#i once told someone that the geneva convention should have them as an exception so i could hunt them for sport

[tatsuki-fujimotos-toe-beans]

As someone forged in the fires of league of legends toxicity (though when we were past the peak L9 period in like 2016 ish) I find it really funny when people talk about death threats and stuff because like I get those once per game and give them twice. Literally feel like the Bane bit:

You merely adopted the flame. I was born in it, molded by it. I didn't experience someone being genuinely nice to me until I was already a man (woman) and it felt like they were being fake and mean in a hidden way.

[phcking-detective]

Not Alone

Nines decides if he gets put on hold one more time, he's violating the Geneva Convention.

"Hello, are you still there?"

"Yes."

The PACU nurse audibly sighs in disappointment. "I spoke with our Chief of Staff, and he has given me permission to reiterate to you that a work partner does not count as family. Our policy is—"

Nines involuntarily reviews the Post Anesthesia Care Unit's visitation policy for the sixty-seventh time.

Visitation in the PACU is at the discretion of the nurse and physician caring for you and varies depending upon your procedure. Once the nurse taking care of you is happy with your vital signs and other post surgical requirements, they will contact the waiting area and will let your family member see you. Our policy at this time is legal family members only.

Which is a currently-still-legal method of barring androids.

Never mind that this policy also has significant human collateral damage: adoptees, divorcees, mixed race families …

The end result is that Nines cannot produce a marriage certificate and he obviously is not related by blood, so no one will be there to greet Gavin when he wakes up from his surgery.

And that is unacceptable. The detective has enough abandonment issues already.

Connor cannot hear the internal phone call Nines is engaged in, but he has a social module and must somehow be reading the results from his body language or facial expression.

"Hank could pretend to be his dad," he offers.

The PACU nurse is still reading the visitation policy in full. She's clearly determined to make this as difficult as possible, and showing up with a random human male with pale skin and fair hair who shares nothing in common with Gavin's olive skin tone, dark hair, or facial features is not going to cut it.

Nines searches through every single scan and PDF of paperwork Detective Gavin Reed has ever submitted to the DPD. Finally, all the way back to carry-over paperwork from the police academy he attended, Nines discovers a phone number he's never seen before listed as Gavin's emergency contact.

And it says brother.

Nines uses the phone at Gavin's desk to call this number without mentally disconnecting from the PACU nurse. Normally, he would be more than capable of processing infinite phone calls, but he does not have a social module and his stress levels are climbing into the high eightieth percentile.

"Gav, you better be dying because otherwise—"

"Is that Elijah Kamski?" Connor blurts out in the middle of the precinct.

"—just fucking text me, bro."

"Well shit," Hank says. "Talk about can I speak to a manager. You think he'd be willing to fix—"

Nines holds up a hand. He does not have a social module and cannot possibly process three conversations at once.

"You are listed as Detective Reed's emergency contact," he says into the phone.

"Is he hurt or dead?" Kamski immediately asks.

Nines cannot reply for nearly a full second. He spent three seconds thinking his partner was dead. It was not enough for Detective Gavin Alexander Reed to merely get shot, no. He also had to fall off the roof of a building, and the impact from the landing was enough to briefly stop his heart, which registered to Nines's scanners that—

"Hurt. Surgery." That is all he can say at first. "Successful. He is out of intensive care and has been transferred to the PACU."

In the background, Nines can still hear the others in the bullpen gossiping. He did not mean to make Gavin's familial relationship public. He assumed the phone number for one "Eli Reed" would simply be a regular, non-famous human of no particular importance except to get someone into the hospital to reassure Gavin he is not alone.

"What does he need now?" Kamski asks. "Will he be released soon and need a ride or in-home monitoring?"

Those are [logical] questions. Nines supposes he should not have expected anything less from the man who is technically his creator. Even if he only wrote the code and was not personally involved in the android's construction or testing phase.

"I have already made those arrangements during his surgery," Nines reports. "His apartment is prepped for his return, and my lieutenant has put together a … care package."

"Is that the old guy, husky, beard? With that Connor I liked?"

Across the bullpen, Connor's advanced hearing picks that up, and he visibly preens. Nines practices making a facial expression by sneering and rolling his eyes at him.

"Yes."

"OK, cool," Kamski says. "So, do you need me to cover the cost of surgery or is he asking for me …?"

