Something keeps going wrong with the upload...
And I guess I should warn you, this will get sort of dark and bloody... M-rating kind of bloody. You've been warned! Oh, and I love comments and constructive critics :-D
After spending every free moment the last half of the third and the entire fourth kidnapping-free week looking for the lair, she had found Absolutely. Nothing!
She had been out at all times of the day (and night), in all kinds of weather (autumn by the great lakes meant you could get everything from summer heat to winter storms all within 24 hours) looking for the tiniest sign. She even took roundabout ways when going on reports and she volunteered for smaller assignments she wouldn't usually care about, just to maximize her time out in the city.
The thought that he might be planning something huge had struck her several times by now and was still the most likely cause of their absence, but something kept telling her that wasn't the case.
And they most definitely hadn't just packed their things and given up being the supervillainous duo. Come to think about it, Minion might, but not him. He was too stubborn for that. She just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Terribly wrong!
She had tried spotting brainbots she could follow, the few that were left to be seen, but the few times she'd been lucky they had just given her the slip after guiding her around town. Every. Single. Time. Hal had actually started asking questions, and if he could sense something was amiss, then anyone could! She just had to be more careful in her search.
She tried being subtle when they spotted brainbots, 'suggesting' they follow it, but when she finally had a lead like that, even when she knew it would be another wild goose (bot?)-chase, she couldn't keep herself from yelling "follow that bot!" like it was a car-chase in a cheesy action-movie. Even her boss, who was more or less oblivious to what cases she did apart from the ones he assigned her, raised an eyebrow when he saw her covering the record attempt on "tallest human tower of smurfs" in the city square (they broke it by two feet).
Today she was covering something more her style; it was the Mayor giving a speech before opening the new library, funded by donations from charity events and other donations collected before and during construction, in addition to the usual government funding.
It was the usual long-winded 'thank you to all who have helped with this project, this is truly a public library, yada, yada, yada...' and everyone knew the Scotts had probably funded well over 90 % of the costs apart from the government's portion. There was just no way the politicians would fund enough to build this!
It was huge, with stone walls, pillars, arched windows and two huge lions on each side of the giant steps outside, complete with environmentally friendly versions of leaded glass and carvings and a sort of Gothic feel to it. It was an unusual project for them to fund, but she assumed Wayne had pushed for it, being the "hero" and all and needing the family to support something publicly beneficial every once in a while.
Besides, he appeared to enjoy the old library more than she would have expected, so he probably wanted to "update" it for his own pleasure too.
The Mayor went on and on about all the fantastic opportunities the city would receive from the building of this library, as if a new library was cause for a presidential appearance or maybe a royal visit (if you didn't count the Scotts, they behaved like royalty and were already on the podium).
She knew it would become just like the old one, unfortunately. In a while people would loose interest since they had all information found in a library (and more) at their fingertips as long as they had a computer.
They would flock to it right after the opening, everyone talking about how they would start using it more and donate, but visiting numbers would soon dwindle in a few weeks. Then the funding would dry up, the books would become outdated and replacing them would take time, and just like that they'd be back at square one.
Not that she didn't like libraries. She was one of the few who went there regularly. There was just something about holding a book between her fingers instead of staring at a computer screen. She liked the smell of them, and the quiet in the old library had been a one of a kind in Metro City.
Built with thick walls the city noise was kept out and the temperature both summer and winter was stable and pleasant. She often escaped there after a rough work day or just to sit quietly and read a good book.
It would be at least a month until the new one got that same atmosphere of quiet familiarity, probably several months, and she hoped they had invested in good furniture too, none of those modern, clean-cut angles that was so hot right now. Granted, they looked good, but they were horrible to sit in unless you wanted to feel like a pretzel when finally finding a comfy position. She preferred thick cushions she could sink into, almost making a nest if she found a blanket and almost get eaten by the sofa.
Huh, sofas trying to eat people… why hadn't Megamind ever thought of that? That sounded like just the kind of Eeevil plan he would think up!
The applause brought her out of her daydream just in time for her to sign off and give the cut-sign to Hal.
