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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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Inside the building it was dark. Cheri held the handkerchief over her
nose and mouth, hoping her eyes would adjust before she found
something to break an ankle on. Darnall walked straight to the far
wall. A portion slid back and sideways. Cheri's thoughts were
unrepeatable in polite company. The deeper she went, the less she
liked the look of what was going on here and the creepier it became.
Just what she always wanted, to be one of the lead investigators in
Lovecraft based horror movie. Not.

The stairway on the other side of the wall went down in the approved
horror tradition. Darnall's grip on her arm was not loosening. Another
door slid away opening up into a huge cavern of a room with balconies
and catwalks festooned around the walls and across the great open
area. In the center was a huge, clear-sided vat of something
translucent and gelid. Over to the far side was a bank of consoles
with monitor screens and brightly blinking lights.

There were people all over the area, most of them moving at that
deliberate shuffle she'd noted in Darnall. The eye-drawing exception
was a woman clad in an exotic robe that crossed Chinese embroidery
opulence with the fabric expanse of an Arabic abba. Her gestures were
expansive. Her lank dark hair was piled atop her head in wild
arabesques. Heavy eyeliner enhanced her wide-set, large dark eyes
while her teeth were granted a pale gleam by her carmine red lips. She
looked like a fantasy vampire with delusions.

"What are you doing in here?" Contrary to expectations, her voice was
shrill, nasal and grating on the ear.

"Her car did not start."

There was a sudden silence and Cheri found she was the magnet for
every eye in the place, some of them less than sane looking. "Damn
those rental car places. They're supposed to take better care of their
product, y'know. I'm Cheri," she chattered, starting down the stairs
only to be brought up short by the hand still clamped on her arm.

The woman moved toward the stairway with an odd gliding motion that
raised Cheri's hackles, or would have had she been a wolf. As it was,
there was the incredible sensation of having the hair on the back of
her head lift slightly. Restrained from moving, she waited for the
woman to mount the stairs. Instead, the other entered an ornate lift
that rose to the side of the catwalk/balcony that branched away from
the landing where they stood. She stepped out onto the landing and
held out a hand to Cheri.

Darnall's hand slipped from her arm then as the oddly articulated
fingers of the other woman's hand clutched Cheri's. The UNCLE agent
flicked a glance down and then up. This had to be a dream. The woman's
fingers carried an extra joint each; her wide eyes were protuberant,
regarding Cheri with a fixed intensity that made the agent want to
stab something into them.

"Come with me."

"I am getting fucking tired of people saying that," Cheri hissed. The
man still beside her started at the venom in her low voice.
Unfortunately, where Darnall was strong, this woman was stronger.

"I am Cornelia de Whateil. You are the one for whom we have waited.
Come. This way. You are perfect." With unnatural strength she pulled
the agent along with her.

As they reached the center of the catwalk, Cheri finally found
purchase to really balk at being dragged along. Below her was the
tank. She had a very bad feeling about being on the catwalk above the
vat of whatever that stuff was. She threw out a free hand and grabbed
for a support. Cornelia continued forward, pulling steadily. Cheri
thought her arm was gong to pull out of the socket before the woman
finally figured out that her unwilling companion had stopped.

"What are you doing? Foolish woman. Immortality awaits you. Come."

The strident voice echoed inside her head for a moment, then she shook
it and kicked out at the other woman. "No!" She pulled her hand free,
leaving some skin behind. Gaining the freedom to move at will again,
Cheri struck out with all the force she could muster, knocking
Cornelia back against the railing where she flailed for a moment
before regaining her balance.

Her lips writhed away from sharp, white teeth in a travesty of a
smile. "You are a fool," she repeated herself. "I grant you greatness
and you pull away. You do not understand …"

"Oh, I get, bitch," Cheri shot back. "You have some demented idea
about that vat and my insertion into it. I don't drown for anyone. I
don't get sacrificed for any reason and I sure as hell do not
volunteer for THRUSH experiments. Got that?"

"You defy me?" The THRUSH, if that's what she was, became angry. "You,
pitiful mortal, defy me?"

"Yeah. You got a problem with that?"

Cornelia flashed forward, wrapping her hands around Cheri's neck and
then arching backwards, pulling Cheri away from the railing and
further toward the center of the catwalk. "You are the only one with a
problem."

Several shots echoed through the cavernous room. Cornelia looked to
see who dared interrupt her. Had her opponent had the breath, she'd
have cheered. UNCLE to the rescue, came the frivolous thought as she
clawed at the hands around her throat and sought an opening to damage
her opponent. One hand came loose. Cheri pulled back and then launched
forward. Oh shit, was the next thought as her move slid both of them
halfway through the railings to dangle above the vile looking stuff below.

Cheri grabbed desperately for one of the supports and caught it,
leaving her stretched between Cornelia and the support. The other
woman was remarkably heavy. Now her other shoulder felt like it was
being pulled out of the socket. She looked down into the other woman's
eyes and recoiled. "You want up? You're gonna have to do the work, bimbo."

"Up? Don't be foolish. Down is the only way to go. Come with me …"
There was a seductive tone to her voice.

"Like hell!"

On the floor beneath them, Napoleon and Illya were chivying the men
below across the floor away from the vat. Both of them thought it odd
that not one of their opponents was carrying a gun, or if they were,
bothering to use them. All of them shambled toward the walls except
the man who had grabbed Cheri.