"I have been unable to contact Detective Reed," Nines admits. "The hospital's visitation policy specifies 'legal' family members only as a method of anti-android discrimination. You are the only family member I have been able to locate."

If you do not visit him, he will be alone.

Nines cannot say this dialogue option. He cannot—refuses to—preconstruct how [bad] it will be if Gavin wakes up alone. His human has a deep, psychological fear of being abandoned, and even if Nines is able to see him immediately upon release and explain the situation, the emotional damage will have already been done.

"Yeah, our parents are dicks, and he doesn't want any famous media bullshit, so we keep the half-brothers thing on the downlow," Kamski says. "Do you need me to be your way in?"

"Yes," Nines says, almost before he finishes offering.

"I'm just kind of assuming here that you're his partner, and he'll want to see you, right?"

"As I am assuming that he accepts you as his brother, and he will want to see you."

Kamski snorts. "I told them stripping out your social module wouldn't stop the deviant problem—or make you any less sassy. That's an inherent RK feature."

"Should I meet you at the hospital," Nines asks.

As much as he may be [curious] about his creator in another situation, this is not another situation. And the situation at hand requires getting to his partner's location immediately.

"Yeah, just send me the address and let me do the talking. See you there."

As soon as he hangs up, Nines is bombarded with [questions] from Connor, Miller, and Collins. Thankfully, Hank stands up and makes a pushing-hands motion to signal to them to be quiet.

"I know we're all real fucking shooketh about this," he says, like the millennial dinosaur he is. "But we can save all the questions and gossip for after Reed gets out of the hospital, all right?"

The humans both grumble, but they let it go. Even Connor stops and sits back down at his own desk.

Hank turns back to Nines. "I'll text Tina and let her know what's up. You just go get your man, kid."

Connor visibly restrains himself from commenting on what an apt descriptor "man-kid" is for Gavin. At least, that's what Nines assumes, considering it is the commentary he himself would normally make.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," he says instead.

He turns and leaves before the "goodbyes" can take any longer. Either whatever Kamski plans will work or … Well. He is the most advanced military android model ever created.

Nothing will keep him from his partner.

***

By the time Nines arrives at the hospital, Kamski is already utilizing his social module. And billions of dollars. The Chief of Staff [Thomas Carrado, unmarried, no arrest record] would wouldn't deign to speak to Nines over the phone is now vigorously shaking Kamski's hand while thanking him for his "generous donation."

"—also, I'm sure you'll want to see your brother too."

"Yes, and—" Kamski turns and [smiles] at Nines. "Ah, my assistant is here. What room should we go to?"

Carrado's own smile freezes on his face when he sees Nines. Even without the LED, there couldn't be any mistaking the android for what he is.

Kamski keeps smiling as well, the sort Connor does when he's about to verbally destroy someone.

"Right this way, Mr. Kamski," Carrado says.

The Chief of Staff turns on his heel without any acknowledgement that Nines follows them. In turn, Nines also does not acknowledge the glances Kamski keeps making at him. His vision is just as accurate in his "peripherals" as it is directly in front of him, so he has no need to turn his head or rotate his optical units to observe the human in turn.

Gavin's [brother].

"—in the nation, but with your esteemed patronage, I'm sure we can rise to first. And of course Mr. Reed will—"

"Detective," Nines corrects.

"—receive the best—"

"Detective."

"—care possible here—"

"Detective."

"—while—"

"Detective."

Carrado stops and whirls around. "Is your … assistant … experiencing a malfunction, Mr. Kamski?"

"No," Nines answers for himself. "You will refer to Detective Reed by his title."

"Oh, is he still pissy about that?" Kamski asks before Carrado can respond. "I swear, every single family dinner for a fucking decade, we had to call him Officer, Detective—he'll be insufferable when he finally makes Captain."

Bold of him to assume Gavin isn't insufferable now.

But Nines does not know the state of Gavin's relationship with his brother, and if the lack of contact is due to mistreatment. He will not risk "making fun of" his partner to a toxic family member.

"Will you be staying long?" Carrado asks Kamski.

"Nines, what does my schedule look like today?"

Nines may not have a social module, but Gavin has forced him to sit through watching enough daytime television to be able to parrot simple lines commonly said by ST300s.

"I have rescheduled your meetings and cleared the remainder of your afternoon and evening, Mr. Kamski."

