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MfU Fic: The Bitch from UNCLE
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theladyrose, who has a weakness for "observer commentary on the guys, especially when it's from fellow professionals." I'm pretty sure this wasn't what she had in mind, which just goes to show that you should be careful what you wish for.
The Bitch from UNCLE, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love (or at Least Like) Illya Kuryakin
Rating: Family friendly
Summary: The title says it all, really.
July 10 1965
Dear Diary,
Today I had another free and frank exchange of views with Kuryakin. Sometimes I wonder if he's deliberately trying to make my job downright impossible.
In his annual Christmas Dinner speech, Mr Waverly likes to get a little sentimental and refer to UNCLE as "one big happy family." He's right, in a way; at least as far as Section II is concerned. Most of the field agents are displaced persons in one way or another - most of them are orphans, or claim to be, and they don't seem to be the marrying kind either. That's something the girls on the support staff figure out pretty quickly, or, if they don't, they resign with a broken heart in a matter of weeks. Field agents don't commit. Period. And that leaves UNCLE as pretty much the only family they have. The part of Waverly's description I'd take issue with is the "big happy" part, because, as with any family, UNCLE suffers from tensions and rivalries and even flat out dislike between people who, like siblings, aren't associating by choice, and would much prefer to have Daddy's approval all to themselves. Yes, it gets pretty darned childish at times. And the most childish of all is Kuryakin.
I suppose it's because Kuryakin is Waverly's pet project, proof to the world that UNCLE is a truly international organization that transcends ideological and political boundaries, that he's able to get away with behavior that other agents would be hauled onto the carpet for (I'll say only one word: Terbuf). He's also the world's biggest know-it-all, and woe betide anyone who fails to acknowledge his gigantic brain by daring to give him eg. background information for a mission, without checking if he already knows it. Briefing Kuryakin is like walking on egg-shells, because if anything you say or do scratches his precious ego, he turns aggressive.
"It takes two to tango, Lisa," said Mandy, when I complained to her about the latest outburst, "You rub him up the wrong way."
"Since when does doing my job efficiently equal rubbing someone up the wrong way?" I demanded. "You mean because I don't spend my time offering back-rubs and ego-massages, like some staff members I could mention? As far as I can see that's the only kind of rubbing that would count as the right way."
"It's just a little friendly human contact, that's all," said Mandy in her "humor Lisa" voice.
"Funny how it's always the girls massaging the guys," I said. "I don't see any of the male Section II agents rushing over to offer me a back rub when I get back from a mission."
Mandy muttered something that sounded a lot like "What a surprise," but I ignored her. Being unpopular doesn't mean I'm stupid. I know what most of my big happy UNCLE family think of me, but I see no reason to lower my standards to fit in with their preconceptions of what a woman should be. I'm intelligent, I'm highly trained, I face danger on a regular basis, and the day I offer a man a back rub will be the day I finally lose all self-respect.
July 12 1965
Dear Diary,
This has been a night and a half! I don't know if I'll be able to get even the half of it down on paper, but I'll give it a try. It all started shortly before midnight (I was still in my office, preparing a briefing for an upcoming mission) when two youngsters broke into Del Floria's. We don't have security cameras in the shop part of the entrance, only in the changing booth (which in the light of yesterday's events maybe isn't such a good idea), and they somehow managed to get in through the window without tripping the alarm. That meant the first I knew of their presence was when they showed up on the screen, scrabbling around inside the booth.
They were pretty young kids. I'm not that good at guessing how old children are, because I try to spend as little time in their company as possible, but my nephew turned twelve in June and these two looked younger than that. Anyway, they were close enough to being innocent babies rather than nasty-minded adolescents that I just assumed they'd gotten in there by accident. My feminine intuition must have been taking a vacation that day, or maybe it was off having its nails manicured, because I didn't feel any lurking sense of unease, just irritation that I had to interrupt the brief I was working on to go down and throw these very juvenile delinquents out.
I paged Wanda that I was on my way - she was on reception that night because we were expecting Galloway and Ramachandran back from New Delhi - and went down to the entrance to put the fear of God into the troublemakers before packing them off home to Mom; but when I got there Wanda said "I think you'd better watch them for a moment, Lisa, there's something funny going on here."
So I watched. At first I couldn't see what she was getting at. They just looked like two normal kids to me. One of them was scrambling around the booth, prodding the mirror and lifting up the carpet, and the other one, who was little and fair and unbelievably scruffy-looking, was standing quietly in the corner watching him. And then I realized that the the older boy was searching for a way in. Those two hadn't just accidentally found their way into the booth; they were trying to break into UNCLE.
At that moment the younger kid moved for the first time. He didn't say anything, but he pointed at the hook on the wall and made a gesture as if he was turning it.
"They've cracked it," said Wanda.
"Better let them in, then," I said rather grimly. "Initiative should be rewarded, don't you think?"
Wanda pressed the button and the door swung open. The older boy swung with it, still hanging onto the hook like a monkey, and let out a whoop of triumph which, I'm glad to say, broke off in mid-crescendo when he caught sight of two uniformed adults staring at him. For a moment he hung there, his jaw wide open, then he seemed to pull himself together and jumped down, stumbling slightly on impact.
"Good evening, ladies," he said, when he'd recovered himself. "I'm awfully sorry to disturb you like this, but could you tell me if this is the headquarters of the You En See Ell Ee?"
Wanda could barely smother a giggle, and I probably would have smiled myself, except that being a highly trained agent I noticed that the little fair boy had chosen that moment to take to his heels. I dashed after him, although not very fast because Mr Waverly, who, for all his virtues, is a gentleman of the old school, insists that we girls wear heels as part of our uniform; but luckily the boy couldn't get very far, because whoever let them in had shut the window after them. When I came into the shop, the kid was just levering it up, and of course that set off the alarm. It's an extremely loud alarm, designed to put off casual crooks trying their luck, because of course it's linked directly to HQ and needn't actually make any noise at all. Anyway, the effect on this particular mini-crook was startling - at the first sound of the wail he froze and his face turned white under the grime. Then, as the ululation got louder, he scrambled over the counter and curled up in the space underneath the steam press, with his arms wrapped around his head. It was a stupid move on his part, because it was much easier for me to walk over there and drag him out than it would have been to chase him halfway down the street. As I approached, though, a powerful smell of unwashed child made me reluctant to get too close, so I reached out my finger and thumb and took him by the ear. He didn't try to resist when I towed him after me - which was just as well for him, as I have an excellent backhand - but when I got him into reception Wanda said disapprovingly "What have you been doing to him, Lisa? He's shaking like a leaf."
"Nothing," I said, annoyed by the implication that I was guilty of cruelty to minors, "The alarm frightened him, that's all."
"Scared him half to death, more like," said Wanda. "It's all right, sweetheart, no-one's going to hurt you. You can let go of his ear, now," she added, throwing a bitter glance at me.
Feeling rather out of my depth, I did as she suggested. I've never been good with children. I don't understand them and I'm quite sure they don't understand me, but I did feel a bit guilty, because now Wanda came to mention it, it was clear that Stinky really had been badly frightened. Also, I may have pulled his ear harder than I intended, because he was rubbing it as if it hurt.
"Would you like some candy to make it better?" I asked him. I'm told that candy has magical powers where children are concerned. Personally, I would have preferred a stiff whisky, but we're not allowed to keep alcohol on the premises, whereas Wanda has large quantities of chocolate in her desk drawer. Most of it comes from admirers, of which Wanda has many, and I was a little concerned that it might count as a corrupting influence to give children chocolate that a man had given you in the hopes of receiving sexual favors. However, I wasn't sure if we had any untainted chocolate to hand.
At this point the older boy piped up. "It's no good offering him candy, he doesn't understand English," he said condescendingly, as if he was smarter than everyone else present.
"What language does he speak then?" asked Wanda.
The boy shrugged. He was a good-looking child, with very striking brown eyes and long lashes, but he had a self-possessed manner which irked me no end.
"Would you like some candy?" I asked.
Smartypants' eyes lit up, but he affected a show of nonchalance and said casually "I wouldn't mind. What sort have you got?" It was a good move. If he'd said yes, I'd been going to say "Well, you can't have any." I suspect Wanda would have told me off again, but it would have been worth it. However, since he'd blocked that particular attack, I went and rummaged through the reception desk. I was pretty sure there'd be something suitable in there.
In the meantime, Wanda was concentrating on Stinky. She'd crouched down in front of him - not an easy balancing act in heels and a tight skirt - and was holding his hand. "I'm Wanda," she was saying, and patting her chest, "Wanda, Wanda. Who are you?"
