VR5/UNCLE/X-Files/crossover

TRUST IS OUT THERE

by

GM

Summer 1995

Blue, frothy waves washed against the rugged rocks stacked along the uneven shoreline south of Ventura. The tide was harsh and merciless in it's eternal pounding of the craggy volcanic forms eroded from thousands of years of tidal wash. The incessant crash of ocean on land rhythmically smashed against the black, porous stone in an infinite battery of abuse. There was no end to the punishment, no cessation of attack, just the continual crash of wave after wave . . . .

With a shake of his head, Oliver Sampson pulled his gaze away from the hypnotic ebb and flow of the sea. He was used to destruction, death, decay -- it was part of his job. He had been trained by his father, then by his Keeper, to accept the dark brutality of mayhem as a way of life. For a higher cause -- a greater good. He almost laughed at the ridiculous dogma, but he could find no humor left inside. Too many betrayals, lies and deaths had killed those good things inside him. There had been a time when he could look out at the ocean and see the beauty there. Even a time when he could be soothed by the surcease of the healing tide. Those days seemed like so long ago.

All good things -- no, not all. There were some good things left, buried underneath the rubble of pain and despair. Maybe someday he could excavate those emotions again. Not so long ago those deeply buried feelings were resurrected and nurtured. A time, a place, an assignment who had turned into more than just a mission, a woman who had turned into more than just another face and name. Like everything else in this despicable business, however, death and betrayal had touched her and catapulted her far away from reality, from him.

"Sampson?"

The Brit spun around, surprised that anyone could creep up on him so quietly. He stared at Duncan, the long-haired young man who had once been his rival. With him was Samantha Bloom, a beautiful young blond with haunted blue eyes and a face etched with age beyond her years. His strange allies/charges/companions in the bizarre existence all of them were shackled within. Fellow Templars bound together with fragile, unbreakable bonds. They shared the mutual quest for truth and the mutual love of a fallen comrade. Together they were engaged in a good fight. Battles, however, always cost lives; the best, most precious lives.

"We want to go with you tonight."

Sampson shook his head. "Out of the question."

"My father won't trust you!" Samantha insisted. “He doesn't know you!"

"I'm taking Decker --"

"In his muddled state, my father may not recognize Decker as his Keeper, but as a threat!" the blond shot back. "It's been years since he's seen Decker. He knows me!"

Sampson refused from sheer stubbornness. Samantha paid a bitter price to be in on the retrieval of her father. The Committee had kidnapped Doctor Joseph Bloom and his young daughter Samantha almost twenty years before. Mrs. Bloom and Sydney were left alone with false memories; Sydney believing her family dead and Mrs. Bloom in a coma.

Held prisoners behind the Berlin Wall, Samantha, and Joseph were brought out of East Germany only to be lost by both sides. On the run, they finally made contact with the remaining daughter, Sydney, and Sampson, Sydney’s “Keeper” -- their contact and protector. Then a deadly branch of the Committee had stepped in, sending Dr. Bloom into hiding and driving the twin sisters to desperate measures, which left one of them mentally comatose.

And Duncan, the young man who had been along for the crazy ride -- the childhood friend swept up in espionage and secret madness. He still proved a loyal friend -- and more it seemed -- to Samantha. Love amidst the chaos? Foolish, but somehow touching.

Samantha squared herself off against the taller, somber agent. "Do we know we can trust Decker?"

Sampson shrugged.

"My father didn't trust anyone."

"As it should be in this damn business," Sampson sighed.

"No," Samantha corrected. "There was one man . . . ."

"Who?"

The young woman shook her head with vague recollection, striving to pluck a memory out of the cobwebs of the past. "A dark haired man. My father had a picture of him -- an old picture. Father said that man would be looking for him. He was the only one he could ever trust."

"No name?"

Sam shook her head. "No -- yes -- well, not exactly. It wasn’t a name. My father said Solitaire. His exact words were, 'You will know him as Solitaire.' "

Oliver was intense. "Nothing else?" She shook her head. "Solitaire, not Abernathy?" he grilled. She still shook her head. "Nothing else?"

"Father told me never to talk about the man again, not even with him. We were to never to mention the name aloud. We were never sure when we were being monitored. It was just something I should remember."

"Weird," Duncan decided.

Sampson shrugged. "Where has this man been all these years? Why didn't your father contact him instead of Sydney when you were rescued?"

"I don't know anything!" Samantha snapped back. "Maybe this mystery Solitaire person is the one who rescued us! I don't know! All I know is that we need to get my father back!"

"All right," Sampson sighed. "The best policy is to trust no one."

Samantha stepped closer. "That still leaves us the problem of finding my father."

"We're still going with you," Duncan reminded.

Oliver looked at Duncan, former young neighbor to the Blooms and part of their lives all these years. Then he glanced at Sam. Irritation colored his capitulation. "It's dangerous. We don't know who is part of Abernathy's faction."

"That's what I thought about you," Sam reminded sharply.

Oliver's mouth twitched with a humorless smile. His British accent became harsh and cold. "You still don't trust me, Samantha. You tolerate me for --" He stopped himself. He didn't want to go on, wouldn't speak the name. They knew what bound them together. "I am a professional. I know how to handle these people. You and Duncan will get in the way."

"My father will never talk to you. He’ll only talk to me."

Sampson stared back at the ocean. She was right, damn her. Just like her sister, she was always right. He gave a curt nod. He turned and walked back to the big house overlooking the Pacific. It was a magnificent, huge house built up above the craggy rocks. No one would have guessed the most sophisticated security devices known to modern man surrounded the dwelling. No onlooker would have known within its walls were held pawns in a battle for world power.

Trust no one, he kept reminding himself. Could he trust Decker? The mysterious Keeper had brought them to this safe house. It was a place, supposedly, unknown to the Committee. How safe was it? Sampson would have to shelve that doubt. He had to trust someone to watch over Sydney and the others while he went in search of Dr. Bloom. The doctor was the only one who could bring Sydney out of the VR coma. Then . . . .then they would have to think of the future. For now, there was no future for him until Sydney was on this side of the Living.

He allowed the two younger people to precede him into the protective-glassed living room with the panoramic view. He closed the sliding door with hidden sensors and bulletproof mesh and activated the digital security lock. In the basement, Decker's loyal minions watched visual and heat sensitive monitors surrounding the property.

Sampson trotted up the glass staircase to a second level living area. Most of the loft was crowded with high tech monitors, virtual reality units and computers. He understood very little of the equipment, but that didn't matter. He was one of the knights on this chessboard. The king and queen on his team were missing. It was his job to bring them back and keep them safe until the opposing team was dead or neutralized. It was not his job to understand the why or how of the operation.

There was a framed picture next to the Virtual Reality equipment. It was a deceptively happy portrait of a happy family; Dr. Joseph Bloom, his wife, his twin daughters Samantha and Sydney. The camera does lie. It would never betray the fact that Dr. Bloom was a genius wanted by political powers all over the world. His knowledge of Virtual Reality technology could change the balance of power in every quarter of the globe. His beautiful daughters and wife were the pawns. Dr. Bloom and Sydney were the missing players upon who all depended.

Missing. . . .

Oliver glanced beyond the computer tables to the next room. Mrs. Bloom sat by a window conversing with Sydney. Sightlessly, Sydney stared at a world within, not without. Her mind was a captive of the mysterious, awesome dimension of VR8. She was here, but her mind was lost.

He had to turn away. The anguish of that awful night seared a fresh wound into his heart each time he looked at Sydney: Discovering Samantha, rescuing the mother, realizing the evil plots surrounding them all. Then the most crashing devastation of all -- Sydney and Samantha going into VR8 to retrieve their mother's mind, only to lose Sydney's.

Two casualties.

Tonight they had the opportunity to recover Dr. Bloom. If they could, then there was a chance the genius could go after his daughter's mind within the universe of VR. It was their only hope -- his only hope.

***

The alarm was a faint buzz at the back of his brain. Fox Mulder fumbled for the switch and finally managed to silence the offending noise. For a few more minutes, he laid still, convincing himself not to leave his comfortable bed. In that strange netherworld between consciousness and sleep, another awareness filtered into his brain. A scent, a strange odor that should not have been permeating his apartment. Cigarette smoke.

Wrapping himself in a robe, he stalked to the bedroom door and flung it open. Cancer Man was seated in the chair by the window, a lit cigarette in his hand.

Mulder did not know the man's name. Until a few months ago, he had considered this man an enemy. Until he discovered terrible secrets that changed his viewpoint in almost everything. His former ally, Mr. X, had turned out to be a Company man who was using Mulder and X-Files for the Company's purposes. Whatever ‘Company’ held both Cancer Man and Mr. X. Cancer Man was an old associate of his father's and his father had been as deep as a man could get within the organization, the Company, the Committee. All this time Cancer Man was really a friend of the family. A Keeper to Mulder.

Mulder glanced at the unique ring on the man's finger; a quasi-octagonal shaped surface. On the top was etched eight interlocking circles. Mulder's father had left him a similar ring. The signet of brotherhood for the inner circle of the Committee. He would have laughed at the absurd melodrama of the Secret Agent overtones if this macabre game had it not cost his father's life. It was all too deadly, too real to laugh about.

"What do you want?"

Cancer Man held up a folded piece of paper. He placed it on the coffee table. "The man who ordered your father’s death." He placed an airline ticket atop the slip of paper. With an ease surprising in such a tall man, he came to his feet. "Kill the ringleader of the rebel faction, and you'll splinter the revolutionary coup within the inner circle of the Committee."

Mulder studied the photo of a man about his own age, light hair, strong jaw line, an intense look. Mulder looked up. "Krycek killed my father."

"One of the men who killed your father. Krycek was working with this man. We don't know where Krycek is, but we know this man, Oliver Sampson, is in LA."

"You want me to just kill this man?"

"He will have you killed if you don't do it first."

"I am not an assassin!"

Cancer Man crossed to the door. "You're one of the players whether you like it or not, Mulder. Take out the man who killed your father. With the right men in power in the inner circle, you'll be left alone."

