We Were Soldiers

141. Deterministic Nonperiodic Flow

Danny stopped outside the building and studied the sign out front. It said Parkgate Hotel, but it didn't look much like a hotel. The windows were small and square and the walls a sort of dirty red brick that brought to mind the canning factories lining Brooklyn's docks. If one of those canning factories and a prison had a baby, it would be this building. It was decidedly un-swanky.

But these were his new digs, at least until he could find a way to upgrade his living arrangement. Technically, it was just a place to sleep when he wasn't working, and he'd slept in worse. It was a considerable step up from that Italian cellar he'd spent a night or two in, and heads and shoulders above the 'tween deck of the Monticello.

Shouldering his bag, he strode forward and opened the door. The inside was brightly lit, electric lamps blazing in the entrance hall. The carpets were a weird shade of red, but seemed clean enough, and the ceiling was pleasantly devoid of cobwebs. He'd expected the smell of damp and must; instead, camphor assaulted his nose. It could be worse.

There was a welcome desk. It had a little bell, which he picked up and rang a couple of times. A moment later a tiny, grey-haired lady popped out from an office set further back and offered him a smile.

"New recruit, dearie?" she asked, squinting at him.

"Not quite. I've just transferred here from the front lines." Technically behind the front lines, but that was kinda irrelevant now. "My name's Sergeant Daniel Wells, and I've been told I'll be taking a room here."

"Ahh, you're one of Miller's men." The smile pulled her wrinkles further up around her eyes. "A fine gentleman, Colonel Miller. You're lucky to be working with him!"

"Thank you, ma'am."

"Here," she said, taking a key from her drawer and handing it over. "You'll be in room 3C, with Sergeant Schuster. Bathing facilities can be found at the end of each corridor at the top of every floor, and—"

"Wait, I don't get my own room?"

"I'm afraid not, dearie. Everywhere is short on space right now. The room is spacious, though, with twin beds. And Sergeant Schuster is such a lovely man, always says hello and never gives me any trouble. I'm sure the two of you will get along splendidly. He's up there now, if you'd like to head on up and introduce yourself."

"I will. Thank you, Mrs..?"

"Oh, where are my manners! It's Ms, dearie. Ms Sycamore. Widowed many years now; my poor Basil passed away in this very hotel while calling guests down to breakfast one morning, God bless his soul. A heart attack, the doctors said. Sometimes the guests say they can still hear him, calling out breakfast in the mornings." She must've seen the expression on his face, because she very quickly said, "But don't you mind those people, dearie. They just have fanciful imaginations, if you ask me."

"Right. Good day, ma'am."

He took his leave before she could put any more ideas in his head, and quickly found the staircase to the next floor. It was a weird building that had no central stairwell. Instead of going straight up, you had to go up one floor than traverse a long corridor to the stairs at the end. Maybe it really had been a prison, before it was a hotel.

Outside room 3C, he stopped and checked his uniform. Never hurt to make a good first impression, especially since people seemed really intent on disliking him from second, third and fourth impressions. It was like some sort of conspiracy.

A shame he wouldn't have his own room, but in the grand scheme of things, it didn't matter. Miller had said that Schuster would be working the opposite shifts to him, so they wouldn't have to see each other every day. That might make the situation more tolerable. He'd never had to share a room with someone before, unless you counted the two hundred men who were temporarily housed in the Monty's 'tween deck, or the army barracks and tents he'd had to put up with since enlisting. On the other hand, if Schuster was a Gusty kinda guy, then room sharing was not gonna be fun.

He knocked, and called out, "Sergeant Schuster? My name's Sergeant Danny Wells, I've been assigned to this room with you. Can I come in?"

He didn't get a response, but a moment later the door opened a fraction and somebody peered out. Danny's heart sank. Sergeant Schuster did indeed appear to be a Gusty kinda guy. Large spectacles, bewildered squint, gangly frame… he even had a similar shade of brown hair colour.

Schuster gave him a quick north-south appraisal, then opened the door wider. The guy was wearing nothing but his boxers, socks and a vest, and his bedsheets were rumpled.

