Hexiva, Part 2
Beta-read by LJ Groundwater
Alternate Timelines, Nazism, and Complete and Utter Terror.
To make a long, boring, tired, and cold story short, it was a very odd morning. I had found nothing I could say to Byakugan, had not slept a wink, and had been unable to quite look away from Byakugan's awful bruises. However, I had come up with an idea.
I had no intention of ending up as bruised as Byakugan, and he had been beaten each time he had foretold the fate of the Nazis in the future. How could I avoid this fate?
Finally, it hit me: When asked about the future, there was no reason I should tell the real future.
It was quite a bit later that someone finally entered the cell. My pleasure at the distraction from my finger twiddling was tainted by fear as I saw that he was wearing the grey uniform of an SS major. He was accompanied by two goons and someone not in uniform who was either a civilian or a high-ranking Gestapo officer.
The goons aimed their guns at me. I paled and lifted my hands.
"Who are you?" the major said roughly.
I opened my mouth to answer, and then hesitated. I'm in Nazi Germany, the Anti-Semitic capital of world history, I thought. Do I really want to tell a Gestapo officer a surname like mine?
"Who are you?" the major asked again, and I saw, out of the corner of my eye, one of the goons preparing to hit me.
"Don't! I'm-- Samantha Pepper!" I lied hurriedly. It's my cat's name.
"Where are you from?"
"America!" I answered. No point in lying; my accent is plain.
"When was this written?" The major held up a book.
I peered at it, startled. It was the book I had been carrying when I had landed. "It came out a few weeks ago." I started mentally paging through it, trying to remember if there was anything in there to dispel my story. No, I decided, I couldn't have brought a more neutral book.
"The date says two thousand and eight."
I nodded. This, I had planned for. "That's what year it is, isn't it, Sturmbannführer?" The rank, with it's Umlaut, felt odd on my tongue. It belonged in a story I was writing, in a history book I was reading, on a webpage about WWII. It belonged in the past.
"It is 1943," the Nazi officer said. He sounded as if he was gloating over being able to tell me that.
I faked shock. "What? How--?"
"You know. The . . .watch."
"He--" I looked at Byakugan-- "said something about a watch, Sturmbannführer."
"Yes. The time device."
"Yes, that's what a watch is." I yelped in pain as one of Hochstetter's goons slapped me.
"No, not that," Hochstetter continued as I rubbed my stinging face, "It . . .moves in time."
"Time travel?" I recalled reading that the entire concept of time travel had been somewhat foreign to the people of that century.
"Ja."
"Is that how I got here?"
"Don't you know?" The major was puzzled.
"Haven't the foggiest," I said, half-truthfully. "One minute, I was reading peacefully, next I was out in the freezing air."
"I find it difficult to believe it was that simple."
I started to panic. He had no reason to believe me. After all, wasn't time travel supposed to be some sort of glowing portal or a roomful of complicated electronics?
"I swear I don't know how I got here! How could I? I'm certainly not a physicist!"
"But you could have been sent by people who were."
"The only scientists I know are zoologists! And they both work with computers now!"
Apparently he didn't understand that (to be fair, I'm not sure I did), because he turned to the man in civilian clothes and said something. There was a rather long, irate exchange between the two in very fast German, giving me a chance to calm down. The only thing I understood was what the civilian called the Nazi major: 'Hochstetter.' My eyes widened; the officer looked nothing like Hochstetter! Granted, he was fairly short and had dark hair and a similar mustache, but that was where the similarities ended. It was not just that he was wearing the grey uniform with a Sturmbannführers insignia that the show had never put him in. His face was completely different from the Hochstetter I knew, and his accent was much thicker.
"Hochstetter?" I said, my plan forgotten for the moment.
He gave me an odd look. "How do you know my name?"
Oops. Having to explain Hogan's Heroes would be a very bad thing for my plan, and it would probably be a very good way of getting myself beaten, if not shot.
"It's the name of a prominent politician," I improvised, "but you don't look anything like him."
"An American politician?"
I think he realized I was lying, but I saw an opening to play my plan. "Yes. He's quite old in my time-- I think he might be alive now. Or maybe not; they don't appoint many people who fought for America in World War 2 to high ranking positions."
"Why not?" He was fishing for anything he could get out of me.
"Well, they can't really be trusted if they fought for Roosevelt, can they?"
Hochstetter's eyes narrowed. "Why not?"
I got a nasty feeling in my stomach. Am I going to be able to pull this off? "Would you trust them?"
"My country is at war with America."
"Not in my time. It was World War Two. Not the Hundred Years War Two."
Hochstetter looked pained. "I do not think the Germany you know is the same as the one I do."
I frowned. This is weird. Hochstetter's actions when he first entered had fitted what I would have expected of him, but now . . . now he seemed to be speaking less hastily than I would have expected of him. The last thing I need right now is a smart Hochstetter.
I realized I had been staring and I tried to remember what he had just said.
"Why not?" I said, echoing his earlier question. "It hasn't changed that much."
Hochstetter growled, and he was suddenly, terrifyingly in character. "After America conquers it?"
