Author: Kei

Warning: Slash, Violence

Pairing: Napoleon Solo / Illya Kuryakin

Rating: R

Archive: Sure, if you don't mind.

Disclaimers: See Part 1

Notes: this might be a little gross in parts.

THE WILDING AFFAIR, Part 3
 
 

Blood.

It was everywhere.

The UNCLE recon team that had finally passed beyond the barrier of the protective shield surrounding the lone open door to the former THRUSH satrap had known what to expect. They had heard the report given by Mark and April, had seen the shadowy images transmitted by the robot camera unit that had swept the area before them, but to actually be here and *see*...

One of the junior UNCLE agents had barreled out of the place ...heaving.

And not only the junior members felt the effects.

A dizzying surge of nausea that had nothing to do with the flu twisted within Illya Kuryakin's stomach. Despite the emotional
fortress that he had constructed for himself during his years of service with the KGB and UNCLE, he found himself not immune to the sights before him -hard, he may have been, but he was no robot. Even Napoleon, usually ever ready with some comment born of amused detachment, had fallen grimly silent, for once too overcome with revulsion to continue his present flirtatious campaign...and *that* was saying something.

Given the all-clear, a team of UNCLE operatives had entered the site, clothed in protective gear that made them look like refugees from that movie "Outbreak" that Napoleon had recently badgered him into watching, the tacit suspicion that the as yet unseen THRUSH lab had been working with biohazardous materials now more or less a certainty.

But *this*...

The walls were covered in gouts of semi-coagulated gore, the broken bodies of THRUSH operatives seemingly strewn about by a giant hand. So far, the body count had reached twenty-three and UNCLE had yet to cover the entire grounds. "Bozhe moi..."

Solo turned at the sound of his partner's voice. Amongst the many bullet-riddled bodies, Kuryakin had knelt before one dead form, the knees of his uniform stained in sanguinous red. "Gerhardt..." he said, gesturing with a hand that trembled slightly despite himself. "He is... He *was* one of ours -Berlin branch."

The blonde agent pried the Uzi submachine gun from stiffened fingers. "Clip completely empty. One of ours did all this -why?"

"No idea, Tovarisch. Deep undercover operatives *have* cracked before,  but..."  The older agent sighed aloud, a frown creasing the dark brow as he reached forward and turned the dead man's head. "But he didn't eat his own gun." Agent Gerhardt's head lolled grotesquely to one side, revealing the gaping slash wound along his throat. "Looks like someone  jumped him from behind...straight-edged razor perhaps."

"Sirs?"

The two partners jumped up at the sound of the voice of one of the  junior operatives. The young black man, a member of  UNCLE's Toronto branch, had blanched a sickly yellow. "We've found the lab... Mr. Slate said that you should come right away."

There was no hesitation as Solo and Kuryakin followed the younger man's lead down one corridor and then another in what seemed to be nothing less than a maze in a house of horrors. What they had seen in the outer rooms of the satrap was  displayed again along their circuitous route. Bodies littered the halls...and yet...not all of them had been shot. One, in fact, had hung himself with his own belt.Some lay twisted as if caught in the final throes of some supreme agony -the effects of some kind of poison? Not murder? Mass suicide? And yet, there had been no sign...no sound of this picked up by the many hidden listening devices that UNCLE had secreted here - could *these* victims have been *that* willing?

Solo suppressed a shudder of physical revulsion -what the HELL *had* happened here?

Mark Slate met them part way, his visage pasty and pale. "I don't know what these blokes were up to...but I think we could be in trouble."

There was no need to question the cryptic comment.

It was a room within a room, different than all the rest...sterile and white. Or it would have been. It was a lab -true- but no longer sterile...or white. The door which should have sealed off the lab from the rest of the compound was open, its lock twisted and scorched by what appeared to have been an explosion, and beyond the multi- layered glass...standing out somehow, in the middle of an area that appeared to have been hit by a tornado...was a single, broken, test tube marked "Batch 3".

And on the furthermost wall, was a message, written in human blood: "Now is opened Pandora's Box."
 
 
 
 
 

End of Part 3
 
 

"Outbreak"  c/o Warner Home Video