"Wanda," repeated Stinky, watching her warily. His outstretched arm was as stiff as a board - he looked like an animal caught in trap. Not a big, dangerous animal, more something small and furry that expects to be eaten.
"Put his hand down, Wanda," I said, glad to have a chance to get my own back, "He's obviously terrified of you."
Wanda pouted, but she let go of the hand. Stinky immediately stuck it in his pocket, but he didn't try to run away. Instead, his eyes flickered round the room, always coming to rest on Wanda and me.
"Have you got that candy yet?" Smartypants asked.
"Nearly," I said, digging through Wanda's drawer. I found what I was looking for underneath a packet of rose-scented tissues. "Here you are."
Smartypants took one and put it straight into his mouth. I watched him closely. After the first bite, his eyes bulged slightly, and he swallowed hard, then coughed. "Thank you, that was delicious," he gasped, his eyes streaming.
"Lisa!" said Wanda, "Those are alcoholic chocolates! You can't give them to children!"
"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, "I didn't realize. Now then, young man, unless you want another chocolate, you'd better tell me just what you were doing trying to break into UNCLE HQ."
"Lisa!" began Wanda again, but Smartypants interrupted her as if she didn't exist.
"So this is the U.N.C.L.E.," he said smugly. "In that case, I've got a letter for Mr -" he hesitated slightly - "Mr Wavey".
Wanda giggled. "You mean Mr Waverly," she said. Smartypants turned pink. "That's what I meant to say," he drawled, a fraction of a second too late to be convincing.
"Give me the letter," I said, heading over to the intercom to summon Mr Waverly, who was working late that night. Whatever was going on here, I wasn't going to miss the chance to hand it over to someone else.
"Sorry, no can do," said Smartypants, "I promised the French guy I'd deliver it to Wave-early personally."
"Well, I have to check it for booby traps," I told him. "Sir? Lisa Rogers here. We have a situation in reception. Would you mind coming down? Thank you, sir. Okay kiddo, hand over the letter."
Smartypants shook his head stubbornly. "I gave him my word," he said, as if this ended the matter.
"And what if your letter turns out to contain explosives and you blow Mr Waverly up?" I asked, "Will that be okay as long as you kept your word?"
Smartypants looked flustered. "Um," he began uncertainly, only to be saved from his moral dilemma by the unmistakable sound of retching from behind him. While we were debating, Stinky had liberated the chocolates and, within a time frame of about five seconds, had apparently inhaled the lot. But quietly. So quietly that no-one had noticed.
"Oh God!" shrieked Wanda, "He's gonna throw up! Quick, get him to the bathroom!"
She grabbed Stinky by the hand and disappeared. That left me and Smartypants alone.
"So," I said, to make polite conversation, while we waited for Waverly, "Since it seems you do speak English, what's your name?"
Smartypants took a deep breath and stuck his chin in the air.
"Napoleon Solo."
"What?!" I said.
Smartypants blushed again, pinker than before. "That's how people always react," he said miserably, then added hastily, with a visible effort at haughtiness, "Napoleon. Like Bonaparte, you know? The famous French general?"
"I know who Napoleon was, thank you very much," I said. "And I also know who Napoleon Solo is."
Smartypants looked thrilled. "You do?"
"Yes. And you're not him."
"Sure I am. You think I'd make up a name like that?"
I eyed him skeptically. The chances of him coming up with that particular name all by himself were, it had to be admitted, extremely slim. So why had someone suggested he pretend that was what he was called? And, perhaps more to the point, who was that someone? Since it didn't seem likely that I'd get an honest answer out of him on this issue, I tried a different tack.
"What's your friend's name?"
Smartypants shrugged again, as if to say that the question didn't interest him. "I don't know. He's not my friend. My friends don't smell."
It was true that Stinky wasn't what you'd call fragrant, but this struck me as an unnecessarily mean remark, so I bored a little harder.
"If he isn't your friend, how come he was trying to break into UNCLE with you?"
At that moment, Mr Waverly came in, no more pleased than I had been at having his work interrupted.
"What's going on, Miss Rogers?" he barked, "And what is this young person doing here?"
"He has a letter for you," I said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world for little boys to turn up at HQ at midnight bearing missives for the Old Man. "I don't know who he is. He says his name's Napoleon. This is Mr Wavey," I added, turning to the kid, "so hand it over."
"Do you have some ID, sir?" asked Smartypants, living up to his name.
Waverly regarded him for a moment, then solemnly removed his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and held it open to reveal his UNCLE card. Smartypants studied it, nodded and pulled a rather crumpled envelope from the pocket of his short pants. Waverly tore it open and began to read, then his mouth opened in a perfect circle and he gulped several times, just like a fish. Eventually he managed to gasp "What did you say this boy's name was?"
"Napoleon," I said hesitantly, unnerved by the gulp. Waverly turned pale and passed the letter over to me like a man incapable of speech. So I read it.
Alexander, my dear old trout,
If you want Solo and Kuryakin returned to their usual condition, you will have to hand over the thought translator. The children can tell you when and where to bring it. I have no fear that this letter will not reach you, as Solo has given me his word of honour that he will deliver it to you personally. He is a delightful boy, so honest and upstanding, just the kind of person I have always preferred to deal with, n'est-ce pas? Alas, I cannot say the same of Kuryakin - the little brat has already tried to pick my pocket. He is even more dislikeable as a child than he was as a young man, which is saying a great deal.
I am sure you will wish to hurry up in handing over the translator, dear Alexander. Within the next 24 hours if the process is not to become irreversible. Looking after young people can be so hard on the nerves, and you are not as fit as you were.
With best wishes,
ton vieil ami
Victor XXX
It was my turn to gulp like a fish. I looked at Smartypants, then at Waverly, then back at Smartypants. It was true that he had much the same coloring as Solo, and though his chin wasn't nearly so prominent, there was a deep dimple nesting in the tip. And he certainly had something of Napoleon's manner. He was returning our twin gazes with a quizzical look of his own that we both knew only too well, though it normally adorned a more adult face, when the door flew open and Wanda stalked in, dragging Stinky behind her. His face looked much cleaner than it had before, but as if in some kind of karmic exchange, his clothes were now spattered with vomit.
"We didn't get there in time," said Wanda between gritted teeth. "I've washed his face, but I don't know what to do about his clothes - oh, hello, Uncle Alexander, you got here fast."
Waverly's eyes were narrow with horror as he took in the picture of his niece and the grubby little boy trailing behind her. "Wanda, my dear," he said faintly, "whatever have you been doing with Mr Kuryakin?"
Wanda started guiltily. "Mr Kuryakin? Er, nothing, Uncle, nothing at all! If you mean that time in the map room, I was just helping him find ..." Her voice trailed off as she found the object of his stricken gaze. "Oh," she said faintly. "You don't mean that this is...?"
Kuryakin has never been my favorite colleague, but in his current incarnation, with chocolate-flavored vomit down his front and a thick snail of snot bubbling down from his left nostril, he looked even less appealing than usual. Wanda, evidently fearing Waverly would blame her for the distasteful appearance of his pet project, said hastily "It's not my fault, he gobbled up a whole box of chocolates!"
"Did he indeed?" said Waverly. "Would you come here, please, Mr Kuryakin?"
The boy jumped slightly at the word Kuryakin and fixed wary eyes on Waverly, but made no move to approach him.
"Is that his name?" said Smartypants with interest. "It's really weird!"
"It's not weird, it's Russian," I informed him.
"Russian? Neat! My grandfather was Ambassador to Moscow once. He said they had cockroaches in the kitchen as big as cats. Hey, you, Spasibo, velikomu Stalinu!"
Stinky looked startled and said something unintelligible. Waverly groaned. "Mr Solo appears to be on the right track," he said. "Do we have a Russian speaker in the building?"
"Apart from Illya, you mean?" said Wanda, who was carefully applying perfume to her wrists, probably to cover up the eau de Kuryakin. "Not a chance. The translation team will all be tucked up in their beds by now - it's 1.30 in the morning, Uncle Alexander. Normal people sleep at this time."
"Do you speak any more Russian?" I asked Smartypants, who shook his head regretfully. I think he would have liked to impress us all with his linguistic flair, but fate wasn't having it.
"Hmmm, well, if we have no Russian speakers..." said Waverly thoughtfully. "How old do you think Mr Kuryakin is right now?"
"I have no idea," and "Seven or eight?" said Wanda and I simultaneously.
"Seven? That young? Still, it's worth a try," said Waverly, in the same thoughtful tone. "Illya Kuryakin! Sprichst du deutsch?"
