MFU Fic fragment: Acheron Serum
Over on elmey's LJ there's a discussion in progress about kleenexwoman's remarkable MFU story The Pomegranate Affair. saki101 voiced some ideas that were so close to some of my own thoughts on the fic, that I'm putting up a fragment of a sequel I once started to illustrate what I was thinking (it was supposed to be a remix for a challenge, but you can't remix perfection).
Warning: it fizzles out in the middle and makes very little sense except as a response to The Pomegranate Affair.
Napoleon doesn't realise at first that he's in the hospital. It smells wrong. A hospital should smell of disinfectant, but his room is full of a heavy, rather sickly scent, like cheap perfume, or hothouse flowers. Hyacinths, perhaps? But there are no hyacinths in the room. There are roses, a big basketful, from the girl he was seeing before he went off on that last mission, and who seems to have cared enough to keep track of whether he came back and in what state, but they have no scent of their own. They give off the same overblown sweetness as the sheets and the drip and the nurses and every other damn thing in the place.
*
"We call this state a coma vigile," says the doctor. "The patient appears to be awake - his eyes move, for instance - but he has no residue of consciousness. All the higher brain functions have been suspended or destroyed."
"You are saying," says Mr Waverly, putting his finger into the wound and stirring it, "that he is neither living nor dead?"
The doctor frowns. "He's alive," he says. "By any medical definition."
"And by a non-medical definition?"
The doctor shrugs. "I'm no authority," he says. "Does he still have a soul? I'd say you need a priest for that one."
*
When Napoleon's released, the scent follows him. He can't smell the exhaust fumes on the street, the coffee in the canteen, the brown fog from Waverly's pipe. He finds himself sniffing the air at random moments in the hope of smelling something less floral, but the scent is ubiquitous.
*
"Acheron serum," says George Dennell. "We've identified ninety nine different artificial protein chains. One of them causes bleeding in the brain - thankfully treatable by a relatively simple operative procedure, as Mr Solo has good cause to know - but the rest are a mystery. We've no idea what effects they cause, and it was frankly extraordinarily good luck that they didn't interact with the anaesthetic to create a negative outcome."
"Speaking of which," says Napoleon Solo, "When is Illya going to come round? I can't get anything out of those damned doctors."
Mr Waverly harrumphs and looks at the floor. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I must make an urgent call to London." He exits at an unusually rapid pace.
"Well?" Napoleon demands.
George looks embarrassed.
"He's alive," he says. "Where there's life there's hope. Look, Napoleon, it might help if we knew what the hell Thrush was trying to achieve with that serum. Did you notice any subjective effects?"
Napoleon twiddles his thumbs to avoid gripping the arms of his chair. "Weird dreams," he says, carefully. "Really weird dreams."
"About what?"
"Pomegranates."
"I'm sorry?"
"Pomegranates. They're a kind of fruit."
He'd never have gotten away with it with Waverly, who had a classical education, but George is a product of modern schooling. He can talk about atomic particles till the cows came home, but pomegranates are a closed book to him.
"Oh," he says, disappointed. "That's not much help."
"No," agrees Napoleon. "No help at all, really."
It isn't that he doesn't want to ask for help. But how can he say to Waverly, "Illya's trapped in the underworld. He has to stay there because he ate the food." Well, he could say it to Waverly, but then he would spend the next six months in hell himself, and if being under observation in the psych ward isn't hell, he can't think of a better simulacrum anywhere on earth.
*
The scent gets stronger at night. He pushes the window open to let in the smell of New York, traffic and drunks and trash cans. "Jug jug jug" sings the bird on the tree outside. "Jug jug jug". And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
*
"Tell us what the serum does," says Carson softly.
Strapped to the chair, Acheron sniggers.
"It must have taken a great mind to invent it." There's an admiring note in Carson's voice now, a reluctant bow before a worthy opponent.
"The Napoleon of crime!" says Acheron. "It was my masterpiece. A package tour across the sticks. Charon, Charon, keep your hair on! To hell and back, but don't pay the ferryman."
He starts to sing, rather tunelessly.
"Are there lilacs here in the heart of town? Does the skylark sing in any other part of town?"