"I'm sorry if I woke you," Danny offered.

"Don't worry, I'm a light sleeper anyway. Come on in. Figured they'd be replacing Honister sooner or later."

"He the guy with dementia?"

Schuster twitched in a very Gusty way. "That's right. I kept telling the brass there was something wrong with him, that it's not normal for a guy to ask where his spoon is every five minutes, or wear every pair of socks he owns to bed, but they just wouldn't listen."

Danny stepped into the room and surveyed his new abode. It wasn't too bad. Twin beds stood against each wall, each with its own little bedside table and lamp, separated by a bright blue rug laid over the oddly red carpet. The red, he'd decided, was to hide blood stains. The little old lady had probably murdered her husband, and numerous guests too. Red was just easier to maintain.

To one side of the room stood a large wardrobe, which he guessed they'd have to share. It was certainly big enough for two soldiers' clothes. Big enough to hide a body. Maybe even two, if you were into that sort of murder, which the hotel owner probably was.

Everything else was neat and tidy. Schuster's perfectly polished boots were at the foot of his bed, and other than a glass of water on the table, there was no real sign that anybody lived here. No photographs on display, no mushy signs of familial sentiment, no indication that Schuster had a wife and kids that he'd be blabbering on about for hours. In other words, ideal.

"I like what you've not done with the place," he offered, then gestured to the bed that looked freshly made. "This is mine, I take it?"

"Yep." Schuster sank down onto his own bed and eyed him warily. "Before you get too comfy, I think we should establish some ground rules."

Danny dumped his bag on his bed, then sat opposite his new roommate. "Oh?"

"Rule number one, don't touch my stuff. This is my half of the room. Anything within it is mine, and off bounds to you. Especially do not touch my bed. I have a thing about…" he shuddered and hugged himself, "germs. I keep things clean out of necessity, not because I'm some neat freak who likes order. I don't care what you do with your half of the room so long as it's equally as clean as mine. I can barely even say the g-word. And don't ask me to pronounce the nationality of our enemy. I just call them sausage-eating bastards. It saves me a lot of cleaning."

"Makes sense," Danny lied.

"Rule number two, no women."

"You don't like women?"

"I love women. But I don't want them in here, because that would almost certainly result in you breaking rule number three. If you want to screw dames, there are places you can go to for that. Hell, I'll point them out to you. Just don't bring them back here."

"Okay. What's rule number three?"

"No nudity. You get dressed and undressed as swiftly as possible. You may not, under any circumstances, spend extended periods of time in this room without clothing. You're not to parade naked around the room playing any musical instrument, nor singing any songs about America—or any other nation, for that matter. This may sound like one of those things that goes without saying, but my last roommate was a wrinkly old patriotic tuba player who spent the last three months of his life here trying to convince me that, as an eight month old baby, the concept of clothing did not apply to him. I'm sure I don't need to paint you a picture." Schuster narrowed his eyes at Danny. "I don't care how many combat missions you've been on before you came here. There are some things man is not meant to see, and I have seen them all. I don't intend to see them again."

Poor guy. No wonder he was twitchy.

"Breaking these individual rules will have consequences," said Schuster. "Breaking all three at once—say, I should walk in here one evening to find you and a woman naked on my bed—will have the direst consequences of all. I will wait until a dark and stormy night, hit you over head with my boots, wrap you up in the very nice curtains Ms Sycamore has hung in here, drag you down to the dock, tie lead weights around your ankles, and throw you into the Thames. The curtains will surface first, but by the time your body does, it will be so eaten by fish that they'll have to identify you off of dental records."

"That is an oddly specific threat," he mused.

Schuster narrowed his eyes. "I've had a lot of time to plan it. So. Got any ground rules for me? Don't be afraid to be honest, I like to know where I stand with a guy if I'm going to potentially be murdered for breaking his rules."

"My ground rules are the same," Danny said. "Don't touch my stuff, don't bring women back, and no naked fun even if I'm not here to see it."