- All right Roxaroo, that's done and done!
Hal turned off the camera and put the heavy thing in the van.
- So, we're both off the rest of the day and you've been so busy lately! What do you say we go for a burger and then back to my place? I got a buddy in the gaming industry and he got me this new game, it's killer, I promise, and it's not even on the marked yet, so it's really hush-hush, it'll be our little secret, right? Oh, and it's got two-player and everything! Or we could just hang and relax, I could give you a foot rub or maybe a back massage...
She had to concentrate to not obviously shiver from his suggestion of a massage. Hal seriously couldn't take 'no' for an answer. He apparently was one of those guys who heard 'keep trying' when a woman said 'no'.
She'd worked with him for two years, quite long for a cameraman with his talents, turned him down every single time he asked and still he didn't give up!
Anyone else with his gifts would have already been headhunted for one of the larger channels or even the international ones. But who's to say he hadn't had offers? He'd never mentioned it, and she was sure he would tell everyone who'd listen if he did, just to show off but you never knew. She had a strong suspicion he stayed at Channel 8 because of her. He had an unhealthy fixation on her, she knew, but she felt kind of guilty if she was the one who kept him from being recognized as a great filmmaker. She knew that was stupid, he was a grown man capable of making his own decisions, but still...
Hal kept blabbering while they put away the rest of the equipment and Roxanne got her purse from the van, but she didn't really hear him. She was too busy wringing her brain for a new idea of how to find Megamind and Minion.
-No thanks, Hal. I have a lot of work to do yet, and I need to… wash my hair when I get home tonight.
Wash my hair? I'm seriously running out of excuses if I'm resorting to that!
But he came on to her several times a day! What else could she do? Last month she had made an excuse involving crab people, for god's sake! She didn't have the heart to tell him how she would rather jump into Megamind's alligator pit than go on a date with him. The fact that the 'evil' genius would jump right in after her had nothing to do with it. What so ever. Ever!
- Oh. Well, how about tomorrow? It's Friday, they have a weekend offer over at KFC's, all you can eat buffet for just twenty bucks!
Hal was almost jumping in anticipation.
- With all the extra running around we've done the last week we both deserve something good! My treat! And then we could go back to your place, or mine! And just kick it!
Oh good lord. No means NO, Hal! Get that into your dense brain and take a god damn hint!
Was what she wanted to tell him...
- Sorry, have plans tomorrow. See you Monday.
And then she ran. Well, walked, as fast as she could into the crowd, just in case he decided to follow. She dodged around hot-dog carts, a balloon-man and went through every cluster of people she could see. She even stepped on a few toes, but called a hurried 'sorry' before she was gone again. A few turns later and she was sure Hal couldn't find her. That was confirmed when she saw the news van speed by a couple seconds later with an annoyed-looking Hal behind the wheel, luckily without him seeing her.
As soon as the threat of Hal was gone her mind went back to Megamind and Minion. Today marked the 28th kidnapping-free day. A whole month. Four weeks. And no sign of either of them. Perhaps she should enlist Wayne.
Metro Man she reminded herself. He was always so picky that she called him Wayne when he was off duty and always Metro Man on duty. Fair enough, but then why couldn't he remember she wanted to be called Roxanne? Not Roxie, Rox, Rox-Fox, Roxaroo (thank god only Hal used that one) or any of the other stupid shortenings of her name.
She liked her name, her whole name, fucking use it! Maybe Wayne/Metro Man would get it into his thick skull sometime next century. Or maybe Megamind could invent some sort of hammer to pound it into his head!
An image of a huge hammer on an even bigger bot holding Metro Man in one hand and pounding him with the other, Megamind on the bot's head shouting "it's Roxanne, her name is Roxanne you imbecile!" suddenly materialized in her head, and she couldn't stop laughing. People gave her some funny looks but she didn't really care. She was even sure he'd do it if she asked!
When she was sure Hal was long gone she started drifting out of the center of town and down towards the industrial district.
