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The young man perched at his desk, in his office, idly poked the crackling paper on a package in front of him, his eyes a blue distance of sunlit sea.
Holidays are memory, in a way other dates are not, and he could remember a friend, years ago, showing him a perfectly predictable poem, written for the holiday when at school:
October October
Red October
Red with the blood of the unending toil
That broke us to pieces, our mothers our children
Enslaved for the health of hereditary power
Enslaved for the wealth of moneyed power
But freed by our own hands and freed by our anger
That cracked and crumbled our prisoning walls
...It was hard, very hard for Illya Kuryakin to imagine a freeing anger of any kind. It was too intense, and too blind, to effect a purpose so nebulous and ideal as freedom.
November 7th, in the new calendar, and as the resident Soviet of the New York office of UNCLE, he was being treated very strangely by his coworkers. About a third of them were trying not to be resentful, as if the Revolution had in any way changed their personal lives. There had been two feeble jests about Soviets not knowing when October was over. Perhaps another forty years of the updated calendar would stop the comments, but Illya was, as ever, doubtful.
A few women, however, seemed to have decided this was his version of Christmas. He eyed the little packages on his desk with trepidation and distaste. The floral print of the wrapping paper seemed like a silent, pastel assault.
Home was very far away.
***********
On the plane, as he bit into a particularly fine apricot truffle, dark and bitter to offset the overt sweetness of the filling, he felt much better about things. His partner was eyeing the box with envy and curiosity, but Illya wasn't about to allow Napoleon's stare to elicit an offer. It would be much more amusing to force the man to be impolitic and ask for one.
A cleared throat signaled the start of the match. "Those chocolates look good, Illya, where did you buy them?"
"I didn't," he answered, eyes focused on the last bit of truffle in his hand, and stifled a smile at his partner's unsubtle hint.
Napoleon visibly shuffled possibilities through his mind: stolen, won in a raffle, gift. He hesitantly tried, "New lab tech currying favor?"
Illya barked a laugh. "No. No, one of the secretaries noticed that today is a Soviet holiday, though I don't think she realized what sort of holiday it is." Before Solo could shuffle through his mental calendar, Illya filled in for him, "It is the anniversary of the revolution."
"You're actually celebrating that?" Napoleon asked incredulously, without thought. Illya's scowl and turn toward the window alerted him to error, and he quickly backpedaled and apologized.
Illya barely heard the apology, though he murmured a polite acceptance. He wasn't celebrating, after all, aside from the yearly awkwardness of headquarters. He had no need to. Yet it seemed, perversely, that it shouldn't be so instantly assumed that he would allow the holiday to pass unmarked.
Napoleon was still apologizing and making excuses. Illya handed him a truffle, which instantly shut him up.
**********
Of course it would be raining in Seattle. Of course he and Napoleon had been separated, and of course the local THRUSH goons had eagerly followed Illya instead of Solo, who was sheltering their quarry.
Illya turned a corner and ducked into a doorway for a breather, biting down laughter which threatened when his pursuers went stampeding past. He watched the nearly abandoned grey street through the dawn rain, timing his emergence carefully.
Rain fell in sheets. A car passed, housewife at the wheel. He was about to step out, when the door behind him opened, and a man poked his head out. "If you plan to hide from the rain, come in and warm up while you're at it." Illya obeyed, a trifle sheepish for being caught unawares, no matter how friendly the man who'd managed it appeared.
A brief visit, Illya thought, warming hands before a furnace and perhaps pleading some urgent early morning pharmacy visit. He could invent a sick sister needing cold remedies. But inside his host stood at the head of a stairway leading below ground, and Illya paused in alarmed dismay.
His host glanced back, misinterpreting the pause. "Don't worry," he said, "the shop's clean. No rats in this part of the undercity these days. Tourists might be disappointed, but keeping up with city codes means we stay in business."
Illya chose a question to begin with. "And what is your business, Mister... I'm sorry, I do not know your name, either."
The man held out a hand. "Name's Bill. I run the tours of the old part of Seattle, the first floor, you might say."
"Might I?" Illya asked, as he shook the hand.
"Oh yeah," Bill confirmed, and began to explain how the first floor of the city came to be abandoned. Illya was taking a both polite and professional interest, abandoned spaces all too frequently becoming THRUSH nests. Bill had just gotten onto the subject of terrible plumbing and the infamous Crapper toilets, when they heard the door above rattle.
"...some people don't know how to read a closed sign," Bill began, when they were both startled by the sound of an impact splintering wood. "What the h- Mph!" Bill was cut off by Illya's hand over his mouth.
"I'll explain shortly. Do you know somewhere safe for us to hide, Bill?" Illya murmured in the man's ear, lisping the sibilants cautiously. "Point."
Bill led him to a door, eyes widely alarmed but otherwise calm. He held his keys carefully, and opened the door to a closet with another door opposite. Illya followed and closed the door carefully after him.
"And where does that door lead?" Illya asked.
"Not my property, yet. Trying to buy it for the tour..." He trailed off as the agent pulled out a bit of putty, then put it away in favor of lockpicks, hoping urgently that the works were still mobile.
Dim light from a skylight above revealed a marble palace of sanitary engineering on the other side of the door. Illya ushered Bill in after him and shut the door with care.
