No ownership of the Hogan's Heroes characters is implied or inferred. Copyright belongs to others and no infringement is intended.

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Hogan fought hard to focus as he twitched involuntarily on the table. Unable to remain completely still, he realized he was not in control of his body at the moment, and could only try to observe what was happening as though he were an outsider looking in. He could hear people talking around him, some in German, some in English, and though he had some understanding of the German language, the words being used were not common, everyday conversation, and so he found himself lost and exposed.

At ten minute intervals someone was taking hold of his arm to check his blood pressure and pulse, and occasionally someone would draw open his eyelids and shine a light into his eyes. He was vaguely aware of a strange, fluttering feeling in his stomach, but at the moment he put it down to anxiety. Someone was monitoring every part of him, and when he was temporarily unstrapped and pushed onto his side so one attendant could take his temperature, Hogan nearly wept.

About an hour after this began, Hogan started to feel queasy. Some of his initial adrenalin had worn off, but he knew through the patient persistence of those around him that there was much more expected of him, and maybe this was it. He was starting to feel very warm, and he found himself breathing more quickly as he could actually hear his blood rushing past his temples. He heaved suddenly when he felt his stomach roll violently, and tried to turn his head in case he vomited. Someone was instantly at his side, checking his vitals, and taking note of the sudden sweat that was pouring off Hogan's brow. "Die Zeit ist acht zweiundvierzig," Hogan heard as though from a distance. Taking note of the time. They weren't going to help him, he thought fleetingly. They were just going to watch him. He was a specimen to be studied. Not a prisoner, not even a man. Just a thing to be used for whatever purposes they had.

As his stomach continued to rebel, Hogan gagged, and someone released the cuffs from his right side and the straps from his body and rolled him onto his left side, where a bucket was being held near the table. One more violent lurch and Hogan emptied the meager contents of his stomach, then waited for relief that didn't come. The nausea continued, rolling forward in waves that left him feeling weak from the force of its insistent return. There was nothing left to expel, but still the sickness and the dizziness continued for nearly fifteen minutes. Bathed in sweat, Hogan thought the room was unnaturally hot, but no one around him seemed bothered by the temperature. He was starting to feel exhausted, and he slumped onto his back as the queasiness finally subsided, registering somewhere in the recesses of his mind that the straps were being replaced, and the cuffs snapped back onto his wrist and ankle.

Hogan considered sleeping, but when he closed his eyes he started to see bright lights dancing before him, red and gold, exploding and melting away, then coming back to start their display all over again. So he opened his eyes and tried to understand what was happening around him. There was a man with a clipboard standing some distance from the table, who seemed to be furiously taking down notes whenever Hogan's eyes met his. Another man in deep conversation with the person whose face had come so close to Hogan's earlier. And in the distance, he was sure he saw Ursula. He tried to call out to her, and although his voice was clear and loud in his head, Hogan had the feeling that he never actually said anything, since no one reacted in any way, not even turning to look at him and then ignore him.

In all, there were at least six people in the room with him. But Hogan had never felt so alone.

Some time later, when one of the assistants came to do a regular blood pressure and pulse check, Hogan looked up to see the man's face transforming. He was no longer a middle-aged, wrinkled man with a Hitler moustache. Instead, he had long, flowing white hair, and a full beard. His white lab coat was now a red suit trimmed in white fur, and the natural leanness of the man gave way to a plumpness that made Hogan smile. How did Santa Claus get here?

Hogan frowned drunkenly when he considered that this could not be real. And, blinking deliberately, he looked again at the man, and the jolly old elf was gone. "I knew it was too good to be true," he muttered.

He wasn't sure whether he spoke out loud or not, but got his answer when the man with the clipboard came closer. "Was sagte er?"

"Er sagte, dass es zu gut war, um wahr zu sein." Ursula came up to the table and looked at Hogan with a trace of a smile. "Yes, Colonel Hogan? What is too good to be true?"

Hogan couldn't answer. He was too fascinated by the brightness of her white uniform, and the overpowering blue of her eyes. The colors were so intense that Hogan thought they would light up the room, and he could say nothing.

The man who was apparently in charge said, "Sprechen Sie mit ihm, Ursula. Fragen Sie, was er sieht und hört, und was er fühlt."

Ursula nodded and bent closer to Hogan's face. "Herr Doctor wants to know what you are seeing, Colonel Hogan. What do you feel?"