"Why are you doing this? What twisted motivations do you have --"

"Just do it, Mulder!"

"I don't trust you."

"Then you'll be dead. And no one can protect you this time. There are too many players on the field. You must choose sides now."

***

Mulder was on his way to the airport before he picked up his cell phone and dialed his partner's number. His absence with the Bureau was, as always when working with these super-secret types, covered. Skinner, the assistant director who gave him his assignments, was somehow in the loop of need to know. Mulder had never asked how deep Skinner's involvement was, but he knew the man often shielded Mulder and Scully from serious repercussions due to their unusual work. Skinner was an ally. Mulder trusted him. To a point. The only other person on the face of the earth he really trusted was just picking up the phone. She would be livid with him for skipping out like this. That's why he had opted to phone from his car, on the way to the airport. No way she could follow him. It was the only way he could shield her from the danger of the mission. She would want to be involved, and he didn't want her in this mess. This was his vendetta. . . .

"Hello."

"Hi, Scully. I won't be in to work today."

"Oh? What's wrong, Mulder, too much pizza last night?"

He automatically smiled at her ribbing. It was a comfortable, common give and take between them.

"You ate more than I did."

"True. Must have been too much beer, then," she teased.

"No. Something came up. I'll be back in a day or two. I squared it already with Skinner."

"Squared what? Mulder, where will you be back from? What's going on?"

He muttered a curse under his breath for being so honest. He found it nearly impossible to lie to his partner, though, incomplete truth was better than a bald lie.

"Look, Scully, it's personal, okay?" The blunt brush-off hurt. He softened his tone and dredged up a mock-smile. "It's about my dad's murder."

"You found Krycek?"

"Not exactly." He sighed. This was harder than he expected. He should have realized she would feel this way. Their mutual tragedies had pulled them closer together. There was hardly any separation left between them anymore. "It's a lead I need to pursue. If it comes to anything, I'll let you know, okay?"

Scully was somewhat appeased. "Is there anything I can do?"

He muttered a whispered curse again. Now she was sympathetic and understanding. It had not been so long ago that her own father had died. She knew what suffering he was going through. Over the last few weeks she had helped him a lot; dealing with the pain, the loss. The traumatic chain of tragedies started with his father’s murder. Then came the discovery of the terrible secrets surrounding William Mulder’s government cover-ups and the abduction of Fox’s sister.

Scully was his best friend. Mulder hated his deception, but not enough to tell her the complete truth. He cared about her too much to let her in on something this dangerous.

"Not right now. I'll call you."

"Sure." The concern and doubt were clear in her tone. "You going to be okay?"

"Yeah, Really. Thanks."

"Take care, Mulder. Don’t let anything happen -- well you know. We've come too far. I'm used to having you around now."

"Don't worry. I'll be back in a few days."

"And call if you need me."

"Thanks. Bye, Dana."

He folded the phone and tucked it in his pocket. It hit the paper there. He removed the note and looked at the name. Abernathy. Abernathy Antiques. Ventura Blvd. The small, faxed, black and white picture of the odd, mysteriously occidental man stared back at him from the paper. Mulder stared at the cryptic face. Was this man his father's murderer? Or was this one more level of some plagued maze of intrigue which he was trapped in? How could he answer those questions with any certainty without killing or being killed?

***

Oliver Sampson rubbed his tired eyes, then scratched the stubble of a beard on his face. He was numb with exhaustion, but he couldn't give in to the fatigue. If he did -- no -- he couldn't give up. He ambled around the curiosities crowded on the shelves of the old antique shop. Oriental novelties from centuries past, valuable items of unique and rare quality. Oliver had grown up with these oddities; grown up at the knee of the man who had trained and apprenticed his father for the Committee. He had loved the man who had tutored him in the career of intrigue and shadows; the man whom his father had died protecting. The man who had betrayed him -- betrayed them all.

Sampson fingered a small figurine dating back to the Ming dynasty. The precious items had somehow survived the Northridge earthquake back in January of last year. They had survived their collector, who was dead and buried. Not cryogenically preserved like Morgan had been. Morgan, Sydney's first friend and contact with the Committee, had been murdered by a hit man and his body frozen. Several members of the Committee were frozen, but Sampson had made sure Abernathy was not one of them.

That night, that terrible night when everything had unraveled -- he had made certain Abernathy was dead beyond revival. Abernathy had killed everyone in Sampson's life that mattered to him; his father, his lover Alex, now Sydney -- no Sydney was not dead. Somehow he would find Joseph Bloom and they would bring Sydney back.

Fatigued beyond rational thought, Sampson took one more look around the room and left. Ironically, the shop had been bequeathed to him. He owned all this junk now. Maybe after all this was over, he would come back and smash it all to dust.

He locked up and walked to his car parked at the curb. Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks was moderately busy this late Thursday night. Oliver paused and looked around the quiet neighborhood. Where could Joseph Bloom be hiding? He had escaped Abernathy here. Where had the brilliant, confused genius gone then? For Bloom to come back here was unexpected, but he had to look, just to make sure. Where then? Maybe the old family house back in Encino? Why not? It was his only lead. The Brit slipped into the car and drove away. He was too distracted by his concerns to notice the car following him.

***

There had been no sign of Sampson at the few contact addresses he'd been given. Mulder had taken up a comfortable position in a trendy coffee house across from the old shop antiquities shop where Sampson was last known to be seen. It was a strange neighborhood, an odd amalgamation of shops, eateries and trendy boutiques. Since the earthquake, merchants in Sherman Oaks had been forced to relocate from little street shops to mini pod malls or renovated buildings. There was a hodgepodge of mixed shops up and down the boulevard that had not quite recovered from the damaging quake.

***

Sampson turned the lights out on the car as he rounded the curved street. He pulled up to the curb of a vacant lot just up the hillside and across the street from the old Bloom house. Sydney legally owned the old two story building. Since the night of her father and sister's disappearance, and her mother's coma, Sydney had abandoned the house.

Decker had seen to the legal detail, closed up the place keeping it in Sydney's name, and sent Sydney to a boarding school. The inner circle faction who had kidnapped Bloom successfully escaped. The main body of the Committee, though, kept a protective eye on Sydney and saw after her future. They placed the mother in a convalescent hospital and paid the bills.

The Committee was powerful, but not omniscient. Joseph Bloom had been elusive until two years ago. They could not spirit him away from his captors in East Berlin until then. Nor did they know the mother was being watched by a rebel agent for the revolutionaries. All those flaws had come crashing down around them a few weeks ago when Samantha had been spotted by Sydney -- no, before that. It had started to crumble months ago when Bloom had been able to escape his captors and had set up a secret base in this old family house -- in the concealed basement that held the hidden treasures of VR.

Bloom had tapped into Sydney's modem and shifted her from the elementary level of VR1, to the boggling level of VR5. Slowly, over the months, he had fed her clues for her to follow and unravel. Electronic footprints that let her know he was alive.

When she had broken through to VR5, the Committee knew. They kept their distance until she contacted Morgan. They were letting Morgan handle her, but then Morgan was assassinated by Abernathy's hitman. Then Sampson had been ordered to step into the mess. The Committee wanted Sydney watched. And when she contacted her father, Oliver was to grab Joseph Bloom and take him to safety.

Nothing had gone as planned. It couldn't when dealing with such variables as; a free-spirit like Sydney, a desperate genius like Joseph Bloom, a power monger like Abernathy. It had been a mad chase and Oliver never anticipated the ugly hive of greed and murder they would uncover. He had never dreamed that his loyalties would be questioned, then destroyed, to be rebuilt around a completely new base of values.

Now the Committee, in all its factions, was his personal enemy. They had taken too much from him to ever hold his loyalty again. He would work with them because they held the power of life and death over all of them still. His heart, his mind, his soul, was now governed by a new fealty, to a just cause more personal than he had ever allowed himself.

A movement in the bushes alerted him. He studied the trees and soon discerned a dark shape moving alongside the branches. The figure dashed next to the house, swallowed by the shadows under the eves.

Silently, Sampson opened his door and closed it just as noiselessly. He crept into the bushes ringing the boundary of the property, coming up to the trees at the back of the house. It was a long wait. At last he could see a shape move along the back of the house to the back door. It creaked open. A slow, stooped figure disappeared into the house, closing the door again.

Sampson trotted to the door and listened. He could hear wood scraping inside -- the secret panel to the hidden basement. Only one person could know about that secret panel. As silently as he could, Oliver slowly eased the door open and slipped into the dark interior. Padding to the back room, Oliver saw the trap door was slightly ajar. A line of bright light shone through the crack like a glittering column from another dimension.

He eased the trap door open and slipped down into the cluttered hole that contained priceless, high-tech computer equipment and the future of the world. This had been where they had regained Nora Bloom and lost Sydney. This den of hope and despair now closeted another reunion; bittersweet and poignant, as Joseph Bloom, old and shrunken before his time, hugged his weeping daughter Samantha, and his old neighbor/friend Duncan.

Samantha looked up and smiled at him. She motioned him forward.

"Daddy, this is Sydney's friend, Oliver."

Sampson stepped over to stand beside the blond scientist. Bloom looked like a frightened rabbit, cowering away from the agent. Endless reasoning from the younger two finally eased some of the older man's anxiety. Little surprise at the paranoia. After all the pathetic man had been through for twenty years, he was probably scared of his own shadow.

"Dr. Bloom, I'm here to help you. We have a safe house for you, if you'll come with me."

"No," the man whispered. "You're not -- not Solitaire. He’s coming for me --"

"You have to come!" Oliver shouted, then gathered his own frayed nerves and tried again. "Dr. Bloom, you're the only one who can help Sydney. You must come with us."

"Sydney? My Sydney? Where is she?"

"She's trapped in VR8, Daddy," Samantha supplied. "We need you to help us get her out."

"Oh, Sydney, poor girl," he muttered.

"Come along. It's dangerous to stay here," Sampson reminded. "Let's get out of here. We can explain on the way."

"But my friend, he's coming to rescue me . . . ."