It was so frustrating that she "knew" where the lair was, but couldn't find it! And it was hopeless to just wander about the city hoping she would stumble upon the lair by chance. With a huge amount of luck she might catch a glimpse of one of them, but then she would need to follow them too, and this was Megamind she was looking for! The guy who could practically walk out of maximum security prison whenever he wanted and avoid getting caught by the entire police force. She didn't have a chance following him unless he wanted her to find him!
And he didn't.
The opening of the library was a big enough deal for her to expect Megamind to have a decent scheme going, and she had been exposed more than long enough to be kidnapped by now. He should come in a giant robot prepared with bad puns based on books and libraries and everything! Why the hell was he a no-show?!
What if this was just a break from their routine and she worked herself up for nothing? No-one said the way it had been between the four of them the last six years was set in stone.
Anyone could get tired and want some change. Could they have... retired? Just- 'You know what? I'm sick of this, let's go buy an island in the Caribbean and go live there. We can be evil islanders somewhere warm'. Technically it was possible… But no, unlikely.
Still, she'd rather that happened than one of the more horrible reasons for disappearing she'd thought of the last couple of weeks. Or they could have decided to just take a vacation. Even supervillains could get burnt out...
No, she was sure something unplanned had happened. Maybe he'd built something and it had blown up and seriously injured him? Not unlikely, his stuff blew up all the time, but there had been no reports of explosions or noises or disturbances, so she classified that scenario as unlikely. Wayne wouldn't have missed something that big, and he would have told her, both to give her a chance to cover it and to let her know she would be unlikely to be kidnapped anytime soon.
Urrrrh, I just have to keep looking. Sooner or later she was bound to get lucky, right?
She just hoped it wouldn't be too late. Too late for what? She stopped and blinked at that thought.
She had a few contacts on the darker side of the law she could check out. They were old ones, it was several years since she'd had to use them, but they would remember her, she was sure. Including what they owed her. Even if they didn't know where the troublesome duo was maybe they could help her narrow down the area of where she thought the lair was.
One of her extremely few clues (one out of two, actually) to the lair's location were the smell and occasional glimpses outside during kidnappings. The entire industrial area by the shore had this unmistakable smell of oil, rotting seaweed and a whiff of fish. Sort of like the detested bag they always used on her. Except on her birthday. They probably kept it in a box with old seaweed and dirty socks, thinking it 'more evil', no matter how many times she asked Minion to wash it, or offered to wash it herself.
She kept wandering for a good three hours, going by places she'd been kidnapped from before, taking care to stand longer in open areas to give Minion a chance to come in the invisible car, but no luck. Not a rumble from an unseen car, not a fizz from a spray can and not a whiff of rotting seaweed whatsoever. She could only hope she'd get a lead later after talking to her informants in Metro City's underworld.
Her contacts was a bust. The only information they had were things she already knew, like the fact that the lair was in the industrial district.
What worried her the most was that nobody had seen hide nor hair of Megamind since the last televised kidnapping (not that he had a lot of hair to be seen), and just a few had been visited by Minion for the usual 'collections', while the rest had gotten snapping brainbots visiting. Not unusual, Megamind rarely did the collections himself, but he tagged along sometimes.
After meeting with her last contact, excusing her interest with a 'rumor' she wanted to confirm with the villain and it not being practical when she was being kidnapped (thank god Eddie didn't ask what rumor), she headed home for some dinner and hoped she would have time for a drive down to the suspected lair-area again later tonight.
Dinner consisted of a frozen pie with fries on the side (nice and healthy, fries were potatoes, a vegetable, and there were broccoli-pieces in the pie, four of them). She changed into more comfortable clothes; washed-out jeans, a light blue sweater with a high neck and the black leather jacket with the silver buckles. She would be driving her own car tonight!
She was out the door again within the hour and headed to the underground parking garage instead of passing by Carlos through the main door. Waiting in the elevator she briefly wondered again why the hell she was doing this.
