Changing Times - Short Affair

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

OBSOLETE, COPPER
Word count: 595
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It wasn’t so much that he felt obsolete in these last days of his career.  The careful accumulation of knowledge insured against any such humiliation, for knowledge equaled usefulness in his trade.

Perhaps it was the waning energy that had robbed him of the field, the creaking of bones that no longer vaulted over walls or willingly rolled down hillsides in order to avoid a hail of bullets.

Certainly he had lost people, comrades in arms to use a phrase.  Those who had gone down in pursuit of a goal many considered unreachable were heroes and heroines in his mind; their legacy to a world not worthy of them had been wiped away by the failure to achieve those goals.

What had gone wrong?  He couldn’t say precisely, the medals of gold they had gathered as tokens of victory were all tarnished now, their color turned to copper, signifying their fall from glory.  They hadn’t won, instead they were lagging behind others who all pursued the same goal of dominance in a world of savages and generals.

As he prepared to sign over the worldly goods he had accumulated during his rise to power, Victor Marton sighed as only one who has seen both victory and defeat.  THRUSH had failed to obtain the prize, its members now scattered across the globe as well as the graveyards.  His own demise came now at the hands of an old foe, and an old friend.

“Victor?”  He looked up into eyes not yet reveling in his misfortune.

“Yes Alexander, I am ready.  Is this the pen with which I resign my dreams?”  Alexander Waverly shook his head at the question.  Had Victor truly believed that THRUSH could conquer the entire world?  What had made his friend turn to that sort of madness?

“Your dreams, Victor, came at too great a cost.  I have buried too many men who stood in the way of THRUSH’s destructive ideals.  The world cannot belong to only one group of people; it is a plot that will always fail.” Victor had come to believe that as well,  in spite of his wasted efforts to the contrary.

‘‘You, Alexander, were always the good one.  Even now, you will not boast or cause me any undue pain at this most unpleasant moment.’ His eyes met those of the old man hovering at his side.  “Thank you my friend.  I am sorry to have disappointed you all of these years.”

As the two old men continued with Marton’s deposition and debriefing, two younger men looked on with great interest.  Perhaps this truly was the end of THRUSH, and the violence they had endured to obtain it.

“Do you think the world is possibly on the brink of peace?”  Napoleon retained an optimism that had fueled his entire career.  Certainly peace was close at hand.

Illya Kuryakin was not an optimist.  His own experience with a totalitarian state had taught him that men who fought for dominance and power did not relinquish it so easily.  The fall of THRUSH had been an internal failure, a swift resolution to a plague they had battled far too long.

“I should think not, Napoleon.  There are still factions that will never relinquish their hold on captive people.  The Berlin Wall still stands, Vietnam still rages... No, peace is still very far off I think.”

The two men continued to watch, each of them unaware of the changes they would encounter in their own lives as the shadow of UNCLE and its influence on them waned, or was cut off entirely.**

**the follow up to this scene is in my series House of Vanya Years

Comments

[glennagirl.livejournal.com]

Thanks, it's good to know the two elder statesmen can hold our interest.