"Daddy, please, come on!"

"Solitaire. . . ." Bloom whispered as they lead him away.

They shut down everything and triggered an inner lock Sampson had installed last week. Only he or the Blooms could regain entry to the secret room now. Any unauthorized person hitting the latch without also engaging the safeguard, would release an explosive. The room and equipment would be destroyed.

"Why don't we just take some of this stuff with us?" Duncan asked as they slowly made their way through the dark house.

"I took most of the important equipment already," Sampson assured.

"All the irreplaceable stuff is at the beach house," Samantha added.

"I couldn't bring it all," Oliver continued. "It's a risk every time one of us comes here."

"You think they'll still watch the house?" Duncan shivered at the thought of more cloak and dagger danger. He had lived through enough adventures.

"Not recently, but they were right after we recaptured Mrs. Bloom."

The thin, anxious scientist trembled. "Nora? You have her?"

"She's fine, Daddy. She's with Syd. We'll be there soon."

They stopped at the back door. Sampson motioned them to silence, and to wait. He retrieved his pistol from a shoulder holster, slowly opened the door and looked around. Several minutes passed as he studied the dark back yard in the pale moonlight. Without nearby streetlights, in the misty smog, he could hardly see anything under the filtered moon glow, but it was enough to see most of the weed encrusted yard. The usual city sounds droned on. Dogs, horns, engines, planes. Everything seemed clear.

He stepped onto the dead lawn and waited. Still, nothing. Motioning the others to come out he silently urged them to hurry to his car. He jogged along with them, again calling them to a halt at the tree line. All clear. With a remote keychain he unlocked his car and told them to get in. He stepped to the street behind his car. A slight scrape to his left and a nearly indistinct movement from his peripheral vision alerted him to the foreign presence just before a man stepped from the trees.

Sampson tackled him before the intruder could bring up the pistol in his hand. He fought with the skilled, lithe man, wrestling for control of the weapon. Oliver was slammed against a tree, his hand smashed against the course bark. Powered by desperate fear for his mission, his cause, Oliver fought back like an enraged tiger. The assailant was kneed and jabbed until the pistol wavered toward its owner. With a final wrench, Oliver twisted the automatic toward the man and fired.

He felt the bullet slice between them. It hit the other man, who lost his grip of the gun and fell back in pain. Oliver stumbled back, lunging toward the car. Duncan was nearby, helping the agent into the car. Duncan gunned the car to life and sped away.

"You all right?"

Oliver laid his head against the back of the seat. His gunshot wound, a badge of this ongoing nightmare from three weeks ago, had reopened. He wasn't sure if there were more injuries. It didn't matter. They were on their way. Bloom was here, they were on their way back to Sydney; all that mattered to him.

"You're hurt?" Duncan guessed after the long silence.

"I'll live. Make sure no one's following us."

"No one is."

"Did you see him?" he asked the Blooms. "Was that Solitaire?"

"No," Sam denied.

The doctor was too shaken to respond.

Samantha stared at her father. "I remember Solitaire, now, he came to the house before. Once or twice. I don't know why I didn't remember it before."

"Cause they scrambled your brain before," Duncan said.

"He had a mole on the side of his face. And a distinctive chin. He would be my father's age now. It wasn't that man back there."

Dr. Bloom muttered whispered incoherent mutterings about Solitaire and walls.

Shifting painfully, Oliver saw they were on the Ventura Freeway now, heading toward the beach house. It was almost over. That's what he kept telling himself. It was almost over.

"So who was that?"

Sampson shrugged. "Committee undoubtedly. Probably from Abernathy's camp."

"Did you kill him?”

"No --" The man had been alive. He should have finished the blighter off, but it would have wasted valuable time. There could have been others. His primary mission was the safety of Bloom. He was tired of killing -- tired of it all. Desperately he wanted to leave it all behind him, although he knew he never could. It would always be there to haunt him. "No, he was alive. He'll tell them we have Bloom. Bloody hell!"

***

"So, why didn't you call?" came an angry voice from the end of the bed.

Mulder opened his eyes and flinched at the livid expression on his partner's face. "Hi, Scully."

She snorted out a breath. "You were going to call if you needed help. Instead, Skinner calls and tells me to get out here because you've been shot!"

"It wasn't serious," he denied and struggled to sit up without revealing how much it hurt. "Creased along my ribs. They're releasing me later today."

His partner sat on the bed next to him. "Liar. I read your file. The doctor wants you in here another day." She opened his pajama top and checked the wound herself, muttering comments on the stitches and location of the wound.

Mulder grinned. "Nice to have my personal physician --"

She cuffed him on the arm.

"Ouch!"

"You'll need a physician if you keep me out of things again, Mulder!" she warned.

"Sorry!"

"You bet you are. Now tell me what's going on."

Someone at the door cleared their throat. Both agents looked up to see an older man with grey/dark hair. A distinctive mole on his left cheek and a strong chin made his face memorable, but not as striking as his whole demeanor. He was smooth. Everything about him; his movements, his thinning hair, his expensive, elegant suit, they were all as slick as satin.

"I'd like to hear that story myself," the older man admitted. Even his voice was smooth; deep, calm, serious, with the underlying hint of a threat. "I have authorization from Director Skinner."

The man stiffly entered, as if he had a leg or hip injury. He deftly slipped an i.d. from his jacket pocket and handed it to them. Both FBI agents were impressed. He gave a cell phone to Scully.

She rang the FBI director's office and talked to their superior -- the only man either Scully or Mulder trusted. He curtly told her to cooperate with this man completely.

"Who are you?" Scully asked when she hung up. "Besides someone with the phony name of Mr. Solo?"

The older man laughed, brittle humor never softening the intensity in his brown eyes. "I’m an -- associate. I'm working on a related case involving Oliver Sampson. If you feel up to it, Agent Mulder, we have to be on our way. I'll wait in the hall while you get ready."

“He’s not going anywhere,” Scully protested.

“No,” Mulder refused. “Not until I have some better answers from you, Mister --”

“Solo. I’ll explain everything to your satisfaction in more private conditions. Hospitals are much too public. If you are not persuaded by my explanation -- well, I think you will be swayed. What I would like to know is if Sampson is alive.”

“Last time I saw him he was in better shape than me.”

Solo nodded then limped out.

Grimacing, Dana gave him a narrowed glare. “I guess it wouldn’t do me any good to refuse to allow this. You’ve just been shot, Mulder.”

“You’re right. It wouldn’t do any good.”

Scully exchanged glances with her partner. "Well, I guess you better get dressed. Need some help?"

"Thanks, Scully, I think I can manage."

Once in Solo’s comfortable rental car, the mysterious agent wasted no time. "Now, please, continue with your story, Agent Mulder," he coaxed, but it was more of an order than a request. "Tell me everything you saw last night."

***

Morning sun streamed through the slatted blinds and onto his face. Oliver turned out of the brightness and blinked his eyes. He was in a comfortable bed, in a pleasant room. The smell of coffee floated in the air. He sat up and instantly regretted the quick movement. His side ached like hell. There was a fresh bandage on the wound he had reopened -- last night. The scene at the Bloom house all came back to him. Samantha, Duncan, Bloom. He carefully changed into some clean clothes draped on a chair and walked down the hall. He ignored the magnificent view of the blue Pacific and strode on to Sydney's room. She was resting like the dead. He stood by the bed for a moment; couldn't resist touching her soft hair.

Sleeping Beauty. If only she would awaken with a kiss.

"Samantha tells me I have you to think for our lives," came a British accented voice from behind him. Oliver spun around. Dr. Bloom, a thin, hunched form, stood in the doorway. "Thank you very much," he quietly imparted. He walked around the agent to his daughter. For the first time his expression brightened with signs of life. "I've missed her terribly."

"She never got over you, the image of your death."

He didn't know why he said that. Bloom obviously had suffered tremendously over the years. Why burden the poor man with more guilt? Perhaps Oliver blamed him in some way for causing all this to happen, for Sydney's coma. Foolish, Sampson sighed inwardly. It would be like blaming his own father for him being an agent for the Committee. It had happened. Fate, destiny or choice. It had happened. That was all that mattered now. The important thing was to get them out of it alive.

"You know everything that happened?"

"Yes. Nora and Sam explained it all." He held tightly to Sydney's hand.

"Are you going into VR8 to bring her out?"

For an instant the stark, blue, wary eyes darted a horrified expression at him, then Bloom looked away. "I'm going to try."

Sampson managed, with great effort, to keep most of the alarm and anger out of his voice. "What does that mean?"

Bloom slowly shook his head. "I'm not the same as I once was. I don't have the strength anymore. Years of imprisonment -- they used drugs. Never enough to damage my brain that they wanted to pick, but it created terrible emotional shifts. I never knew what was real sometimes." He compulsively rubbed his daughter's hand and arm, staring away at the ocean. "When Sam and I were rescued I was confused. My friend wasn't there -- I -- I didn't know who was taking me -- I ran away. Home."

"To your old house."

"Yes."

"Who is this friend you think will rescue you? Part of the committee?"

"No," he shook his head violently. "I was never part of the committee. Don't you understand it, even now?"

Oliver moved closer. "Understand what?"

"I worked for -- another organization," he whispered. "Nora worked for the Committee!"

"What?"

"They found out about my work. They kidnapped me -- and Sam as a hostage. I thought they had killed Nora and Sydney."

"Then your friend --"

"Is from my organization. If he's still alive." Bloom looked at Sampson, the anguish clear in the emotion filled eyes. "They probably killed him after I escaped East Berlin." He bowed his head and shook it. "I'm surprised they didn't kill Nora and Sydney."

"They tried," Oliver confirmed.

Bloom sunk his head in his hands and turned away from his daughter. "A nightmare. Worse than anything I could have imagined in their drugged hallucinations."

Hesitantly, Sampson placed a hand on the thin, shaking shoulder. "We'll get through this, doctor. We have to." He looked at the still form on the bed. "It's the only hope left to believe in."

"Yes," came a muffled, unconfident agreement.

