The Anti-Monitor

Priscilla hurriedly downed the coffee and picked her phone with her slightly wet hand. She cursed at K9 for calling at this time. She had intended to ignore the call the first time but then decided against it since it might be very important.

She answered the call, her eyes scanning the spot where her skin had been scalded while trying to make coffee. She sighed; back when she was still living with Donald she had access to free coffee at no cost at all.

She was back to her daily routine of busy life. Maybe this was what made living alone fun for her but having stayed over at Donald's condo, she felt a little bit rusty and lazy.

"K9?"

"Code of the day, miss?"

Once again, she rolled her eyes at his tactic and simply replied. "Orange slippers belong to old granny."

"Just call me Ralph." K9 replied from the other end and by the tone of his voice, Priscilla could vaguely guess that he was smiling. 'That ugly smile of his…'

"What is it, Ralph?" she repeated, her other hand quickly wiping the table top where she had mistakenly spilled most of the coffee she had made. This was another thing that made her roll her eyes.

"There's a car by your apartment. We need to talk."

"Now?" she asked a bit taken aback. "Why so sudden?"

"You have something more important to do?"

"Well, duh? Like go to the military HQ and do my job?"

"You mean spy on them?"

"Whatever."

"Just call in late and come over here, it won't be long."

"I hope so." She ended the call after a bit of hesitation. She dropped the cup of coffee and stood there with her arms to her side. She bit her lips for a second before stepping out of the house with slow steps.

She quickly spotted the car by the side on the street and walked to it. She knocked on the tinted glass window and it rolled down, revealing a bulky man and another slender man in the front seat.

"Code of the day."

Priscilla ignored them and opened the door and got in. she looked from one man to another before saying, "quit asking me the same question all the time. If I'm compromised, K9 will know first-hand."

The men remained quiet and after a while, the car rolled forward. It took thirty minutes to arrive at the destination. Priscilla alighted from the car and walked inside.

She was led to the waiting room of the house that now served as their temporary base for today. She scanned the room and her eyes landed on K9—or Ralph—who was sitting cross-legged on his high back chair with a glass of wine in hand.

He motioned for her to come closer and she did, though with a sceptical look. "Why am I here?"

K9 smiled broadly and pointed at a seat. "You know, good wine plus your company makes my day perfect."

"You didn't call me in just to have a casual chat did you?" nothing would piss her more than that. She gave him a heated look.

Ralph laughed dryly and put his glass down gently. "Don't be ridiculous, Priscilla. I know how busy you are but I still want to have time for a casual chat with you but first," he poured another glass of wine and pushed it to her. "Drink up."

Priscilla reached for the glass while giving him a deep look. She brought the glass to her mouth and made as if to drink but returned all the wine back to the glass. For one she didn't know if K9 had done something to the wine. She was inclined to believe that he hadn't but she had learnt not to trust this man so easily after so many years together. She dropped the glass and eyed Ralph who was drinking with steady gulps.

"Relax," he said noticing her tensed brow. "I know you have a lot to do and I'm distracting but I have something important to show you."

He gestured to the small box on the table which, to this moment, had managed to escape Priscilla's sight. She raised an eyebrow at the finely decorated box. "What's in it?"

"Open it."

She opened it cautiously. There was a time the group had decided to surprise her for her birthday and they had given her a box to open and when she did, she had been sprayed with all colours of ice cream and confetti.

The box slipped open, revealing small bottles not bigger than her index finger. The bottle contained silver-like liquid and was corked tightly. They lay in row of five and column of 6 with three layers beneath.

She took one out carefully and examined it with curious eyes. Ralph smiled at her reaction. She just proved how much she loved her research. He cleared his throat and said, "Remember when I told you we will reverse engineer the Monitor?"

"This is the anti-Monitor!" Priscilla was even more fascinated by the silvery liquid that seemed to be a bit opaque. She turned it this way and that.

"Exactly," Ralph drank another gulp. "The people I had working on it returned this three days ago. They made the first batch and that's around 90 bottles, equivalent to 90 shots.

"We also replicated the Monitor using the blue prints and used this to reverse the effects and it worked. We are yet to mass produce."

"This is nice then." Priscilla said, her voice bearing a tinge of tiredness.

Ralph smiled at her and added, "The first batch is yours."

Priscilla whiplashed at him. "Mine?"

"Yes," he nodded vehemently. "You have contributed immensely to the team and this is my way of saying thank you."

Priscilla nodded and closed the box again. "I'm grateful."

"It's no big deal." Ralph sighed deeply. "Although this is a success but without the power core, the exoskeleton that would've constituted our biggest victory, we are still at square one."

"I thought you said you'd attempt to make a nuclear power core?"

"I did but things like this are hard to do," he sighed once more. "The exoskeleton uses special systems and metals and most of these are strictly regulated by military standards. The power core itself will be a difficult task given we don't have the blueprint on how it was made."

"Good luck then," she gave a mock bow. "I will go back to work now."

Ralph nodded and she took the box and left. She was brought back to her apartment where she stashed the box away in a safe place.