Disclaimer: Hogan and his heroes as well as Sam and his friends all have one thing in common: none of them belong to me. And, as that is the case, I make no money from this publication. Thank you.
Chapter 2: Remembering that No News is Good News
He was starting to remember things. He knew his name now, for one - that had come to him in a flash. It was Wilhelm, Wilhelm Klink. He also knew that he was German, at least, German came more readily than the English he'd spoken to Verbena. And then there was a safe combination, although he couldn't think of where the safe was or what it looked like.
Other things, however, continued to elude him. He didn't know where he lived or if he had a family who would notice that he was missing. He couldn't remember his birthday or how old he was. He couldn't even remember how he'd arrived here. But, thinking harder, he seemed to recall speaking on the telephone and then a flash of blue and then . . . It was as if, one moment he'd been somewhere else and the next moment he was here.
Of course, considering the condition of his memory, it didn't mean much. Besides, there was no way he could be one place and then suddenly somewhere else. At least, he didn't think there was. But how could he be sure since he was having a hard time remembering even rudimentary things about his life?
After Verbena had left, he'd done a little exploring, both to find out what kind of place this was and to distract himself from his memory problems. His exploration hadn't taken very long: there were only two rooms that he had access to. The room he had woken up in (although, it hadn't felt like he'd been unconscious at all) that had the bed and a strange, and seemingly purposeless, semi-circular railing and a bathroom. The bathroom had everything one might expect to find . . . except a mirror.
Why the mirror would be missing, he could not say, but he found its absence a frustration. He was almost positive that he remembered what he looked like and he would liked some confirmation. The confirmation would have been very welcome because, while he had an image of himself in his mind, his senses were telling him that he was wrong about it.
He was sure that he was balding; his head was covered in hair. He knew that something was wrong with one of his eyes; his vison was perfect. He was certain that he was not a young man and that he was developing a pudgy belly; the skin tight suit he was wearing left little to the imagination and it was plain that, while not very muscular, he was in very good physical condition. There were so many differences that he could not reconcile.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers came to his mind, and, although he couldn't recall the reference, it seemed to fit his situation pretty well. The only question was, was he the snatcher or the snatchee. Because, either way, he did not feel like himself. Then he remembered that Verbena thought she knew him; she'd called him Sam. If she was this Sam's friend (as the memories suggested) shouldn't she know what he looked like?
It was all too strange and frightening to think about.
Now he was sitting on the bed, feeling a bit overwhelmed by it all. He'd been spending the last ten minutes or so trying to dredge more information from his muddled mind before surrendering in defeat. He still wasn't getting anywhere and his head was starting to hurt.
When he heard the hidden door swoosh open again, Wilhelm looked up, hoping that it was Verbena returning as she'd promised and that she'd be more willing to answer his questions this time. But it wasn’t her; it was a man who walked through the door - a man that Wilhelm recognized from his borrowed memories.
"Hello, Al." He had decided not to remark on the man's singularly bizarre attire, in interest of being tactful. So he was surprised and very disconcerted when he smiled and said: "That's quite the outfit you have there."
For a split second, Al smiled back. Then his expression became more neutral. "Yes. Doctor Beeks told me that you knew my name."
Wilhelm was about to ask who Doctor Beeks was when the other memories supplied the answer: Doctor Beeks was Verbena. Simultaneously, the idea of the Negro woman being a doctor seemed incredible and common place. He wondered, as Al spoke, which reaction was actually his.
"All right, I need some information."
Wilhelm suppressed the urge to laugh with difficulty. Al was asking him for information? An hour ago he hadn't even known his own name! Still, it wasn't as if he had anything to hide and, if he did, he couldn't remember it anyway. "What do you want to know?"
Al slipped a strange looking device out of his pocket. It was colorful and lights flashed across its surface. "What's your name?"
"Wilhelm Klink."
Al pressed something on the device. "What about the date?"
"The date?" He gave the matter some thought and, strangely enough, it came to him with little effort. "As far as I know, it's September 3rd."
"The year?"
What a strange question! Was this some kind of test? Well, if Al wanted to ask crazy questions, Wilhelm saw no harm in answering. "It's 1943."