"When will you attempt the VR link?"

"Soon. Sam and Nora are hooking up the equipment. When they're ready, we'll take Sydney in."

Oliver wanted to ask more. Could they trust Nora? She had been with the Committee. So had he, he bitterly reminded himself. Could they trust Sam, or even Bloom? What had the East Germans done to them? Trust no one. That, too, was a lie. It seemed, to survive in this game, and in life, he had to trust someone.

***

Mulder watched the west coastline skim past as they sped up Pacific Coast Highway. It was a beautiful day; warm, sunny, even the air was fresh coming off the ocean. It was an incongruous setting to be hunting spies. The last few hours seemed pretty incongruous anyway. Skinner had given Mulder and Scully orders to completely cooperate with their mysterious new colleague. Solo's credentials were top notch. What remained to be explained was why the man was interested in the people connected with Sampson, and why he needed their help. Questions the man refused to answer. No surprise there, Mulder thought. Truth was hard to come by no matter who you asked in this web of lies layered upon lies, secrecy layered upon secrecy. After Mulder’s explanation of last night’s events, Solo had promised answers, but Mulder wasn't holding his breath. Succinctly, the FBI agent imparted his confrontation with Sampson at the abandoned house in Encino and the accidental shooting. Then Sampson’s escape in a blue Jaguar.

Mulder carefully angled himself to glance at the man in the back seat. "What makes you think this blue jag is the one I saw last night?" Only last night? His side ached like crazy, and he still felt incredibly weak. From drugs and disoriented sleep, the attack seemed like days ago.

The enigmatic man gave a cryptic smile. "The electric bill."

"What?"

"The blue Jag, and the partial plate number you remembered, it gave us a name. A name I am familiar with." At Scully's glare from the rearview mirror, he elaborated. "A colleague of ours. In the same business. The house in Ventura is using up a phenomenal amount of electricity."

"Drug lab?" Scully guessed.

Solo shook his head. "No. Electronic security and, I'm sure, sophisticated computer equipment."

Scully turned off the main highway and stopped on the narrow asphalt lane sloping down to the beach.

"Why did you stop?” the man asked. He didn’t seem to react, but the crinkle lines around his eyes revealed added tension.

Scully shut off the engine, turned to look at the man, and Mulder. "We're not going any farther until we have more answers." She glared at the stranger. "This is a lethal situation. I'm not risking my partner's life, or mine, until we know the whole story."

Solo's brown eyes glared back at her with unflinching ire. After a moment, he gave a curt nod. "All right. Fair enough. Will the abbreviated version do? I am quite anxious to complete this mission."

Scully nodded.

"Go ahead," Mulder invited.

Out of his briefcase, the older man removed a laptop and powered up. He called up the picture of the man Mulder came to know as the Cancer Man.

"Part of a select group known as the Committee. They control power shifts all over the world. They are -- rivals -- of mine. Or were. My credentials are dated. I'm retired. I still have contacts -- personal colleagues who vouch for me. Your Director Skinner is one of them." He tapped the picture of Cancer Man. "He worked with your father on the Committee. Over twenty years ago they kidnapped an agent, a scientist --- Dr Bloom, and his daughter. I've been looking for them ever since.”

“For twenty years?” Mulder’s voice heavy with skepticism, it was a thinly veiled accusation of disbelief. “This is more than just an assignment.”

Staring out at the sea, Solo’s voice trembled. “He was my partner. Nothing else mattered. Perhaps you can relate to that.” He took a steadying breath, then continued without waiting for a reply. “After the fall of the Berlin Wall, I found them in East Berlin and attempted a rescue. It fell apart." His voice cracked. "My friend was lost to me.” He tapped his right leg. “I also lost my kneecap, and some colleagues who were helping.”

Another photo was brought out. The man who looked, in a non-descript way, similar to Cancer Man: tall, thin grey/black hair, narrow face. "My agent, Decker, has been watching Bloom's family here in LA. Including the house you were at last night," the man told Mulder.

"Did they return there?"

“I think so. Decker was rather vague in his last report. It's my belief Decker is now working for the Committee. He's not at any of the safe houses I'm familiar with. He hasn't, however, turned the Bloom's over to the Committee. If he had, we would have found the bodies by now."

"Why?" Scully interrupted. "Why is Bloom so important? And why keep him and his daughter in East Germany all these years?"

"He's invented something -- awesome," was Solo's quiet reply. "Somehow the Committee heard about it and took my friend to -- to bleed his brain,” he shakily confessed. “And took one daughter to act as leverage against him." His expression was sad, his eyes unfocused. "It was too important." He shook his head. "I didn't realize until it was too late . . . "

He phased in another photo on the screen. This one Mulder recognized.

"Sampson. The guy who shot me last night."

"You said the shooting was an accident."

"Yes, we were fighting for my pistol. He could have killed me when I was down, but didn’t."

Solo nodded. "He's with the Committee, too. But there is an internal power struggle going on in the Committee. They are evil; shifting from murders, kidnappings and thefts to further their own agenda. They operate beyond the boundaries of governments and nationalities. They employ agents to do their dirty work. Some of the operatives are generational; mother or father to son or daughter. Mr. Sampson's father was a bodyguard for one of the seven. I think Mr. Sampson might be on our side. Or against the worst side, I should say."

"Who are they?"

Solo's face and eyes darkened dangerously. "They're the one's who want to capture or kill my friend and his family. And we're going to stop them."

"Why?" Scully wondered. "Why should we risk our lives for you and this scientist?"

"The Committee has a personal interest in you, Agent Mulder, because of your father. They’ve invited you into this, and frankly, I want to use you to turn the tables on them.” At Mulder’s bristling, he quickly added, “Because you, and Skinner, and others who still have a conscience, know, we can't afford to let this technology fall into the wrong hands. Not into Committee hands."

"Is that all?" Mulder asked.

"No." Solo offered them a death's head, humorless smile. "No. My motivation is selfishly simple. I'm going to give my friend back his life. Or die trying."

Scully frowned, unhappy with the situation. There was no real reason they should go along with this. Yes, Skinner thought it was important enough to agree to. Yes, it was fighting the men who had killed Mulder's dad and her sister. Maybe they could even accomplish something decent for a change, like saving the lives of a family. She looked at her partner, sending him a silent inquiry with her expression.

Mulder admitted he didn't like the situation. Too many unknowns. Solo didn't know who was on whose side anymore. It was dangerous. What would they gain? Revenge? Who was lying about the Committee? Solo? Cancer Man? Everyone? His only thread of faith rested on Skinner. Their director thought enough of this man and his mission to assign it to the X-Files team. Maybe these were the men who killed his father and he could finally find justice. Or, perhaps, it was enough to be in their own little circle of ‘good’ to counteract the Committee’s dark forces.

He asked Solo about more information on the Committee members, his dad, and Cancer Man. The older agent was disappointingly uninformed, or concealed what he knew.

"Your father was part of the seven -- the controlling group of the Committee. I could name the others for you, but they would mean nothing to you. Now, can we get going?"

"What's your plan?" Mulder asked.

"Simple. I'll go up to the front door and knock."

The FBI agents' expressions clearly indicated the man was insane.

He smiled, a deceptive, easy humor that seemed at once amused and dangerous. "I'm counting on the element of surprise. In case I'm wrong, I expect you two to save my life."

"How'd you live this long?" Scully wondered. Without waiting for an answer she started the car and continued up the lane.

***

Sampson paced nervously in the computer loft. He chewed on his lower lip as he watched Joseph Bloom's nervous fingers attach a VR headset to Sydney's limp head. Samantha held another headset in her hands. Duncan held one for Bloom. On the other side of the room, Nora leaned against the wall and bit her thumbnail. Decker stood behind Samantha, overseeing the operation.

Oliver leaned against the opposite wall and rested his hand on the pistol in his holster. He didn't know who to trust in this room. There were too many variables. What if something went wrong? How would he know? They could kill Sydney inside VR and he'd never know until it was too late. What would he do, kill Bloom, or Sam, in retaliation?

Bloom sat and held onto his headset. He glanced around the room. Nora blew him a kiss. Duncan gave a short kiss to Samantha. Bloom looked to Sampson. Unsure if he was giving a blessing or a curse, he nodded his go-ahead. Bloom slipped on the headset.

This was the hardest part, the waiting. The three of them sat there like statues, but he knew inside their heads a possibly fatal scenario was being played out.

A buzzer alerted him.

"External defenses," Decker said. "I'll check them."

He slipped away. Sampson was torn between following him and remaining with the VR test. A movement from across the room caught at the peripheral of his vision. He glanced at Nora. She gave him a slight nod. Strange how a nearly closed expression, a short head movement could convey so much. She recognized the distrust in him and urged him to follow Decker. Was she suspicious of the Keeper, or did she want him out of the way? It was like being caught in a prism where every angle refracted the light, again and again until there were uncounted elements of distortion and color. Where did the suspicion end and the faith begin?

If he couldn't trust a woman with her own daughters and husband, then what was the point? He could not go on fearing everyone around him forever. He shoved himself off the wall and silently followed Decker. Then he quietly padded up to the security room. Decker sat in front of the wall of monitors and instruments.

Displayed on the camera monitor for the front gate, was an older man with sunglasses. He looked directly into the camera.

"Decker. I know you're in there. Let me in."

Decker moved his hand to the weapons console. His fingers turned the laser pistol to target the intruder.

The man turned his head slightly. There was a mole on his cheek.

Decker's fingers touched the firing button.

Sampson stepped over and grabbed Decker in a choke hold. The laser fired. He squeezed until the man passed out. Oliver looked at the monitor. The man was down, two armed agents trying to get him on his feet. Sampson released the gate lock.

"That was a mistake. Decker is off the controls, now. Come in," he spoke into the monitor. "I'll meet you at the front door."

He quickly bound Decker's hands using the man's necktie, then raced down to the front door. He pulled his weapon and watched the door monitor as the trio made a slow ascent up the front steps to the double doors. The younger man recognized was the man he had struggled with last night. The pretty woman must be the man's partner -- CIA maybe. They had that pressed, government look. Why would they want Bloom? The sagging, older man held between them with a singed shoulder had to be Solitaire.