The last kidnapping had been so weird and she thought Megamind had really insulted her. But after thinking about it after getting "rescued" by Way- Metro Man, she decided he had insulted the intelligence of the entire city except her's. He'd said so too, only in a very convoluted, beat-around-the-bush, Megamind-ish way that took her forever to figure out. So when he didn't kidnap her the first week she kind of thought it was his way of saying 'sorry' or he was too embarrassed to try again so soon. Guess not...
Her car was dusty. Shit, she'd forgotten to put the cover on last time she parked and she hoped the battery wasn't dead too. It wasn't the best any more. She meant to change it for one of those expensive ones that handled low temperatures much better, but she never got around to do it.
She rarely drove her own car since she always took the van to work, Hal insisting it was no trouble coming halfway across the city to pick her up in the mornings. She'd told him he didn't have to do it so many times now she had given up. She also did most of her shopping to and from work, and living as central as she did most of the shops she needed was within walking distance.
But sometimes she just felt a bit on the wild side and would take a trip just for the drive. Especially out of town on the more deserted parts of the highways where she could run on the border of redlining. It was always a thrill!
She often did it after a particularly tense kidnapping or if she got fed up by something at work, most often Hal, and had to get out some steam. The speed cleared her mind and she felt so relaxed after a drive like that!
It also helped that the car was a'67 Mustang Fastback, black and usually sporting a shiny finish with chrome details, and the interior was a dark midnight blue with lighter blue accents. It was simply a work of art now.
She'd bought it on impulse, getting a bargain. Her father had helped her spiff it up and tuned the engine, being ecstatic his daughter had inherited his taste in cars. But even having a car like that and racing like she did on deserted highways she was no racer in city traffic. Too easy to get a ticket, and they were expensive!
She kept to the speed limits and didn't miss a single stop-sign on her way down to the industrial district, but she did get a few looks when passing pedestrians.
Not many people knew this side of the quite famous reporter, and seeing her looking like some kind of street racer was a surprise to a lot of them.
Up until recently she had avoided people recognizing her, but she had been told to remove the tint on the front side windows or the car would be impounded until she did. Oh well, not much to do about it, it wasn't like she'd sell it, so she had done what they told her, and so what if people saw her? It was a nice car and she was proud of it!
A nice, black and blue car…
Fuck that, she was out searching for Megamind of all people! And Minion. She would drive whatever she wanted and people who had anything to say could go shove it!
She cruised along, passing abandoned buildings covered in graffiti and with every single window broken.
How the hell would she find them? There was no way the brainbots would enter the lair while being observed. She didn't know how but they were intelligent. And it was getting dark now, she would have to call it a day soon, this neighborhood wasn't exactly safe… she just wanted to check out one last street before turning back.
She ended up breaking and entering a few places (just a few) after deciding just looking from the outside would be as effective as trying to power a jumbo jet with gummybears.
Okay, she technically broke into every single abandoned building she found in that last street, each time hoping that '-this! This is the lair!' But, no such luck.
Everything was empty and looked like it hadn't been used in years. But, someone still owned them even if they were abandoned, so it was still a crime. That she committed. While trying to find her own, personal kidnapper.
Yeeeeah, totally normal...
Nope, this isn't anywhere near the realm of 'normal'.
In fact she suspected it was on the completely opposite end of the string ranging from normal to not normal, maybe even in a completely other dimension than 'normal'.
Wanting to be kidnapped and go looking for one's kidnapper when he or his sidekick failed to show up. Loosing sleep at night wondering where they are and worrying if he's still in one piece… Worrying!
Damn it, she should be dancing in the streets celebrating her kidnapping days seemed to be over! Not- this!
And the problem was, if she told anyone they would scream 'Stockholm Syndrome' before she finished the first sentence and demand she see a psychiatrist. Or they'd just put her in a padded room for fear of her being a danger to society. At the very least a 'bad influence' on the children.
That meant she couldn't too openly ask around without tipping people off. Not her friends anyway. Or co-workers. She could always say she wanted to get an interview but then why hadn't she asked about it during a kidnapping ages ago? The 'rumor'-thing she used with her underworld contacts probably wouldn't work with anyone else, not unless she would want them to think she was kind of 'in on' the whole damsel-thing.