"Before you ask," Illya said, "Here are my credentials." He handed the man his UNCLE ID, and moved off to explore the unexpectedly large space, Bill trailing slowly after. Illya poked at the wood and cement cap over the restroom's former public entrance. It must be sheltered, because he could see just a hint of daylight through a chink in the cement, but no rain had found its way in.
"I think I've heard of your group. That makes you some sort of cop, right?" Bill asked.
"Keep your voice down. And some sort, yes," Illya said as he removed one of the brass fixtures.
Bill made no comment on his vandalism, only saying, "So these guys aren't here to make off with the cashbox, I guess," as he returned the yellow card.
"No," Illya replied, "They are likely here for me. It must have been the lady in the car," he mused.
Suddenly there was a muffled rattling, the outer door of the closet soon meeting the fate of the shop door. They could hear muffled voices, a tenor saying "Of course I'm sure they went through here, I heard them talking."
Illya posed himself over the doorway, standing on the sink, stolen brasswork upraised. A thud, and a crack ripped down the center of the door. Another, and the hinged half swung inward, a large and angular head poking through. With a graceful calm, Illya swung the fixture to connect with the back of the man's neck, and seven feet of French muscle tumbled to the floor.
The tenor voice of earlier squeaked a hasty "Oh shit!" and made a noise of scrambling over wooden shards. Gun leading, a ratlike man climbed carefully over his fallen colleague, only to be darted in the neck as soon as his face emerged.
Illya jumped coolly off the sink and checked the pulses of both men. Satisfied, he pulled out his communicator and called his partner.
"Open Channel D. I've handled our pursuers, Napoleon," he said, twirling the cold tap in his fingers, "Is the young lady secure?"
Solo's voice crackled from the device, "Safe as houses. Do you need a cleanup crew?"
Illya looked around and said, "Yes, this place hasn't seen a janitor in a while." He gave an address and closed the pen.
Bill emerged, slightly shaky, from one of the stalls. To anchor him, Illya asked about the restroom. "Oh, it was built near the turn of the century," Bill said, "condemned and sealed only fifteen years ago. Most of the undercity was closed off a lot earlier than that."
"And what inspired you to make a career of showing people around a condemned space?"
Bill chuckled, "Well I'm still working on the career part. But... this was the roots of Seattle, you got it? People ate and crapped and lived here, and then it was all paved over but they kept using it and living in it until it got condemned for rats, and then they kept using it and living in it illegally. If you stay up above, Seattle looks as clean as the rain, but some little bit of her soul is down here in the dirt of history. I don't know if that makes any sense."
Illya smiled, and answered, "There are cracks in every facade."
Bill nodded, "Yeah, and people grow through them like weeds."
**********
"Do you have plans for the evening?" Solo asked as he closed the door of their hotel room and crossed to the closet.
"I intend to make the aquaintance of a good dinner, but nothing more elaborate," Kuryakin answered, "Why do you ask?"
Napoleon bent to untie his unaccustomed shoelaces as he spoke. "Oh, I just thought this was a day for all good Soviets to... do something, even if there aren't any parades." When he got no further answer, Solo straightened to look at his partner, and flinched.
The room was silent except for the creak of Napoleon's shoes and the echoing censure of Illya's gaze. Then something in the hardness of his face cracked, and he was gliding forward against Solo's alarmed retreat, until Napoleon fell onto the couch which had caught his knees unawares. Illya leaned forward, bracing his hands on his partner's shoulders.
"It is important to me that you, Napoleon, of all people, do not see me this way, as some stranger with strange customs."
Solo earnestly denied it, saying, "No! I just, this morning I was rude and I thought I'd ask if you were celebrating. That's all, Illya, really."
Illya's face relaxed. "Napoleon. I am not offended. I am not celebrating. I am not homesick and I am not tired of my duties. I am, however, very aware of the differences between New York and Moskow tonight, and that has left me thoughtful of myself and how I, too, am different here in America."
Napoleon's forehead furrowed. "Would that be the change of experience you mean, or something else?"
Illya laughed lightly. "No, not the changes of time but of place. We present ourselves to the world..."
He thought for a moment and when he spoke again he had dropped into a storytelling cadence. "Look, one November when I was young, a friend of mine wrote a poem for school, of which every word was ...safe. He brought it to me later and asked whether I could recognize him in it, if this was really who he was because he had found himself suddenly moved by it, his own simple writing. I couldn't answer, but felt it myself: a sense of pride that hardly seemed my own, curling out like a weed from the cracks in the flagstones of a courtyard. Weak but present."
Napoleon nodded. "And here?" he prodded, gently.
"Just as rare," Illya conceded, "but just as present. Somehow in my childhood, all inherent flaws of nationalism aside, my country became a part of my soul, and always will be, wherever I am and whoever."
"Okay, I see that. I waved flags when I was a kid at my grandpa's ceremonies and I guess it means something to me, too. But I'm pretty close to Canada," Solo said with a sideling glance, "and your home is a bit harder to visit on the weekends. Especially now with the new Premier in place."
Illya smiled. "Oh, but there are cracks in every wall, given time, and the sun slips through. Otherwise you and I would hardly have gained the opportunity to shed a little light, together as we do."
Napoleon chuckled and reached up to swipe at Illya's hair. "My little Russian sunbeam. Come on, dress for dinner, I'll take you somewhere extravagant while I can get Waverly to pay for it."