Oliver drew his pistol and stood at the monitor by the front door. "Let's see some identification!" he demanded.

The FBI agents complied.

“FBI? Why are you with him?”

“They’re helping me,” the older man groaned. “Let us in. Dr. Bloom will vouch for me. Where is Decker, Mr. Sampson?" Solitaire coughed.

"Secured."

"Are you going to finish the job for him?" the wounded man wondered.

"Not unless you force me to."

Agent Scully cast an angry glare at the camera. "Look, let us in and let me see to his wound. You can question us inside."

"He doesn't want to question us, Scully," Mulder corrected. "And if he wanted to kill us, we'd be dead already." He stared into the lens. "So what do you want, Mr. Sampson?"

"Answers, Agent Mulder. What do you want?"

"The truth."

Sampson unlocked the electronic locks and the doors swung open. He stepped aside as the agents placed the suffering man on one of the living room couches. Scully claimed to be a physician and asked for medical supplies.

"I'll get them," Nora Bloom said as she descended the stairs. "Who is it?"

"Don't you recognize him?" Oliver asked, suspicion and fear trickling into his heart.

Nora stepped closer to the wounded visitor. "Yyyes. Yes. An old friend of Joseph's. He used to come to the house. I only know him by a code name. Solitaire." She knelt beside him. "Solitaire. It's you, isn't it?"

Dazed, he nodded. "Mrs. Bloom. You're well?"

"Yes."

"Your husband?"

"He's alive. He's --"

"Don't!" Oliver warned. He yet held the pistol at his side. "Let's not give away everything, Mrs. Bloom."

"Question Decker," Solo ordered and struggled to sit up. "I'm going to find Il-- my friend."

"Don't move, Mr. Solo," Scully warned.

"Solo?" Nora asked. "That's your name?"

Oliver moved closer. "Solo. I know that name. You were from UNCLE?"

The man nodded slowly. "Long ago. The man you know as Joseph Bloom was my partner. He was injured and retired from the field. He asked to go into research with some other scientists from other organizations. He had to change his name. We still had enemies. I visited whenever I could." He glanced at Nora. "When he met you and fell in love and started a family . . . ." He shook his head. "There didn't seem much need for an old partner. I should have stayed closer."

The older woman knelt beside the wounded agent. "You had no idea my organization would betray us all," Nora replied sadly. "Let this young lady tend to your injury. Joseph is upstairs. That's not his real name, is it?"

Solo shook his head. "No. It doesn't matter now. He's lived two different lifetimes since he's seen me. I’m just part of a bad memory."

Mrs. Bloom patted his arm. "You’re one of the only memories he talked about. One of the few memories that matter."

Oliver asked how the VR expedition was going. Nora reported there was no change. Duncan was upstairs keeping an eye on everyone. Solo asked what was going on, but Nora refused to answer anymore questions until his wound was seen to and he was given something for the pain.

Mulder and Sampson went up to the security room and checked the perimeters. No threats. Decker was still unconscious. They moved him into the living room. Sampson left and returned with a phial. The top had a rubber stopper plugging it with a needle stuck on the inside of the rubber. He pulled out one needle and stuck in Decker's vein.

"Hey!" Mulder protested.

"A potent serum," Sampson quickly explained. "He may have been immunized already, but we'll take the chance. We need answers, or we could all be dead."

While Scully tended to the former UNCLE agent, Sampson administered the drug to Decker, how was quickly revived and talking. The double agent admitted to being one of Solo's agents from the beginning. He had not succumbed to pressure from the Committee until after Joseph and Sam had been abducted. By then it was too late to help them. Since his Committee assignment was to look after and care for Nora and Sydney, it was a mutual mission from both employers. He never expected the coup within the Committee, nor the escape of the Blooms, which Solo had never informed him about.

After Abernathy had been killed, Decker felt it imprudent to contact either of his employers. He decided to take the Blooms to a safe house not known by either of the organizations. It was actually a mansion belonging to a rock star and Decker had leased it and stocked it with their accoutrements when he realized he would have need of neutral ground.

"What do you want to do with him?" Sampson asked Solo.

"Leave him for now." Through the tear in his white shirt the bandage covered the burn that had creased him along the top of the shoulder. He slowly came to his feet. "I want to see my friend."

Nora warned him Bloom was in VR and could not communicate yet.

"Virtual reality?" Scully asked.

"Yes," Nora responded. Sampson tried to shush her, but Nora waved away his cautions. "If the FBI is safe enough for Solitaire, I mean, Mr. Solo, then that's good enough for me."

Sampson scowled, but accepted the judgment.

"How far have the experiments come?" Solo asked.

"You won't believe it," Mrs. Bloom replied.

By the time they were up in the loft, she had explained a brief, fast history of the VR technology her husband had worked on in the 70's, and what they were dealing with now. She included her experience in the VR coma and finished with the story of Sydney's entrapment in the electronic void.

The new arrivals were introduced to Duncan, who eyed them with suspicion until Nora vouched for them.

"Any change?" Oliver asked.

Duncan shook his head.

Solo knelt down and sat close to the thin blond man with the techno goggles. For a long time he stared at the friend he had lost over twenty years before. The friend he, in truth, never thought he would see again. He glanced at the girls fondly.

"A beautiful family, Mrs. Bloom."

"I think so," she agreed proudly.

The onlookers settled into chairs or steps or leaned against walls. They waited. Shadows lengthened as the California sun slipped into the amber Pacific.

***

Samantha began to twitch.

"Something's wrong," Duncan said. He seized onto her shoulders. "Sam! Sam, talk to me!"

Oliver yanked the goggles from her face. She shivered, groaned, and slumped back into Duncan's arms.

"What is it?" Solo asked.

Scully knelt by the stricken girl and took her pulse. "Racing pulse. Rapid breathing."

Solo checked Dr. Bloom's pulse. "Should we get him out? There's hardly any beat at all!"

Scully checked the doctor. She glanced at the goggles. Sampson ripped them off of the pale face. She checked the pupils, then the pulse again.

"It's like he's in some kind of coma," Scully muttered.

Nora pulled the glasses off of Sydney. The girl moaned and moved her head.

Oliver was at her side. "Sydney? Sydney? Can you hear me?"

Her lips moved slightly, then her head fell forward.

"Sydney!"

After checking her, Scully shook her head. "No response."

Solo stayed by his friend's side, softly whispering his name, touching his arm or face. His voice was calm, soothing, but his taut expression and glistening eyes betrayed the hopelessness he felt. Nora gently touched his hand and suggested they take Joseph away.

"You've got to get him out of this," Solo desperately demanded.

Sampson had already removed Sydney back to her room. "It's no use. They are trapped in VR."

Nora went on the other side of her daughter. Scully pushed Duncan out of the way and demanded some smelling salts. Sampson raced downstairs.

"Sam's coming around," Duncan broke in.

Sam blinked several times, then opened her eyes. She groggily smiled as she recognized her mother. Duncan leaned over Mrs. Bloom to be included in the line of sight.

"Welcome back, Lady Samantha."

The girl smiled. "Duncan. Mom. I knew you were waiting for me." She raised her head and glanced at Sydney's chair. The smile disappeared. "Syd! She --" she turned to her father. "Daddy!" She bolted up. "I've got to go back in!"

"Not now," Nora shot back. "You can't risk it now. Wait for --"

There was a crash downstairs. Mulder was on his feet, gun drawn. "Scully."

She pulled her gun and followed him downstairs.

Another thud. Mulder crouched as he came off the last few steps and he settled behind a chair, surveying the living room. The huge glass windows were muted with the dusky glow of twilight. Shadows were deep and deceptive. Scully came up behind him and nudged his arm, nodded toward the sofa. Decker was no longer there. Mulder pointed to his left, touched Scully and pointed to the right. At his nod they split up and carefully made their way through the downstairs rooms.

Mulder checked the monitor at the front door. All was secure and still. He crept through the dining area and into a pantry attached to the kitchen. At the side of the open door he hesitated. A shadow on the dark floor caused him to pause. It took a minute for him to recognized the shape as a shoe. A shoe tipped over. As if the owner of the shoe was laying down.

Hardly breathing, he waited, listening, watching. A shadow moved across the floor. An almost -- almost -- silent motion. As the shadow approached, Mulder kicked his foot into Decker’s leg. A pistol discharged, the bullet slicing past him. More shots flew around the kitchen. Mulder fired back three times, then heard a body slam to the floor. He edged around the door. Decker was dead. Even from across the room, in the dim light, he could see the glassy, sightless eyes of the dead man.

Scully rushed in behind him.

"Mulder, you all right?"

"Yeah. But Decker's not."

He checked the wounded double agent while Scully checked Sampson, sprawled on the floor.

"He's alive," she said. "He got a pretty nasty knock to the head."

"Let's move him to the couch."

***

Oliver awoke wishing he would stop passing out, or getting knocked about. It seemed the only way he was getting any sleep anymore. And this method was very painful. He opened his eyes. The room was washed in soft lights from the standing lamps in the room. Mulder and Scully were in muted conversation with Mrs. Bloom. Duncan was stirring up something in a pot on the table. The room smelled like coffee and chili and salt air. The glass door on the seaward side was open. A cool breeze flowed through with little particles of ocean mist.

"What's happening?"

Everyone turned to him.

"We're about to eat," Duncan answered.

Scully and Nora came over to him. They said he had been out for three hours. Scully checked him while he asked about Sydney and the others.

"Solo is up there with them," Nora replied.

"Sydney is the same. I've hooked her up to a temporary iv to keep her fluids replenished." Scully gave him a scowl, admitting he would live, but he wasn't in very good shape. She wryly suggested he quit getting in the way of bullets and guns. "Dr. Bloom is more responsive than Sydney, but he's not coming around."

"Sam's better, though," Mrs. Bloom smiled. "She's resting in her room."

"I'm taking her some chili," Duncan supplied.

