Gunpowder

France was a large cat, but he was a sleepy cat as well. Only a few minutes after he had sat down on Poppy’s lap he had fallen asleep. Poppy, with empathy for the animal, hadn’t moved from the spot.

Axis wasn’t home yet, presumably off at work still. France had only gotten up at around 5 PM, when he had gone to the litterbox. Poppy had thought about getting on her laptop, and then had remembered what website was loaded on it. She yanked out the batteries and waited a bit before putting them back in and turning the computer back on.

She sat straight-backed, tense, as the screen loaded up. It glowed white for a mere moment, then the screen welcomed her with the sight of the blue desktop screen. It had reloaded, as she had expected.

She hadn’t really planned this far into the future. She had expected to have to do something more, to fix the computer somehow. The blank screen just stared back at her, uneventfully.

The technician knew better than to go back to the site that had made her shut down her computer in the first place. She just stared at the desktop blankly, as if waiting for something to show up.

And, strangely, it did. The whole screen seemed to transform. The desktop became gray, and a strange logo, a red balloon with a blue stripe across it. The screen was cut into three pieces, one of which seemed to be a chat box of some kind. The other two pieces were completely blank.

Poppy attempted to close the window, but there was no button to close it. Alt f4 didn’t work either.

Then something appeared in the chat box.

It looked identical to the chat box from Read It, and it looked identical when a message popped up. It said it was from Tbbae, but it didn’t look to be in English. No, instead it was something she recognized more.

It read “Welcome,” but in French instead of English. It did not seem menacing, surprisingly. Rather.. sincere.

She wrote back, “Hello,” once again in her native language.

“You’re here?”

“I don’t know what you mean?”

“You’re the hacker here, you should have been able to get here as soon as you got a computer,”

“What do you mean?”

“The gang, ex-loyals, you know. Did you not look for us?”

“I didn’t get a computer until recently.”

“Well, it’s good to hear from you, dog. You’ll be useful for once, finally.”

“Yes. I thank you. You are Abbet, correct?”

“I thought you would have figured that out sooner, you’re the smart one.”

“Clever anagram, but I knew it was you.”

“I truly do not care what an anagram is, is it calculus crap?”

“No. It’s a.. type of wordplay.”

“Oh, wow, I totally care. Explain more of your boring crap, why don’t you?”

“Why are you typing in French anyways?”

“I wasn’t aware you could write English. Can you?”

“Yes, I can. I have been learning English for ten years, I think I would know how to type by now. Also, your grammar is horrible,”

“I’m using a translator so shut your trap,”

“Well, you can stop typing in French now.”

“I am the one giving the orders here, okay? You don’t tell me what to do! I am still your handler, so you listen to me, and only me.”

“Of course. Now, would you kindly explain what is going on?”

“An escape plan, of course. Every loyal in the city is in on it, are you deft or something? You should know about this!”

“Um, yes. Apologies. I did not have access to a computing device until now.”

“Well, now that you do, we’re getting your lazy butt out of this dang city”

“And how exactly do you plan to do such a thing?”

“We aren’t stupid like you, we know what we’re doing. Are you being tracked?”

“Um, why?”

“Just shut up and tell me!”

“Yes, I have a GPS tracker on my leg,”

“Of course you do. Cause you’re an idiot. Can you tear it off?”

“I mean, I can, but it would alert law enforcement.”

“Ugh, you’re lucky we’re so nice. Some one will be over to your location as soon as possible. And you better be there, and ready to leave this dump of a city. I’m in command right now, and that means that I’m leaving the city tonight, okay?”

“Alright. Am I leaving too?”

“Yes,” This wasn’t the complete message, but to avoid the mental scarring of small children, the string of obscenities this message contained have been omitted.

“Sorry. Also, how do you know my address?”

“You aren’t the only hacker in the world you know,”

“I am aware.”

“Yeah, well, I’m starting to lose IQ points from just being around you, so this conversation is over. Some people will be there tonight, and be ready.”

“Yes, thank you.”

The whole conversation was nerve racking, but also quite hard to understand Whatever translator Abbet was using, it was pretty terrible. It made Poppy’s brain hurt just trying to translate it into understandable language.

She was relieved that she didn’t have to translate the gibberish into sentences anymore, but she was also terrified. Someone was coming to her house to take her somewhere. She was going to have to go back to being a loyal, and not only that, she would be torn away from Axis. She would be persecuted for treason once returning to the new world order, and would be executed, she knew it. She may have been useful enough to be spared from the cleansing of France, but she wasn’t useful enough to be exempt from the law. She would die if she left, and even if she wasn’t killed, she did not want to return to her past life. Her life of hunger and abuse and constantly being on the run. She had dreams of it, of how horrible it was, and she surely did not wish to return to the place.

Poppy knew she had to tell Axis. It was the only way to defend herself. Axis was a police officer, she was armed, and she could fight. On the contrary, Poppy was none of these things.

Even thought Axis wasn’t in the house, she had a way to contact her. She could “instant message” her with her laptop. But Poppy couldn’t bring herself do it. Maybe it was out of shame, shame that she had spoken to Abbet once more, or maybe it was some tiny part of her that was still loyal to the new world order. She didn’t know, but whatever was causing it, she didn’t tell her roommate about the events. Instead, she grabbed the tazer that the woman had given her, hidden France safely in a closet with his food, water, and litter, and waited. Waited with tension and waited with sweat running down her forehead.

She couldn’t fight, she knew she couldn’t, but she could sure as hell try.