I took a deep breath and tried to control my expression. "What? That's not right!" I lied. This was the last point; I could back out of my complicated story and tell the truth.
Hochstetter got a very odd look on his face. "What does happen, then?" he said after a time.
I shrugged, praying that I looked casual despite the fact that I was shaking. "Germany won. Didn't you know?"
Byakugan, who had been leaning against the wall, looking artfully bored, jerked upright. At the same time, the German civilian asked Hochstetter what I was saying in a tone of voice that made his meaning, if not his exact words, clear.
Hochstetter answered tersely, and the civilian looked amazed, asked another question. Hochstetter shook his head and said, in English, "You're lying."
The world darkened before me, the combined effects of a sleepless night, shock, and hunger hitting me suddenly as I wondered, blearily, how he knew.
"I have it from a . . .reputable source that that's not what happens," Hochstetter added. I looked from Hochstetter to Byakugan, making the connection.
I managed to grasp a blurred, panicked idea from my fogged brain.
"Maybe we're from different timelines. One where the Germans won and one where they didn't. Another leg of the Trousers of Time. I think I read a book like that once, except not the one with the Trousers of Time in it." Why is the cell so blurry? "The Proteus Operation, maybe, or was it Weapons of Choice? I know there was one like that, but I can't--"
My last thought as I passed out, transcending memories of whichever book it is that I can't remember, was to wonder whether Byakugan believes my story, or whether he knows I'm lying.
When I awoke, I found myself alone in an enclosed cell different from the one in which I had spent the night. I was now wearing a grey uniform like Byakugan's. Obviously, some time had passed.
I started to sit up, and then tumbled back down; I felt like someone had hit me over the head with an elephant.
Someone was arguing loudly outside my cell. It took me a moment to realize they were doing it in German.
The cell door was flung open, and Hochstetter stormed in, followed by the same civilian I had seen earlier. The latter was obviously agitated, saying something containing the word Krankheit, disease, and trying to get Hochstetter not to come in. Hochstetter turned around and said something that also contained the word Krankheit. I gathered it was rather rude.
It was the civilian who pointed out that I was awake. He said something to me, and I shook my head.
"Entschuldigung, ich verstehe nicht," I said, hoping that that was right.
The civilian addressed his next comment to Hochstetter.
"Herzer wants to know if you know anything about how you got here," Hochstetter translated.
"I told you, I was just sitting there and then everything vanished!"
"Sitting where?" Hochstetter probed.
"The National Archives. I was on a field trip for school."
Herzer said something, angrily, and Hochstetter replied. I wished, not for the first time, that I spoke German.
"Did you see any sort of golden thing?" Hochstetter asked me.
"No," I said. "Wait. Do you mean Byakugan's watch?"
Hochstetter translated this into German for Herzer.
"Is it his?"
"Haven't the foggiest," I said.
More German; fast, incomprehensible.
"Herzer wants you to come to the lab and see the device. He says you have to have touched it to have come here."
"I've never seen anything like that!"
I could only understand half of the conversation; the part in English. I took some pleasure from the fact that Herzer would be having the same problem in reverse. Misery loves company.
Hochstetter didn't translate whatever Herzer had been saying, but simply gave an order to the guard outside the cell. Herzer said something that was, from the sounds of it, about Krankheit again. I was puzzled; what disease? Did they have an epidemic on their hands? If so, what did the Gestapo have to do with that?
The guards hauled me out of the cell and out of the Cooler. I covered my eyes, blinded by the sudden light. When my sight recovered, we were already halfway across the compound. I looked around. To my surprise, I saw two women entering one of the buildings. I looked closer at one of them. She looked oddly familiar; I tried to figure out who she could be.
Finally, I remembered, and I wish I hadn't. I had seen a photo of this woman on Yahoo. This was LJ Groundwater, one of the HH fanfic writers.
"Linda?" I said, not quite believing it. What was she doing here? Comes to that, what am I doing here?
Hochstetter looked at me. "Who?"
"Er . . . Who are those two women?"
"A woman and her French cousin. Why?" he said suspiciously. "Why would you want to know?"
"French?" I said incredulously. She certainly didn't write like English was her second language!
"Why do you sound surprised? Germany has conquered France."
"Sort of," I said. "It's just that she looks a lot like someone- someone I- Yes, she looks like someone I know."
Hochstetter paled. "What? You mean from your time?"
I panicked and started blathering. I was lucky not to be slapped. "How should I know? She could be! She could be from the future in Byakugan's timeline! She could be from now! I don't know!"
If it was possible, Hochstetter looked worse at that. "You think she's from Byakugan's timeline?" he repeated.
I shrugged. I felt it was time to try keeping my mouth shut. Things only got worse every time I opened it.
Hochstetter started across the compound towards Linda. Herzer called after him, probably asking what I had said. Hochstetter's answer was harsh.
I was pushed by one of the guards, and continued out of the camp.
In the last forty-eight hours, I have pretended to be a Nazi, betrayed an author who is the only person from my time who is free from the Nazis and run from the man who could save me from it.
I don't exactly feel great right now.