She knew just enough of Megamind's operation to make it appear she knew, but if that came out to her more law-abiding acquaintances she'd be picked up by the police in an instance for interrogation. And besides, people weren't stupid. Well, not as stupid as Megamind seemed to think they were. Not all of them anyway. Her asking about him, claiming she wanted an interview or whatever, just when he stopped kidnapping her? Most people would see right through it...
It also seemed that the prevailing opinion around town was 'he's dead', 'he left' or 'he gave up' and everyone was just happy he was gone, not caring where or why or how. The one she really hated hearing was 'the government finally got him'. Because what if they did? And they said 'finally' like it was a good thing!
Since when had he been an threat? He played a game with another alien, sure, breaking buildings and being a pain in the ass with the whole thing, but he had never hurt anyone (she'd checked, he had never even been accused of accidentally hurting anyone) and he never ever hurt his long-time kidnapping victim either!
This was hopeless! She never got a look when Metro Man rescued her since he always kept a hand over her eyes while leaving the lair or wherever Megamind had decided to stage everything.
When she asked about it he'd told her he knew 'how nosy you are, can't have you go snooping around in there getting munched on by brainbots or eaten by the gators'.
She had told him exactly what she thought about him 'protecting' her like that (in very clear terms) and that it was her right to 'be munched by brainbots or eaten by 'gators' if she so chose, and that it was not his job to intervene unless she called for him. Besides, Megamind was basically harmless.
- He wouldn't hurt a fly
She'd told him that. Literally, he wouldn't. She had seen him once, ordering one of the brainbots to 'catch it but don't hurt it. Just put it outside'.
It had been buzzing around that large head of his for the last half hour of a kidnapping when they ended up having to wait for Metro Man (like a little moon, she'd thought, going around a planet, and couldn't stop giggling at the image in her head).
"Annoying little creature" he'd said when she had raised an inquiring eyebrow at him.
She had continued to stare at him in bemusement until he got uncomfortable and pretended to do something very important over by the blinky dials. In other words: harmless! And sometimes unpredictable. And how the hell he came off as 'evil' to anyone she would never know…
While impossible for Roxanne to know, over twenty eyes were following her from outside Evil Lair. They knew how to stay hidden, but two of their brothers ventured too close and were almost caught a few times. The others had made sure to tell them not to do it again, no matter if Daddy had upgraded them with invisibility.
But they weren't jealous.
Of course not.
In addition one pair followed her on surveillance monitors with the feed coming from across the street.
The eyes narrowed, wondering what the reporter was doing there. This was the third time he'd seen her this close to Evil Lair and he was starting to get worried. She was obviously looking for something and he had a suspicion what that might be. Should he contact her...?
Day 29, after another fruitless drive around town during working hours, her excuse to Hal being the 'need for some background shots', and turning down a rather insistent invitation for a 'girl's night out, come on, what do you do all night anyway, it's been ages!' from Janie at work, she found herself (again) in the industrial district.
She'd been in this specific area several times before, including yesterday, and found nothing, but something in her gut said that this had to be the right general area. Gods knew she'd been driven to the lair plenty of times, but even unconscious she thought her body would probably have gotten some kind of feel for where she were.
At least that's what she gambled on today. And sometimes when she had been here she had felt… observed. Someone watching her, and it had made her skin crawl. She just needed to look closer.
When she finally found the entrance to the lair she had circled the building three times just today, tried to climb the walls in four places and then gone to lean against a shaded wall for a quick break and to check her cell, only to find herself flat on her back inside.
She quickly got back on her feet and stepped through the wall again, not quite believing what just happened, looking closely at it from the outside.
It was designed to look like an old brick wall tagged with "no-one lives here, we promise, go away" with sky-blue paint. The picture was almost perfect, even down to little bits of lichen growing in the cracks and pieces of cement missing.
How had she possibly overlooked that graffiti before?! She had passed this building several times. Come on, who but Megamind would write something like that?