Sampson hated to admit how good the food smelled. He wasn't in the mood to eat, but his stomach rebelled against his moodiness. He joined the others for a surprisingly good meal. Then they went upstairs for a counsel.

Scully and Mulder felt they were vulnerable. They had no idea who knew about the house, since Decker was the one who arranged it. Sampson was reluctant to leave until Sydney and Bloom's conditions were resolved. Solo fervently agreed. Duncan protectively said Sam should not try again and everyone agreed. Before he had given it more than a second of thought, Sampson volunteered to go in after Sydney.

"I'll go, too," Solo demanded.

"You can't," Nora objected. "You've never been in --"

"I have," Sampson flung back quickly. "I hate it, but I've been there. Let me contact Sydney."

"From what everyone tells me, it's a strange world, in there," Solo said, "but I think I'm the only one who could bring Il--Joseph out."

"I could," Nora volunteered."

Sampson disagreed. "You might fall in and never come out again, Mrs. Bloom. You haven't recovered completely yourself. And, you helped built VR. If anything goes wrong, we need you on the outside."

Weighing the dangers with the desperation to recover their lost friends, the plan was reluctantly approved.

***

Bloom, Sydney, Sampson and Solo faced the monitors. The Blooms both had headsets on. The agents held theirs in their hands.

"I'll leave security to you two," Sampson told the FBI agents.

"We'll take care of everything," Mulder promised. "Just be sure to come back."

Sampson placed the headset on his eyes and Duncan dialed the internal phone line that connected them all.

============

It was like falling down Alice's rabbit hole, he decided. There were colors and swirls and images he thought he knew, but were distorted and misshapen. Thankfully he finally came to an abrupt stop, or the world around him stopped spinning, and he stood on the shore of a white beach. Florescent blue sea washed up to the shore and the tide created a peach colored line of foam at his feet. He looked around. He saw Solo walking along the beach in a daze. Sampson jogged to meet him, taking the older man by the arm. Napoleon Solo was no longer the limping, over-fifty former spy Oliver knew. Solo was young, agile, his dark hair longer, thicker, ruffled in the ocean breeze. Dressed in an old-styled conservative suit with a thin dark tie, he looked trim, lithe and suave.

"A bit disorienting, isn't it?"

"Very," the ex-agent hissed softly. "Why do I look thirty-five again? Where are we?"

"In a world created by Sydney, I think." He looked up and down the shoreline. It stretched endlessly. "There is no end."

He looked up to the sandy dunes. Amid the washed cream of rolling sand there was an umbrella. It was a black, shimmering canopy. Rain dripped from the edges even though there were no rain clouds in sight and no rain anywhere else.

Napoleon scanned the disorienting vista with a habitual eye to detail, but his heart and mind were focused on only one goal, one thought. Where was his friend? There . . . . Beneath the umbrella were Sydney and Joseph Bloom -- no, definitely not Bloom, but Illya Kuryakin. For the former UNCLE spy was dressed in a black turtleneck, black trousers, his hair long and shaggy in a Beatle-type cut, his face unlined, as if he was thirty.

Napoleon laughed from relief and fear mingled with the most unbelievable lash of pain and joy he had ever known. There was Illya, as if they had erased thirty years of pain and longing. As if the horrors had never happened and the two of them had just walked out of UNCLE HQ in New York.

Sampson started toward the father and daughter. Solo was just steps behind. They were within a few feet of the two, when some kind of shimmery wall stopped them.

"Sydney?"

Sydney's stark blue eyes stared at him Her face brightened. She beamed a wonderful smile at him. "Oliver," she whispered and made it sound like an exotic chant and a sensual message all at the same breath. "You came for me."

His heart melted. He knew this was not reality, knew to trust nothing here, it was all symbolism and confusion. But his happiness leaped away from reason and embarrassed the emotions stretching between them. He never realized how much he loved her now. It was an ache that twisted his insides and burned in his thoughts.

"Why are you changing colors?" she asked.

There was a pink tinge to his skin. He was embarrassed that his desires were so obvious.

"Never mind."

Napoleon moved to get as close as he could to his old friend. He touched the shimmery barrier several times, each hit elicited a stinging jolt and tinged his fingertips black.

"Illya? Can you hear me? I've come for you."

It was a soft, tremulous whisper. The words were quiet, the tone calm, but the voice trembled with desperation.

"Illya? Did you forget me?"

Dr. Bloom had not moved or looked at them at all until that last question. At that, he tilted his blond head and squinted, as if he could hear something far away.

"Illya."

The blond turned. His eyes connected with Solo's.

"Napoleon."

The exotic name was spoken in a tone filled with wonder and elation. Kuryakin smiled. It was a rueful, crooked grin that transformed the pale face into a bright expression and sparkling eyes of mischief.

"I never forgot you. I knew you would keep your promise in your own blundering way.”

"I did," Solo laughed as tears spilled down his cheeks. "I'm here to take you back."

"Back where?" Sydney asked.

"Home," Oliver whispered. "You're coming home with us. You and your father. Isn't that what you always wanted, Sydney? To be reunited with your father and Sam?"

"Yes."

"Yes," Illya agreed. He held onto his daughter's hand. "Sam came to visit. She said Nora was waiting."

"They're waiting, doctor."

Bloom's face darkened. "The Committee is waiting, too."

"We'll protect you from them, Illya. We have people to protect you."

Kuryakin shook his head. "There is no safety, Napoleon." He hugged Sydney tightly. "I know too much. I've seen too much. Now we've been into VR8, Syd and me. We can't go back."

"No!" Oliver cried. "You have to come back, Sydney."

Sydney disengaged her father's hold. "Oliver. I want to come back with you. But I can't. None of us can go back."

"Samantha did," the blond scientist countered.

"She knew the signposts. I don't."

"Dr. Bloom knows," Sampson countered harshly. To the scientist he accused, "Don't you want to go back? Are you so afraid you're going to hide in here while your family is at risk? What kind of a father are you?"

Solo shoved him away. "That's enough." He stepped back and gestured around them. "Look, the sky is turning dark."

Above them the azure canopy faded to a deep, midnight blue. The umbrella began to shrink. Huge drops of rain poured heavily from the edges of the charcoal cloth. It seemed to be closing in on Bloom and his daughter.

"What's happening?" Sampson demanded of the scientist.

Illya shook his head. He seemed in pain.

"How do we stop this, Sydney?" Oliver shouted.

Solo knelt beside his old friend. "Illya, how can we get you out of here?"

"You can't, Napoleon. Leave --"

"If there's a way in, dammit, there’s a way out!" the ex-spy insisted. "I'm not leaving unless I take you with me, Illya. If you don't tell me soon we're all stuck here, aren't we?"

The dark sky was shrinking down around them. It blocked out the sun and was edging on the horizon of the ocean and sand. Soon the entire landscape would be swallowed and they would be covered in the dark mist.

Solo swallowed down the fear chocking his throat. He did not want to spend the rest of his life in this vaporous void. But he had told his old friend the truth, he would not leave without him. Even life in this void with Illya was better than a life in the normal world with the guilt of leaving his friend behind. He could not survive that a second time.

"Illya, help us!"

Sydney squeezed her father's arm. "Daddy, there must be a way out."

Defeated blue eyes of Illya/Bloom stared out from a pale, worn continence. He gently brushed his daughter's face with his fingers, then looked at Solo. "I am the way out, Napoleon. I know the safeguards -- only I. My only insurance against the Committee." He bowed his head and shook it, the blond bangs shaking as he trembled. "I don't have the faith anymore, Napoleon. Who can I trust?"

The umbrella's black ribs were closing in. Solo and Sampson had to lean down to keep in sight of the Blooms. Sampson reached in to physically removed Sydney from the trap, but a barrier shocked him and threw him onto the sand.

"No one can penetrate it," Kuryakin sighed. "And I don't have the strength to throw it off." Tears spilled down his cheeks.

Solo stood, pacing around the umbrella for a moment.

"Have you got a plan?" Oliver eagerly asked, noting the thoughtful demeanor of the former agent.

"I think so," Napoleon sighed. "It's all I can come up with." He looked at the young Englishman. "Whatever happens to me, I want you to try and get out of here. Take Sydney if you can, but if you can't, get out. You'll have to report to the others and let them know what happened."

"But --"

"Sampson, don't argue! There's no time!" he snapped. "Understood?"

"Yes," Oliver bit back.

Solo knelt down, almost laying on the sand to see Kuryakin. "Illya, this umbrella is your protection. Against whom?"

"The Committee."

"Yes, but specifically whom. Whom didn't you trust?"

Kuryakin snorted a derisive, humorless laugh. "Everyone."

"Sydney?"

"No," Illya denied, holding his daughter close.

"Nora?"

The pale face flinched. "I don't know."

"Samantha?"

Illya's lip twitched. "I don't know."

"Abernathy?" Sampson asked.

Kuryakin nodded. "Decker. I was never sure about Decker."

Very quietly, as close as he could, Napoleon whispered, "Me?"

Illya shook his head. "Never you, Napoleon."

"Even when I didn't come for you? Even after twenty years?"

Kuryakin continued to shake his head.

"Even after Alex failed?"

"I always trusted you," Illya insisted.

The midnight blue sky was seeping along the sand like a porous liquid stain. The ocean was gone, the sky was gone. There was only a small island of sand surrounding them. The umbrella dripped and stained huge drops of black. Bloom and Sydney were crushed together in a tight ball to avoid the edges of the smearing black.

Solo stood, glanced at Sampson for moral support and released a sigh. "Here goes everything," he breathed.

Flinching with fear and distaste, he slowly edged his hand through the top of the umbrella.

"Illya," he called. “Take my hand.”

Kuryakin shook his head.

“If you trust me, take it, Illya! Now!”