As Gavin would say, [Like hell] he's going to call the billionaire "sir."

"Excellent." Kamski reaches out to shake hands again, and Carrado is forced to reciprocate. "Thank you so much for your assistance, Dr. Carrado. Now, I promise not to take up any more of your valuable time."

"Well, I'm not—"

Kamski gestures down the hallway, still smiling mildly as if he isn't "politely" telling the good Chief of Staff to [fuck off]. He maintains eye contact with the other human until Carrado slinks away.

It seems Gavin and Kamksi share more than just genetics and a similar facial structure then. Although Gavin would have squeezed the other man's hand hard enough to induce pain, and likely told him literally to fuck off as well.

"Well." Kamski claps his hands together once Carrado is gone. "Let's go see my baby brother!"

***

Gavin is dying. He's alone and he's dying. He's dying and he's alooone.

"Detective."

Person? People??

Hands touch him and it's the best thing ever. There's a person here, he has a person, he's not alone. He's not going to die alone because everyone hates him and it's all his fault for being a huge asshole in the first place.

"Please lie down, Detective."

Gavin stops struggling to sit up when he realizes the person is his person. His favorite person. He collapses back down in the bed, which hurts a lot more than it should. Probably because he fell off a fucking building and messed up the whole left side of his body and—oh yeah, also got shot too. That sucks.

It doesn't stop him from whining and making grabby hands—hand? his left arm and leg are both in casts, boo—until Nines bends over at the waist, and Gavin can drag his face close enough for kisses.

"Wooow." His brother says. "This is blackmail material forever, I hope you know that, Gav."

Wait, his brother? Eli??

"I will remove you from the premises," Nines tells him.

Eli scoffs. "My donation got you in here. Nines."

"And there is nothing on this earth that can remove me."

God, his partner is so hot and mean and cool. And he has a mouth! Gavin has a mouth too. They should … look into that. You know. Investigate.

"Hmm, and here I thought you didn't like my 'stupid toys,' bro."

Gavin stops trying to wrestle his mouth against his partner's mouth and looks at his brother, who is also in the same room as his partner, at the same time.

"Oh, shit," he says.

"Uh huh, uh huh." Eli nods and waves his hand in a sideways-circle. "Keep going. Either with an apology, or you can keep it up about how only a loser needs to build an android to have a girlfriend."

"This is different," Gavin says, very seriously while still leaning to the side to keep as much contact between his back and Nines's chest as possible.

Eli scoffs and gestures at the two of them.

"I don't keep him in my basement," Gavin argues.

"I didn't lock Chloe in mine either," Eli snaps back. "She's free to go where she pleases."

"Her and all her clones?"

"Oh, please. If I never invented her, you wouldn't have—"

"—lab is in your basement though, and that's—"

"Gavin," Nines says, voice right next to his ear. "Is your lack of contact with your brother due to this level of typical sibling fighting—"

"We're not fighting," Gavin says. "We're just talking and he's losing."

"You're the one dumb enough to get shot," Eli adds.

Nines straightens up. "Do not mock Detective Reed for being injured in the line of—"

"Whoa, whoa, hey." Gavin pats behind himself with his good hand as much as he's able. "Easy, babe. No combat protocols, OK? He's my brother."

"Hmm," Nines says.

"So he's like, super fucking annoying and all, but no one beats his face in except me." Gavin doesn't even pause before he turns back to Eli, who's already opening his mouth to bring up— "And you only got lucky with the water hose that one time, I can still kick your ass in any other fight."

Eli scowls, but he looks away instead of bringing it up. He still feels guilty about it. Goddamn genius, and he "didn't know" smacking Gavin in the face with the metal end of a water hose would bust his nose open like that.

Dipshit.

"You said you received your facial scar in a bar fight," Nines says.

Eli blinks, looks back over, then bursts out laughing.

"Shut up," Gavin groans. "You weren't supposed to meet like this, it's not fair!"

"How exactly did you plan on us meeting, Detective?" Nines asks.

Gavin keeps his right hand covering as much of his face as it can and doesn't answer. He hadn't really thought about it beyond how much Elijah was going to fucking gloat when he found out. And as much as he loves his partner, Nines is android-brothers with Connor, and they do android-mind-linking, and Connor is a horrible gossip, and Gavin does not need the entire precinct and/or world to know his brother is possibly the most famous man alive, thanks.