Once the lot of them had been told to stay where they were, the two
men tried to figure out the fastest way to get to the fighting women
where they dangled from the swaying catwalk.

"The stairway .." they said in unison with mirror nods as they started
across the floor.

Cornelia clawed her way back onto the catwalk, in spite of her stated
destination of the vat below them. "You have a destiny!" she
screeched, her fingers stretching and hooking like a bird of prey's
talons.

Cheri defended herself, wishing she could find enough time to ditch
the trench coat that was seriously hampering her movements. The
catwalk was seriously unsteady beneath her feet as she dodged and
threw slamming fists that kept missing her sinuous opponent. Head
ringing from a tremendous slap, Cheri fumbled for her gun feeling like
she was underwater. True to form for the day, the gun fumbled right
out of her hand, fell to the catwalk, skittered between the two of
them and tumbled off into the vat with a viscous plopping sound. It
floated on the surface looking tiny and forlorn.

Napoleon and Illya hit the catwalk, guns at the ready, moving
cautiously forward. "It's over," Napoleon called.

"No! It is only beginning!" Cornelia lunged at Cheri, grabbing her
hand and sinking her teeth into the wrist.

Cheri swore, cocked her other fist back and slammed it into the
strangely leering face. The teeth came out of her hand, a look of
horror crossing Cornelia's face that apparently had nothing to do with
the fist that rocked her head back. She spit blood and screeched,
backing away and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

"She's not the one!" she screamed and glared around wildly, her gaze
falling on the Russian. "She's not the one," she repeated, staring
into Illya's bright gaze. "You … you …"

"I don't think so." Cheri spun her around and slammed a flat palm into
her face, knocking her backward off her feet.

Cornelia flailed for a moment, losing her balance a second time and
pitching over the railing, her robe twisting around one of the
supports and pulling away from the body beneath. Tangled in the
fabric, she came to a halt a couple of feet below the walkway.
Instinct sent Cheri to her knees, reaching for the woman. There was a
ripping sound as once again the THRUSH grabbed Cheri. This time she
pulled and Cheri lost her grip, slipping off the walk. Napoleon's grab
came fractionally too late to keep her from plunging past Cornelia who
lashed out with a kick that somehow connected. Consciousness ebbing,
she landed flat, face down in the translucent goo. The landing knocked
the wind out of her with an ugly sort of gurgle. Darkness closed in
and took her down.

"Cheri!" Napoleon threw his partner a look as he tried to pull
Cornelia up onto the catwalk. The robe ripped as Illya turned and
dashed for the stairway behind him. .

Cornelia smiled broadly, missing the fact that she was farther out the
catwalk than Cheri had been. She fell as the fabric parted, landing
half on the walkway surrounding the top of the tank. Her face froze as
her neck and back broke, depriving her of the survival she had clearly
expected. The body then fell slowly off the walkway to the floor.

Napoleon knelt there for a moment, knowing she was dead and suspecting
that Cheri was also. Illya was almost to the floor when he threw
caution to the wind, tossed Illya his gun and dove into the stuff
slowly dragging Cheri down into it. He hit with a major splopping
noise. The stuff was like half solidified Jell-O. He dragged his arms
up and worked on swimming across the couple of feet separating him
from Cheri's sinking form. It was something like working his way
across a bog or quick sand.

He reached into the goo, pulling Cheri's head up out of the stuff. As
he had thought, she wasn't breathing. A pole appeared at his side.
Illya was kneeling on the walkway holding the other end of some sort
of tool. Napoleon took the offered help gratefully, hooking one arm
around Cheri's shoulders to keep her head above the stuff they were
slowly sinking into.

A second pair of hands appeared to help him out of the vat, and to
pull Cheri's limp body up as well. He met the black eyes of the man
Cheri knew as Darnall. There was more life in them than Cheri had
seen. Slowly, he seemed to be coming back to whoever he was under
normal circumstances.

"She helped," he answered the unspoken question obliquely.

"She's dead."

"She's not breathing," Illya corrected as he turned her over and
applied the correct technique for getting water out of a borderline
drowning victim. Just as he was about to give up, she coughed and
spewed up a quantity of the stuff she'd fallen into. He held her as
she hacked and choked and spit up as much as she could, taking short,
painful breaths in between.

"Fuck," she finally enunciated hoarsely. She blinked and tried to sit
up. Illya helped her to do so. She caught Napoleon's shocked look and
tried to laugh, which immediately turned into a choking fit. Finally,
a bit red in the face, she asked him not to look at her like that or
he'd set her off again.

That got a smile.

"Did we win?" she asked huskily.

"I think so. At least, they're not fighting us."

"Good. Ow. It hurts to breathe."

"We'll get you out of here. You're friend helped rescue you." Napoleon
gestured to the THRUSH agent.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

"Uhm … were there any female agents? Support staff? Secretaries?"

He frowned in thought, then nodded slowly. "Yes. There were. Some of
the techs were women."

"Might wanta find `em before you burn the place to the ground," she
recommended.

"Burn?" Napoleon echoed.

"Better idea?"

"Burn," Illya agreed unexpectedly.

Napoleon looked from one to the other of his partners curiously. "I'll
call for back up."