Gunpowder

“Poison in intestines, trench foot, radiation intoxication, what does any of this have to do with our mission!” Poppy grumbled in anger as she scrolled through the device in her hands. None of the files seemed like anything important. And the fact that she had touched a dead body to retrieve them didn’t make it any better.

The others in the car didn’t seem to care one bit; They were too busy laughing and jeering, hitting each other in the arm. Rouge had drooled onto Oak’s lap, and Oak punched in the face. They seemed to be laughing at Rouge now as he held his aching jaw. It looked like a tooth had been punched out.

“Sick freaks,” Poppy muttered, not brave enough to say a worse word. But she sure said one in her head. How could they laugh at someone in pain like that?

The very thought of doing suck a thing made her want to puke, and scrolling through detailed descriptions of bloody and gruesome hospital patients wasn’t making her feel any better. The hospital appeared to have been an emergency military clinic for those who had been injured on the front lines, at least that’s what she could gather from it.

Some of the files described the exact weapons that had done the damage; Many of the weapons were ones Poppy herself had worked on blueprinting or prototyping. She had never had the heart to test the things on, well, live prisoners, but now she knew their very real effects. Scattered shrapnel, poison darts, heart stoppers, they all had sickening effects on the battlefield.

Poppy cringed. She couldn’t bring herself to keep reading. She gagged silently and threw the device into the leather seat next to her.

Had the body she touched been a victim of a weapon she’d worked on? Could a poison had invaded its arm? Had a radiation gun induced some sort of cancer? She tried not to think about it.

“Where are we headed to now? Any more orders from the boss?” Poppy asked meekly, not wanting to share the same fate as Rouge, who was still clutching his maw in agony.

“Escaping. They found out our location, so shut your yap! Don’t do anything stupid and get us caught,” Oak growled, grinding his teeth.

“Ouais, quel que soit Oak,” Poppy retorted in her native tongue.

Poppy was a french-born, and the language of her homeland was the language she knew best. But after being thrown into the leagues of north America, she was forced to learn the Slavic tongue of the Englishman. And, she had to admit, she was quite good at it.

“What did you say to me, brat!” Oak shouted. The car swerved a bit as he let loose a string of obscenities at Poppy. He hated when she spoke in French, as she normally did to insult him.

“You understand your own slaving words yet you do not understand the shining ring of the French language,” Poppy retorted, tempted to turn the mutter to a yell. She had learned of the English’s deeds and could not believe that people would take pride in being descendants of such malefactors. Enslaving man of their own species and forcing them to work on plantations for their own greed? Now that was surely the deed of a sick man.

“France is gone. Dead. Accept it. The superior race is the race that survives,” Oak responded, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the steering wheel in anger.

Poppy bit back a snarl as she remembered the event Oak spoke of. French, along with all of Europe, had been ‘eliminated’ by the boss to lessen the population. Most people in the area were killed off, while those deemed ‘useful to the cause’ were transported to the Americas. Poppy had been chosen as one of these useful people, and thus had been flown on a cramped plane all the way to north America. Subconsciously, however, she wished they hadn’t spared her.

Life was hell, a constant battle to find food and water, all while trying to please the ever demanding boss. Some resorted to cannibalism, others to suicide. Poppy shivered at the very idea of such awful things. Still, survival was key. If you survived, well, you survived.

Poppy looked out the window of the car, seeing the wasteland flash by faster than it had before. Oak was obviously alarmed about something, he had to be to be wasting the car’s fuel like that.

“Are they getting close?” Poppy asked, having a slightly alarmed tone herself.

“No, not too close. If we just keep out of their sight range we’ll be fine.” Oak responded, too scared to retort or jeer.

“Keeping us on our toes, huh?” Rouge chuckled like a hyena. His mouth had stopped bleeding, but his teeth were still covered in dried red. His hands were in about the same state of bloodiness.

“Not the time for a joke, Rouge!” Oak shouted. The car did a sharp turn, nearly tipping onto its side. Dust sprayed into the air.

Poppy saw something in the rear view mirror. It seemed to be five people, all on the backs of large, robotic equines. They were charging in an arrow formation with a particularly large cavalry-bot at the front of the line. Every rider looked identical, all outfitted in matching, white armor.

“Past em’ Past em!” Abbet yelled, grabbing onto Oak’s shoulder. Oak seemed to understand this, and yanked the steering wheel to one side. With amazing precision, the car did a half-donut and drove straight past the attack line. All the horses seemed confused, but they soon got the memo and pivoted on one hoof. But their few seconds of lost time was their downfall. The car sped out of their sights, into the sandy horizon.

“The rebels can’t find us,” Oak shouted at Abbet in panic, referring to the sworn enemy of them and the boss. The rebels. How much clearer could the name be? They were a rather large rebellion. And, to those under command of the boss, they were the fuel of nightmares.

“Well guess what, they did,” Abbet shouted back, shoving Oak against the car window.

“Let’s leave their borders then, get out o’ town,” Rouge suggested as he slurped a giant trail of drool into his mouth and swallowed.

“The boss needs more information,” Poppy sighed, looking up, “It’s the one thing that will defeat them,”

“Just ask em’” Rouge offered again, as if it was an obvious thing.

“Are you deft!” Abbet yelled, “We are their enemy! We’d be killed or worse!”

“What could be worse than death?” Rouge asked, as if thoughtful for once.

“Capture, Rouge! Or are you stupider than I thought!” Oak roared, at last stopping the vehicle, “The rebels catch us, we’re dead, even if we do escape. And I won’t be killed,”