They have a whole arrangement about it. Maybe if he wasn't still feeling the effects of so much morphine, he'd be able to articulate that, and how he wants to be absolutely certain his career really advances on his own merit, and maybe even some other stuff about Eli getting way more attention than him and growing up in the shadow of his cooler, smarter, more popular half-brother …

Ugh.

"Ughhh," Gavin groans again.

"And when were you planning on finally texting me, huh?" Eli asks.

Gavin looks up so he can scoff. "You fucking text me, asshole."

Eli inspects his probably-already-perfect nails. "I've been busy."

"So have I!"

"Getting shot?"

Nines interrupts. "That reminds me." He leans down to growl close in Gavin's ear, "You will never do this again."

Gavin swallows back a moan. "Babe, please don't make me horny while my brother is in the room."

Nines rolls his eyes. "There is no other recourse for me to leave then."

He knows his partner is joking. He knows that. But between the morphine and the exhaustion and now the pain in his side slowly seeping back into his body—Gavin grabs onto Nines and clings to him.

Nines immediately bends back down and wraps his arms around him as best he's able. "Shhh. I will not. I am here, and I have you secure. Shhh."

He makes the shushing noises more like a stern librarian than a comforting boyfriend, but it's ironically comforting after all because Gavin knows no one else would literally say "shhh" like it's a word. So this must be his Nines, his boyfriend, his partner.

"Wow, this is really touching."

Gavin lets go just to flip Eli off.

"Can I get in on this snuggle fest? I haven't seen you in what, a fucking year now, and you get your dumbass shot."

Gavin grumbles about it, but he holds out his good arm for Elijah. The dumb asshole comes over and gives him a one-armed hug, careful not to wrap around too far and touch his side. Or his broken left arm. Broken left leg. Goddamn, he really did it this time, huh?

Once they've hugged it out, he pulls back and says, "Since I built your Nines, when he uses his combat protocols to kick your ass for this, that's basically like me kicking your ass."

"No way," Gavin immediately replies. "You haven't been able to kick my ass since we were ten, and don't—god. Don't phcking, say it like he's you about my ass. That's weird, bro."

Eli grins at him. "Oh, so you two are already doing butt stuff, huh? That's pretty serious, like third base."

"Anal is only second," Gavin tells him.

On his other side, Nines blinks red. "Then what … do you consider first?"

"Uh, a blowjob, duh."

"Wait, what's a handjob?" Eli asks.

"Nothing, between friends."

Nines blinks. "Then thank god Tina is not here."

Gavin looks back down at the bed. "I guess she's busy, huh?"

"No," Nines says as if that's reassuring. But he continues, "She is not allowed to see you. The hospital's visitation policy allows for 'legal' family visitors only."

Gavin looks back up at him. "Then how'd you get in?"

Nines scowls. It's one of the few facial expressions he's mastered. "I searched through every form you have ever submitted to the Detroit Police Department, found an emergency contact number listed for your brother from nearly fifteen years ago, called it, spoke to Elijah Kamski, and then pretended to be his assistant."

"But hey," Eli says. "After the amount of money I just donated, I could wheel in a giant birthday cake filled with Traci strippers, so I'm sure I can get Tina in whenever you're ready."

Gavin smiles weakly, but now he's thinking …

"Is that why you weren't there when I woke up?" he asks Nines quietly.

"It is the only reason," Nines assures him. "My next option after calling your emergency contact was to simply walk inside and see what they thought they could do to remove me."

He looks absolutely serious about it too. Gavin's smile breaks out into a grin, just imagining some poor fucking GS200 security guard nervously asking the most advanced military model ever made to p-p-please leave … sir? Wh-whenever you're ready though, no rush!

He gets the giggles, but then that really makes his side hurt. Nines helps him lie back down before he even realizes he's too tired to sit up anymore. He also gets petted through his hair and that's nice, that's sooo nice.

"I'm … love you," he mumbles.

"I know." Nines smooths his hair back one last time and kisses his forehead. "Rest now. You can talk to your brother more when you wake up. We'll both be here."

Gavin still clutches at him though. "And Tina?"

"Yes," Nines says. "And Tina. Hank too, although he will likely bring Connor."

"Ugh, Connor."

"Yes."

A yawn catches him before he can complain any more about that, and having a nap does sound really good right now.

