Gunpowder
Chapter Ten

Every step Axis took seemed to be heavier than the last. She saw her destination in the distance: a large gray building with windows only on the bottom floor. The rest looked like a giant cinder block that rose into the sky.

She felt like she was getting to the building too fast. Like her legs were moving too fast.

Axis had been scheduled to do an interrogation, something that was definitely not new to her, but wasn’t pleasant to her either. As an officer she had performed a few, mainly on those accused of white collar crime. This wasn’t one of those times, however. This was far different. This time she had been chosen specifically to do the job, not because of her rank, but because of her role in the life of the interrogated.

She was to be speaking to Poppy Zakner.

She sighed, looking at her shoes. She noticed every crack in the sidewalk, but eventually they all blurred together in her mind. She kept thinking, her mind felt like it was swarming with bees. But why? Ugh, what was with her feelings towards this woman?

Axis looked ahead, seeing that the gray structure was closer than ever. She saw its entrance now: A line of heavy metal doors, all locked and sealed tightly with a range of bolts and locks and scanners and other things.

She approached the one that looked the easiest to unlock. She had no reason to use a key, of course. The single hand-print and retina scanners on the door would allow her access. The keys were a last resort.

Axis shook off her clammy hand and stuck it on the scanner. It tickled her skin as a green line washed over it. The screen blinked, then morphed into another type of scanner. She had never liked using retina scanners. They were awkward, but she had no choice really. She leaned in and held her hazel eye open as the same little green line scanned it. The device blinked and then lit up with a cheesy splash screen that read “Access granted.”

She rubbed her eye and then pushed open the heavy door, which had been automatically unlocked. It was extremely heavy, but she eventually managed to squeeze through.

Beyond the rustic door was a quite modern-looking building. Axis stood in what looked like a lobby area with white walls that were rimmed with black. There was a circular desk with a busy receptionist behind it, scurrying around with papers and books and the like. She looked up at Axis, blinked, then roboticlly said, “Room 409. Maps are available in various locations.”

She realized that the woman not only sounded like a robot, but was one. Some sort of android. The idea of being greeted by a robot frightened Axis a little, but she quickly forgot about it and grabbed one of the aforementioned maps as she walked out the only exit to the room: a plain white door.

The map showed an artistically crafted diagram of black lines and text that directed her up to a room on the third floor. The map seemed to have been custom-made for her; She wouldn’t be surprised if it was.

Her steps seemed to echo as she walked, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She swung open the door, which was thankfully lighter than the entrance, and walked through, hearing the metal slam behind her.

Ahead of the soldier stretched a hallway designed in the same pattern of the lobby. Multiple offices were housed along the hallway, but that wasn’t what she was looking for. They all seemed to be empty anyways.

Axis trotted down the hall a bit faster, eyes locked on her destination: An elevator at the end of the hall. The place was seriously starting to give her the creeps, so she ran ahead, slamming the up button outside the elevator with her palm. It scanned her hand within a second and beeped, signaling its approval. Luckily, it arrived quickly, and the doors swung upon. She jumped in, heart skipping a beat as she almost stumbled. The floor of the transporter was soft, white and padded. As the doors slid shut, she looked around, seeing how the rest of the place was the same. This only dug the pit in her stomach deeper. She had been in the place before, but it seems like it had been renovated since her last visit.

The elevator was fast, much to Axis’s gratitude. The whole way up she was moving from foot to foot, generally feeling uncomfortable. When the elevator door opened up, it was the greatest relief she had ever felt in her life. But this just opened up the door to a whole new level of strangeness, in a quite literal way as well.

Out of the elevator sprawled a hallway, much shorter than the one housing the offices, however. It had a concrete floor that was cold to the touch, even through the thick boots Axis wore. There were two doors, both heavy and metal with several locks and other security measures that were a mystery to Axis. Luckily, the door recognized her as soon as she approached it, thanks to a body scanner that rimmed the whole door. It clicked open, then made an elongated creaking noise as the rest of the security systems undid themselves.

This door didn’t need to be shoved open. It simply slid back, making a screeching noise that resembled the sound of nails on a chalkboard. A gust of cold air hit the soldier as she stepped in. The door immediately slid closed, making the room virtually inescapable until the interrogation was finished.

Swallowing down her weakness, Axis stepped forwards, clearing her throat. She took a black, flat, box about the size of her palm from her belt.

She scanned the room for the first time. It was quite modern, with the walls plain white. The door had completely disappeared from sight, making the whole area look like one big blank box.

The true elephant in the room, however, was the table in the center. It was shaped like a half-circle, with a dip in the flat side. In this dip sat a large black chair that seemed to be hoisted quite high up by some nearly-transparent mechanisms underneath. On the other side of the table was another chair, notably less padded. In fact, it was no more than a thick metal frame in the shape of a chair.

No one sat in either spot yet, but Axis knew which one she would be sitting in. Using the complex process of common sense, she took the larger chair and stiffly lowered herself onto it. The cushion sunk a bit until it decided where to lay.

She took the device in her hand, which was a high-voltage stun gun, and tested it out a few times. It was supposed to hold 75,000 volts of electricity, which she assumed was a lot. She had never used it before and seen the results, but it was supposed to render any human being unconscious, which seemed useful in her current situation. She didn’t consider Poppy dangerous, but as she had seen all too often in the fields of war, the fuel of fear could turn any person, no matter how rational, into a spitting animal fighting for nothing but to survive. It was scary, but that’s what soldiers were for. To protect the citizens from the crazed animals of the enemy.