The effect on the child was remarkable, if less spectacular than his response to the burglar alarm. He froze into absolute stillness, one sleeve pressed against his nose, where he'd been wiping away the snot. Even his breathing stopped, but his eyes were glued to Waverly's face the way a mongoose fixates on a snake.
"Sprichst du deutsch?" repeated Waverly, and the boy nodded jerkily, still transfixed.
"Wir werden dir nichts antun," said Waverly quickly. "Wir sind keine Deutschen. Ich bin Engländer, das hier sind Amerikaner. Ich spreche nur deutsch, damit du mich verstehst."
The child's frozen-in-ice look gave way to one of deep suspicion. "Keine Deutschen?" he repeated. "Amerikaner?"
"What did he say?" asked Smartypants. "Is that German? I thought he was Russian."
"Well, he speaks German as well," I said.
"Why? Is he a Nazi?" asked Smartypants, who clearly held no truck with the adage that children should be seen and not heard. "I bet he is a Nazi, he looks like one, and he sure smells like one."
"Thank you for that contribution, Mr Solo," snapped Waverly. "Miss Rogers, you speak passable German; get Mr Kuryakin cleaned up, give him something to eat - something that isn't chocolate - and then bring him to my office in one hour for debriefing."
"My German really isn't all that good, sir," I said hastily.
"Isn't it?" Waverly was undeterred. "Never mind, you're a woman, you know how these things work, I daresay the language barrier won't be too much of an obstacle. Wanda, you can help her. Mr Solo, you come with me, I'm going to show you UNCLE HQ. I'm sure you'll find it very interesting. And Miss Rogers, don't let Mr Kuryakin eat himself sick," he added on the way out.
As the door swooshed shut behind him, Wanda and I exchanged one of those glances that every female UNCLE employee knows. We have a number of them. There's the "And once again the guys get to have the fun and we get to clean up" look, which was what we were using right now. Then there's "I do actually know how to use a gun, but go ahead, show me how, if it makes you feel more manly." There's also "Napoleon Solo is hitting on me AGAIN (but I don't want to hurt his feelings, so what can you do?)," which I luckily don't have to use so often as some girls, and "Men - they're just like little kids." Come to think of it, that last look was going to be appropriate for the next 24 hours, and maybe longer, if we couldn't get the rejuvenation process reversed. Wanda followed up on the glance with a frustrated sigh and said "What if Vikram arrives while we're in the bathroom? There'll be no-one at reception."
"Galloway will be with him," I said, indulging in a tiny measure of spite at the way Wanda contrives to use her stints on reception as an unofficial dating agency. "He can keep him company while they wait for you to resume flirtation duty. Anyway, you told Sarah you were hoping to "get up close and personal" with Kuryakin. It looks like this is your big chance."
Wanda glared at me. "You know perfectly well this wasn't what I had in mind," she said. "Oh well, come on small fry, time for another appointment with Mr Soap and Mr Water."
What I had imagined would be a quick wash and brush-up turned into something approaching the Battle of Midway. Stinky came with us quietly enough, and watched, with that curious silent passivity that seemed characteristic of him, while Wanda ran the bath, and put in about half a bottle of bubble bath, until the foam almost boiled out over the edge. As soon as we tried to get his clothes off, though, he turned uncooperative. This is a technical term meaning he struggled and screamed and scratched and bit until we gave up.
"What's the little tyke got against bathing?" said Wanda, panting heavily.
I didn't tell her she'd got a scratch on her nose - I was afraid it might push her over the edge, and I didn't think Waverly would be pleased if she broke Stinky's arm.
"Time to make use of our UNCLE training," I suggested, and pulled the lipstick out of my handbag.
"Lisa! You can't -" began Wanda, but it was too late. One puff in his face, and Stinky keeled over like a rag doll. Sleep gas is truly a girl's best friend.
"Oh well, I suppose it is an emergency," said Wanda, not sounding very conflicted. "How long will he be out?"
"Only about fifteen minutes," I said regretfully, "It was a tiny dose. The Old Man wants to see him in half an hour, remember?"
After that things went more smoothly. Wanda stripped the kid and I held his head out of the bubbles while she gave him a good scrubbing. He weighed less than I expected, but then there was less of him than I expected. I don't have much experience with children, as I keep telling you, and I've certainly never offered to give my nephew a bath, but I was pretty sure the ribs weren't supposed to be so visible. It struck Wanda as odd, too.
"I really don't think this can be Illya," she said, rubbing vigorously at a particularly stubborn patch of dirt, "He's got really nice muscles, and this kid is just skin and bone. Marton must have been lying."
"That's always a good null hypothesis," I agreed. "And I don't see how Kuryakin could have got so dirty in a couple of hours. This stuff is ingrained."
"And his clothes," said Wanda, wrinkling her nose in the direction of the filthy heap on the floor. "They obviously haven't been washed for weeks. Why would Marton bother to dress him up like that? I think he just found two likely-looking kids in the street somewhere and decided to try to pull one over us. I'm surprised at Uncle Alexander, falling for something like that."
"Don't rub so hard," I told her, eying the patch of dirt with sudden insight, "I think that's a bruise you're trying to soap off."
"Oh my God, the poor little thing," said Wanda, conscience-stricken. "But look, Lisa, this is an old bruise, several days at least, and I'm sure Illya didn't have one here."
"I wouldn't know," I said primly, "I haven't been privileged to examine Mr Kuryakin's upper thigh."
Wanda flushed slightly. "He was wearing squash shorts," she said defensively. "I just happened to glance in when he was warming up."
"Of course." I squirted shampoo into the child's tangled hair and then paused, my attention caught by a tiny movement. "I'll tell you one thing, Wanda, given how proud he is of his hair, I'm fairly certain Kuryakin didn't have lice."
Wanda squealed. "Oh, this is just revolting," she wailed, "Why do I always get stuck with these sorts of jobs?"
I didn't remind her that I'd been stuck with this job, too, but carried on grimly with the task of getting Stinky into a reasonably hygienic state before he woke up. It took longer than expected, thanks to the delousing procedure, but at last we had him cleaned, dried, and dressed in a pair of men's pajamas that I had borrowed from the infirmary, while his own clothes were in the washing machine. I have to admit that he looked sort of cute once he was clean. His hair was so fair it was almost white, and it stood straight up from his forehead in a comical tuft. When he sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawning hugely, he looked so much like a child in a Norman Rockwell painting that I wished I had a camera with me. Then I could have pinned a photo of him to the bulletin board the next time he was rude to me.
Next stop was the commissary. It was closed, of course, but I managed to find a few sandwiches and some milk in the fridge. Waverly's warning turned out to be justified, as Stinky stuffed his face with enormous enthusiasm.
"He's certainly got Illya's appetite," said Wanda, holding a ham salad sandwich out of reach until Stinky had had time to digest the previous one.
I didn't say anything. I found the single-mindedness with which the kid was consuming the food distinctly unnerving. My nephew is a real picky eater. Anything with leaves or tubers is on his Do Not Ingest list, and although my sister insists he always clears his plate, even Popeye couldn't persuade him to touch spinach. But Stinky was putting it all away with a complete lack of discrimination, one eye firmly on Wanda's salad sandwich, even while he was shoveling in the egg sandwiches from the plate in front of him. I had the feeling he hadn't eaten in quite a while.
When he turned his attention to the milk, he swallowed it down as if he was in a speed drinking contest. "Nicht so schnell," I said, but at the sound of my voice, his hand jerked and he dropped the glass, spattering the last dregs of milk over the table. It didn't make much of a mess, and luckily none of it went on his pajamas, but he got that rabbit-in-a-headlight look and stopped breathing again.
"No use crying over spilled milk," said Wanda brightly. "Here, have the last sandwich."
She waved it in Stinky's direction, but the boy didn't move. He looked so little and wretched and scared that I felt a sudden strange impulse to reassure him, and since the only language we had in common seemed to have rather traumatic effects, I put my hand on his shoulder instead. He tensed up, but didn't withdraw, so I left my hand there. I could feel his bony little shoulder through the cotton of the pajamas, as fragile as a bird's wing, and since he didn't seem to mind the touch, I started to rub it, but very gently, in case I broke something. For a moment, he stayed tense, and then I felt his muscles gradually relax, and he reached out and took the sandwich Wanda was still dangling in front of his nose.