For some reason, Al looked pale. What is it about me, Wilhelm asked himself, that makes people pale so?
"Are you sure you have the right year?" Al sounded as if he hoped that Wilhelm had made a mistake.
However, Wilhelm hadn't made a mistake, as far as he knew, and he was tired of having to answer questions for these people when they wouldn't even tell him where he was or why he was here. "Why don't you tell me?" he asked, making no effort to hide his irritation. "I have no way of knowing how long I've been in this prison of yours."
As the words flew out of his mouth, things were coming together in his mind. He wasn't just a prisoner; he was a prisoner of war. He was a German soldier and Al was an American . . . well, he was American. It all made a kind of sense.
Ignoring the fact that he seemed to have someone else's memories in his head, he turned on Al, triumphant. "I understand now. You are trying to get me to, what is it?, 'spill the beans,' aren't you?" Not that he had much in the way of 'beans' to spill.
But what if they, Al and Verbena, had drugged him - what if they were the ones responsible for his memory loss? Verbena had acted like she knew the reason for the holes in his memory - maybe they had done this to other people. While the memories told him that there was no way that either of them would do such a thing, he wasn't sure how far he could trust those in light of his new theory.
Al was shaking his head. "You're not a prisoner and I don't plan on torturing you, but I do need to know some things before you can leave."
Wilhelm wasn't sure what to do. The memories said that Al was not only trustworthy, he was a friend. But he's not my friend, he reminded himself firmly. Just because Al was a friend of whoever these memories belonged to, that didn't mean that he had Wilhelm's best interests in mind.
In the end, he decided on a compromise. "Well,"Wilhelm offered,
leaving the question of 'If I'm not a prisoner, why are you keeping me here?'
for later, "tell me what you want to know and I'll think about answering."
It was clear that Al was not happy, either with the proposition or with the way
he'd said it, but he nodded. "Fair enough." He repositioned the
device he held and other hand hovered over it. "What's the last thing you
remember?"
"I was in my office," Wilhelm began, the details supplying
themselves as he spoke, "going through some requisitions and I received a
call from General, ah, I don't remember but he was telling me to expect a
visitor from
Wilhelm trailed off because it was apparent that Al was no longer listening. In fact, Al's eyes had widened and he was staring at Wilhelm as if he'd just got through saying that he ate babies. "You're a Nazi?" he said the word 'Nazi' like it was a curse.
Nazi. National Socialist Party. Hitler. Yes, he remembered those with a bizarre mixture of fear and pride. And, while he couldn't remember if he was actually a member of the party, he remembered enough to know that he was in a military that supported them. He nodded slowly, unsure if it was actually a good idea to make the admission in light of the way Al was looking at him.
Al's expression hardened and, with out another word, he stalked out the door.
Wilhelm stared after him, feeling more lost than ever. From what he could remember, he knew that Americans had no reason to love the Nazis - they were at war after all - but that didn't seem to be enough to explain the look of pure hatred that had appeared on Al's face when Wilhelm had admitted to being one. It was as if Wilhelm had become something worse than a killer in Al's eyes.
Whatever propaganda the Allies have been getting about us, he thought as he
lay down, it must be very effective to get a reaction like that.
***
Sam's plan had been to walk out the office, get some fresh air and take some stock of his surroundings. Almost immediately, the plan ran into a snag: as soon as he'd opened the door, two people, who must have been leaning against the it, knocked into him.
How he'd managed to catch both of them without falling over himself, Sam didn't know, but he felt a rush of annoyance as he glared down at them. "Fraulein Hilda, Colonel Hogan, what is going on!" The fact that he knew their names did not surprise him - it seemed as though he'd kept a fair bit of the host's memories for this leap. It did make him uncomfortable because he didn't like the thought that his mind wasn't completely his own.
But, he thought with a mental smile, at least he wouldn't going around fumbling names of people he was supposed to know on this leap.
Colonel Hogan frowned, backing away from him and giving Hilda an accusing glare. "She was using her Judo on me again! I thought I told you that using Judo on the prisoners was against the Geneva Convention." Then he gave a quick wink to Hilda.
