Monster Wars

Professional Hacker, At Your Service

I ended up with a hotel room to myself, while Ted shared one with Matt. Matt hadn't looked at me since we got off the plane. It was for the best, I thought. It was still hard not to make jokes with him, not to make fun of the tacky tie the guy at the front desk was wearing, or the creepy sounds the elevator was making. Ted was shooting glances at us. I could tell he was trying to figure out what was wrong with Matt and me.

The hotel was nowhere near top of the line. I guess Monster Fighters had better things to spend their money on, and didn't really care what kind of germ infected hole they stuck their agents in. The walls were a sickly greenish color and the carpet had more than one questionable stain. I didn't even want to look at the bathroom. At least it was a warm room with a bed. I had been in worse on missions.

I heard a knock on my door just as I was unzipping my suitcase. "Hold on." I muttered, grabbing one of my knives. Monster Fighters had somehow made it possible for us to bring weapons on the plane. Don't ask me how, I'm not telling. I peeked through the cracked peephole to see Ted standing outside my door.

"Hi." I said. "Welcome to my humble abode for the weekend."

"Not exactly five star, is it?" Ted asked as he came in and sat on the spare bed. "I'll make sure to mention that when I meet with the bigwigs tomorrow."

"Do you know what you're going to say? Do we have a plan?" I asked, settling on the other bed.

"I set up some meetings. I needed an excuse to be here. I'm going to be asking for better weapons, more money, more trainers. I want you and Matt to do the snooping. If you get caught, you can always say you just got lost. You can try to hack into some computers, dig up anything you can on our Headquarters. We also need more information on how Monster Fighters as a whole works. I want to know who reports to whom, where the leaders of this whole thing live. Everything you can dig up may be useful. The other person should lurk and listen to everything. Matt would probably be better at that job." Ted told me.

I didn't say anything. Ted didn't need to know that I wasn't really speaking to Matt right now. I would keep everything professional, I promised myself.

"Sounds good." I said.

"All right. I filled Matt in on everything back at the room. I'll see you tomorrow. We need to be there by 9:00" Ted said, standing up.

After Ted left I grabbed my pajamas from my suitcase and pulled them on. I brushed my teeth and hair in the questionable bathroom. It was time to get to sleep and forget everything. It was going to be a big day tomorrow.

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I was rudely woken up in the morning by a loud pounding on my door. I had been in the middle of a really good dream too. I raked my hand through my hair, and promptly gave up. Whoever was at the door could just deal with my messy hair. Did I mention I'm not a morning person?

"You overslept." I was told by Ted, who was already dressed in a suit.

"Mppphh." I replied. "You never told me when to get up."

"Sometime earlier than 15 minutes before we need to be there would have been nice." Ted informed me. "Get dressed. I hope you brought nice clothes."

I had brought a couple nice dresses, but I wasn't really in the mood to wear one of them. "Do I have to?" I complained.

"Yes, unless you don't really want to get through the door. It's a government building. They expect people to look better than a homeless person. Get dressed." Ted said briskly. He was a wee bit stressed.