"Good boy," I said, and when he glanced up at me, I smiled. Amazingly, he smiled back. A tiny smile, like a mouse poking its nose out from a hedge and then vanishing again, but a smile nonetheless. It gave me such a warm feeling inside, that for a moment I wondered if I was having a hot flash; I could see the headlines in my mind - Medical Wonder Manages Mid-Twenties Menopause - but then I realized it was probably just a sentimental reaction to having a cute kid smile at me. "Careful, Lisa," I said to myself, "The next thing you know you'll be exchanging saving the world for the thrills of washing diapers and cooking for a husband and 3.2 children." I decided I'd better get Stinky up to Waverly's office before he could smile at me again.
When we got there, the room was full of George Dennell in full-blown rocket scientist mode. I sat down at the table, and to my surprise and embarrassment Stinky clambered onto my lap. Mr Waverly smiled at me in a this-is-a-turn-up-for-the-books kind of way, but said nothing, and it seemed churlish to push Stinky off, so I put my arms around his waist and he leaned his head against my shoulder. He wasn't exactly relaxed, in fact I could feel the tension vibrating through his back, but I suppose he felt safer there, or maybe he just wanted a bit of human contact. I didn't have time to think about it, though, because George was off again. You could tell the Riddle of the Rejuvenated Agents was the most exciting challenge he had worked on in, oh, weeks. Since the Exploding Zipper Affair at least.
"Cellular matter transposition!" he said triumphantly. "Solo and Kuryakin haven't simply had their metabolic aging process reversed, they've been transposed on the space/time continuum with their younger selves."
Waverly chomped on his pipe end so hard I thought it might break off. "Damn and blast it!" he said, which for Waverly is the equivalent of a nervous breakdown in a lesser man. "Time travel! I can never keep track of who's who when."
"Oh, no, no, no," said George hastily. "In terms of physics, this is quite different from time travel, in that it involves an exchange of genetically identical bio-mass, thus conforming to the First Law of Thermodynamics, that -"
"Energy cannot be created or destroyed," I finished for him. It annoys me no end the way these nerdy types think nobody else has any understanding of science.
"Er, yes, quite right," said George, looking deflated.
"So what you are telling us," said Waverly, brightening up, "is that Mr Solo and Mr Kuryakin have, so to speak, swapped places with their younger selves?"
George nodded happily. "Great summary of the situation, sir!" he said. "They're probably in around 1942. That's a ball park date, based on cellular analysis of a sample taken from little Nappy here" - Smartypants treated him to an understandable glare - "which suggests that he's currently around eleven years old."
"Well, we need to swap them back," said Waverly, "before they start to interfere in past events. The mischief Mr Solo could wreak amongst the female population is too horrible to contemplate."
"Let's hope it's night time there, as well," I said, "because otherwise his Mom will freak out when she finds her darling little boy has acquired a whole new set of physical attributes."
At the mention of his mother, Smartypants sat up and started paying attention. "Am I going home soon, sir?" he asked. " I don't want my Mom to worry. She gets upset easily."
"Most certainly, just as soon as we can work out how to get you back," said Waverly reassuringly.
"I suppose handing over the thought translator is out of the question?" I asked.
"Absolutely," said Waverly. "Mr Dennell, you seem gratifyingly familiar with this transposition phenomenon. Who's been working on research in this area?"
"Well," said George happily - he loves the sound of his own voice, but can rarely get people in higher Sections to stay put long enough to listen to his lectures - "There's Sakomoto in Japan, but he's currently serving a jail sentence for attempting to defraud the state lottery; and there's Yrönpoika in Finland, but he disappeared recently and we suspect he may be collaborating with Thrush; so your best bet would be Professor Pauli at MIT."
"Finally some good news," said Waverly, "That's right on our doorstep. Wanda, my dear, put a call through to Galloway and Ramachandran, and tell them to pick up Professor Pauli on their way from the airport. And make sure they bring any equipment he needs to reverse a cellular matter transposition."
"So I'm going home when these guys get here?" asked Smartypants, who seemed to have a one-track mind when it came to getting what he wanted.
"That's right," said Waverly, and Smartypants turned to Stinky and said gleefully "Hey, we're going home!"
"Home," repeated Stinky thoughtfully. "Nach Hause?"
"Nach Hause," agreed Waverly.
Stinky's whole face lit up at that, like a kid who's been told that all the presents under the tree belong to him, and his brothers and sisters aren't getting any of them. If I'm honest, it actually made me feel horrible. Wherever we were sending him back to, I was fairly certain it wasn't what he thought of as home, not if the idea of home made him look that blissful. On the other hand, I didn't want to correct the impression and tell him he was merely going back to wherever he came from, because I was afraid he might run away or start crying or something, and I didn't think I could deal with that. Better to keep him in a cooperative mood. And, after all, whatever was waiting for him back there couldn't be all that bad, because I knew he would come through it relatively unscathed. In his grown-up incarnation, Illya Kuryakin doesn't really strike you as a man who's been damaged by horrible traumas.
"There is one more thing," said Waverly, "before we sit back and await the arrival of Mr Ramachandran and Mr Galloway. I have questioned Mr Solo extensively, and although his memories of his life up to the point where Thrush snatched him are entirely intact, there is a cushioning blur around his arrival in this time period. I presume it is a self-preservation mechanism on the part of the brain, to shield itself from the shock of the transposition. Mr Solo seems, in fact, to regard this whole incident as a kind of dream. Since his adult self may harbour the same belief, under no circumstances is anyone present permitted to raise this incident with either him or Mr Kuryakin when they return. That is an order."
I don't really want to write about what happened next.
I'll keep it short.
Galloway and Ramachandran turned up with the transposition device, which was a small box about the size of a TV with wires coming out of it. We sent Solo back first. He held on to two of the wires and Professor Pauli pressed a button and the whole room pulsed weirdly, and then suddenly a man was standing where the boy had been. It was our Napoleon, and he looked around in a complete daze, like a man who's been drugged, so Wanda took him off home to bed. She didn't come back that night, so it's a fair bet Solo wasn't so dazed that he couldn't take advantage of the situation.
Stinky didn't want to touch the box, so I took him by the hand and led him over there. He was still gripping my fingers when he picked up the first wire, and then he looked up at me and asked "Home?"
"Alles wird gut," I said, trying to ignore the prickling in my eyeballs. The air conditioning in Waverly's office dries them out terribly. "It'll be okay, I promise. Alles wird gut."
Then we sent him back.
July 13 1965
Dear Diary,
This morning in the commissary I found myself standing next to Kuryakin in the line for coffee, which is worth mentioning because we usually try to avoid each other. While he was occupied with piling danish pastries onto his plate, I snuck a sideways glance at him, trying to see if anything about him reminded me at all of Stinky. To my surprise, I caught him in the act of sneaking his own sideways glance right back at me. So I shifted to the offensive and raised an eyebrow, and Kuryakin had the grace to look embarrassed.
"I didn't mean to stare," he said, with what was, for him, extraordinary politeness. "It's just that for a moment you reminded me of someone."
"Oh, really?" I said. "Someone nice, I hope?"
There was a moment's silence and then Kuryakin said hesitantly "Yes, I think so. It was a long time ago, I don't really remember."
I couldn't think of anything to say that didn't involve blatantly disobeying Waverly's orders, so I held my tongue. Kuryakin seemed to find the silence uncomfortable, because after a while he said "I seem to be thinking about the past a lot recently. I had the most extraordinarily vivid dream about the Ukraine the other night."
"Yes?" I said, scarcely daring to breathe.
"Yes," he said, after a moment. "During the war, when I was living with the partisans, I got left behind once. I dreamed I was back in the woods, trying to catch up with them. I'd forgotten how alive the forest was."
"It must have been frightening," I said. "Getting left behind, I mean."
Kuryakin laughed. "I've been through worse," he said. "Trying to find my way around UNCLE HQ when I first arrived was far more difficult."
"I know, all the corridors look exactly the same!" I said. "The first time I was summoned to Waverly's office, I ended up in the infirmary."
"Isn't that usually what happens?" said Kuryakin with a grin, "Except that there's normally a mission in between."
"Hence the importance of being well-briefed," I said with a straight face.
Kuryakin eyed me for a moment, then laughed. "Touché," he said. "Sometimes I get so carried away with my own cleverness, I forget how important background information is."
"Well," I admitted, "information is only any use if it's actually useful." For a moment we smiled at each other, then Kuryakin said "Have a good day, Lisa," picked up his coffee and his pastries, and was gone.
"Hey, what was all that about?" demanded Mandy, who was standing on my other side and couldn't resist poking her nose in, as usual. "I thought you two weren't on speaking terms?"