Breathless, Hogan somehow asked, "What are you doing to me?"

"Herr Colonel, listen to me. You need to tell us what you are feeling. What is happening to you?"

Hogan tried to focus his eyes on the man beside the table. The clipboard was moving in his hands, serpentine movements that left Hogan unable to understand how the man could hold it. It was growing, expanding, sliding up and over the man's shoulder, wrapping itself around his neck and then slithering down around his body till it disappeared out of Hogan's sight. The man didn't seem to notice, as he was also changing. The white of his lab coat became a psychedelic cocoon that began encasing him, pinning his arms by his side and hiding his face. The voice of the person beside him morphed into a buzzing noise, and his arm became a stinger as his body changed into a bee, poking and prodding the cocoon, carrying out some strange ritual.

Hogan turned his eyes back toward where he was sure he had seen Ursula. But now instead of the familiar face, he was seeing the face of an Egyptian queen, the makeup heavy and the hair black and long. The queen's robes were long and bright, so bright, with more colors than Hogan had ever known existed flowing toward him and away from him, moving smoothly and peacefully around her body, a liquid dress that seemed to be able to hold itself in place upon her.

Hogan looked at all these things with wonder, barely recognizing now that they could not possibly be real, lost in this world that his mind was creating around him. The Egyptian queen was speaking, but he could not understand the words. They were neither English nor German, but some other strange gibberish that hurt Hogan's ears. He turned his head away from her.

Hogan was eventually allowed up from the table, though he was now unaware that he had been restrained. Someone handed him the most colorful pair of shorts that he had ever seen, and with great fascination he regarded them as they came up and encircled his waist. He smiled as the colors joined and then burst apart, coming off the clothes and swaying before him, suspended in the air for him to enjoy.

Someone called him, and he turned to see the Egyptian queen holding out her hand. Hogan walked over and took it, and the two of them sat down on exquisite chairs, covered in velvet and trimmed in gold. She smiled and asked him what he saw. He told her how beautiful everything was, and then he started crying.

"What makes you cry?" she asked softly, only briefly glancing up at the scientists around her. She knew it was important not to break the flow of Hogan's thoughts.

"Everything here is so beautiful, and outside, the world is such a mess," Hogan said.

"Where in the world are you coming from, Colonel Hogan? Where are you now?"

"I am in your palace, aren't I?" Hogan asked. "You have such a beautiful throne room. I don't understand why you've let me in here. Where is Goldilocks?"

"You are always welcome here," the queen answered. Then a gentle question: "Who is Goldilocks?"

"I had to leave her, I didn't want to leave her, and I had to leave someone behind."

"Where did you leave her?"

Hogan stared straight head, into space. "She was burning and I had to get everyone out," he said sadly, letting the tears run down his face.

"Goldilocks muss sein Flugzeug sein," said one observer, guessing the true identity of Goldilocks.

"Why were you out during the day, Colonel Hogan? Why were you not bombing at night?"

Hogan lapsed into silence, gently rocking back and forth on the seat.

"Can you tell me why you were in Germany in the daytime?" Still no answer. The Egyptian queen changed tack. "Tell me what you are feeling."

Hogan struggled to put his chaotic thoughts into words. Everything here was beautiful, so beautiful, and he wanted to stay and appreciate its absolute loveliness and serenity. But he knew outside this room that there was a war on, that people were dying, and that he himself was not free to do as he pleased. For a moment, Hogan saw himself and the Egyptian queen as though he were a third person, and when he realized it, he was frightened. But he continued to feel a sense of peace when he looked at the colorfully dressed woman, and he refused to let his fear get the better of him. "I feel sad."

The woman waited.

"I want to change the world, but I can't. I want everyone to be at peace. But they aren't. And I want to go home…" Hogan paused. "But I'm not sure if anyone would be there."

"Why not?" asked a gentle voice.

"They were with me when I was at the Dulag, but then they were gone and I haven't seen anyone since."

The woman put her hand on Hogan's, and when he looked up to see her, the Egyptian queen was gone, and a catlike creature had taken her place. Big, emerald green eyes peered out from a ginger face sporting a small pink nose and long, pert whiskers. Hogan couldn't understand what the creature was trying to say; a series of meows was all he could hear.

Someone took hold of Hogan's arm. His rational mind knew he was just being monitored, but he was still surprised when the stethoscope being moved toward him also transformed, this time into a cobra. Hogan recoiled and the transformation was aborted, leaving him befuddled for a moment, until he reminded himself that everything around him was not as it seemed.