The scientist looked up and saw the hand coming through the blackness. Solo's skin took on a silvery, shimmery glow as it completely sunk through the black. It sparked with energy and Solo cried out in pain. Illya reached out and held onto the outstretched hand. Immediately the black dissolved, dispersed, folding away in ethereal images of Nora, Samantha, Decker, Abernathy and other faces Sampson had never seen. He watched in amazement as the globs of black thinned into grey, then into nothingness. The midnight sky absorbed the tendrils and washed back to azure as the vapors swept away the darkness like clouds on the wind. The umbrella completely dissolved. He stood there still clutching Napoleon’s hand.

Sydney jumped to her feet and threw herself into Sampson's arms. They shared a long, deep kiss. Solo helped his old friend to his feet.

"Are you all right?"

Illya/Bloom nodded. For the first time during their reunion he smiled. It was a tentative, uncertain display of a qualified confidence. Kuryakin released his friend, walked over and touched Sydney's shoulder. She was too enthraled with Sampson to notice the touch.

"Sydney, it's time to go home."

She pulled slightly apart from Oliver, still clutched in an embrace. Illya kept his hold on her shoulder, then reached out to take Solo's hand.

"It's time for all of us to go home."

He closed his eyes.

========

Bloom/Kuryakin gasped at the shock to his system, slightly disoriented as confusing thoughts and emotions surged in on his mind. Tightening his eyes, he carefully sorted out the feelings and shouts bombarding his brain. He selected those that were warmest; emotions felt as a comfortable blanket, seen as a pastel blue cloud.

'Napoleon? Can you hear me?'

'I can -- feel you! Inside my mind!'

'Illya laughed. 'Yes! It's wonderful!'

'Daddy! What is it?'

'Sydney, darling, it's VR8'

'VR8?' Oliver wondered. 'Sydney, love, what does it mean?'

'Our thoughts,' Illya explained. 'You, me, all of us, to certain degrees, are telepathic and empathic. Depending on your abilities. We must be careful of these new gifts. Keep them secret.'

'How?' Oliver wondered.

'Before we leave here, make a mental landmark -- a signpost for your mind. Some kind of image that your mind can return to for stability and reference. It will be like a calming thought. When you focus on that, you can block out the thoughts and emotions of others.'

'How can we keep it secret?' Oliver asked.

"Won't they notice?" Napoleon wondered.

'Just clear your mind. Can you feel that warmth? The blue? Now focus on that. Then open your eyes. We will be back in the VR room. But tell no one of this new level of our abilities.'

'Daddy, will we lose this wonderful closeness? This warmth?'

'No, sweetheart. Whenever you want to feel that closeness, focus your thoughts and I'll be there sharing them with you.'

'Or someone else,' Napoleon quipped.

'Oliver,' Sydney sighed.

'I'll always be here for you, love,' he answered.

‘How sweet.’

'Napoleon, how can you manage to be sarcastic even by telepathy?'

'Habit.'

***

Sydney gasped as the links ended and she felt the physical world around her and the mental world closed.

"Syd!" Duncan shouted. The VR headset was yanked off her face. "Syd, you're back!"

She was hugged by Duncan, her mother and Samantha. There was more confusion as they realized her father was conscious again. The whole family, including Duncan, hugged and kissed and cried at the reunion.

Stepping away from the throng, Sampson and Solo quietly observed the hysterical joy. Sydney pulled free one of her arms and gestured for Oliver to come to her.

"I think you're part of the family now," Solo quipped.

Without hesitation, Sampson took Sydney's hand, which quickly altered into an embrace and kiss.

Nora made a laughing comment about family alterations. Bloom/Kuryakin glanced on the other side to see Samantha and Duncan in a similar intimate position and repeated his wife's predictions.

There was a sense of disquiet edging the overwhelming joy. Illya separated from his wife, already knowing the discord was coming from his former partner. Napoleon had left the room, but was near. This leftover of psychic impressions from VR8 was stronger than he had expected. Oddly, the link was stronger between Napoleon and him than with Sydney, his own daughter. While his little girl was flesh and blood, there was a bond of years between partners that somehow transcended other relationships. He went in search of Solo. Like some kind of internal tracking device, he was instinctively guided to the small back room where they confined Decker. As Illya placed his hand on the doorknob, he knew Solo was inside injecting the traitor with truth serum.

'Come in,' Napoleon invited before the door opened.

Illya did as he was bidden. Decker was already in a stupor from the drug. Scully and Mulder silently watched.

"He's about to give us some answers," Solo unnecessarily explained.

Kuryakin nodded. He conversed with the FBI agents about the happy reunion upstairs. Then he inquired about their official standing of the case and what they would report to the FBI.

Mulder shrugged. "I never found the man who killed my father."

Scully nodded agreement. "Sampson had nothing to do with the murder. And we have no proof of VR technology, since we never experienced anything more than the recovery of a coma patient."

There twitched a ghost of a smile at Kuryakin's lips. "All true."

"As far as you're concerned," Mulder shrugged, "we know nothing about who you are or what you do."

"I love interagency cooperation," Solo quipped. "Now let's see how chemical cooperation works." Noting the stare from his partner -- able to read the subtle expressions from the Russian even after a twenty year gap, Solo silently questioned him.

‘What?’

‘You’re -- different.’

‘Old?’

‘In VR we were as we will always remember each other, tovarich. Inside, you are the same. Still getting yourself injured.’ He struggled to keep his thoughts wry, clever, as they used to banter so easily. It was impossible now. He had been through so much pain, yet, it hurt to see his friend had suffered as well -- as usual -- suffered in his behalf.

‘Still rescuing you,’ came the fond chastisement. At Illya’s raised eyebrows, Solo reminded, ‘I can REALLY read your mind now.’

‘A dubious upgrade,’ the Russian mentally sighed.

Quietly, intently, Mulder asked questions as the FBI agent circled the drugged prey. Decker's head bobbed as he answered questions in vague slurs of single words. The man was saying nothing valuable. Unable to keep out of it, Solo started interrogating, too, persistently throwing inquiries to the double-agent. Patient, driven, somber, Napoleon pounded the man with questions about the Committee, the Blooms, Mulder, the secret cabal within the Committee -- the Secret Seven. Decker's answers slowly became phrases, then sentences and ideas strung together. When he slowed, Solo injected another dose of the drug.

Scully objected to the increased doses, but Solo harshly refused any compromise now. Their lives depended on what this man could tell them and Solo would not stop until he had the answers he wanted.

Decker talked. His loyalty to Solo lasted only until the Committee, rather the Secret Seven, came along with a better offer. He explained the Secret Seven controlled the world, with tendrils of power snaking through every government on earth. Each member of the Seven controlled a different area of intrigue or secrecy about the world, i.e., Abernathy overseeing scientific experiments. Each Seven also had loyal officers working for them, high ranking minions being members of The Committee.

‘Sounds a lot like THRUSH,’ came Illya’s tired thought.

‘All too much,’ Solo agreed.

William Mulder, Agent Fox Mulder's father, was one of the Seven. He had defected from the group in the Seventies. Rather than kill him, they bought his silence by abducting his daughter.

Abernathy, one of the other members of the Seven, had Nora Bloom and Ian Sampson as his minions. Nora unknowingly told more than she should have about her husband’s experiments. Abernathy saw it as his chance to break away from the Seven and gain supreme power of the world. Knowing Nora and Sampson would never go along with his plan, he had Sampson killed. He kidnapped Bloom and Samantha (again abducting a daughter for leverage over the father) and Decker was to kill Nora and Sydney, but Nora had plunged her daughter and herself into a VR false reality. The VR power was so great for Nora, or perhaps the psychological trauma, that she was comatose for the next decade. Decker decided to observe them instead of kill them, and they were left alone.

Another member of Seven discovered Abernathy's duplicity (Decker didn't know which one) and discovered the Bloom's were alive in East Germany after the crumbling of communism. On his own, this member of the Seven brought the freelance spy Alex (who worked for the Committee) in to bring the Bloom's out. Agents were killed, Alex went over the edge and ran, the Blooms got away and hid out until they returned a few months ago to Los Angeles.

With Abernathy dead, his Committee members would be struggling to stay alive. The Seven would probably win and eliminate those involved in the coup. There was nothing to stop them from taking control of VR technology and the Blooms.

Mulder asked if the man he knew as Cancer Man was a member of the Committee. He described the man and Decker identified him as a member of the Seven.

"Is he part of Abernathy's coup?" Illya asked.

Decker guessed so. The double agent was having a hard time breathing. He fought for the words to answer the relentless demands of the former UNCLE agent. Scully insisted the questioning stop, but Solo refused. She argued until the older man ordered her to leave the room or be silent. She opted for quietly fuming, but remaining at the interrogation.

Solo inquired, "What are your orders?"

"Keep the Blooms safe until the usefulness of VR is verified."

"Then?" Illya asked.

Decker didn't know. He wasn't sure who he would report to now that Abernathy was dead. That was why he had secured the Blooms in a neutral safehouse that neither Solo nor the Committee would know about.

"We have to leave," Illya concluded, edged with anxiety.

Napoleon gave him a nod. 'We'll arrange something, old friend. Don't panic.'

Kuryakin gave him a nod.

"You're losing him!" Scully told them. Decker was fighting for air. She knelt beside him and loosened his tie. She checked his pulse, then laid a hand on his chest. "His heart is racing. Isn't there an antidote you can use? Get him out of this!"

Solo's expression was grim. He shook his head. To Mulder and Kuryakin he asked, "Any last questions?"

"What about my father?" Mulder said to Decker. "William Mulder. Who ordered him killed? Was it Abernathy? Or the head of the Seven, the Englishman? Was it the man we know as Cancer Man?"

Decker's head nodded in the affirmative. He was beyond the ability to speak.

"The Cancer Man?"

He mouthed the word 'Abernathy'.

"That's enough!" Dana Scully cried.

Decker's head fell forward, limp and still. She checked for a pulse, then checked his eyes.

"Don't bother," Solo told her. "It was a one-way trip."

Scully spun on him, her face as cold and hard as her voice. "You murdered him!" she viciously condemned.

"I used a drug I knew would work. We had to know what kind of danger we were all in. Now we know."