"That just goes to show how much you know," I said triumphantly, "Illya's not so bad, if you know how to handle him."
theladyrose, who has a weakness for "observer commentary on the guys, especially when it's from fellow professionals." I'm pretty sure this wasn't what she had in mind, which just goes to show that you should be careful what you wish for.The Bitch from UNCLE, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love (or at Least Like) Illya Kuryakin
Rating: Family friendly
Summary: The title says it all, really.
July 10 1965
Dear Diary,
Today I had another free and frank exchange of views with Kuryakin. Sometimes I wonder if he's deliberately trying to make my job downright impossible.
In his annual Christmas Dinner speech, Mr Waverly likes to get a little sentimental and refer to UNCLE as "one big happy family." He's right, in a way; at least as far as Section II is concerned. Most of the field agents are displaced persons in one way or another - most of them are orphans, or claim to be, and they don't seem to be the marrying kind either. That's something the girls on the support staff figure out pretty quickly, or, if they don't, they resign with a broken heart in a matter of weeks. Field agents don't commit. Period. And that leaves UNCLE as pretty much the only family they have. The part of Waverly's description I'd take issue with is the "big happy" part, because, as with any family, UNCLE suffers from tensions and rivalries and even flat out dislike between people who, like siblings, aren't associating by choice, and would much prefer to have Daddy's approval all to themselves. Yes, it gets pretty darned childish at times. And the most childish of all is Kuryakin.
I suppose it's because Kuryakin is Waverly's pet project, proof to the world that UNCLE is a truly international organization that transcends ideological and political boundaries, that he's able to get away with behavior that other agents would be hauled onto the carpet for (I'll say only one word: Terbuf). He's also the world's biggest know-it-all, and woe betide anyone who fails to acknowledge his gigantic brain by daring to give him eg. background information for a mission, without checking if he already knows it. Briefing Kuryakin is like walking on egg-shells, because if anything you say or do scratches his precious ego, he turns aggressive.
"It takes two to tango, Lisa," said Mandy, when I complained to her about the latest outburst, "You rub him up the wrong way."
"Since when does doing my job efficiently equal rubbing someone up the wrong way?" I demanded. "You mean because I don't spend my time offering back-rubs and ego-massages, like some staff members I could mention? As far as I can see that's the only kind of rubbing that would count as the right way."
"It's just a little friendly human contact, that's all," said Mandy in her "humor Lisa" voice.
"Funny how it's always the girls massaging the guys," I said. "I don't see any of the male Section II agents rushing over to offer me a back rub when I get back from a mission."
Mandy muttered something that sounded a lot like "What a surprise," but I ignored her. Being unpopular doesn't mean I'm stupid. I know what most of my big happy UNCLE family think of me, but I see no reason to lower my standards to fit in with their preconceptions of what a woman should be. I'm intelligent, I'm highly trained, I face danger on a regular basis, and the day I offer a man a back rub will be the day I finally lose all self-respect.
July 12 1965
Dear Diary,
This has been a night and a half! I don't know if I'll be able to get even the half of it down on paper, but I'll give it a try. It all started shortly before midnight (I was still in my office, preparing a briefing for an upcoming mission) when two youngsters broke into Del Floria's. We don't have security cameras in the shop part of the entrance, only in the changing booth (which in the light of yesterday's events maybe isn't such a good idea), and they somehow managed to get in through the window without tripping the alarm. That meant the first I knew of their presence was when they showed up on the screen, scrabbling around inside the booth.
They were pretty young kids. I'm not that good at guessing how old children are, because I try to spend as little time in their company as possible, but my nephew turned twelve in June and these two looked younger than that. Anyway, they were close enough to being innocent babies rather than nasty-minded adolescents that I just assumed they'd gotten in there by accident. My feminine intuition must have been taking a vacation that day, or maybe it was off having its nails manicured, because I didn't feel any lurking sense of unease, just irritation that I had to interrupt the brief I was working on to go down and throw these very juvenile delinquents out.
I paged Wanda that I was on my way - she was on reception that night because we were expecting Galloway and Ramachandran back from New Delhi - and went down to the entrance to put the fear of God into the troublemakers before packing them off home to Mom; but when I got there Wanda said "I think you'd better watch them for a moment, Lisa, there's something funny going on here."
So I watched. At first I couldn't see what she was getting at. They just looked like two normal kids to me. One of them was scrambling around the booth, prodding the mirror and lifting up the carpet, and the other one, who was little and fair and unbelievably scruffy-looking, was standing quietly in the corner watching him. And then I realized that the the older boy was searching for a way in. Those two hadn't just accidentally found their way into the booth; they were trying to break into UNCLE.
At that moment the younger kid moved for the first time. He didn't say anything, but he pointed at the hook on the wall and made a gesture as if he was turning it.
"They've cracked it," said Wanda.
"Better let them in, then," I said rather grimly. "Initiative should be rewarded, don't you think?"
Wanda pressed the button and the door swung open. The older boy swung with it, still hanging onto the hook like a monkey, and let out a whoop of triumph which, I'm glad to say, broke off in mid-crescendo when he caught sight of two uniformed adults staring at him. For a moment he hung there, his jaw wide open, then he seemed to pull himself together and jumped down, stumbling slightly on impact.
"Good evening, ladies," he said, when he'd recovered himself. "I'm awfully sorry to disturb you like this, but could you tell me if this is the headquarters of the You En See Ell Ee?"
Wanda could barely smother a giggle, and I probably would have smiled myself, except that being a highly trained agent I noticed that the little fair boy had chosen that moment to take to his heels. I dashed after him, although not very fast because Mr Waverly, who, for all his virtues, is a gentleman of the old school, insists that we girls wear heels as part of our uniform; but luckily the boy couldn't get very far, because whoever let them in had shut the window after them. When I came into the shop, the kid was just levering it up, and of course that set off the alarm. It's an extremely loud alarm, designed to put off casual crooks trying their luck, because of course it's linked directly to HQ and needn't actually make any noise at all. Anyway, the effect on this particular mini-crook was startling - at the first sound of the wail he froze and his face turned white under the grime. Then, as the ululation got louder, he scrambled over the counter and curled up in the space underneath the steam press, with his arms wrapped around his head. It was a stupid move on his part, because it was much easier for me to walk over there and drag him out than it would have been to chase him halfway down the street. As I approached, though, a powerful smell of unwashed child made me reluctant to get too close, so I reached out my finger and thumb and took him by the ear. He didn't try to resist when I towed him after me - which was just as well for him, as I have an excellent backhand - but when I got him into reception Wanda said disapprovingly "What have you been doing to him, Lisa? He's shaking like a leaf."
"Nothing," I said, annoyed by the implication that I was guilty of cruelty to minors, "The alarm frightened him, that's all."
"Scared him half to death, more like," said Wanda. "It's all right, sweetheart, no-one's going to hurt you. You can let go of his ear, now," she added, throwing a bitter glance at me.
Feeling rather out of my depth, I did as she suggested. I've never been good with children. I don't understand them and I'm quite sure they don't understand me, but I did feel a bit guilty, because now Wanda came to mention it, it was clear that Stinky really had been badly frightened. Also, I may have pulled his ear harder than I intended, because he was rubbing it as if it hurt.
"Would you like some candy to make it better?" I asked him. I'm told that candy has magical powers where children are concerned. Personally, I would have preferred a stiff whisky, but we're not allowed to keep alcohol on the premises, whereas Wanda has large quantities of chocolate in her desk drawer. Most of it comes from admirers, of which Wanda has many, and I was a little concerned that it might count as a corrupting influence to give children chocolate that a man had given you in the hopes of receiving sexual favors. However, I wasn't sure if we had any untainted chocolate to hand.
At this point the older boy piped up. "It's no good offering him candy, he doesn't understand English," he said condescendingly, as if he was smarter than everyone else present.
"What language does he speak then?" asked Wanda.
The boy shrugged. He was a good-looking child, with very striking brown eyes and long lashes, but he had a self-possessed manner which irked me no end.
"Would you like some candy?" I asked.
Smartypants' eyes lit up, but he affected a show of nonchalance and said casually "I wouldn't mind. What sort have you got?" It was a good move. If he'd said yes, I'd been going to say "Well, you can't have any." I suspect Wanda would have told me off again, but it would have been worth it. However, since he'd blocked that particular attack, I went and rummaged through the reception desk. I was pretty sure there'd be something suitable in there.
In the meantime, Wanda was concentrating on Stinky. She'd crouched down in front of him - not an easy balancing act in heels and a tight skirt - and was holding his hand. "I'm Wanda," she was saying, and patting her chest, "Wanda, Wanda. Who are you?"