I've been drugged, Hogan thought. Then he almost laughed out loud. A bit late to think of that. It should have been obvious from the start. But it hadn't been, and Hogan had had no control. Now that he realized what was happening to him, he still couldn't stop it, but at least he could remind himself that he wasn't actually losing his mind.

This kind of experience lasted for a period of time that Hogan couldn't determine. He was brought some food but declined to eat it; his appetite was nonexistent. Eventually, he was brought back to the table and strapped down to it, this time only with a token protest that he wasn't even sure was being said to a human being, and he felt another needle inserted in his arm.

"Ow!" Hogan complained like a child. But he was still on the high of the prior injection and found he didn't have the motivation to protest. He heard someone register a dosage: six hundred milligrams. And then he waited for it all to start again.

This time the nausea was more pronounced, and Hogan was violently ill for almost two hours. It was Ursula who was by his side now, but she only made some sympathetic clucks as he suffered abominably; any interference from her might change the outcome of the tests. "I'm s—so sick," Hogan moaned after once again retching just a liquidy substance, since he had not eaten that he could remember since this session had begun. His head was pounding and his stomach muscles were sore from vomiting. He longed for a cold cloth for his hot, hot forehead, and he panted as he grasped the side of the table, wishing that he could lie down and forget every indignity that he had suffered. Ursula just patted his hand silently and offered him a glass of water, which he took eagerly to get the foul taste out of his mouth, though he knew the water would also come back up again soon.

"Seine Temperatur ist sehr hoch," Ursula said.

Hogan was shivering from fever, and suddenly his muscles started spasming uncontrollably. As his mind had been clear until that moment, Hogan found the lack of power over his own body frightening, and uncomfortable. He looked around the room; he could see people clearly but suddenly he found he could not communicate with them, did not know how to speak with them, and could not understand the words coming out of their mouths. It was terrifying and disorientating, but he didn't know how to stop it. Hogan started repeatedly combing his fingers through his sweat-soaked hair, and though he did not particularly want to do that, he could not stop himself from doing it. His mind started to blur the room and the images around him, and then he could only stare blankly, his eyes fixed on a man madly scribbling in a notebook, his mind not actually registering any thoughts.

After a few minutes of this, the painfully contracting muscles calmed down, and Hogan watched what has happening to him as though from a distance, as the hallucinations that had come the last time were starting to return. People and things were changing, colors were swirling and exploding, and voices were calling for him, but from where he had no idea.

Still his mind this time remained clear. He was aware that what was happening to him was a result of a hallucinogenic drug. He could not make out what drug it was that the Germans were using on him, but he noted with a doped-up irony that whatever it was might do the Germans more good if they took it themselves and saw Hitler in a different light; then they might see him for what he really was, instead of as some great leader, some god, some savior.

Once again he was offered food, and this time Hogan decided to take a small sandwich. But the taste had disappeared and so he stopped, not hungry, and not interested in anything else that was offered to him. One thing Hogan did notice was his extreme reaction to the now overpoweringly beautiful woman sitting across from him. A normal man in all respects, Hogan had always found himself able to behave like a gentleman when near an attractive woman. But now, faced with this goddess, he found himself feeling unnaturally strong cravings for female attention, and he tried to tell himself that he must be under the influence of a drug with aphrodisiacal qualities. He reminded himself that this was only a hallucination, and that it might actually be an old man sitting there. But the visual stimulus was so strong that he could not help but ignore that warning, and he was suddenly consumed with the desire to be with her, if only for a moment. It had been a long time, far too long, since he had been in the arms of a caring, gentle woman, and for a brief second, Hogan thought all the way back to his earliest romances at home, and he could smell the perfume of Donna Marie's hair and feel the softness of her skin. He was moving through memories at breakneck speed, and it was dizzying.

The visions of his former loves came to an abrupt halt, and Hogan found himself in a room devoid of anything and everything. There were no people, there was no furniture. He was in a sitting position but he was sitting on nothing. Everywhere he looked there was just endless white. He could see no one, hear no one. He wanted to run, but he was afraid if he stood he would simply fall forever, since there seemed to be nothing below him. "It's not real," he heard himself say. But as there was no one to answer him, he almost started to doubt his statement.

"What do you see?" came a voice from nowhere.

Hogan only had one answer. "Nothing."