Gunpowder

Poppy Zakner winced as she tore off a piece of her dirt-crusted fingernail. Tiny buttons of blood welled up around the wound, mixing with the dirt to create a disgusting brown, thick liquid. She wiped her finger on the torn up leather of the car seat she sat on. It looked like a smear of crap, and was just about as revolting as one. Just the sight of it made Poppy want to gag, which she covered up with a cough.

Her mind seemed to have drifted back to a memory from her childhood. A battle in which she had thrown a bag of bombs, at least that’s how she remembered it.

The ground shook beneath her, due to the low, or possibly lack of, suspension the car offered. She felt sick to her stomach, but wouldn’t dare open a window. She was on a mission after all, a mission that had to be kept secret to the enemy. Even puke could be traced, with all the new technology springing up.

Poppy heard a noise of annoyance from the front seats. There were three other people in the car: Oak, Rouge, and Abbet. The grunt seemingly started an argument amongst them, and soon they were all but strangling each other.

“Don’t get that crap on my ride, techie!” Oak yelled from the front seat, earning light snickers from his two comrades.

Poppy Zakner was a technician, true, and protecting her was the groups top priority, but they sure didn’t act like it was. Her already bad condition had gotten worse since she was assigned to the mission. Her mouth was drier than a desert, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten.

The 21 year old techie had been assigned to the mission only a month ago, but it felt like forever. She had gotten in countless, violent, fights with her escorts, and was threatened with a gun when she refused to do something.

Their mission had been all but simple. They were ordered to, along with other groups, go past enemy lines to create a surveillance feed and tap communications. But with the area so well protected, laying low was the only option.

Poppy felt the car skid to a halt, swerving a bit till it found solid footing.

“Come on, dog. We have work for you,” growled Abbet. She was the only girl on the team besides Poppy. The technician had gotten used to all manner of insults and nicknames.

The three escorts scattered out the car doors, looking more like a mass of flailing arms and legs than a proper fighting unit. Poppy simply climbed out the broken sunroof above the back seats, squeezing through the narrow metal frame. Some shards of glass cut into her torso as she pulled herself through, but she truly didn’t mind. The mission had left her with all manner of cuts and scratches and the like. What was a few more?

“What do you want this time?” Poppy grumbled as she jumped down to the ground. There was sand beneath her feet, around her feet. Sand was everywhere, actually. They were in a desert that seemed to sprawl for miles.

“There’s an old base ’round here. Boss said it could be some kind of portal into their systems, something like that.” Rouge babbled. Everything the man said was practically babble. Drool hung down from his mouth on one side, and his head was rested on one shoulder. Poppy was surprised he was actually able to form a coherent sentence for once.

“So, where is this base?” Poppy asked, one eyebrow raised.

Oak didn’t answer her. He instead gestured to the others and broke out running. Poppy was startled for a moment, thinking that there was something behind her, but after looking back, she saw nothing. A loud sigh escaped her as she raced after the others. They may not have been that smart, but they sure were fast, and they had stamina. Both of which were traits Poppy lacked. She had no idea how they were still running when they finally got to where Oak was leading them: A mountain, red and reaching into the sky. The three soldiers ran up the steep side easily, as if they already knew the mountain and all its secrets. Poppy, on the other hand, was scrambling up the thing like an animal, grabbing at stones to haul herself up.

Her spine ached by the time she caught up to the others. They were all waiting, boredom twisting their faces into almost-angry expressions, at an indent in the mountain. There was a door within the indent, resembling the kind of vault door you would see in a cartoon bank. It was wide open, its lock completely destroyed. There was no doubt about it; the place was abandoned.

“You sure this thing even has a computer?” Poppy asked as she peered into the room behind the door.

“The boss said there was, so there is. Now get moving, you’ve kept us waiting long enough,” Oak growled, hitting Poppy on the back of the head.

Poppy winced and rubbed her neck, squinting her eyes in an attempt to see into the darkness that the vault door hid behind it. She felt her stomach churn as she heard a stream of drool drop from Rogue’s mouth.

The room was quite dark, and Poppy was not equipped with a flashlight. She took a deep breath, gathering her courage, and took her first step into the unknown room.