And now that she thought about it it was a bit strange she hadn't registered the missing entrance in the wall, but it was probably because she hadn't actually circled it before, just passed it on one or two sides, always thinking 'the door must be on the other side'.
It was a relatively open area around the building, with a view to the lake some distance away and the noise from the city was quite low out here.
It had been a power plant before, judging by the transformers and thick power-lines and towers in one end of the lot. The building itself was mostly brick and huge! The wall surrounding the building must be at least twelve-fifteen feet high and the building dwarfed the wall!
She quickly went inside again, before the wall could go solid again or something. This was Megamind's door, and she could have just been lucky it was open right when she leaned against it. Who knew if it even remained in the same place all the time?
Looking around after getting inside again, she truly realized where she was and all she could think was
- Wow...
She had been planning on taking as many pictures as possible before getting caught by the brainbots (luckily her camera had been around her neck and been saved by her abdomen from breaking on the hard concrete floor when she fell through the wall), but the little bots never came.
She still didn't get any pictures though, seeing as she was too awed by the sight that greeted her beyond the not-an-actual-wall-door.
She kind of, sort of got distracted by the realization she was inside the lair, okay?
A huge, long room with shelves upon shelves filled with anything and everything, ranging from gutted toasters to things whose name and purpose she couldn't even begin to imagine. The ceiling was so high she couldn't even see it in the semi-darkness of the massive space. It was obviously a storage area for both supplies and inventions, and judging by the tire tracks and burnt rubber on the floor also where they parked the car.
She couldn't see it, but it was an invisible car and maybe they had forgotten to turn it off.
In a corner there was something that looked like a partially dismantled motorcycle, but she didn't see anywhere the tires would go. But the front of it looked like… a jet engine?
Had he designed a jet-powered motorcycle?
There were even large things hanging from chains in the ceiling to keep them out of the way. Was that a mechanical shark?
Old machinery from when the building was operational could be seen in between all the inventions and home-made shelves. At least the parts that were too large to remove, like the old turbines.
She wandered around that one, long room for what seemed like ages, just looking at things. She didn't touch anything though. You never knew what was a booby trap or when a washing machine would wake up and try to eat you.
Almost everything had spikes on it, too. And the low light fed into the eerie feeling that this place could actually hurt you. Just like Megamind tried to convey every time she saw him. Did the villain really live like this? Dark and damp and spiky and uncomfortable? She hoped not...
She noticed that everything was covered in dust. Not a lot, but more than she would expect when Minion was around. A more dedicated house-ape-fish would be hard to come by, even if he wasn't the last of his kind.
Even during her kidnappings she had caught him a few times with a dusting rag. Usually just before Megamind gave him a glare or grumbled to him about 'evil don't care about dust. Just stand in the corner and try to look menacing!'
She sneaked around, looking into every room she found along the way, always expecting a brainbot or some other mechanical contraption to jump at her. Most of them were just more storage rooms and one seemed to contain shelves upon shelves of dead or sleeping brainbots. How many bots did he have? There had to be thousands of them!
After an hour she came upon a huge room that the entrance-storage-room opened up into. It felt like sort of a 'main hub' with rooms and corridors going off in different directions.
Directly opposite where she came from was a huge, red curtain (probably stolen from the theater) covering what she thought must be a large area of the main hub in the building.
Of course he would have his own theater
she thought a little sarcastically, it wasn't like he could just drop in on a movie when he wanted. Well, he could, but then there would be police and Metro Man and he wouldn't get to see the whole movie and...
Heh, the chairs will probably have spikes and be equipped with deathtraps.
But what she found on the other side of the velvet curtain was nothing like she expected.
As opposed to the parts of the lair she had seen so far, which was damp, cold and feeling creepy, this room was warm and bright, devoid of anything that looked 'evil' (apart from what was on large blueprint sheets hanging- well, everywhere) and felt downright cozy.