"Eli, tell me what you're working on," he says, blinking repeatedly to try to keep his eyes open. "S'boring."

Elijah takes a seat next to the bed. "You mispronounced boyfriend, but OK."

"He's boring too," Gavin says, but like, in a loving way. "He filed my ta-a-haaaxes."

After that last yawn, he loses the blinking battle. Eli starts explaining something about a new form of titanium, and Nines keeps one hand resting solidly on the center of his chest, so Gavin knows he's there.

They're both right here.

***

***

this was a commission! my rates are $10 for 1k / $25 for 3k / or $40 for 5k, and you can also check out my patreon for my main reed900 series here ^^

[gravelgirty]

Hogan’s Heroes: Above My Pay Grade (and over your head)

Part III of the Tape and Needle and Scissors and Thread series.

Follows after Part II, Irish Rejected Potatoes and Incendiary Chocolate

Baker was just a little smaller than Kinch, and wasn’t he grateful for it.

The young man slithered into the radio bunker holding his breath with a grimace over the effluvia of Slim’s mint chewing gum. The man couldn’t live without that stuff.

Weather was not the camp’s friend right now, but at least most of them were dealing with it.  Baker had kicked around a lot of the country before joining up, and the one thing you couldn’t do was yell at the great outdoors and expect results.

He liked Newkirk—most of them did even if they wouldn’t let him anywhere near a card game. The man was a little grouchy but Ma said artists were like that. And anyone who didn’t call Newkirk an artist never saw the man crack a safe. Or make a ballgown out of a Nazi uniform.

Baker looked twice in the tiny space and hunkered his bottom into the one dryish part of the room. Kinchloe had worked a wonder building this room right the first time, and as he’d been told, the earth had been rock-hard and dry as pumice at the time.  Oh, for the days. Smuggling timbers to hold up the sides had been another Kinchloe-miracle, and figuring out how to wire the camp’s reception using the Stalag’s own watchtower? Sheer genius. Baker hoped to meet him someday when the war was over. And if he was denied that chance? Well, unlike a lot of the men at the Stalag, Baker was quite comfortable with his faith in the ability to finish one’s affairs—if not this life, the next would do.

He checked the readings, double-checked the switches, and kept a sharp eye on the main circuit that fed the power through the main box. They weren’t getting much news right now, and nobody knew if that was really good news or bad. Sure, they understood they had to pull back once in a while, but three weeks of ‘holding back’ was a blip on the watches of officers.  For thems on the front line, it was eternity.

Once in a while there was a brief interlude of entertainment as various parties tried to send out doctored news.  They could be kind of fun.  One really remote signal, which they only seemed to get in lousy weather like this, was clearly the work of German freedom fighters who’d worked with the Yanks back in World War I or even earlier—a lot of their phonetics were the same as the camp’s, but the differences were telling: ‘Quack’ instead of ‘Queen’ and ‘Unit’ where ‘Uncle’ ought to be. Baker’s excellent memory let him sift out such conversations and he could tell with fair accuracy if the source was using the Army or Navy forms, how old they were, and if the users were actually English, German, French, or Spanish. Depending on how bored he was, Baker took Hogan’s orders to “fight fire with fire” literally, and answered back on the open waves with whatever language he felt like using at the time. The nice thing about working in a camp like this, was that someone, somewhere, knew the language.

Languages were fantastic. He loved them. If you heard his great-great-grandmother talk, it was because back in Africa, nobody thought twice about learning twelve languages before they were mature. Or his mother’s great-uncle who came back from WWI with British Sign Language for his wife. There weren’t enough schools for the colored and there really wasn’t much for the deaf. Least of all for the deaf people of color. But they’d learned, and they’d learned how to sign in British. And the French method, which became American sign, and also, the Sign language of the Plains Indians. There were a few times where Baker had saved their bacon with using that sign around Carter. Carter was too pure a soul to keep his thoughts to himself, but luckily for the Resistance, he answered Sign with Sign and it would never, ever occur to him to talk out loud what someone was saying with their hands.

Carter was a lot of things, but he would never be rude.

This suited Baker. When he’d taken his post Hogan had told him that a leader who knew everything was too weak to trust his own men. Baker had taken THAT to heart. Before long he and Carter were working through what they knew in Sign even if their mouths said different. It was fun, even if Newkirk called it ‘hand-dancing’. (Baker suspected Newkirk knew some BSL).