She glared at him with unforgiving malice. "That makes you as bad as the men you think of as the bad guys. Or the Committee, or the Seven. Or UNCLE! It doesn't really matter what the label is, does it? You're all the same!"

Solo shrugged, none of the condemnation affecting him. "Maybe. I don’t care. I stopped at nothing to find the Blooms. Now that I have them, I will stop at nothing to keep them safe."

Too angry to debate further, Scully stalked from the room.

"Did you find out what you wanted to know?" Napoleon asked Mulder.

"Yes. Some. We'll never know all the truth, will we?"

"No," Solo offered a rueful, regretful smile. "No, we never will, I don't think." He glanced at Kuryakin. "I don't really care anymore."

Mulder nodded. He looked at the two old friends. "Your quest for the truth is over. Mine is still going on."

"I wish you the best of luck finding it," Solo offered.

Kuryakin shook hands with the young man. "If there's anything we can do to help you, let us know."

"With that VR stuff?" Mulder considered the possibilities. "I might. But how will I find you?"

"We'll let you know. Somehow," Napoleon assured. "You -- even your pretty, but skeptical partner -- are good allies. In this game you can never have enough of those."

"I know," Mulder agreed wholeheartedly.

***

At sunrise the next morning, Oliver Sampson watched the sun come up over the hazy Pacific north of San Diego California. They stood on a small veranda just above the sandy beach fronting the small house. It was a sunrise similar to the one he had observed days ago near Ventura. This one was infinitely better. This time he was sharing it with Sydney.

She snuggled closer to him as they sat in the sand, bundled in a warm blanket.

"What's going to happen to us now, Oliver?"

He held her tighter. "Personally or generally?" he inquired quietly as he nuzzled her ear.

She gently jabbed him in the ribs. "Personally isn't much of a mystery, is it?"

"No. Generally, then? I don't know. But for the first time in my life I'm not worried about what's hidden in the shadows, or lurking in the fog. I feel the strangest calm." He looked at her. "Is that left over from the VR?"

"I think so. Sometimes I hardly need say anything to you. I know exactly what you're feeling and thinking."

His laugh was lecherous. "That's not hard."

"Be serious, Oliver! You know what I mean!"

"Yes, I know. Scary, isn't it?" he teased dramatically. "A lover who can read my thoughts! Spooky!"

It had been a disconcerting discovery at first to realize how connected he felt with Sydney. Through the frantic night of packing VR equipment and leaving the house by boat under the cover of darkness, there had been little time for pondering the mysteries of their new powers. All they really knew as when they were close, they could sense each others moods and feelings. It was nothing like the telepathy they had all felt inside VR8. But it was enough to enhance the bond they already felt for each other, and intensify their burgeoning love.

"Yeah, so you better watch out, mate."

"Oh, I promise, love. And you'll just have to keep me on a short leash to keep me in range, or whatever."

"Don't tempt me," she laughed. "Why aren't you afraid any more?"

He pointed down the beach. At the steps leading down a hill from the house, to the secluded, private beach, Solo and Joseph Bloom sat on a bench. The two old friends were in deep conversation.

"Solo."

"What about him?"

"Don't you remember what we felt from him inside VR8? The total commitment to keep your father safe. The desperation."

Sydney responded after a thoughtful moment. "I felt it from you, too.."

"Yes," he agreed as he kissed her forehead. "Desperate to get you out because I'm desperately, hopelessly in love with you." He kissed her on the nose. "Solo was driven by his love of your father. And something even more powerful, I think. Guilt. An agony to free you and your father because he had failed to protect your family twenty years ago. A life and death desperation. He won't fail to protect you again."

"So what will he do, hide us forever?"

"No. I think he staged an accident at the beach house."

"Will the Committee believe it?"

"I hope so. Solo made some kind of deal with the FBI agents, too. He wouldn't tell me what. We may have to do a little work before we're completely safe."

"What kind of work?"

"Boring old spy stuff," Oliver brushed off. "Nothing we need to worry about now," he assured as he kissed her lips.

***

"I want to do this, Napoleon! It's the only way we can be safe!"

Fuming, Solo turned away from his irritating friend. He scanned the beach for the rest of the Bloom family; Duncan and Oliver, strolling on the beach nearby. They were not aware of the argument and Solo wanted it kept that way. Straining to hide the aches and pains -- old and new -- he came to his feet and limped laboriously up the steps to toward the house. "You are as stubborn and --

"Unreasonable." "--unreasonable!--" Both said simultaneously.

"--as ever!" Solo finished, more frustrated than ever now that Kuryakin could literally anticipate his thoughts and arguments! He turned back and glared at his friend. How could he love this man like a brother -- separated for twenty years -- and be so angry at him!?

"Napoleon --"

"Illya, I staged the explosion, the body, the witnessing FBI agents --"

"All very thorough it was, too, Napoleon --"

"Why can't you be satisfied? Why risk this? If we lay low --"

"Then we are fugitives forever!" Kuryakin countered passionately. "This is a much better prison than Berlin, but it is still a prison, Napoleon! My family must be free!"

At this proximity there was no mistaking the intensity of the Russian's emotions. Solo could feel them in his own mind just as he could plainly hear them in the voice and see them in the expressive blue eyes of his friend. Eyes he had never expected to see again, but desperately hoped he would. This was all he had wanted for twenty long and agonizing years. He would rather die than risk something happening to Illya again.

Illya had to take this final step for the safety of his family. For Napoleon, the risk was just too great. He could not bear seeing his friend in danger again. They had lost over twenty years. If something went wrong . . . .

'Trust me again, Napoleon. Just once more.'

'Hah! Where have I heard that before?'

'Your sarcastic comments are one thing, Napoleon. Now I have to hear them in my mind --‘

‘Quit complaining. You got us into this. Or rather, into my mind.’

Yes, my friend, and I can feel your fear --'

'Dammit, then why go back into VR? You might never come back! Don't do this to me! To your family!'

Kuryakin placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. Solo, still irritated and upset, turned. The tears in those blue eyes crumbled the anger blocking back his own tears. His eyes misted and he closed them.

'I am doing it for them, Napoleon! For you. Trust me, Napoleon. Just as I trusted you. Just once more. Then there will be no reason to fear again. Please. For me.'

Solo nodded his consent. Somehow he had known he would have to agree to this all along. He wondered why, after years of opposition to the cool, logical, Russian born con man, he even bothered anymore.

***

The personal cell phone of the Englishman buzzed. Who would be calling him now, he wondered? It was minutes before his colleagues would gather and discuss the unfortunate business of the Abernathy and Bloom debacle. What a mess! And those FBI agents were in it again, too. Their report to Skinner indicated that everyone at the beach house had been killed. His spies at the FBI were convinced the agents, Mulder and Scully, were convinced of the deaths.

Only the Englishman knew, or suspected he knew, the people residing at the beach house. Some of the list was guesswork, some intuition. He was certain about the young Sampson boy -- man now. The Blooms. Decker, he couldn't be sure. Solo, the wild card, he would bet was there as well. He should have done away with that meddlesome old UNCLE spy years ago, except that Solo did a lot of unwitting legwork finding the Blooms. If the Blooms were dead then Solo better be dead too, or he would make himself a thorn in the collective sides of the Seven. The Englishman sighed, anticipating a hit order on Solo. He would call the Smoking Man immediately. No matter what the fate of the Blooms, Solo was a walking dead man.

The phone beeped again and he answered it. Who, that he would not see in a few moments, would have his private number?

"Yes?"

***

Inside his mind, in the instant of a thought, the Englishman looked at a California coastline where a beach house was gutted in flames. A gas explosion. Ghosts wafted up like smoke vapors from the inferno. He identified each of the ghosts; Nora Bloom, Sydney, Samantha, Joseph, Oliver Sampson, Decker, Solo, Duncan. Dead. All dead.

"They are to be forgotten from this day forward," came an omniscient voice booming in his skull. "They are no more. There is no more VR5. Everything is burned. All are gone. Ashes and dust."

***

The Englishman stood by the window, wondering why he held the cell phone in his hand. There was no one on the line. The doors to the comfortable room opened. Members of the Seven entered, enveloped in the nasty odor of smoke. That damn man and his cigarettes --

"Gentlemen," he began before they even sat down. "I have confirmation that the Blooms are dead. The VR technology was destroyed in the explosion."

The chain smoker lit one cigarette with another. "Can you be sure?"

"Positive," the Englishman affirmed. "We shall not speak of it again! Now, on to other matters . . . ."

***

Napoleon Solo held his breath as Illya clicked off the cell phone.

“Illya?”

The Russian turned to him and smiled. ‘It is done,” he triumphantly proclaimed in his friend’s mind. ‘Piece of cake.”

Solo released the breath. ‘Finally. Now, maybe we can put this behind us and get on with our lives.”

Illya squeezed his friend’ uninjured shoulder. ‘Thank you so much, tovarich. I can never repay you for --‘

‘There is nothing to repay,’ was the instant return thought. ‘I’ve owed you and your family this for twenty years. Let’s just leave it at that, please. Having you back is all I ever needed.’ In an unsteady voice he said, “Now, lets go out and join your family. We have a few hours before the helicopter arrives to take us to a small, out of the way airport.”

Kuryakin nodded his agreement, his emotions settling enough to speak as he followed his friend out onto the warm sand.

‘I’ve been meaning to ask you, what is your plan? Something devious if I know you.’

‘Thank you, Mr. Kuryakin, I certainly hope so. Napoleon laughed for the first time in more years than he could remember. ‘You like this mental stuff, don’t you? Appeals to your sneaky nature.’

‘Yes.’

‘I was thinking of setting you up as some kind of rich, eccentric European owning a South Pacific sugar plantation.”

Illya nodded approvingly. “I like it. With a big house?”

‘Huge.”

‘A large veranda?”

‘Two. One for the dawn, one for the sunset.”

‘And who will run the plantation?”

‘How about your new sons-in--law?”

‘And what will you do?”

‘Oh, I’m sure I’ll find something to fill my time. Don’t you remember the Polynesian women?”

‘You haven’t changed a bit.

‘Thank you.’

THE END