"Wanda," repeated Stinky, watching her warily. His outstretched arm was as stiff as a board - he looked like an animal caught in trap. Not a big, dangerous animal, more something small and furry that expects to be eaten.
"Put his hand down, Wanda," I said, glad to have a chance to get my own back, "He's obviously terrified of you."
Wanda pouted, but she let go of the hand. Stinky immediately stuck it in his pocket, but he didn't try to run away. Instead, his eyes flickered round the room, always coming to rest on Wanda and me.
"Have you got that candy yet?" Smartypants asked.
"Nearly," I said, digging through Wanda's drawer. I found what I was looking for underneath a packet of rose-scented tissues. "Here you are."
Smartypants took one and put it straight into his mouth. I watched him closely. After the first bite, his eyes bulged slightly, and he swallowed hard, then coughed. "Thank you, that was delicious," he gasped, his eyes streaming.
"Lisa!" said Wanda, "Those are alcoholic chocolates! You can't give them to children!"
"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, "I didn't realize. Now then, young man, unless you want another chocolate, you'd better tell me just what you were doing trying to break into UNCLE HQ."
"Lisa!" began Wanda again, but Smartypants interrupted her as if she didn't exist.
"So this is the U.N.C.L.E.," he said smugly. "In that case, I've got a letter for Mr -" he hesitated slightly - "Mr Wavey".
Wanda giggled. "You mean Mr Waverly," she said. Smartypants turned pink. "That's what I meant to say," he drawled, a fraction of a second too late to be convincing.
"Give me the letter," I said, heading over to the intercom to summon Mr Waverly, who was working late that night. Whatever was going on here, I wasn't going to miss the chance to hand it over to someone else.
"Sorry, no can do," said Smartypants, "I promised the French guy I'd deliver it to Wave-early personally."
"Well, I have to check it for booby traps," I told him. "Sir? Lisa Rogers here. We have a situation in reception. Would you mind coming down? Thank you, sir. Okay kiddo, hand over the letter."
Smartypants shook his head stubbornly. "I gave him my word," he said, as if this ended the matter.
"And what if your letter turns out to contain explosives and you blow Mr Waverly up?" I asked, "Will that be okay as long as you kept your word?"
Smartypants looked flustered. "Um," he began uncertainly, only to be saved from his moral dilemma by the unmistakable sound of retching from behind him. While we were debating, Stinky had liberated the chocolates and, within a time frame of about five seconds, had apparently inhaled the lot. But quietly. So quietly that no-one had noticed.
"Oh God!" shrieked Wanda, "He's gonna throw up! Quick, get him to the bathroom!"
She grabbed Stinky by the hand and disappeared. That left me and Smartypants alone.
"So," I said, to make polite conversation, while we waited for Waverly, "Since it seems you do speak English, what's your name?"
Smartypants took a deep breath and stuck his chin in the air.
"Napoleon Solo."
"What?!" I said.
Smartypants blushed again, pinker than before. "That's how people always react," he said miserably, then added hastily, with a visible effort at haughtiness, "Napoleon. Like Bonaparte, you know? The famous French general?"
"I know who Napoleon was, thank you very much," I said. "And I also know who Napoleon Solo is."
Smartypants looked thrilled. "You do?"
"Yes. And you're not him."
"Sure I am. You think I'd make up a name like that?"
I eyed him skeptically. The chances of him coming up with that particular name all by himself were, it had to be admitted, extremely slim. So why had someone suggested he pretend that was what he was called? And, perhaps more to the point, who was that someone? Since it didn't seem likely that I'd get an honest answer out of him on this issue, I tried a different tack.
"What's your friend's name?"
Smartypants shrugged again, as if to say that the question didn't interest him. "I don't know. He's not my friend. My friends don't smell."
It was true that Stinky wasn't what you'd call fragrant, but this struck me as an unnecessarily mean remark, so I bored a little harder.
"If he isn't your friend, how come he was trying to break into UNCLE with you?"
At that moment, Mr Waverly came in, no more pleased than I had been at having his work interrupted.
"What's going on, Miss Rogers?" he barked, "And what is this young person doing here?"
"He has a letter for you," I said, as if it was the most normal thing in the world for little boys to turn up at HQ at midnight bearing missives for the Old Man. "I don't know who he is. He says his name's Napoleon. This is Mr Wavey," I added, turning to the kid, "so hand it over."
"Do you have some ID, sir?" asked Smartypants, living up to his name.
Waverly regarded him for a moment, then solemnly removed his wallet from the inside pocket of his jacket and held it open to reveal his UNCLE card. Smartypants studied it, nodded and pulled a rather crumpled envelope from the pocket of his short pants. Waverly tore it open and began to read, then his mouth opened in a perfect circle and he gulped several times, just like a fish. Eventually he managed to gasp "What did you say this boy's name was?"
"Napoleon," I said hesitantly, unnerved by the gulp. Waverly turned pale and passed the letter over to me like a man incapable of speech. So I read it.
Alexander, my dear old trout,
If you want Solo and Kuryakin returned to their usual condition, you will have to hand over the thought translator. The children can tell you when and where to bring it. I have no fear that this letter will not reach you, as Solo has given me his word of honour that he will deliver it to you personally. He is a delightful boy, so honest and upstanding, just the kind of person I have always preferred to deal with, n'est-ce pas? Alas, I cannot say the same of Kuryakin - the little brat has already tried to pick my pocket. He is even more dislikeable as a child than he was as a young man, which is saying a great deal.
I am sure you will wish to hurry up in handing over the translator, dear Alexander. Within the next 24 hours if the process is not to become irreversible. Looking after young people can be so hard on the nerves, and you are not as fit as you were.
With best wishes,
ton vieil ami
Victor XXX
It was my turn to gulp like a fish. I looked at Smartypants, then at Waverly, then back at Smartypants. It was true that he had much the same coloring as Solo, and though his chin wasn't nearly so prominent, there was a deep dimple nesting in the tip. And he certainly had something of Napoleon's manner. He was returning our twin gazes with a quizzical look of his own that we both knew only too well, though it normally adorned a more adult face, when the door flew open and Wanda stalked in, dragging Stinky behind her. His face looked much cleaner than it had before, but as if in some kind of karmic exchange, his clothes were now spattered with vomit.
"We didn't get there in time," said Wanda between gritted teeth. "I've washed his face, but I don't know what to do about his clothes - oh, hello, Uncle Alexander, you got here fast."
Waverly's eyes were narrow with horror as he took in the picture of his niece and the grubby little boy trailing behind her. "Wanda, my dear," he said faintly, "whatever have you been doing with Mr Kuryakin?"
Wanda started guiltily. "Mr Kuryakin? Er, nothing, Uncle, nothing at all! If you mean that time in the map room, I was just helping him find ..." Her voice trailed off as she found the object of his stricken gaze. "Oh," she said faintly. "You don't mean that this is...?"
Kuryakin has never been my favorite colleague, but in his current incarnation, with chocolate-flavored vomit down his front and a thick snail of snot bubbling down from his left nostril, he looked even less appealing than usual. Wanda, evidently fearing Waverly would blame her for the distasteful appearance of his pet project, said hastily "It's not my fault, he gobbled up a whole box of chocolates!"
"Did he indeed?" said Waverly. "Would you come here, please, Mr Kuryakin?"
The boy jumped slightly at the word Kuryakin and fixed wary eyes on Waverly, but made no move to approach him.
"Is that his name?" said Smartypants with interest. "It's really weird!"
"It's not weird, it's Russian," I informed him.
"Russian? Neat! My grandfather was Ambassador to Moscow once. He said they had cockroaches in the kitchen as big as cats. Hey, you, Spasibo, velikomu Stalinu!"
Stinky looked startled and said something unintelligible. Waverly groaned. "Mr Solo appears to be on the right track," he said. "Do we have a Russian speaker in the building?"
"Apart from Illya, you mean?" said Wanda, who was carefully applying perfume to her wrists, probably to cover up the eau de Kuryakin. "Not a chance. The translation team will all be tucked up in their beds by now - it's 1.30 in the morning, Uncle Alexander. Normal people sleep at this time."
"Do you speak any more Russian?" I asked Smartypants, who shook his head regretfully. I think he would have liked to impress us all with his linguistic flair, but fate wasn't having it.
"Hmmm, well, if we have no Russian speakers..." said Waverly thoughtfully. "How old do you think Mr Kuryakin is right now?"
"I have no idea," and "Seven or eight?" said Wanda and I simultaneously.
"Seven? That young? Still, it's worth a try," said Waverly, in the same thoughtful tone. "Illya Kuryakin! Sprichst du deutsch?"
