Act 2

"Did I ask for a diatribe…?"

The exclusively private Learjet, solely used by U.N.C.L.E. agents of the singular caliber, no pun intended!, as Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin, currently flew fast, some 600-plus miles-per-hour, and high, from 40,000 to 50,000 feet or more, over the vast Atlantic Ocean in a steady easterly direction.

Taking two out-of-retirement operatives, one blonde-haired, blue-eyed with an impossibly nearly line-free face, the other handsome and dapper with salt-and-pepper, expensively styled, hair, toward what might just prove to be the most important, as well as impossible, mission affair ever.

"Do you really believe THRUSH has some sort of 'time machine' in this underground London-located…?" asked Napoleon with a more than a little self-doubt about anything so seemingly, on the surface, ridiculous.

"It is possible, Napoleon," quickly cut in Illya, now looking into his friend and fellow U.N.C.L.E. agent's inquisitive eyes. "I made a point of pulling up, on HQ's supercomputers, everything currently applicable to such a temporal twisting equation-supported set of devices that…"

"Illya," quickly interjected Napoleon amidst exacerbated sighs, "can't you ever answer a simple straightforward question without some quasi-scientific lecture that you know I could care less about?"

"I though I had answered the question straightforwardly, Napoleon," shrugged a half-smiling in bemusement Illya Kuryakin, while quickly glancing out an oval portal window at the endless sea stretching out far below the above-the-clouds Learjet. "But if you want me to bottom line my response…according to Einstein's own equations and their present-day re-interpretations, time travel is very possible."

"You see?" said Napoleon smugly. "That wasn't so hard, was it?"

But Illya wasn't finished, and continued, "It would, however, require a miles-long subterranean super-subatomic accelerator to build up the necessary aggregation of concentrated quantum tunneling effects, before introducing such into a specially designed smallish chamber wherein two THRUSH operatives, and their weapons, would await the sustained disruption of space-time in an intimately localized cross-section of same. That about answer it for you, Napoleon?"

Looking ludicrously close to a simpleton attempting to understand some simplistic explanation of a mundane middle-of-the-road Truth, a gaping mouthed, narrowed eyed Napoleon Solo said, "Uh…thanks, Illya. When you put it like that, how could I not have seen it?"

After exaggeratedly rolling his hazel eyes once again and groaning audibly, the blue-eyed Illya couldn't help but be much more amused, as well as being filled with consummate camaraderie in regards to the aging agent with whom he'd gone on more mission affairs than he could quickly count.

But, as Illya allowed a near-photographic memory to reach back over the long lost decades of secret agent activities, throughout the Sixties and some of the Seventies, he found enough examples of past mission affairs that seemed just as impossible at the time. Just as their pen communicators were cutting edge some forty years before present-day PDAs.

Had Napoleon forgotten, for example, their mission affair on October 6th, 1964 wherein fear-inducing gas had been developed by a terrorist group that, on the surface at least, held no ties to THRUSH?

Had he forgotten Arthur Farnley Selwyn, a.k.a. Shark, who, also in 1964, was so convinced an impending thermonuclear holocaust was on the horizon that he had kidnapped important persons and placed them on his private little "Noah's Ark"?

And what about the Nazi scientist who'd actually been keeping a still-living Adolf Hitler in suspended animation? Or the stealing of an experimental "will gas" by someone seeking to single-handedly establish himself as the new Alexander the Great? Or the Ultimate Computer developed by THRUSH scientists and technicians in 1965, when the only computers in use, even at U.N.C.L.E., were far from Ultimate? Or the full-blown cyborg encountered on September 23rd, 1966? And on and on and on and on.

Having reconsidered such remembered mission affairs, extending not only throughout the remainder of the Sixties, but well into the Seventies, Illya Kuryakin considered the very real likelihood that the "impossible" seemed to be the norm. So why should a THRUSH time-travel system be any different?

The sudden beeping! sound announcing an incoming transmission via pocketed pen communicator caused Napoleon to pull said cylindrical device from the inside pocket of his expensively tailored suit's coat, quickly manipulating it into a "cutting edge" communications contrivance, before saying seriously, "Solo here."

"Mr. Solo," said a male voice, damn it all!, via the speaker-microphone combination atop the held-between-fingers fully functional Comm-pen, "we've just received satellite confirmation of the activation of subterranean power systems in the general underground location of THRUSH's England-based HQ. U.N.C.L.E. techs have said such could mean…"

"That they are powering up their time-travel mechanism," finished Illya, overheard via the still active pen communicator currently held in Napoleon's hand. "But I doubt they shall be sending THRUSH operatives into the past without first testing said system. We should still have time to…"

"What Illya means," firmly interjected Napoleon into the microphone-speaker top of the converted-from-ink pen Comm-device, a playful expression on his handsome face, "is that we'll have plenty of time to put ourselves in severe danger. Solo out."

While quickly converting the pen communicator back into its default form and replacing that into his coat's inner pocket, Napoleon Solo shrugged, "I just didn't think I could survive another 'super-science' speech by you before reaching London, Illya. Now…do me a favor and watch an in-flight movie or something. As for me…I need a stiff drink or two."

Even as Napoleon proceeded in pouring himself a single malt whiskey into a cut crystal glass, Illya could hardly keep a smile of friendliness from his fair-haired expression.

Who better than Napoleon Solo to face one's worst fears in regards to an actual time-traveling mission affair?

At that self-same moment, more than six hundred meters beneath the streets of Stafford Place in London, England…

"How goes the testing?" asked the silk-hooded leader of THRUSH, Darien Driscoll, even as scientific technicians in crisp smocks continued operating super-advanced, even in the 21st Century, control consoles situated in the observation blister overlooking the business end of the miles-long super-subatomic accelerator contrivance.

"Mr. Driscoll, sir," said the middle-aged head science-tech, Dr. Sabastian Malachi, above the prevailing roar heard from far below said lead-glassed observation blister. "As you know from earlier briefings, the precise subatomic energy balance must be acquired and sustained prior to the placing of living THRUSH agents into…"

"Did I ask for a diatribe, Dr. Malachi?" snappishly said a less-than-patient purple-hooded half-faced THRUSH chieftain with narrowed eye visible via the single eye hole. "All I want to know is how much longer until time-travel is active?"

Falling all over himself in order to form a simpler reply, Dr. Malachi stammered, "Y-yes s-sir, M-Mister D-Driscoll. Uh…if this t-test proves s-successful…th-three hours at the w-worst."

"Very well," said the silken hooded, single black gloved THRUSH chief as he turned to exit, "keep me apprised. I want to be present the instant my two 'temporal assassins' are ready to go back to 1964."

"Y-yes, M-Mister D-Driscoll, s-sir," nervously nodded Dr. Sabastian Malachi while returning his attention to Test Number One, about to be executed directly below.

Walking along the interconnected corridors, accompanied by armed THRUSH thugs wearing the time-honored jumpsuits-and-berets, a smirking-beneath-silken hood Darien Driscoll quietly considered his desperate plans.

"To think, in a few short hours I shall rid myself forever of two over-the-hill U.N.C.L.E. agents. Then…the whole world shall be mine! Ha, ha, ha, hahaha!"