Razor Sharp
Summary: It was a delicate kind of demolition, the kind that would blindside a man. The kind that could be the devil but was hiding behind beauty and love. The kind that he could find with her, the kind that had led him astray from Roxanne and wouldn't give him back to her. Though he wouldn't look back and say that being tempted by the devil was all bad, now would he?
She was looking at me across the hall, plenty of people between us but I caught sight of her long auburn hair and icy blue eyes. "Excuse me." I said to the Mayor who nodded and turned to talk to someone else. I knew this woman, I had met her not that long ago, her father had called her Susie… She turned and walked away from where I had spotted her standing, she turned slightly and our eyes locked again, what exactly was she doing? I followed her upstairs where there weren't many people.
"I see that your woman's mad at you." Roxanne, yeah. The fight hadn't been pleasant, But we would work it out in the end, I had faith in that. Roxanne and I loved each other after all, nothing short of death would get between us, or at least I hoped so. "It's not your business Miss Wick." She laughed, a flute of champagne in her hands swaying slightly. After I had met her in Shaun's house, and lord was it strange to call the man by his given name after years of not calling him it...His daughter had been in skinny jeans and a overly large hoodie so it was a strange state to see her look this beautiful and to know that she was Metro man come Music man's daughter. Shaun had done well to keep her hidden from the public, who knew how many people would bombard him with questions after all or the amount of times I attempted to use her against him?
"No, I suppose it's not my business Mister Sinclair." She knew my name-whoa, what else had Shaun shared with her? "You know my full name?" She nodded, a smile playing across her lips; "Excuse me, I haven't properly introduced myself have I? I'm Susan Wick, daughter to Shaun Wick and Allie Bell." Allie Bell had been a classmate of ours...A classmate who had died in a car accident after she'd gone home to visit her parents in Las Vegas, the same year Susan was probably born. She flicked her hair back; "And your full name is John Davis Sinclair. They wanted to name you John Doe, but the warden wasn't happy about that, not one bit." She knew far more than her father would have been able to tell her, she'd talked to the warden for starters.
"Though I do have a reason to talk to you right now, I have a proposition for you." Proposition huh? What for though? "I have a design for a machine that could in theory send us further into space then we have been able to before." A space craft capable of that would have to be well thought out, or from an more advanced culture like mine and Shaun's. "And why would I help you out?" She shrugged; "It's not me that wanted your help mister Sinclair. It was N.A.S.A that wanted me to ask on their behalf. I simply am the messenger." A messenger for N.A.S.A? That was pretty impressive actually, but why her and why a space ship?
"Why do they want to look farther?" She blinked, looking incredulously at me; "Because you and my father exist, what else lives out there? We are not alone in the galaxy, hell the universe-all of time and space." It would be dangerous, we didn't know half of the things my race or Shaun's race did because they had sent their children out to earth to escape a black hole. We were from a distant system, we had gotten here with a possible wormhole, which meant we were pretty far away, that it would take humans thousands of years possibly to get where my-our planets had been. To where the black hole ate space around it.
But, if I helped them out with the numbers and what not…we just might be able to find out what happened to our worlds. There might still be some of our kind out there in the cold vastness of space. "And where will you be in all of this?" She smiled seductively, "Oh here and there. It is my design after all. I wouldn't help of course, not until the ship is approved and what not, if it's a viable solution." Solution? There was a problem somewhere? Well, if the numbers weren't coming out quite the way they should. That would stop the process pretty much cold. "And you think that I can help why?" She sighed and looked down on the crowd. "Because you're the smartest person I know."
An echo of what I had said to Roxanne-almost another life time ago..."I suppose I could look at the numbers." She smiled brightly; "That would be splendid Mister Sinclair." Wick looked far more happy then I had been expecting-She lit right up, like a child on Christmas. "I don't know if I'll be any actual help though." She shrugged, as if to roll the words off her back, "All the help we could get the better." That was true of course, the more people working on something the faster it would be finished, but there would be plenty of head butting and arguing too, which could slow things up.
