Author's Note: Well, I promised to finish this story by 2020, and since it's New Year's Eve, here is the last chapter. I hope you guys have enjoyed reading it. Happy New Year.
Z is for Zero-Sum
"Of, relating to, or being in a situation (such as a game or relationship) in which a gain for one side entails a corresponding loss on the other side"
"Come in," the woman told Klink in a Russian accent. "I have come in peace to talk with you."
"There is no peace," Klink replied, stepping into the room despite his general mistrust of anyone he met here. "How can there be peace when all the world seems intent on having a war?"
"In that case, I have come to aid you."
"How? Unless you can return my monocle and send me home, I don't see any chance of that."
The woman reached over to a side table and picked up Klink's monocle, cleaned and polished. She held it out to him, so he stepped forward and took it. "As for sending you home, I have some ideas about that as well."
"Pardon me," Klink broke in nervously as the woman stood and moved towards a writing desk. "Thank you for returning my monocle, but we have not been introduced. My name is Wilhelm Klink." He held out his hand and the woman ignored it, so he drew it back.
"I should not tell you my name. There is too much chance of you telling the wrong person." Klink was taken aback, but he did not want to contradict this woman who had not yet turned him in to the American military, or police, or even Batman. She spent some time looking at a few diagrams on some papers, but eventually she spoke again. "I suppose you should have some explanation, though.
"I am from another planet—do not look so shocked—where much is different from here. Our rulers love war, not only because they want to wipe each other out but because they think it is entertaining. The only rule they have about war is that any attack launched must have a conceivable defense, and because of that, they try to launch missiles at each other at random, hoping that one will someday not be noticed.
"The people of my planet have their own ideas about war. Some of them love it and have run off to other planets, such as this one, to see how war is done in other places. Some of us, like myself, seek only to escape it. But war is universal, and there is not a planet untouched by it in some way, and so I chose to live in a place where missiles are less likely to be fired at me."
Klink did not want to interrupt, but he hardly saw what this had to do with him. He was halfway of the mind that she was crazy, since she was talking about other planets and the people who lived there so casually, but he also knew that he had been in Stalag XIII one moment and America the next.
"One of my old schoolmates is from the other group, though. She came to this planet and has enjoyed watching the war ever since. She is in your area, and I believe you must have met her at some point."
"What is her name?" he asked, not remembering meeting anyone from another planet before.
"Marya." Suddenly Klink believed everything this woman told him. It would explain a lot about Marya, after all. "She is not so good with technology, so I have a program set up to scan in case she does anything too noticeable. Last night, my scanners detected a large problem, so I looked into it and saw leftover traces of our technology here in this room. The traces wore off before you left here, so I could not track you any further. I set up a base here to track you down or in case you came back."
"Okay," Klink said. "So you're telling me that you are an alien and Marya is an alien and that you can tell that she sent me here for some reason, but can you send me home?"
"Yes. I can do that and more. From what I can tell, her ship is just in need of a jump start, and I can easily do that from my ship in space. As for everything else she has done, I can try to reverse that too, but you must be patient. I must do this in reverse order, to keep it from getting tangled, you understand. So make yourself comfortable while I use my remote control."
Klink was not really sure what she meant, but he took it as an invitation to sit down on sofa. Still, he could not really get comfortable as he listened to the woman muttering to herself. She seemed rather put out at how badly Marya's ship was messed up. Then a couple of loud flashes and bangs happened, and Klink quickly looked over at her when he smelled smoke.
"Marya has really done it this time," the woman muttered angrily. "I will have to have a talk with her after this. But I think I have it figured out now." She turned to Klink. "Are you ready go home now?"
"Yes, but are you sure it's safe?" he asked, eyeing the smoking box she held warily.
"Oh this? There is nothing to worry about unless it explodes." She was about to press a button when Klink stopped her.
"What should I do when I get home? You have told me a lot of information, including that Marya is an alien. Do I have to worry about knowing too much?"
"Knowing too much?" the woman laughed. "Trust me, you barely know anything. But you should not worry about what you do know. I have set this thing so that when I finish reversing what Marya's ship did, it will take care of everything like that."
"You mean you will erase our memories?"
"Of course not!" the woman exclaimed, horrified by his suggestion. "Even if that were not ethically unacceptable, memory is a far more complex thing than that. To my knowledge, not a planet in the universe has that sort of technology. No, everyone will remember everything that happened, but this will make it so that it seems ridiculously unbelievable to everyone that no one will take it seriously or even mention it to each other because they're scared of sounding like fools. It is a remarkably effective technology."
"I suppose that makes sense," Klink muttered, not really understanding a word of it. "But before I leave, I should make sure that someone catches the smugglers that are using a cabin in the woods."
"You would help a country your country is fighting catch criminals?"
"Well, I do run a prison, so I suppose you can say it is in my nature."
"Very well," the woman said disbelievingly. "I will get a message to Batman." She moved to press the button.
"Before I go, I should say thank you."
The woman waved her hand dismissively and pressed a button on her device without a word more. Klink saw a bright flash of light, and then he was lying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling of his quarters in Stalag XIII.
Crittendon, who happened to be walking past the HMSS Tubby III at that very moment, rubbed his forehead as he sat up. "I must have fallen asleep," he said to himself. "I say, it's been quite some time since I had a dream like that. It must have been back during my school days the last time it happened," he chuckled to himself.
He glanced across at the field that he thought had been twinkling, but there was nothing remarkable about it now. It was easily past noon now, and he was a bit ashamed at having slept so long, in the open no less, but at least there was no one there to see him. So he stood up and decided to get started again on his escape attempt.
This one, he felt, was bound to go off without a hitch, other than his fellow prisoners not joining him, of course.
Marya looked around her car and pouted a bit. Robert and Edward were gone, just when she was starting to have some good ideas about what to do with them. She was glad that her Tubby III was fixed, since that was the only way anyone could flip the reverse switch on her copy machine, but she wished she could have had them for a few days longer.
"Anya will have to explain herself for this," Marya decided before starting her car again. She could worry about her old schoolmate later.
Hogan sat down, his head aching enough that he could almost believe that two copies of him had been wiped out of existence. But that would be ridiculous. Not even he would have the guts to try pulling a scheme like that. He looked up at Gruber, who was looking around himself in confusion.
"I cannot remember," Gruber asked. "Is Kommandant Klink sick or visiting Stalag V?"
"I know nothing," Schultz declared. "But I still have three days left on my leave."
"Yes, of course," Gruber replied. "Go enjoy your leave." Schultz took his advice and went out the door as fast as he was able.
"I think I should go lie down for a bit," Hogan muttered, hoping the headache would go away.
"But what about your brother?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Hogan snapped, and he got up to leave.
"Right, of course. That…does not even make sense…" Hogan heard Gruber mutter as he left the room.
Hogan made his way across the compound and into his barracks, where, if he did not have a bad headache, he would have thought that there were a lot of men looking confused and refusing to meet each others' eyes. But he was just focused on getting some shut eye.
Klink stood up and brushed off the unusual suit he was wearing trying to ignore how much it looked like the suit he had bought at the pawn shop in his dream. He felt something in his pocket and pulled out his monocle. But then he felt something in another pocket, and he reached in. To his surprise, he pulled out an old, shabby, floppy hat. In fact, it looked exactly like the hat he found in the smuggler's cabin in his dreams.
This was all a very strange coincidence, he thought. But then he remembered what the alien woman in his dreams said about people remembering but not believing what had happened.
"No, it cannot be," he muttered, his eyes widening as his brain put things together. Maybe it was real, he thought. But still, just to be on the safe side, it would be best to say nothing.