Humming to himself, Baker popped his ‘phones on his head and toyed with the pleasant possibilities of new equipment.  Or a whole box of vacuum tubes for emergencies. Right now they were down to mostly using the “horsepack set” re-wired to acid batteries instead of the standard hand generator.  It made things interesting because the Germans had a lot of time and money invested in VHF technology and most of the old buzzards giving Hogan his orders were still insisting on protocols that might have worked back in WWI. Baker was glad the scrounging was up to others. There were too many shifts in which it was all his two hands could do to cover up the holes in their system, and there was only so much magnet wire, insulated wire, and galena to go around. Twice since joining the camp he’d had to hold down the fort with his two hands and yelp directions as the others scurried parts to him from the back storage.

All this for unpowered radio. There were days when he missed the grim simplicity of using a steel razor blade and the lead off a pencil to catch a signal in the bottom of a foxhole. At least when it didn’t work, you knew why.

And foxholes could collapse on you. Nah, he didn’t miss that. Forget foxholes. Foxholes could give you nightmares.

I need more sleep, he thought. For a moment he could have sworn there was movement in the room.

The young man looked up, blinking in an attempt to rest his eyes so they would stop seeing things that weren’t there.

A soft plat of mud dropped past his face, grazing his cheek, and died ignominiously on his new clean papers.

“Oh, ugh.” He muttered, and sat back in silent astonishment as the soggy walls quivered like jelly. A moment later he realized it wasn’t the water in his eyes.

O’Brien heard him scream just in time.

# # #

“Ohgod.” Baker stammered. For the past fifteen minutes, that was about all anyone could get out of him.

“Is he gonna be okay?” Carter asked.

“He was nearly smothered in an avalanche of mud!” Newkirk cried.  “Would you be ‘okay?’”

“I don’t know. That’s never happened to me.”

“He’s too cold.” Hogan growled.  “Everyone, back off.  Baker gets the spot behind the stove.” All made space except for LeBeau, who was rustling back and forth through the that cabinet of morbid curiosities he called a spice shelf.  “LeBeau, what are you doing?”

“He’s cold.” LeBeau shot back.  “Don’t worry, I know what he needs—I need that cocoa!” He suddenly yelped. “Someone tell them to hurry up!”

“You heard the men.” Hogan barked.  “I signed for it—Klink should turn them over without any trouble.” Or no more than usual.

It was at that perfect moment that the men returned with the first armload of Red Cross boxes.

It didn’t take long for them to see why Klink was uninterested in paying himself an aggravation tax out of the portions.

# # #

Back in Klink’s office, Klink was wondering if wax cylinders were responsive to the 110% humidity. His precious recordings just weren’t holding up. Perhaps it was the thickness of atmosphere?

“You called for me, Colonel Klink?” Shultz asked politely.

“Oh, yes.” Klink gave up thoughts of music and returned to his desk. “Tell the men to inspect the foundations. As soggy as this earth is, we have to be careful of subsidence.”

Schultz blinked. He was a toymaker, not a Civil Engineer. “For all the buildings?”

“Yes, didn’t I say the foundations? I didn’t say ‘some of’ or ‘part of’—“ He hastily corrected himself. “Don’t bother with the prisoners’ barracks. Just concentrate on the main buildings with concrete block.”

“But we do not inspect the prisoners’ barracks.” Schultz said sadly.

Klink thought Schultz was even more optimistically delusional than normal if he hoped for a crumb of LeBeau’s cooking—even the Frenchman couldn’t muster miracles out of muddy puddles and mold—the two most common ingredients in the camp right now.

“They have troubles of their own right now, Schultz. I don’t want to give Hogan a reason to come out here. Right now they’re finding out about those Red Cross packages.”

Schultz shuddered. “Not even the cockroach could make a good meal out of twenty pounds of curry powder.”

“You are probably exaggerating, sergeant.”

“It is possible. But do you think the shipment was on purpose or a mistake?”

“I have no idea. The Red Cross is supposed to be above petty politics.” The lucky, lucky men.

“I was just wondering. It seems cruel to send the prisoners such rations. Especially this time of year.”

“I told Hogan we would be willing to share a portion of our meals with his if he so chose.”

Schultz gagged. “I hope the Geneva Convention doesn’t hear about this.”

“I knew he wouldn’t accept the offer, Shultz!” Klink snapped. “But I had to make it! It was the only thing I could do!”