"Okay." Schuster shuffled on his bed a little. "Well. I guess we'll get along just fine, then. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to catch up on my sleep."

"Yeah, of course. I think I'll go stretch my legs a little, take a walk around London. Anywhere you'd recommend seeing?"

"Hmm. Try The Pearl of the Deep."

"Anywhere that isn't a brothel?"

Schuster looked at him as if he was mad. "Oh, you mean the tourist stuff? I dunno, you could try riding the Underground for a few hours. That's always fun."

"Right. Thanks. Sleep well."

Danny left his new roommate to his mid-afternoon nap. Just his luck, to be housed with a madman. Then again, he'd signed up to be here, so perhaps he was in good company.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

The blast doors were closed, so Bucky pounded his fist on them and shouted, "Little pig, little pig, let me come in."

For a few minutes there was silence. Right before he could knock again, a mechanical whirring sound predicted the slow opening of the blast doors. But they only opened wide enough to admit him sideways, which was kinda passive-aggressive.

The route to the main lab was as familiar as the back of his hand, so he made his way down the corridor and pondered on what was different about the place today. It took him a moment or two to realise what it was; the lights were off. Most of them, anyway. Normally Howard Stark kept the place lit like a Christmas tree, and he never had fewer than three experiments going at any one time. Now, the place had a sort of ghost town feel to it. Very odd.

The main lab seemed to be the only place with full power and light. He heard a few rats running in their wheels even before he reached the door, which was slightly ajar. Inside was a single figure, occupied with some sort of microscope. The figure glanced up, then refocused on the view through the scope.

"Sergeant Barnes, if you're here to see Mr Stark, I'm afraid you'll have to come back some other time. He's 'busy' working on something 'top secret' that he can't tell me about." Miles gestured at the rats in their wheels. "He doesn't even want rats anymore!"

"Actually, I came to see you," he said.

Stark's lab assistant looked up, surprise etched all over his face. "Me? Why?"

"Steve's worried about my physical and mental state," he explained. "He wants a doctor to examine me before our next mission."

"And you're here why?"

"You have a PhD, don't you?"

"Two, actually. But I don't think I'm the sort of doctor that Captain Rogers wants you to see."

Ouch. "He never specified medical doctor," Bucky pointed out. "Whatcha doin' there? Looking at cultures?"

Miles scoffed loudly. "Hardly! Biology isn't a real science, Barnes. No, this is an electron microscope. A highly advanced piece of machinery we just had shipped in from Washington SU." He poked the machine petulantly. "Howard and I were supposed to assemble it together."

"So he left you behind, huh? I know how that feels."

"He didn't leave me behind. He's just busy with another project. And he knows how competent I am, so he can leave me here to handle the complex stuff on my own." He aimed a defiant glare at Bucky. "You'll notice he gave his less competent assistants the week off."

"I did notice," he said. "Wanna get a drink?"

"What? Why would I want to get a drink? I have important science to do."

"If it's that important, it can wait till you get back, right?" Time for some high level BS. "You deserve a break, Miles. You've been working hard. And I think you need to show Howard that you're not reliant on him. That you can have fun, science-fun or drinking-fun, without him. If it helps, you can medically assess me at the same time. I mean, it's not real science, right? So you should be able to do it anywhere."

"I dunno. It kinda sounds like you fell out with your drinking buddies and want somebody else to hang out with."

"Nothing could be further from the truth," he assured the scientist. "This isn't about me, it's about you taking a stance. And maybe a teensie bit about me. But do you honestly want Howard to get back and think that you've been doing nothing but waiting here, pining for his attention? That you don't have a life of your own?"

"You know what?" said Miles, a sudden defiance stiffening his posture, "you're right. I may not be a billionaire, but that doesn't mean I can't have fun. I have two PhDs, after all. I should be able to multitask this stuff in my sleep!"

"That's the spirit!" Bucky clapped him on the shoulder. "God, I'm sorry Miles, it was supposed to be a friendly gesture. Is the electronic microscope okay?"