There were pieces of paper hanging from a lower ceiling than on the other side of the curtain, and probably twenty tables with what looked like hundreds of drawings, diagrams, calculations and future inventions. She could even see some doodles! There was a very realistic smiling Minion in the corner of something that looked like a satellite (he had his own satellite in orbit?!) and one of Megamind himself, much less detailed, having apparently defeated Metro Man, standing on his chest in one of his silly, "victorious" poses and laughing. She couldn't help but smile at that one. A perpetual optimist, apparently.
She spent another half-hour just perusing all the designs, half-started inventions and countless doodles in the curtain-room.
The doodles were actually the most interesting, since she didn't really understand the diagrams other than the ones with a complete sketch of the "finished" invention. Over half of what she could see of the blueprints didn't seem 'evil' at all. At least the ones she had an idea of what were, since the apparent function wasn't 'evil', just incredible advanced and would probably have a huge impact on society if he ever decided to use his genius for good.
Some of the stuff was so far beyond anything currently in existence she wouldn't know what to even call it, and other designs had so many mathematical formulas attached to them she would need a doctorate to understand even the ten first symbols. And there wasn't a single spike on anything.
Along one wall she found eleven blackboards, all covered in math that appeared to be one single formula just continuing from one board to the next. Some symbols she recognized from math class in school but others appeared to be from another language, like Chinese or Cyrillic. Or maybe he had invented his own symbols for all she knew. And when she looked behind the boards the formula continued on the other side of five of the boards!
If she'd had any doubt he was a genius (she hadn't) it had been completely eradicated now, seeing this room. The man had clearly so much to give society with his intellect, so why the hell was he so intent on being a villain? It clearly wasn't for money, he hadn't robbed a bank in years and he could probably earn more selling inventions than he could steal in a lifetime of villainy.
She knew about his history after landing on Earth, growing up in prison (that couldn't possibly have been legal in any way), going 'bad' at a young age, but nothing more than anyone else.
Both the prison and the villain himself were very close-lipped about that subject. She hadn't even gotten a word out of Minion, and he was a blabbermouth like none other!
But he was a different species than her, and maybe he was solitary? Like tigers? While humans were more like lions, thriving best with others of their species (just like sheep).
Maybe he just liked it better alone in his own little world, and his attempts on Metro Man were a sort of social interaction when he felt like it? It's not like any citizen would casually come up and chat with him. Maybe Metro Man was his only social interaction with anyone besides her and that was all he needed? Or maybe it was his way to just keep in shape, like when she went to the gym? An entertaining form of exercise? Because he was certainly in shape…
Wandering around aimlessly in the curtain-room didn't give her any more answers about either his life choices, his workout routine or his disappearance, so after a while she went back out to the main hub, camera still hanging forgotten around her neck.
So many hallways, so many doors. So many choices! And not a single brainbot in sight! Something else was missing too, but she couldn't put her finger on it… but it made the entire lair feel more creepy, especially now that she was back outside the cozy curtain-room.
She took a right after exiting the curtain-room and chose a large corridor that looked like it had a decline, but no actual steps, and suddenly she knew what was missing.
Sounds!
She was used to there always being some background noise during her kidnappings. The whirring of the bots, some clanging in the distance, buzzing from whatever deathtrap he used that day and an ever-present hum from something deep down. Probably from machines running deeper in the lair. And very often rock music...
But so far it had seemed actually abandoned! And those missing brainbots were really strange. Yes, there had been hundreds of them in those storage rooms, but they were off, or dead, or hibernating or something. Every single time she had been here there were brainbots and every time she managed to get loose of her ropes they were on her in an instant.
Always one in Megamind's lap when he turned around in his chair, thinking he looked ominous, saying his usual "Miss Ritchi, we meet again", and always some flying around the room actually doing things. This silent eeriness wasn't how it should be. There should be lots of noise, brainbots everywhere, some evil cackling and at least an attempt to catch her in the act of snooping!
Walking down the hallway she spied a Tesla-coil she thought looked familiar. It had a dent that looked like someone had hit it with a fist. Metro Man, she assumed. It had been placed in a corner a few months ago during one of her kidnappings. Megamind had offhandedly threatened her with electrocution since she hadn't been afraid of his 'man-eating wasps' but it hadn't even been plugged in. The plug had been lying right there on the floor...