# # #

DELIVERED FOR EACH PRISONER OF WAR, STALAG XIII:

·        8 ounces Mulberry fruit in syrup

·        16 ounces lentils

·        2 oz. soap

·        16 oz. flour (chickpea)

·        8 biscuits

·        8 oz. margarine

·        12 ounces Nestle's Milk (powdered or canned)

·        14 oz. rice

·        1 lb. pilchard

·        2 oz.  curry powder

·        8 oz. sugar

·        1 oz. dried eggs

·        2 oz. tea

·        1 oz. salt

·        1/4th lb. chocolate

COURTESY OF THE INDIAN RED CROSS SOCIETY

Back in the Barracks, Hogan’s ears were still burning with Klink’s generosity. He kept clam and watched his men as various and sundry truths (all awful) dawned.

“I like good curry as well as the next Brit, but this is too much of a good thing!” Newkirk exclaimed.

“There’s no meat!” Carter exclaimed. “What’s wrong with the rice? Its brown!!”

“Bloody entire world is locked up in this bloody war,” Newkirk ranted. “And every bloody country gets some sort of rations for their own tastes, and we get the only vegetarian rations ever made!”

“What’s a lentil?” Carter wondered. “Don’t they use that to feed sheep?”

“Pour some outside and see if any sheep come runnin. I’ll take care of it meself.”

LeBeau was groaning. This was not the exaggerated “I am an artist” response to Hogan’s orders to create the impossible. This was a man insulted by futility.

“What are pilchards?” Someone was asking.

“Can you eat them with curry?”

“Mulberries! Hot dog! We’ve got fake blood for our next undercover job!”

“I’m allergic to chickpeas!”

“This isn’t even real tea. It’s green tea! I’m not drinking anything that tastes like Timothy Grass!”

“Yippee! Margarine!”

“This is chocolate?”

“Two whole ounces of soap! Everybody cut theirs in half—we can keep clean AND bait the rats!”

“I didn’t know mulberries grew in India.”

“Hey, look! Nestle’s!” Carter yipped. “Man, you want to talk about big blazing fireballs! All that sugar, I guess—oh. Here ya go, LeBeau. Sorry, Baker.”

“Hey, that’s odd.”

No odder than hearing Private Addison open his mouth.

Everyone, even Baker and LeBeau, stopped what they were doing and looked at their token doorstop. He was staring out one of the more convenient cracks in the wall.

Broughton went over to his buddy and peered. “Hey that is odd. Colonel, you might want to take a look. The Germans are acting funny.”

Now everyone was looking.

“They’re inspectin’ the foundations.” Newkirk realized. “Wonder why? Their buildin’s’re solid enough to hold up to any rain.”

“Foundations can shift.” Baker chattered. He was grateful to take LeBeau’s fresh cup of warm water colored with Nestle and some of the ersatz chocolate. He just tried not to think of how it looked like a cup of runny mud. “Maybe theyr’e worried about a collapse.”

“Cor who wouldn’t be? And how are we going to deal with a collapsed tunnel? The earth keeps sinkin’, the Germans are gonna notice. And we’ve got a big hole about to open up right between 2 and 3.”

Hogan had been thinking precisely the same thing. It was possible his brains were rusty from lack of use, but as so often happened, someone’s idle comment was the impetus for his brilliance.

“Baker!” Hogan barked. “Come with me! Right now!”

As the Barracks gaped, Hogan grabbed his staff sergeant and took off running as well as terrain permitted, a sputtering, muddy Baker in tow.

# # #

Klink hadn’t expected Hogan to return quite so quickly, or half as loudly. Or with company. He was in his office trying to figure out how to clean mold off his wax cylinder collection when a particular THUMP announced the return of his particular anti-muse.

“COLONEL KLINK! I DEMAND TO MOVE THE LATRINES RIGHT NOW!”

“Hogan, you shouldn’t be yelling.” Schultz was chiding.

“I DON’T CARE FOR MY MEN TO BE LAUGHINGSTOCKS! RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR MEN, SGT!! I DEMAND YOU GIVE US PERMISSION TO MOVE THE LATRINES!”

“What are you talking about, Hogan?” Schultz asked wearily. “And what is wrong with you, Baker?”

“Mud!”

“I can see that, Hogan.”

