorry. You bear a remarkable resemblance to
him." She was distracted by another coughing fit dredging more gunk up
out of her lungs. When she could breathe again, he was gone.

Napoleon and Illya climbed back into the car, Napoleon assuming the
driving duties this time. Illya had resumed his usual inscrutable
look, keeping his thoughts to himself. Napoleon was content not to
discuss what had just happened. At Arkham, they made the decision to
stop, get cleaned up, eat and get some rest before heading for Bangor
and a flight back to New York. Cheri's cough was worrying the two men,
although neither had said anything yet.

Illya made the hotel reservations for them. Napoleon's clothing still
held the remnants of the stuff he dived into to rescue Cheri. He was
freshly showered and shaved before she dragged herself out of the tub
and wrapped up in the thick terry robe supplied by the management.
Illya checked in on her before ordering room service for the three of
them. He was shocked by how ill she looked.

"Probably just coming down with pneumonia. Who knows what was growing
in that vat? Come to think of it, if anyone did, they're dead now. My
lungs feel horrible. I'll survive." He pointed out a hospital might be
a good idea. She demurred. "Food, a good night's sleep, I'll be fine.
If I'm still feverish and coughing up gunk tomorrow, I'd rather see
UNCLE Bangor and a hospital there, OK?"

Illya agreed, with unspoken reservations. While Innsmouth had
disturbed him, he saw no reason to distrust the town of Arkham. This
was a thriving university town, the least likely place to run into
THRUSH intrusions. He shoved away memories of a couple of affairs that
erupted on college campuses in the last few years. Disgruntled
doctoral candidates did not seem particularly applicable in sleepy,
dignified Arkham.