The first thing she noticed was the smell. It reeked of antiseptic and what smelled like mint flavoring. From the noise her shoe made on the floor, Poppy knew that there was linoleum beneath her. The walls were far apart, as Poppy couldn’t feel them when she reached her arms out. She did feel something, however.

Soft and slightly wet flesh met her fingertips. She reeled away at once, and, as she jumped, she caught a brief glance of what she had just touched. It was a body of some kind, sitting in a wheel chair, slumped over. One of its arms was cleanly sliced off, and a few remnants of cloth showed that a bandage had once been wrapped around the wound. Poppy felt bile rise in her throat as she saw a horde of flies buzzing around the skull’s eyes and jaw.

“Focus on the mission, Poppy,” the technician said to herself, taking a deep breath. She wiped her hand on her black sweatpants and continued walking. A warm, glowing light shone deeper in the room. She pushed back a curtain that stood in front of her, revealing a large, flat computer monitor, hanging on the wall in front of a desk. It was open to a flashing screen that simply read: “PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD. OPERATING SYSTEM IS DAMAGED,”

Poppy gulped and swung off her backpack, throwing it on the desk. She fought with the zipper until she was able to open the biggest pocket of the bag. From it she pulled a small device resembling a phone, a flash-drive, and a small collection of cables. She combed through the cable pile until she found one that she decided was correct, though it truly looked no different from the others. She shoved the rest of the wires back into her bag and plugged the flash-drive into a USB port on the side of the flashing monitor. The flash-drive had another port that fed out of it, which Poppy plugged the cable into. She then plugged the other end of the cable into the small rectangular device in her hands.

The device immediately lit up and shook a bit. It made a loud whirring noise as text scrawled across its screen. The text seemed to be for files within the computer, which had names such as: Patient_104, Change-log_09, and Records_01_03_XX. They seemed to be all about medical things, but there had to be something in the files, if the boss had wanted it to be investigated.

Poppy’s heart lurched as the large computer screen ahead of her blinked off. No warning, no reason. It was simply, gone. The techie yanked the flash-drive out of its port and shoved all her equipment back into her bag, Her heart was beating out of her chest as she raced out of the medical center.

Outside of the door stood Oak and Rouge, keeled over in laughter. They pointed at Poppy like she was some kind of freak-show act.

“I-If you saw your face back there!” Oak howled.

“Your face, little puppy!” Rogue repeated.

Poppy’s countenance grew bright red with a mix of anger and embarrassment.

“The machine shut off. I collected all the data I could,” Poppy reported in a low growl.

“You mucked it up is what you did. Let’s get going,” Abbet ordered angrily, balling her hand into a fist. Poppy was not sure what she had done wrong, but Abbet seemed to always be angry. Poppy nodded in response, and Abbet gestured to the others to get moving. They were still giggling like school children as they followed Abbet down the mountain. Poppy did her best to keep up, but constantly needed to use rocks and stray trees to keep herself upright.

Her feet skittered on the sandy stones. Flies and lizards skittered away from her feet, some hissing and screeching at the three escorts ahead.

“There’s more life here than usual, are you sure it’s abandoned?” Poppy asked, still sliding down the steep rocks.

“Trust the boss,” Abbet growled.

“Yep! Trust the boss!” Rouge repeated, slurping a drip of drool into his mouth.

Poppy sighed and gripped onto a scraggly tree to aid her descent. She felt the bark snap beneath her fingers. Every plant and tree up here was old and weak, much too weak to be used as supports. Poppy wasn’t sure how they even survived in the dry climate.

“Where to now?” Poppy mumbled.

“The car. Boss ain’t gave no orders,” Oak grunted.

To her relief, the others continued at a slow speed. Poppy took the time to look at the information recovered from the medical vault. She scrolled through the files, still not understanding why they would be necessary. It was all medical documents, patient files, medical side effect lists.

“Boss say why he needed all this. All it seems like is crap,” She commented.

“Well, we need it. Doesn’t matter why. Are you questioning their authority?” Abbet growled.

“No. Don’t question the boss,”