April Dancer was working undercover as an assistant teacher for deaf children, at an all girls’ school. She and their regular teacher, a middle aged woman called Mrs Hartlin were currently taking the children on a tour of the museums. April was checking her handbag for her spare clip of ammo when she happened to step on a manhole cover. The manhole cover flipped over and trapped her beneath it. It took the firemen over an hour to get her out.

Mr Waverly sat in his office discussing the problem with his top enforcement agent, Napoleon Solo. Napoleon was reading a file in front of him. “This does pose quite a problem, Mr uh Solo.”

“It does?” Napoleon looked up with surprise.

“Yes Mr Solo. We need to find someone, to replace Miss uh Dancer.” Mr Waverly pulled his pipe out of his jacket pocket and started fiddling with it.

“Why should that be a problem sir?” Unconsciously, Napoleon’s eyes focused on his chief’s hand movements.

“Miss Dancer had special talents which made her most suitable for this assignment.”

“She did?”

“Yes Mr Solo. Well, you’d better run a check through our computers for another agent who knows sign language.” Napoleon looked back down at the file and flicked through some of the pages.

“Actually sir,” Napoleon said looking up from the file, “I think I know the very man for the job.”

Illya and Mark waited patiently in Napoleon’s office, for news of the April situation.

Mark spoke up as Napoleon entered, “Any luck?”

“No. Mr Waverly can’t even find out who was responsible for leaving the manhole cover loose in the first place, let alone if they’d be prepared to pay for the loss of an active agent.”

“You make it sound like she’s dead,” Mark stated in a somewhat annoyed tone.

“What Napoleon means is that she’s temporarily unavailable for fighting Thrush.” Illya tried to appease Mark for his partner’s poor choice of words.

“Uh Illya are you sure you didn’t…” Mark began.

“No I didn’t.” Illya replied frustrated, “Why does everyone keep asking me that? I may have used the sewers to escape in the past, but I don’t make a habit of using them. I haven’t been in a sewer for several months.”

“What’s the matter, getting withdrawal symptoms?” Napoleon asked and Illya flashed him a warning glare.

Illya decided to try to steer the conversation onto a safer track, “So who does Mr Waverly plan on getting to replace April on the assignment?”

“You know, it’s funny you should mention that, Illya,” Napoleon began a little too cheerfully, making Illya instantly suspicious, “because I was just going to mention your next assignment. You’re going to love it. It’s at an all girls’ school.”

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes. Oh and Illya, you’d better keep a look out for any manhole covers and remember to walk around them. Mr Waverly can’t afford to lose two agents to the sewers.”

“Yes father.”

Napoleon grimaced. It seemed that ever since Napoleon had played his father in a bizarre case last year, Illya was deliberately trying to provoke him.

Illya took a step back as yet another spotty faced teenage girl batted her eyelashes at him. He didn’t know what he should be more worried about. That she was the fifth to do so in the past hour or that earlier that day their teacher had winked at him. The teacher, who was old enough to be his mother. He looked out through the classroom window hoping desperately to find a manhole cover.

The End

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