Miles straightened up and straightened his glasses. With an air of purposeful defiance, he hung his lab coat neatly on the nearest coat stand. "Forgot about the electron microscope. Today, we're going to have fun."

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

It wasn't the Fiddle. It wasn't even the Drum. It was a place called Eagle's View, and they found it by chance, tucked away down one of those alleys that looked like it belonged in a penny dreadful magazine. To Bucky it screamed serial killer, but Miles approached it with the enthusiasm of one who had spent most of his life sheltered in a lab.

Surprisingly, Eagle's View turned out to be a really nice place, clean and fresh with a local musician plinking away on the upright piano, a jaunty tune that lifted Bucky's mood. They each ordered a pint of beer from the bar, then toasted freedom wholeheartedly. It was nice to spend time with somebody who didn't know what he'd been through. Who didn't feel like they had to tread on eggshells around him.

"How long have you been assisting Mr Stark?" Bucky asked, once they'd whetted their throats with the ale.

"About three years," said Miles. "I signed up for the money. I'm not interested in money myself, but I need it to fund my research. A necessary evil. Of course, if I'd known Howard was gonna drag me through the south of France, I probably would've told him to—"

"What? Wait, you were with the SSR during our French excursion last year?" Miles nodded. "Why don't I remember you?"

"Well, probably because you were too busy being a soldier." The scientist took a deep swig of his ale. "I vetoed your stupid flying boots idea."

Bucky frowned. "That wasn't my idea. But you were there when that Nazi woman drugged me?"

"Sure. That cure was a nice bit of work from Mr Stark. I didn't have a hand in it myself, of course, because biology isn't a real science, but I can appreciate a timely cure."

Huh. Maybe he really had been too wrapped up in being a soldier, in feeling sorry for himself, that he'd failed to notice who else was along for that ride of insanity. He'd just assumed Miles had come over from the States when the SSR returned to London. Clearly, he was mistaken.

"Hey, that guy looks familiar," said Miles, pointing to somebody across the room. "I think I know him from somewhere."

Bucky followed his line of sight, then nodded. "Yeah, that's Captain Stone. He helped us with that April Fool's joke. And he was in the briefing Phillips gave us for Operation Overlord."

"I wonder what he's doing here?"

He looked around. A lot of drinkers were in uniform. RAF uniforms, specifically. And what was the name of this place? Eagle's View? The pieces suddenly fell into place.

"Oh. We're in a pub for pilots. Now I know why I never found this place before."

"He looks a bit depressed, doesn't he?"

"A bit."

"Let's go cheer him up," said Miles.

"And how do you propose to do that?"

"With alcohol!"

Captain Stone had never given the impression that he was a man who could be cheered up with alcohol, but Bucky had no better idea. So he ordered another pint of ale, and followed Miles over to the sulking RAF pilot.

"Hey, Stan," he said. "Fancy seeing you here."

"Leave me alone," Stone said. "I wish to wallow in misery a while longer."

"What's wrong?" Miles asked, sliding onto the seat beside him while Bucky took the stool on the opposite side of the table.

"What isn't wrong would be a better question."

"Brass refused to give you another plane, huh?" Bucky guessed.

"No," Stone shot back sharply. "They haven't refused. There's just a waiting list. A long waiting list. And I'm at the bottom of it. We have more pilots than planes. It's just maths."

"Here." Bucky slid the extra glass towards him. "Chin up. Have a drink. Sooner or later the SSR will get another mission, and the brass will have to give you a plane. Because honestly, who else is suicidal enough to drop us off?"

Stone accepted the glass and drank deeply. "You make a good point." He glanced around, his eyes finally settling on Miles. "Why are you here? And where are those other miscreants you call team-mates?"

"Oh, you know, we're all taking our time to relax and unwind and do our own thing."

"Barnes is trying to bribe me into giving him a medical pass," said Miles. "I'm just here for the booze."

"What? That's crazy! I could see any doctor and get a pass," Bucky assured them. "Honestly. Hook me up to whatever machines you like. I'm the healthiest and sanest person in the entire US Army. Fun. That's what we're here for. To celebrate independence and fun."