Lilacs. Napoleon draws in a breath. That's the smell. That's what's been haunting him, ever since he surfaced from his serum-induced dream. Great blasts of lilac scent everywhere he goes, like essence of April. When he pulls himself together and looks back into the interrogation room, it's to find Acheron staring straight at him, as if he can see through the two-way mirror.
"He's good, this one," Acheron says to him, with a jerk of his thumb towards Carson. "He do the policeman in different voices. You never know which one's real."
*
Clearly there's only one way to get Illya back. He's going to have to descend into the Underworld, find whoever rules the place, and offer them a deal. Orpheus sang his girlfriend out of there, but Napoleon's not much of a singer, and he couldn’t play a lyre to save his life. He'll have to offer something else instead.
It's not hard to guess what might interest an ancient Greek deity. Perverts to a man. God. Whatever.
*
A woman on a gleaming golden throne. Before her a glass table, in which the light of seven candles flickers.
"Napoleon Solo," she says, and her voice is like lilacs. "You have come to find your future, have you not? O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us! Pull up a chair, boy. Listen to what the gypsy says."
Napoleon, looking round, finds that there is, after all, a chair where none had been before. He pulls it over to the table and sits down. His face looks up at him from the polished glass, eyes glittering like jewels.
"I thought," he says, "that perhaps we could make a deal."
The woman doesn't answer. Instead she picks up a satin case - deep peacock blue, shimmering in the candlelight - and pours a pile of stones from it onto the table. At first they look like little grey pebbles, but as Napoleon looks at them, they assume colours, green and brown and bright sparkling blue.
"Ruby," she said, picking one up. "Sugilite. Chrysocolla. Emerald. Turquoise. Jasper. Amethyst. Quartz. And this is yours. Dark amber. The windows to the soul."
They aren't gemstones, Napoleon realises, they’re eyes.
The woman looks at him curiously, and unstoppers another vial. He holds his breath so as not to inhale, but this close to the source the scent hounds him anyway, battering its way through every pore, filling him to the brim. His own eyes look up at him from the table and he sees himself, eyeless, looking back, the blind face turned towards the vial, twisted in reluctant ecstasy.
"Can you sing?" the woman asks.
*
He has no doubt, as he kisses her mouth and feels it gape cavernously beneath his lips, that he is kissing death.
Warning: it fizzles out in the middle and makes very little sense except as a response to The Pomegranate Affair.
Napoleon doesn't realise at first that he's in the hospital. It smells wrong. A hospital should smell of disinfectant, but his room is full of a heavy, rather sickly scent, like cheap perfume, or hothouse flowers. Hyacinths, perhaps? But there are no hyacinths in the room. There are roses, a big basketful, from the girl he was seeing before he went off on that last mission, and who seems to have cared enough to keep track of whether he came back and in what state, but they have no scent of their own. They give off the same overblown sweetness as the sheets and the drip and the nurses and every other damn thing in the place.
*
"We call this state a coma vigile," says the doctor. "The patient appears to be awake - his eyes move, for instance - but he has no residue of consciousness. All the higher brain functions have been suspended or destroyed."
"You are saying," says Mr Waverly, putting his finger into the wound and stirring it, "that he is neither living nor dead?"
The doctor frowns. "He's alive," he says. "By any medical definition."
"And by a non-medical definition?"
The doctor shrugs. "I'm no authority," he says. "Does he still have a soul? I'd say you need a priest for that one."
*
When Napoleon's released, the scent follows him. He can't smell the exhaust fumes on the street, the coffee in the canteen, the brown fog from Waverly's pipe. He finds himself sniffing the air at random moments in the hope of smelling something less floral, but the scent is ubiquitous.
*
"Acheron serum," says George Dennell. "We've identified ninety nine different artificial protein chains. One of them causes bleeding in the brain - thankfully treatable by a relatively simple operative procedure, as Mr Solo has good cause to know - but the rest are a mystery. We've no idea what effects they cause, and it was frankly extraordinarily good luck that they didn't interact with the anaesthetic to create a negative outcome."
"Speaking of which," says Napoleon Solo, "When is Illya going to come round? I can't get anything out of those damned doctors."
