The Flash Drive

      It was a long scramble uphill back to the caves. After hours of hiking and cursing at Delphine, at her boss, at Vicky, at Chet Flash, Hattie stood in front of the inscription again, sweaty, ruffled, fuming.

      In search of a new goal, she followed the strata in the other direction. Rocks seemed to have been shifted. That was nothing out of the ordinary, in a dig site. These rocks had been left alone a while, though. Hattie borrowed a shovel and pick and passed her nerves on the rocks. In the ground underneath, she found a very, very dirty flashlight.

      When she switched it on, it flickered a dim silver. When she pointed it at the nearest glitch, the silver light had the curious effect of making it invisible. When she tried it in the darkness of the nearest cave, the light formed a pattern of a Colosseum struck by lightning.

      The silver light had been a false lead. It had been Altador all along.

      Hattie tried to flick on her earpiece. "Five to Headquarters?" No one was responding. There must have been too many glitches in between.

      Hattie ran to the Seekers' airships and tried flaunting her Defenders' badge at them, to no avail. She did not look anything like a Defender. She did not even have the famous logo on her badge. Suddenly, her tablet buzzed.

      "Five, put us through. It's the big boss."

      Hattie stared at the Chia on her screen and immediately shoved it at the Seekers. She had only seen the image of the big boss a handful of times, and certainly not on her own screen. Now, however, her mission was important enough that the entire organisation was backing her request for an airship. The Seekers even chipped in supplies and food.

      With renewed determination, she sped around the globe to the still glitch-free Altador, dodging and ducking between the blasts and cracks of glitches in the sky. The Shockwave had progressed over almost all of Neopia. Communications were almost all cut, save for channels like the big boss's.

      Something rammed her airship near Shenkuu. She caught sight of a very angry Delphine, her ship heavily damaged by glitches, before she made it to the peaceful atmosphere of Altador.

      She made a victory sprint to the Colosseum. The image inside the silver flashlight brought her under a lightning rod, near where a set of Punch Club pie plates were displayed, and, sure enough, Chet Flash wuz there, right in the enamel of a plate.

      The next stop was Roo Island, of course it had been Roo Island. Roo Island, always said to be the origin of Chet Flash, between the Coffee Shop that served Chet Flash's favourite Java and cookies, the Art Gallery that they had stealthily visited so many times, and of course, the Games Room. A Defenders' ship was specially dispatched by the big boss to take Hattie there, and the final flight was almost smooth, what with its shields and navigation.

      When they reached the island, it was covered once more in a colossal swarm of purple bugs. The Defenders watched Hattie exit the ship. No one was lifting a finger to help anymore. She should have known. This desperate quest was hers to handle, and no one else would be lost into the mass of bugs and glitches.

      The Lenny clenched her beak and began to walk in, seeking a safe path. She did not have to search long. The bugs receded from her with every step she made. Glitches suspended in midair stopped crackling as soon as she came near.

      She did have chrome on her person. She found that she had chrome also in the special silver flashlight. The purple mass of bugs closed behind her, and no one followed. She was left to follow Chet Flash's tracks, while the rest of the world tried to keep existing.

      The pattern on the Altadorian plate led her to a painting in the Art Gallery. Signed by Chet Flash.

      The date on the painting, after a bit of decrypting on her part, led her to an entry in the archives of the Poetry Contest.

      The poetry archive contained a plain folder.

      It was not particularly hidden. It was easily found by anyone who might think of consulting this particular poem.

      Hattie had retrieved what she had come for. She tucked the file into her bag and began to walk back out of the bug-infested streets. Part of the weight was lifted from her shoulders. She had done her job. It was over. She could stop tracking this Chet Flash. She would not be haunted by the Flash drive or end up a hermit like Vicky. She could simply hand in the file, let them use it, and tell them to use chrome, and eat cookies, while they were at it.

      "Stand down and hand the file over," said a voice behind the Games Room.

      Hattie started. Had she been followed in the bug swarm? She was standing on the only bug-free patch of ground for miles.

