Author's Note: Sorry for the delay with this chapter, the busy time of year has caught up with me.
It had been four days since Jansen disappeared to find out what was going on with Roxanne. Four long, silent days, that had left Megamind with nothing but his thoughts for distraction, and the tight-lipped heroes guarding his prison for company. He was just about at the end of his leash.
"Place thy hands behind thy head," Lady Mythman instructed. She was standing in front of his cell, wearing an expression of general boredom. Megamind didn't bother with the usual quips or glowers or attempts at conversation as he complied with her request, moving forward a step, but obligingly lacing his fingers behind his skull. Sighing a little under her breath, the superheroine punched in the code to kill the electrical current in the door, and then walked in. The floor was covered in a thin sheen of water. The toilet behind him was likely responsible, given that, after three days of concerted effort, he'd finally managed to break the plumbing. It was somewhat unfortunate that Lady Mythman had been on-duty for his modest triumph – she was one of the physically stronger heroes of the Collective. Possibly the strongest, without Metroman.
"I know not what ye thought to accomplish," she told him, stepping over towards him and reaching for his wrists. She had a pair of formidable-looking handcuffs in her grasp. "Thou wilt only be removed to another cell-"
Megamind dropped low to avoid her hand, ducked away from her grasp, and bolted towards the door. He had the element of surprise on his side, as well as the fact that heroes, unlike ordinary prison guards, didn't seem to work in pairs. It was still a pretty desperate move, but when his feet managed to clear the doorway, for a second, he almost thought it had worked. That would mark the first time he'd ever foiled someone without the use of his dizzying intellect or remarkable constructions.
"Emergency code 24! Lockdown corridor six!" Lady Mythman barked. A shrill clanging sound started emanating from the ceiling, and before Megamind could get more than a foot down the corridor, he slammed into something hard and fierce and bright red. The force of it sent him staggering backwards, his hands immediately flying up to cover his nose. Red filled up his vision. It was like the red he'd seen on the security cameras, the light from the station's main power source. Only it had somehow managed to relocate itself right in front of him, cutting off his escape and exuding a substantial amount of heat. A muffled curse escaped his lips, and he whipped around – the other end of the corridor was similarly blocked. Lady Mythman was moving, but taken aback as she was, the water made her slip and slowed her pursuit. In a last, desperate attempt, Megamind noted the keypad by the cell door. He jabbed his fingers against a random assortment of buttons, frustration flooding over him. If he could only think, he would have been able to figure the interface out at a glance. As it stood, he only had luck to rely upon.
Apparently he had some small amount. As Lady Mythman dashed towards him, the cell door slammed shut, and the electrical current surged back into existence. One of her fists impacted against the surface. She reflexively recoiled. Underneath Megamind's fingers, the keypad flashed the words Incorrect Code – Default Mode Activated at him, blinking in bright orange.
He sucked in a deep breath, the red light casting harsh shadows against the purple of his jumpsuit and the blue of his skin.
Lady Mythman scowled.
"O fiend and fool," she said. "What dost thou hope to accomplish with such acts? There is no escape for thee. Thou hast succeeded only in courting the wrath of Lady Mythman – 'twill be some hours yet before the alarm is answered by mine kinsmen, but answered it shall be, and even were it not, there be but one guarded path to and from this keep." Folding her arms, she glowered at him through the glass. "Thy plans were foiled err they were even dreamt."
Megamind sucked in a deep breath and retreated to the far wall of the corridor. He glanced up towards the ceiling. There had to be some kind of sound system in place, didn't there, if the station reacted to voice codes? He should have asked Jansen about that before. Licking his lips, which had gone dry and chapped in the filtered air, he decided to try his luck again. "Deactivate Emergency Code 24, remove lockdown on corridor six!" he said. There was a moment of quiet. The cell door hummed, and there was no response, except for the almost audible way that Lady Mythman rolled her eyes.
"'Twill not work," she told him.
"Cancel Emergency Code 24!" he tried again, ignoring her.
"Thou dost not possess the voice of a hero."
Flitting a glance over at Lady Mythman, Megamind puffed out his chest a little, and dropped his voice into his best imitation of a righteous baritone. "Deactivate lockdown on corridor six!" he boomed.
