Traitors (Damned of the 2/19th - Book Five) - Finished

Games

2/19th Special Weapons Group Barracks
Restricted Area - Western Germany
Early Winter - 1986
Day: Five

Nagle reached forward and hit the C key on the keyboard of my computer. We waited a minute, and then she smiled, leaning back and taking a drink out of her beer. I watched, hoping she'd hurry the hell up, when her eyes suddenly widened. She leaned forward, tapped the F1 key on the side of the computer, then typed rapidly.

LAST OF THE MOHICANS

The Commodore 64 obediently turned the letters one at a time while the TV speakers blared the static that was supposed to pass for applause. Bomber and I reached forward and picked up two of the three shot glasses and snapped down the Ausbach, racing to tap our glasses back down. I beat him by split second, and he glared at me.

"This game sucks." Bomber said, reaching out and grabbing the third one and pulling it down. Nagle smiled as she refilled all three. All three of us were in boots, BDU bottoms, and brown T-shirts. Our BDU tops were laying on Bomber's bed. We weren't supposed to be drinking, but fuck it. What was he going to do, bend our dogtags and send us to Germany to live on a fucking mountain.

"Yeah, well go down and tell the LT to give us back the rest of my shit." I grouched at him. He glared at me for a moment while the wheel spun on the screen. "That's what I thought." I nodded at the screen. "Your turn."

He stared at the screen for a moment, then hit F1 and typed in "I HATE THIS GODDAMN PLACE" into the prompt.

Cue the letters turning and the applause, with "WORLD WAR TWO" appearing on the screen. Nagle and I each tossed down a shot, and I grabbed the third one before she could and pulled it down.

"Goddamn, Ant, he's right." Nagle said, laughing and wiping her mouth. "How much did you pay for this game at the PX?"

"Nothing. I copied it from a dude in another unit." I answered. I reached out and flipped the switch on the side, sighing and leaning back in the chair.

"You got ripped off." Nagle laughed.

"Think he's still flipping his shit?" Bomber asked, picking up the box of 5 1/4" floppies and thumbing through them.

"I don't know. Apparently they had to hold Hendricks back when they took his stereo after breakfast." I told them.

"What the fuck for?" Nagle asked. She turned and looked at our room. "Seriously, why is he taking all our shit?"

"Took Hendricks stereo for playing it too loud. Claimed there were complaints about his music." I told her.

"Fuck. Take TV's and VCR's if you have the volume too high. Take computers for security risks. Take stereos for playing music too loud." Bomber said, pulling out a floppy marked "SUSPENDED" and waving it at me. "This any good?"

"Yeah, it's like Zork. Try the Impossible setting. You'll like it." I told him. His eyes brightened at the mention of his favorite game.

I nursed my beer while John flipped back on the computer, which saved because we'd convinced the LT that the Vic-20 in my wall locker was nothing more than a fancy cartridge game system and not really a computer by plugging in Pirate Island, one of the text game cartridges, before flipping it on and telling him that the C-64 was just the next step up. It was a suck game, but hey, it let me keep the computers, and it wasn't like I didn't have a million fucking disks for them. The Amiga and the IBM were long fucking gone though. Bastard.

After about five turns, John turned to me while Nagle laughed and pointed at the screen.

"Nice going, John. You suck at that game." I told him. "Everyone died. You're supposed to save them, dumbass."