The effect on the child was remarkable, if less spectacular than his response to the burglar alarm. He froze into absolute stillness, one sleeve pressed against his nose, where he'd been wiping away the snot. Even his breathing stopped, but his eyes were glued to Waverly's face the way a mongoose fixates on a snake.
"Sprichst du deutsch?" repeated Waverly, and the boy nodded jerkily, still transfixed.
"Wir werden dir nichts antun," said Waverly quickly. "Wir sind keine Deutschen. Ich bin Engländer, das hier sind Amerikaner. Ich spreche nur deutsch, damit du mich verstehst."
The child's frozen-in-ice look gave way to one of deep suspicion. "Keine Deutschen?" he repeated. "Amerikaner?"
"What did he say?" asked Smartypants. "Is that German? I thought he was Russian."
"Well, he speaks German as well," I said.
"Why? Is he a Nazi?" asked Smartypants, who clearly held no truck with the adage that children should be seen and not heard. "I bet he is a Nazi, he looks like one, and he sure smells like one."
"Thank you for that contribution, Mr Solo," snapped Waverly. "Miss Rogers, you speak passable German; get Mr Kuryakin cleaned up, give him something to eat - something that isn't chocolate - and then bring him to my office in one hour for debriefing."
"My German really isn't all that good, sir," I said hastily.
"Isn't it?" Waverly was undeterred. "Never mind, you're a woman, you know how these things work, I daresay the language barrier won't be too much of an obstacle. Wanda, you can help her. Mr Solo, you come with me, I'm going to show you UNCLE HQ. I'm sure you'll find it very interesting. And Miss Rogers, don't let Mr Kuryakin eat himself sick," he added on the way out.
As the door swooshed shut behind him, Wanda and I exchanged one of those glances that every female UNCLE employee knows. We have a number of them. There's the "And once again the guys get to have the fun and we get to clean up" look, which was what we were using right now. Then there's "I do actually know how to use a gun, but go ahead, show me how, if it makes you feel more manly." There's also "Napoleon Solo is hitting on me AGAIN (but I don't want to hurt his feelings, so what can you do?)," which I luckily don't have to use so often as some girls, and "Men - they're just like little kids." Come to think of it, that last look was going to be appropriate for the next 24 hours, and maybe longer, if we couldn't get the rejuvenation process reversed. Wanda followed up on the glance with a frustrated sigh and said "What if Vikram arrives while we're in the bathroom? There'll be no-one at reception."
"Galloway will be with him," I said, indulging in a tiny measure of spite at the way Wanda contrives to use her stints on reception as an unofficial dating agency. "He can keep him company while they wait for you to resume flirtation duty. Anyway, you told Sarah you were hoping to "get up close and personal" with Kuryakin. It looks like this is your big chance."
Wanda glared at me. "You know perfectly well this wasn't what I had in mind," she said. "Oh well, come on small fry, time for another appointment with Mr Soap and Mr Water."
What I had imagined would be a quick wash and brush-up turned into something approaching the Battle of Midway. Stinky came with us quietly enough, and watched, with that curious silent passivity that seemed characteristic of him, while Wanda ran the bath, and put in about half a bottle of bubble bath, until the foam almost boiled out over the edge. As soon as we tried to get his clothes off, though, he turned uncooperative. This is a technical term meaning he struggled and screamed and scratched and bit until we gave up.
"What's the little tyke got against bathing?" said Wanda, panting heavily.
I didn't tell her she'd got a scratch on her nose - I was afraid it might push her over the edge, and I didn't think Waverly would be pleased if she broke Stinky's arm.
"Time to make use of our UNCLE training," I suggested, and pulled the lipstick out of my handbag.
"Lisa! You can't -" began Wanda, but it was too late. One puff in his face, and Stinky keeled over like a rag doll. Sleep gas is truly a girl's best friend.
"Oh well, I suppose it is an emergency," said Wanda, not sounding very conflicted. "How long will he be out?"
"Only about fifteen minutes," I said regretfully, "It was a tiny dose. The Old Man wants to see him in half an hour, remember?"
After that things went more smoothly. Wanda stripped the kid and I held his head out of the bubbles while she gave him a good scrubbing. He weighed less than I expected, but then there was less of him than I expected. I don't have much experience with children, as I keep telling you, and I've certainly never offered to give my nephew a bath, but I was pretty sure the ribs weren't supposed to be so visible. It struck Wanda as odd, too.
"I really don't think this can be Illya," she said, rubbing vigorously at a particularly stubborn patch of dirt, "He's got really nice muscles, and this kid is just skin and bone. Marton must have been lying."
"That's always a good null hypothesis," I agreed. "And I don't see how Kuryakin could have got so dirty in a couple of hours. This stuff is ingrained."
"And his clothes," said Wanda, wrinkling her nose in the direction of the filthy heap on the floor. "They obviously haven't been washed for weeks. Why would Marton bother to dress him up like that? I think he just found two likely-looking kids in the street somewhere and decided to try to pull one over us. I'm surprised at Uncle Alexander, falling for something like that."
"Don't rub so hard," I told her, eying the patch of dirt with sudden insight, "I think that's a bruise you're trying to soap off."
"Oh my God, the poor little thing," said Wanda, conscience-stricken. "But look, Lisa, this is an old bruise, several days at least, and I'm sure Illya didn't have one here."
"I wouldn't know," I said primly, "I haven't been privileged to examine Mr Kuryakin's upper thigh."
Wanda flushed slightly. "He was wearing squash shorts," she said defensively. "I just happened to glance in when he was warming up."
"Of course." I squirted shampoo into the child's tangled hair and then paused, my attention caught by a tiny movement. "I'll tell you one thing, Wanda, given how proud he is of his hair, I'm fairly certain Kuryakin didn't have lice."
Wanda squealed. "Oh, this is just revolting," she wailed, "Why do I always get stuck with these sorts of jobs?"
I didn't remind her that I'd been stuck with this job, too, but carried on grimly with the task of getting Stinky into a reasonably hygienic state before he woke up. It took longer than expected, thanks to the delousing procedure, but at last we had him cleaned, dried, and dressed in a pair of men's pajamas that I had borrowed from the infirmary, while his own clothes were in the washing machine. I have to admit that he looked sort of cute once he was clean. His hair was so fair it was almost white, and it stood straight up from his forehead in a comical tuft. When he sat up, rubbing his eyes and yawning hugely, he looked so much like a child in a Norman Rockwell painting that I wished I had a camera with me. Then I could have pinned a photo of him to the bulletin board the next time he was rude to me.
Next stop was the commissary. It was closed, of course, but I managed to find a few sandwiches and some milk in the fridge. Waverly's warning turned out to be justified, as Stinky stuffed his face with enormous enthusiasm.
"He's certainly got Illya's appetite," said Wanda, holding a ham salad sandwich out of reach until Stinky had had time to digest the previous one.
I didn't say anything. I found the single-mindedness with which the kid was consuming the food distinctly unnerving. My nephew is a real picky eater. Anything with leaves or tubers is on his Do Not Ingest list, and although my sister insists he always clears his plate, even Popeye couldn't persuade him to touch spinach. But Stinky was putting it all away with a complete lack of discrimination, one eye firmly on Wanda's salad sandwich, even while he was shoveling in the egg sandwiches from the plate in front of him. I had the feeling he hadn't eaten in quite a while.
When he turned his attention to the milk, he swallowed it down as if he was in a speed drinking contest. "Nicht so schnell," I said, but at the sound of my voice, his hand jerked and he dropped the glass, spattering the last dregs of milk over the table. It didn't make much of a mess, and luckily none of it went on his pajamas, but he got that rabbit-in-a-headlight look and stopped breathing again.
"No use crying over spilled milk," said Wanda brightly. "Here, have the last sandwich."
She waved it in Stinky's direction, but the boy didn't move. He looked so little and wretched and scared that I felt a sudden strange impulse to reassure him, and since the only language we had in common seemed to have rather traumatic effects, I put my hand on his shoulder instead. He tensed up, but didn't withdraw, so I left my hand there. I could feel his bony little shoulder through the cotton of the pajamas, as fragile as a bird's wing, and since he didn't seem to mind the touch, I started to rub it, but very gently, in case I broke something. For a moment, he stayed tense, and then I felt his muscles gradually relax, and he reached out and took the sandwich Wanda was still dangling in front of his nose.