“The ground’s getting too soft! It collapsed in on him. Baker’s the first one to fall casualty to this rain but he won’t be the last.” Klink could hear Hogan in the front room as he drew himself up with his hands wrapped around his elbows. “What’s the Stalag going to do about this, Schultz?  As prisoners we have the right not to drown in a sinkhole!”

“Yeah!” Baker chimed in. “What’s K-klink gonna d-do about this?”

Klink opened the door and stared at the incredible sight. Hogan had Baker with him, and Baker was covered with rank mud from head to toe. One of the Barrack’s thin blankets was draped over his shoulders and a cup of thin mud steamed weakly in his hand.

Klink’s skull throbbed. “Baker, why did my men make you fall in the latrine?”

“Uh…” Baker chattered.

Hogan’s mouth was already opening for a fresh salvo of…whatever. Klink lifted his hand and stood. Without a word he went to his cabinet and pulled out a bottle. “Baker, what are you drinking?”

“I think its chocolate.”

“I don’t think the Swiss would approve.” Klink tossed a hefty splash in the mug. “It won’t make it taste better.” He warned. “But it should keep you away from the doctor.”

What the hell. Baker decided his day had just hit a high note. Liquor from a German officer was a pretty damn fine way to summarize his day if he wanted to dwell on the positive. He knocked the whole thing down and gasped for breath. He kept gasping.

Hogan’s nose wrinkled. “What IS that?”

“Wutendes Drachenfeuer.”

“‘Angry dragonfire?’“ Hogan translated with the most suspicious look Klink had seen off anyone outside his own family.

“We carried it with us in the high-altitude flights.”

“Killer-diller, that’s worse than my granny’s How-come-you-so!” Baker’s admiration was frank and unfeigned. Like a return from death, color rose to his cheeks. His spine straightened and a sparkle came back to his eyes. His lips lost their blue tinge. “Zow! I didn’t know you could make moonshine out of cayenne peppers! Wait ‘till I tell Mom! She’ll take a powder for the day job!”

Klink’s monocle fell out. “I am pleased to think your mother would be thankful for the news, but would you speak English? American is hard enough to understand.”

Hogan shook his head. “Are you all right, Baker?”

“Nebber Bedder!” Baker beamed. “Wow.” Steam was coiling off his body as his body temperature rose.

Klink bristled at Hogan’s expression. “It isn’t poison! Unless he was perfectly healthy. It should wear off in half an hour.” His mouth tightened. “Now, did my men mock Baker for falling into the latrine?”

Hogan’s fabricated response was halted as Baker began humming bits and pieces of The Pretty Young Girl of Ronceverte.

“Baker, you are too young to know that song.” Hogan sighed. “Colonel, we need to move the latrines to a safer spot for now. The rains—“

“Yes, yes, I understand, but I don’t know where you could move them.” Klink snapped. “Oh—“ A thought came to him. “Move them to your Barracks!”

“My Barracks?!” Hogan yelped. “But the smell—“

“It would be the safest place to put them, wouldn’t it? You may not appreciate this, but Barracks 3 is one of the drier places in the camp!” Klink locked the cabinet, sat down, and began writing busily. “That is an order, Hogan! Move the Prisoner Latrines to Barracks 3!”

“Don’t snap your cap, sir.” Baker beamed. “We can do it. I’ll help.”

“You are not helping.”

“I can sing to the men. I know lots of songs for field labor.”

“I’m sure you do, Baker…”

Klink sighed in relief as they left. Schultz was still staring.

“The latrine collapsed on him! I haven’t seen anything like that since the last war!”

“I was afraid something like this would happen.”

“Hogan looks very angry.”

“I did tell him to move the latrines to Barracks 3.”

“Oh. That would not make anyone happy.”

“Well if they don’t want to find a sinkhole where the toilet is, they’d best make changes. I warned the Engineers! But did they listen to me, oh, no!” He puffed out his chest and crossed his eyes. “Kolonel Klink, ve asshure you ve know vat ve are talking about.”

Schultz laughed. “You have a good impersonation of Hochstetter.”

“That wasn’t Hochstetter. Things are bad enough without him being here!” Klink’s voice dropped. “And he’s overdue for a visit as it is.”

The Germans shut up, but their eyes cast nervous lines about the room. Hochstetter was a more immediate devil than der Fuhrer…and it was never wise to invoke the devil.