"Your girlfriend is glaring at us by the way." They'd been mid conversation about the project, Susan and he both leaning against the railing-which wasn't a smart idea if it wasn't as structurally sound as it looked. So far they hadn't fallen through it. "Um, she might be getting the wrong idea about us." Susan laughed; "Yeah, I could see how us talking science at a distance can be construed as me hitting on you and you letting me." She flicked her hair back with a flirty smile-I was pretty sure I was blushing at this point, she was being sarcastic-but it kind of came off light and flirty. "I'm not though." Susan chuckled and commented as if she were talking about the weather; "I'm aware of that Mister Sinclair. However, she doesn't know that now dose she? Oh, here she comes-warpath of one, check please?" He couldn't help but to laugh at her words, she said it with such a straight face that it was funny really!
"MegaMind." He blinked, sometimes he forgot that he hadn't really told Roxanne that he had an actual name, Susan of course was different-she was MetroMan...Uh, Music Man's daughter after all. "Hi Roxie, how are you?" Susan frowned as if trying to solve a particularly hard puzzle, he supposed it was the whole name thing. "Alright, how are you?" Susan was staring into the crowd; "Good-I've been having a scientific conversation with Miss Wick here." Susan smiled, but it wasn't nearly as brightly as before. She shook hands with Roxanne who still looked kind of angry. "And flirting with you." Susan laughed; "Me? Why would I do such a thing, he's taken right? Or are there problems in paradise?"
Roxanne didn't seem to like that one bit, but he couldn't let them argue or at least not any more than they already had. "Roxanne would you like to dance with me?" She blinked and Susan sighed; "My employer wishes to hear from you by the end of the week." and she handed me her card before walking off. Roxanne blinked, "Her employer?" I nodded, "N.A.S.A, she works for them." Roxanne's jaw kind of dropped; "Her? What dose she do recruit?" Actually it seemed like more than that, given she designed a ship after all. "A ship builder, or at least she designs them." Roxanne blinked; "No wonder you two were getting along so well. I thought..." She thought? "That I would cheat on you? Seriously, when have I ever given you that impression before?" I really felt insulted, she knew me better than that!
Roxanne and I made our way to the dance floor for a slow dance, but I was still pretty steamed about her accusation. I didn't go about cheating, Who would I cheat with? Susan popped up in my mind, yeah-but I had as much a chance of flirting with her as I did of becoming a non primary color. Though, she really hadn't seemed that far off about Susan flirting with me-I kind of got the feeling she actually might have been. Though who could tell between the sarcasm and half truths?
Getting Roxanne home was long and Roxanne seemed rather mistrustful of me still. It wasn't my fault that Susan Wick was a beautiful young woman with a vast vocabulary and mathematical mind. Wow, okay maybe she was a beautiful scientist-but nothing more than that. "I'm sorry about earlier-I just, the way she was looking at you-She liked you." I shook my head; "Miss Wick is a bit young for me Roxanne-She's Shaun's daughter." Roxanne frowned; "Who?" Did really no one actually know who Metro-Music man's real identity? "Shaun Wick-Metro Man." Roxanne's jaw dropped; "You mean that he had a daughter?" She didn't? I thought everyone had known that little fact and that I had simply been in the dark, I suppose that some things were just unknown. "I thought she was-ohhh god, I made a mess out of tonight for nothing."
I waved a hand; "It's alright Roxie, just sleep on it and you'll feel better." She nodded, kissed me on the cheek and I headed home. "Um, sir-there's someone here to see you." What? Minion looked a little freaked out after all. I walked to my lab, Minion trailing behind me-and low and behold there was Shaun. "Hey." He nodded; "I take it you know why I'm here then." I sighed; "Your daughter." He grinned uneasily. "Yeah, my daughter. Someone saw her talking with you, flirting with you at that." Had she really been flirting with me? "She works for N.A.S.A right? She told me they wanted my help on a project to get into space farther then humanity has ever gone." Shaun sighed; "So it was work, not her flirting with you-Thank god." I snorted; "She flirted, but I would never take a grain of salt." Shaun shook his head; "She teases yeah, got 'cha." How long had he known she was in town for me, for N.A.S.A?