"Okay, Barnes," said Miles, his face suddenly serious. "Lemme ask you this. What are you really doing here? The brass were prepared to send you home, after Krausberg. You got a reprieve. So why did you stay?"

"For Steve," he replied, without hesitation. "Because I didn't want him to fight this war alone. I mean, I'm his best friend, and he had no idea how brutal war can be."

"That's a nice sentiment," said Stone. "I just want to fly. Doesn't matter how, or when, or why. I don't want to be tethered to the ground. What about you, Miles? What's your idea of fun, in this war?"

"Thinking. I like to think about the intricacies of temporal differentials."

Bucky stared at him blankly. Stone stared at him blankly. After a moment of uncomfortable silence, he elaborated.

"Don't get me wrong, Mr Stark is a genius. What he doesn't know about engineering is not worth knowing. But Howard… he works with the world as it is. He wants to improve it… and ideally make money while doing it. Me, I think about the world that might have been. Let me ask you this… if you could go back in time, to Hitler's childhood, when the guy was just six or seven years old, and you had the opportunity to put a bullet through his head… would you?"

"Of course," said Bucky.

"Wouldn't lose a moment of sleep over it," Stone agreed.

"Okay. But what if I could pinpoint the exact moment in time that Hitler decided it was best to exterminate the Jews? What if, by inserting or removing one single event, or person, from Hitler's young life, I could entirely change the course of reality? What if that six year old Hitler, instead of being repulsed by Jews, had his life saved by a Jew? What if instead of promoting an agenda of Germanic racial superiority, it was possible to get him to promote an agenda of racial tolerance and integration?"

"Is that even possible?" Bucky asked. The idea was mindblowing. "To go back in time, and change history?"

"I theorise that it is so." Miles leant forward, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "There exists in physics the theory of the multiverse—multiple universes. Its existence has been debated for millennia; even the ancient Greeks were aware of its conceptual existence. According to the theory of the multiverse, we live in a patchwork quilt of realities. This one is the one that we as we are experience right now. But there's another multiverse just outside of this one, in which instead of turning left down the road this morning, you turned right. Every choice, every decision, every action point, leads to a new branch of reality. In one of these realities, or in a million of them, Hitler did not invade Poland. And from there, new realities were created."

"Are you saying," said Bucky, "that out there is a version of me who chose not to enlist in the army?"

"Chose not to enlist. Had no reason to enlist. Wasn't able to enlist. Yes. Theoretically, there is a version of you for every decision you did or didn't make. And there are realities in which you do not exist at all, because your parents never met."

"Poppycock," said Stone. "I refuse to believe there exists a reality in which I never wanted to be a pilot."

"That reality exists," said Miles. "Multiple versions of them do."

"Can you prove it?"

"No. That's why it's theoretical. But one day, I'll prove it. That's why I need Howard's financial support."

"So… who or what would you insert or remove?" Bucky asked. "If you really could pinpoint that one single thing to change this war, then who or what would it be?"

"I don't know," said Miles. "And that's the problem, isn't it? Perhaps the thing is something that happened within the past forty years. Or maybe it goes back two, three, four-hundred years. What if Hitler invading Poland could be traced back to Julius Caesar being murdered? How far would I have to go to fix today's problems? And what if fixing today's problems created more problems for tomorrow? Until we have a reliable way of circumnavigating time itself, there is no way of knowing."

Captain Stone turned his gaze to Bucky, and asked, "Why did you let him come over here? He's giving me a headache. Please put more alcohol in him, before he breaks my head."

Bucky pulled an official paper from his pocket and held it out to Miles, along with a pen.

"What's this?"

"Medical discharge papers," he replied. "Just sign them. I can already guarantee I'm saner than you."

"Fine." Miles affected a petulant sulk. "But I won't be held responsible for the temporal fallout of this. Also, you're buying the next round."

"Fine," he agreed. "I'll take responsibility for it in this and all other realities. Now, what do you want to drink?"