"I did not mean to be so rough with him, Kommandant." Hilda did
not have a good poker face and, even if she did, Sam would not have been fooled
into thinking that she could beat up anyone. Besides Colonel Hogan didn't act
like he was hurt and he also appeared to be wearing a fair amount of her lip
stick.
While Sam was sure his host would have some words to say about this all too
apparent fraternization, he was busy putting together the clues he'd just been
given. Colonel Hogan, who was wearing an old fashioned American uniform, had
talked about the Geneva Convention and Hilda had called him 'Kommandant.'
So, his host ran a POW camp? Wonderful. He got to be a drunken Nazi who ran his own prison - how could this be worse? Then remembering the fact that it was in the middle of World War II and he was a Nazi, he realized that it indeed could have been worse - he could have been the Kommandant of a concentration camp instead.
At least the man in front of him looked healthy enough. He also looked like he expecting some kind of reply.
But what to say? Might as well, find out what Hogan had come for - not that Sam knew what to do about whatever it was. "What do you want, Colonel?"
Colonel Hogan smiled and reached into his pocket. "I came to make a few requests," he said, holding out a tube of paper and letting it unfurl. The list was easily two feet long. "It shouldn't take too long to go through them all."
Sam stared at him for a moment, wondering if he was serious. What kind of POW camp was this? But, as he saw the Imaging Chamber door open behind Colonel Hogan, it appeared that that question would have to be addressed later. "I'm sorry, Colonel, but I have, uh, work to do right now - those requests will have to wait." It was all Sam could do to hide his relief; he hadn't known if Al was ever going to turn up.
"But Kommandant -"
Sam waved off the other man's protest, looking at Al. "It'll have to wait." Then he turned back into the office and shut the door behind him.
As soon as Al came through the door, Sam asked: "What am I doing here?"
Al shook his head. "We don't know, Sam. Ziggy doesn't have all the information on this time period yet."
"That's not what I meant," and you know it, Al, he added silently. "How come I leaped outside of my own lifetime?" He slipped off the heavy coat and rehung it on the rack.
"We're working on it." Al sighed, "Ziggy's blowing a gasket on this one."
That was understandable - for a computer, Ziggy was very high strung. Sam nodded and walked towards the desk. "Do you have anything for me?" When he received no immediate reply, he stopped and turned back. "Well?"
Al sighed again, "I didn't stay with the visitor very long." He fiddled with his cigar for a moment before he continued. "After I found out he was a Nazi, well, I just couldn't stick around." He held up his cigar hand, forestalling any comments Sam might have made about his conduct. "I know I shouldn't have let my emotions get to me."
Jabbing his finger at the hand link, he went on. "But I did stay long enough to get his name and the date to run through Ziggy, so there is some information for you."
Sam made a curt get-on-with-it gesture.
"The date is
"Not one?" Sam was surprised. "That's amazing."
The hologram shrugged. "Well, this is an enlisted men's camp - only officers are supposed to try and escape."
Sam nodded, "Anything else?"
"Not until Ziggy can read through more of the files." He slipped the handlink back into his pocket. "I'm sure we'll get it sorted out soon."
Not soon enough. Sam sat heavily down in the chair behind the desk, running his hand through his hair. Or what his host had left of it. "What am I supposed to do here, Al? I don't know how to act like a Nazi," he picked up the glass he'd filled earlier with the intention of pouring it back into the bottle but it remained in his hand, "and I don't think it'd too safe to make people suspicious this time.
"What kind of man is this Klink person, anyway?"
"From what I saw of our visitor, I don't think Klink is the forceful type." Al shrugged, "Of course, I didn't see him for very long - for all I know, he's the quiet, sadistic type. I suggest you keep a low profile until Ziggy's done downloading the data."
Sam laughed without humor. "Thanks a bunch, Al."
"Yeah, well," Al sputtered defensively, "it's the best I can do. I'll get back to you when Ziggy's done."
Remembering the phone call he'd received on the leap in, Sam said quickly:
"Wait, Al. Could you get me some information on General Metziger? He's
supposed to come here soon."
"All right, I'll find what I can." Then Al's voice became more
serious. "Be careful, Sam."
Sam nodded to Al's retreating form. "You bet I will, Al."