      What she had thought was a glitch across the street sizzled and grew transparent to reveal several agents within a protective forcefield.

      Wearing thick protective suits, they were able to step out into the swarm.

      Behind them stood Hattie's own big boss, an apple Chia.

      "Apples?" Hattie exclaimed out loud, refusing to believe the connection her brain had just made. Could apples literally be the end of Chet Flash?

      She shook her head. "I was indeed planning to hand the file over? That is the mission I was given."

      "It is. And now, we are retrieving it."

      They were all heavily armed, and there were no witnesses. Except Hattie herself. One witness too many, perhaps.

      "This is the only copy of the Flash code," she blurted in defense. "I would like to bring it back to Headquarters and save copies."

      "It is not something that we can let just anyone access, Five," said the Chia. "After your mission, you must understand that this is what controls our very world."

      "Flash is gone, and this is all we have!"

      "That is why we must be the first to have it. There are no options. We will be taking no risks, nor will we be leaving any loose ends."

      The loose end was about to snap back when a deafening noise cut her off and a huge machine slammed into the street between them. A door opened, and a Peophin squeezed herself unceremoniously out from between masses of airbags.

      "Delphine?"

      The Peophin blew hair out of her face. She patted whatever machine she had just crashed: "This bad boy can fit so much chrome into its hull." Indeed, most of the street was now clear. "Did it take you this long to realise you were on the wrong side, Tunnel-vision?"

      "You're one to talk, Faction-collector!"

      "Worry not. I shall handle them." From her hat, she withdrew two long, wickedly sharp hatpins and gripped them firmly, preparing for dual wielding. "I trained with the most fearsome battlers in the land: the Knitting Club."

      The agents were quick to assess the new threat. "You're going to fight us with your knitting needles, Granny?"

      "The insolent boy does have a point. That is unnecessary, when I could take you apart with a single crochet needle."

      Hattie cracked a smile at her bravado. She could not leave the pilot in the clutches of her questionable colleagues, though. She took the silver flashlight in hand, for luck.

      The Lenny and the Peophin glanced at each other, feinted and each ran in a different direction. Delphine managed to distract most of the combat agents, while Hattie swerved back towards where the Chia stood. His bodyguard chased after her and shot something sticky at her feet. She was caught and slammed down face-first.

      Before they could pull the file from her bag, she yanked it out herself, awkwardly using one hand, aimed carefully and threw it in front of a graffiti'd wall opposite the Games Room.

      "Who can get it first?"

      All of the agents fighting Delphine paused. This did not seem to be something they had considered. Suddenly glancing back at the big boss, each raced towards the file. They were overtaken by the Chia himself, who scrambled towards the file with loud curses.

      "Delphine! Push them," shouted Hattie.

      The Peophin was stunned, but too impulsive not to follow that suggestion. She propelled herself through the air with her powerful tail fin and slammed herself bodily into the backs of the agents.

      They all fell into a glitch.

      They clung to the crackling edges of the breach, shouting odd half-sounds as the void drew them in.

      Hattie freed her feet and hopped and skipped over, closing her hand over Delphine's tail at the last moment. She felt an awful pull in every part of her body, and the chrome vest dug painfully around her chest as if holding her back. She kicked aside the silver flashlight, which she had placed on the ground to conceal the glitch. The others had fallen in. She and Delphine toppled out. The Peophin was gasping for breath. Hattie checked her vitals. No part of her was missing, at least.

      The file, which she had dropped as bait, lay there on the ground, as unassuming as ever. Hattie picked it up and sprawled on the ground.

      At last, at long last, the file was in her hands. The Flash code. No one could take it from her. It did not matter if the island crumbled around her, it did not matter if she was trapped. The truth was all hers, and she would be the one to know it.

      She ran a wing leisurely over the file's cover. Without hurry, she flipped it open to the first page.

      "Chet Flash," it read simply, in a large title font.

      She turned the page.

      "... wuz here."

     The End.