She briefly wondered what Metro Man had been doing these past few weeks. They rarely talked outside of rescues so she had no clue what he did in his spare time. Perhaps she should ask him to help her look if she didn't find them here. He wasn't a friend as much as an acquaintance, but he was a hero, so helping to find someone was his job, even if it was his arch enemy and/or his sidekick who'd gone missing. She'd talk to him about it later if this didn't pan out.
A movement caught her eye, something slipping behind a corner further down the corridor she had entered. She ran after it, not sure if it was a brainbot or something more vicious, and peeked around the corner. You never knew what could be hiding in here.
Yes, definitely a brainbot, she could see the blue glow from a distance, and it hadn't spotted her yet!
The corridor it had gone down was surprisingly free of clutter so she wouldn't loose time having to step carefully over spiky inventions in the gloomy half-light. She stepped out to follow it but before she had taken three steps another one flew right past her, following the first one.
It slowed to a stop a few feet in front of her and turned to look at her. The electric sparks in it's 'head' grew stronger and she prepared to run, but it just looked at her with it's glowing red eye.
This one had three rows of spikes running over it's dome and some sharp-looking teeth in that bear-trap jaw. The little arms twitched as if it wanted to grab her but then relaxed again, just hanging loosely below the jaws.
Suddenly it made a growling bowg-ish sound, clanked it's jaws once and turned around to follow the first one.
When she remembered to let out her breath she'd been holding she started moving forward again, but slower and more carefully now.
She glanced up and was shocked. There were an endless line of brainbots floating along the high ceiling, going both ways and some branching off to get to a task it had. And not a single one seemed to notice her!
No, that wasn't quite true, every single bot took a look at her and then just kept going.
This didn't make any sense and that worried knot she'd had in her stomach the last few weeks suddenly tripled in size.
This was just wrong! They should be swarming her! Grabbing her with their tendrils and bringing her to Megamind who would cackle 'evilly', tie her to the chair and go taunt Metro Man! They never ignored her presence like this.
Normally Megamind had to chase them away from her if they didn't have a set task in the kidnappings (when they did they were surprisingly well behaved). And even then they sneaked back in to look at her, touch her arm or hair and once one had even settled on her lap before he noticed!
That had actually been fun. He had yelled at the little traitor-bot and tried to scare it away. The bot had obediently hovered away from her but then it had promptly bitten Megamind in the leg as payback.
The blue villain had limped around the rest of the evil plot, cursing his invention, calling it a dimwitted creation of science.
When she had inquired about what that would make him, seeing as he was the inventor of said creation, he started spluttering something indignant and turned quite purple.
He had been too busy to talk to her the rest of the plot...
But now the little bots weren't doing any of that. They took a look at her and continued on, wherever they were going. One of the lines was heading in the general direction of the exit (or so she thought), so she decided to follow the other line, heading deeper into the lair.
She had no idea what to expect, but she hadn't become a star reporter because she didn't take chances. All big scoops required some guts, and she had never been short on that.
The corridor itself was more like an alley between two buildings, considering the height of the ceiling.
It looked like Megamind had added walls and this "alleyway" was the just an accidental result.
Just bare concrete floor and brick walls about fifty feet long, mostly covered in plaster, some bare light-bulbs hanging from wires along the wall, all but one dead. At the other end there was a door. One of those double steel doors you would see in the basements of government buildings, only this one looked reinforced. She could see where the frame had been strengthened with girders and beams bolted or welded into place. It had been painted red once, but time and neglect had rendered it faded. It didn't look like it was in daily use either.
The second brainbot opened the door with some struggle and she could hear faint music coming from inside. Finally a sign of life in this place!
She headed for the end of the corridor and the door there, not knowing what she would find but hoping she at least would get an answer. Upon opening the door she saw he had his back turned to her, seeming to write something and nodding along to a song she guessed was coming from a radio. She gave a sigh of relief.
Finally!