"Good boy," I said, and when he glanced up at me, I smiled. Amazingly, he smiled back. A tiny smile, like a mouse poking its nose out from a hedge and then vanishing again, but a smile nonetheless. It gave me such a warm feeling inside, that for a moment I wondered if I was having a hot flash; I could see the headlines in my mind - Medical Wonder Manages Mid-Twenties Menopause - but then I realized it was probably just a sentimental reaction to having a cute kid smile at me. "Careful, Lisa," I said to myself, "The next thing you know you'll be exchanging saving the world for the thrills of washing diapers and cooking for a husband and 3.2 children." I decided I'd better get Stinky up to Waverly's office before he could smile at me again.
When we got there, the room was full of George Dennell in full-blown rocket scientist mode. I sat down at the table, and to my surprise and embarrassment Stinky clambered onto my lap. Mr Waverly smiled at me in a this-is-a-turn-up-for-the-books kind of way, but said nothing, and it seemed churlish to push Stinky off, so I put my arms around his waist and he leaned his head against my shoulder. He wasn't exactly relaxed, in fact I could feel the tension vibrating through his back, but I suppose he felt safer there, or maybe he just wanted a bit of human contact. I didn't have time to think about it, though, because George was off again. You could tell the Riddle of the Rejuvenated Agents was the most exciting challenge he had worked on in, oh, weeks. Since the Exploding Zipper Affair at least.
"Cellular matter transposition!" he said triumphantly. "Solo and Kuryakin haven't simply had their metabolic aging process reversed, they've been transposed on the space/time continuum with their younger selves."
Waverly chomped on his pipe end so hard I thought it might break off. "Damn and blast it!" he said, which for Waverly is the equivalent of a nervous breakdown in a lesser man. "Time travel! I can never keep track of who's who when."
"Oh, no, no, no," said George hastily. "In terms of physics, this is quite different from time travel, in that it involves an exchange of genetically identical bio-mass, thus conforming to the First Law of Thermodynamics, that -"
"Energy cannot be created or destroyed," I finished for him. It annoys me no end the way these nerdy types think nobody else has any understanding of science.
"Er, yes, quite right," said George, looking deflated.
"So what you are telling us," said Waverly, brightening up, "is that Mr Solo and Mr Kuryakin have, so to speak, swapped places with their younger selves?"
George nodded happily. "Great summary of the situation, sir!" he said. "They're probably in around 1942. That's a ball park date, based on cellular analysis of a sample taken from little Nappy here" - Smartypants treated him to an understandable glare - "which suggests that he's currently around eleven years old."
"Well, we need to swap them back," said Waverly, "before they start to interfere in past events. The mischief Mr Solo could wreak amongst the female population is too horrible to contemplate."
"Let's hope it's night time there, as well," I said, "because otherwise his Mom will freak out when she finds her darling little boy has acquired a whole new set of physical attributes."
At the mention of his mother, Smartypants sat up and started paying attention. "Am I going home soon, sir?" he asked. " I don't want my Mom to worry. She gets upset easily."
"Most certainly, just as soon as we can work out how to get you back," said Waverly reassuringly.
"I suppose handing over the thought translator is out of the question?" I asked.
"Absolutely," said Waverly. "Mr Dennell, you seem gratifyingly familiar with this transposition phenomenon. Who's been working on research in this area?"
"Well," said George happily - he loves the sound of his own voice, but can rarely get people in higher Sections to stay put long enough to listen to his lectures - "There's Sakomoto in Japan, but he's currently serving a jail sentence for attempting to defraud the state lottery; and there's Yrönpoika in Finland, but he disappeared recently and we suspect he may be collaborating with Thrush; so your best bet would be Professor Pauli at MIT."
"Finally some good news," said Waverly, "That's right on our doorstep. Wanda, my dear, put a call through to Galloway and Ramachandran, and tell them to pick up Professor Pauli on their way from the airport. And make sure they bring any equipment he needs to reverse a cellular matter transposition."
"So I'm going home when these guys get here?" asked Smartypants, who seemed to have a one-track mind when it came to getting what he wanted.
"That's right," said Waverly, and Smartypants turned to Stinky and said gleefully "Hey, we're going home!"
"Home," repeated Stinky thoughtfully. "Nach Hause?"
"Nach Hause," agreed Waverly.
Stinky's whole face lit up at that, like a kid who's been told that all the presents under the tree belong to him, and his brothers and sisters aren't getting any of them. If I'm honest, it actually made me feel horrible. Wherever we were sending him back to, I was fairly certain it wasn't what he thought of as home, not if the idea of home made him look that blissful. On the other hand, I didn't want to correct the impression and tell him he was merely going back to wherever he came from, because I was afraid he might run away or start crying or something, and I didn't think I could deal with that. Better to keep him in a cooperative mood. And, after all, whatever was waiting for him back there couldn't be all that bad, because I knew he would come through it relatively unscathed. In his grown-up incarnation, Illya Kuryakin doesn't really strike you as a man who's been damaged by horrible traumas.
"There is one more thing," said Waverly, "before we sit back and await the arrival of Mr Ramachandran and Mr Galloway. I have questioned Mr Solo extensively, and although his memories of his life up to the point where Thrush snatched him are entirely intact, there is a cushioning blur around his arrival in this time period. I presume it is a self-preservation mechanism on the part of the brain, to shield itself from the shock of the transposition. Mr Solo seems, in fact, to regard this whole incident as a kind of dream. Since his adult self may harbour the same belief, under no circumstances is anyone present permitted to raise this incident with either him or Mr Kuryakin when they return. That is an order."
I don't really want to write about what happened next.
I'll keep it short.
Galloway and Ramachandran turned up with the transposition device, which was a small box about the size of a TV with wires coming out of it. We sent Solo back first. He held on to two of the wires and Professor Pauli pressed a button and the whole room pulsed weirdly, and then suddenly a man was standing where the boy had been. It was our Napoleon, and he looked around in a complete daze, like a man who's been drugged, so Wanda took him off home to bed. She didn't come back that night, so it's a fair bet Solo wasn't so dazed that he couldn't take advantage of the situation.
Stinky didn't want to touch the box, so I took him by the hand and led him over there. He was still gripping my fingers when he picked up the first wire, and then he looked up at me and asked "Home?"
"Alles wird gut," I said, trying to ignore the prickling in my eyeballs. The air conditioning in Waverly's office dries them out terribly. "It'll be okay, I promise. Alles wird gut."
Then we sent him back.
July 13 1965
Dear Diary,
This morning in the commissary I found myself standing next to Kuryakin in the line for coffee, which is worth mentioning because we usually try to avoid each other. While he was occupied with piling danish pastries onto his plate, I snuck a sideways glance at him, trying to see if anything about him reminded me at all of Stinky. To my surprise, I caught him in the act of sneaking his own sideways glance right back at me. So I shifted to the offensive and raised an eyebrow, and Kuryakin had the grace to look embarrassed.
"I didn't mean to stare," he said, with what was, for him, extraordinary politeness. "It's just that for a moment you reminded me of someone."
"Oh, really?" I said. "Someone nice, I hope?"
There was a moment's silence and then Kuryakin said hesitantly "Yes, I think so. It was a long time ago, I don't really remember."
I couldn't think of anything to say that didn't involve blatantly disobeying Waverly's orders, so I held my tongue. Kuryakin seemed to find the silence uncomfortable, because after a while he said "I seem to be thinking about the past a lot recently. I had the most extraordinarily vivid dream about the Ukraine the other night."
"Yes?" I said, scarcely daring to breathe.
"Yes," he said, after a moment. "During the war, when I was living with the partisans, I got left behind once. I dreamed I was back in the woods, trying to catch up with them. I'd forgotten how alive the forest was."
"It must have been frightening," I said. "Getting left behind, I mean."
Kuryakin laughed. "I've been through worse," he said. "Trying to find my way around UNCLE HQ when I first arrived was far more difficult."
"I know, all the corridors look exactly the same!" I said. "The first time I was summoned to Waverly's office, I ended up in the infirmary."
"Isn't that usually what happens?" said Kuryakin with a grin, "Except that there's normally a mission in between."
"Hence the importance of being well-briefed," I said with a straight face.
Kuryakin eyed me for a moment, then laughed. "Touché," he said. "Sometimes I get so carried away with my own cleverness, I forget how important background information is."
"Well," I admitted, "information is only any use if it's actually useful." For a moment we smiled at each other, then Kuryakin said "Have a good day, Lisa," picked up his coffee and his pastries, and was gone.
"Hey, what was all that about?" demanded Mandy, who was standing on my other side and couldn't resist poking her nose in, as usual. "I thought you two weren't on speaking terms?"
"That just goes to show how much you know," I said triumphantly, "Illya's not so bad, if you know how to handle him."