Axis was beginning to lean back in her chair when she heard the same creak the door had made earlier. Her eyes glanced up at the door on the other side of the room. It opened slowly, making a screeching noise that made her want to cover her ears. She did not do so, however, knowing it would be seen as a sign of weakness. When the door finally opened, it revealed something she truly did not expect.

Sure enough, it was Poppy, but she looked far different than when Axis had seen her in the hospital. She looked far better, with the neck brace around her throat gone, replaced with a tightly wound bandage that looked a little choking. She could see that there were casts on her legs, but they were covered with robotic metal boots of some sort. They looked to help her walk, well, allow her to walk at all. The injured woman glanced backwards with wide eyes, looking at some people that seemed to have shoved her into the room. Her cuffed hands clenched tightly.

Axis stared into her eyes with an intense stare. This only frightened her more, which was to be expected.

“Sit down,” came a menacing voice from behind the door, coming from whoever had escorted Poppy in. The technician lowered her chin and approached the chair opposite from Axis, avoiding eye contact. She sat down, slightly hunched over. Her gaze was locked on the white floor below. She twitched every few seconds, but otherwise made no move.

“Good evening,” Axis said, her voice echoing a bit around the room.

“Bonsoir” Poppy responded, obviously speaking another language.

“And you are aware of why you are here?”

Poppy only nodded. Axis noticed that she looked less thin than she had when she had first found her. Before, her eyes had been deeply sunken into her head; Now, they appeared more focused and alive.

“I am only here to ask you questions. Be aware that I am armed, but only for my own protection. I advise not taking any physical action, as then I will be forced to do so myself. Let us get started. First of all, where did you come from? As in, history, residence,”

Poppy cleared her throat and held back a sneeze. She was clearly far from being fully healed, despite being progressing well. The injured let out a small, half-hearted, chuckle.

“You can not already tell?”

Axis cocked her head to the side, “No. Am I supposed to know?”

“I am French-born. Raised in the rolling hills,”

“Yet you speak our language?”

“Yes, I was taught it. I was one of the few who could clip our exquisite dialect into the slaving tongue of the English.”

″So, you were french-born? Then, how did you end up here, in the Americas?”

“France is gone. I came here on a plane, the only way anyone could come from that gone place,”

“Were you a citizen?”

“No, no. A technician. I was useful. I was rescued, with the others,”

“Thank you. On to the next question. Three other people were found in the same car you were in. What is your relation to these people?”

“Teammates. My teammates.”

“And what were you and your team doing behind enemy lines?”

The question took Poppy by surprise. She ground her teeth in nervousness before giving an answer.

“Scavenging.”

“For what exactly?”

Poppy hesitated a moment. She knew that lying would get her nowhere.

“Information.”

“What kind of information? Who were you retrieving it for?”

“What kind? It wasn’t truly a specific kind. Just... Information. About all kinds of things. None of it really seemed to be connected, none of it even seemed important.”

“Who were you retrieving it for?” Axis asked again.

“The boss. The man in charge. Whatever you want to call them.”

“Them? As in, nonbinary, or, as in a group?”

“There’s ten of them... They, all of them, together, make up the boss, well, that’s what we call them”

Axis found this intriguing, though it was already quite widely known by the populous. The new world order, or as most called them, the loyals, were led by a mysterious oligarchy who no one knew the true identities of. But for the techie to refer to them as ‘the boss,’ as if one person. That is what interested her.

World War Five, the battle of the rebels and the loyals, was interesting. But war was never fun.

“Well.. Let’s move on...”

The conversation went on for what felt like hours, and probably was. Poppy had managed to relax, and the discussion had turned quite casual after that. The injured still shied away from some topics, mainly regarding her teammates, but Axis did not push her. She was being cooperative and she did not want to frighten her, or make her more frightened than she already was. Being in a car crash, having her teammates die, being rescued by the enemy, being taken to a completely unfamiliar hospital, and then being interrogated, all in a coarse of a few days. There was no way the whole thing couldn’t have been terrifying for her.

Axis found that she was talking about herself a remarkable amount, speaking about her job and other things. She refused a few of the woman’s questions, mainly the ones that regarded the location or other information about the city. But she had some questions that Axis could answer.

A sharp knock came from the door. Poppy glanced up. If she were a wolf, her ears would have just pricked up.

“I’d say we’re out of time,” Axis said, following the other woman’s gaze. The knocking was obviously not human. More robotic, synthesized.

“Thank you,” Poppy responded. Her voice had gotten a bit lower, and she was looking into the soldier’s eyes.

“Y-your welcome?”

Axis’s ears pricked as there was a sound of metal clanking from the other side of the room. An innocent smile spread across the techie’s face as she threw a pair of leather handcuffs onto the table. They were unlocked cleanly, with no sign at all of there being a struggle to get out of them.

“You?” Axis said, the start of a question. She was at a loss of words.

“Things should be locked better.” Poppy responded in a joking tone. She seemed to sense Axis’s fear, “Don’t worry. I’m not exactly dangerous. My legs are both broken, how much damage do you think I could really do?”

“Clever. Still, we must leave. Or, I must. Whoever escorted you here should be back whenever they said they would be,”

Axis stood up, still looking slightly concerned. She hoped the woman wouldn’t get into some fight with her “handlers,” or whatever they called themselves, about it.

She was silent as she left. The door hardly even creaked. It closed slowly, and Poppy was alone. Again.

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