Mr Waverly harrumphs and looks at the floor. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I must make an urgent call to London." He exits at an unusually rapid pace.
"Well?" Napoleon demands.
George looks embarrassed.
"He's alive," he says. "Where there's life there's hope. Look, Napoleon, it might help if we knew what the hell Thrush was trying to achieve with that serum. Did you notice any subjective effects?"
Napoleon twiddles his thumbs to avoid gripping the arms of his chair. "Weird dreams," he says, carefully. "Really weird dreams."
"About what?"
"Pomegranates."
"I'm sorry?"
"Pomegranates. They're a kind of fruit."
He'd never have gotten away with it with Waverly, who had a classical education, but George is a product of modern schooling. He can talk about atomic particles till the cows came home, but pomegranates are a closed book to him.
"Oh," he says, disappointed. "That's not much help."
"No," agrees Napoleon. "No help at all, really."
It isn't that he doesn't want to ask for help. But how can he say to Waverly, "Illya's trapped in the underworld. He has to stay there because he ate the food." Well, he could say it to Waverly, but then he would spend the next six months in hell himself, and if being under observation in the psych ward isn't hell, he can't think of a better simulacrum anywhere on earth.
*
The scent gets stronger at night. He pushes the window open to let in the smell of New York, traffic and drunks and trash cans. "Jug jug jug" sings the bird on the tree outside. "Jug jug jug". And a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.
*
"Tell us what the serum does," says Carson softly.
Strapped to the chair, Acheron sniggers.
"It must have taken a great mind to invent it." There's an admiring note in Carson's voice now, a reluctant bow before a worthy opponent.
"The Napoleon of crime!" says Acheron. "It was my masterpiece. A package tour across the sticks. Charon, Charon, keep your hair on! To hell and back, but don't pay the ferryman."
He starts to sing, rather tunelessly.
"Are there lilacs here in the heart of town? Does the skylark sing in any other part of town?"
Lilacs. Napoleon draws in a breath. That's the smell. That's what's been haunting him, ever since he surfaced from his serum-induced dream. Great blasts of lilac scent everywhere he goes, like essence of April. When he pulls himself together and looks back into the interrogation room, it's to find Acheron staring straight at him, as if he can see through the two-way mirror.
"He's good, this one," Acheron says to him, with a jerk of his thumb towards Carson. "He do the policeman in different voices. You never know which one's real."
*
Clearly there's only one way to get Illya back. He's going to have to descend into the Underworld, find whoever rules the place, and offer them a deal. Orpheus sang his girlfriend out of there, but Napoleon's not much of a singer, and he couldn’t play a lyre to save his life. He'll have to offer something else instead.
It's not hard to guess what might interest an ancient Greek deity. Perverts to a man. God. Whatever.
*
A woman on a gleaming golden throne. Before her a glass table, in which the light of seven candles flickers.
"Napoleon Solo," she says, and her voice is like lilacs. "You have come to find your future, have you not? O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us! Pull up a chair, boy. Listen to what the gypsy says."
Napoleon, looking round, finds that there is, after all, a chair where none had been before. He pulls it over to the table and sits down. His face looks up at him from the polished glass, eyes glittering like jewels.
"I thought," he says, "that perhaps we could make a deal."
The woman doesn't answer. Instead she picks up a satin case - deep peacock blue, shimmering in the candlelight - and pours a pile of stones from it onto the table. At first they look like little grey pebbles, but as Napoleon looks at them, they assume colours, green and brown and bright sparkling blue.
"Ruby," she said, picking one up. "Sugilite. Chrysocolla. Emerald. Turquoise. Jasper. Amethyst. Quartz. And this is yours. Dark amber. The windows to the soul."
They aren't gemstones, Napoleon realises, they’re eyes.
The woman looks at him curiously, and unstoppers another vial. He holds his breath so as not to inhale, but this close to the source the scent hounds him anyway, battering its way through every pore, filling him to the brim. His own eyes look up at him from the table and he sees himself, eyeless, looking back, the blind face turned towards the vial, twisted in reluctant ecstasy.
"Can you sing?" the woman asks.
*
He has no doubt, as he kisses her mouth and feels it gape cavernously beneath his lips, that he is kissing death.