The effect was underwhelming, since nothing at all changed. With a huff of frustration, he moved closer to the nearest bright red barrier, and placed a hand on it again. It was hot. Incredibly hot, but it didn't shock him, and it didn't quite burn him, either. He pushed against it. There wasn't any give at all to the surface. It was kind of like shoving at one side of a smooth metal oven. Still, he kept at it, moving from one hand to two and pressing until the skin of his palms felt too raw and red for him to keep going. Then he fell back, giving in to his frustration long enough to kick at the obstruction instead. That only succeeded in hurting his toes. With a muttered curse he hopped back over to the wall of the corridor, leaning against it, feeling the sting in his hands and feet and the growing, oppressive heat in the air around him. Stress had turned his throat as dry as sandpaper. He felt like he was lost inside of a desert, instead of locked inside of a space station.
Slowly, the pain in his foot, at least, began to lessen. Megamind slumped against the wall. He slid down and down until he found himself on the floor of the corridor, and then he tucked himself up, pulling his knees to his chest and leaning the top of his forehead against them. It was no good. There was no Minion to turn up at the last minute. No easy escape for him to make, no way for him to go rushing to Roxanne's side again. It had already taken him four days to get as far as he had. Who knew what could happen to her in another eight? He didn't want to give up. But he couldn't think of anything else to try.
"…Thou art but paying the penance for thy crimes," Lady Mythman said. Her voice surprised him, but he didn't bother to look up. "Metroman was my kinsman. Were thee to face my justice, thou wouldst be dead, and not merely caged."
Megamind sucked in a breath of stifling air, and let it out heavily again. "He's not dead," he replied. It was a futile statement, but really, he couldn't think of anything else to say.
No. Wait. Actually, he could. As the heroine opened her mouth to refute his claim, he fixed her with a solid glare. "Besides, what does Roxanne have to do with that?"
"Thou wilt cease… wait, who?" Lady Mythman asked, her brow furrowing slightly.
"Roxanne," he repeated. What, did these people persecute so many of the friends and loved ones of their supervillains that they couldn't even keep track of them all? "Roxanne Ritchi. You know, Metro City's star reporter. Stands about average height, blue eyes, short brown hair?" Momentarily extending his hands for a second, he made a shape like an hourglass, exaggerating the lower half a bit. "Never did anything bad to any of your little friends?" Habit made him spit the last part out with some venom.
Lady Mythman gave him an imperious look. "If 'tis thy accomplice to which ye refer-"
He snorted. "That's Minion. He's a fish. Those are very different from women. They come with more scales and fins and tend to be much smaller, but since we're on that topic, where does your scantily clad friend get off on mind-controlling him? Hm? Under what twisted morality system is that not completely reprehensible? He's a free fish! He didn't even really help me build the solar death ray, if anything his contributions might technically qualify as sabotage."
The heroine carried on, effectively ignoring his interjection. "-then thou art mistaken. She hath followed in thy footsteps, by all appearances, and may well have slain the hero Dinomight."
Megamind sighed and slumped against his knees. "I don't know who you're thinking of, but you people might want to consider a change in your strategies if you keep dropping like flies," he quipped. "I'm talking about Roxanne Ritchi! Why has your psychotic friend with the Ginsu-Miracle-Blade-hands been terrorizing her?"
His temper rose up with his question, but he just felt remarkably tired. Maybe it was because he hadn't been able to get very much exercise. Or sunlight. Or… anything, really.
"I know of whom thou doth speak," Lady Mythman insisted, narrowing her eyes and reaching a hand towards the door again. She retracted it again after a moment, gritting her teeth and looking quite displeased, a few blue sparks trailing between her fingernails. "The woman who hath taken thy place in terrorizing the denizens of Metro City. She dons a cape of midnight black and summons clouds of darkness, in much thine own fashion, riding upon a mount of blue lightning and cackling her dark glee t'wards the heavens. Her heart hath clearly of disaster been wrought."
He blinked.
"…What?"
"Do not play innocent, villain. Her schemes are marked by thy own thumbprint, as surely as the mighty Apollo doth drag the sun behind his chariot for each day's dawn," Lady Mythman insisted.
Megamind blinked again.
"What."
"Thy accomplice," she repeated. "She hath made use of thine own legacy."
He gave her an utterly blank look.
"The villainess employs thy fell machines, thy wicked craft."
"…I'm not following you."
Lady Mythman rolled her eyes. "Your girlfriend's been using your stuff!" she snapped, dropping the Olde English for a pleasant change of pace.
His first thought was that it seemed reasonable that Roxanne would use his things, considering that they'd been living together for a while, and he and Minion were both gone, so, really, who else was going to use them? But then the full implications of why a group of superheroes would be interested in her using his things hit him, and his brain stuttered to a disconcerting halt. Even with his temporarily limited mental capacities he could put the implications together. But, they just didn't fit. All things considered, he and Roxanne had a surprising amount in common. A penchant for superheroics/villainy was not one of them. She was a reporter. A very, very good reporter – the best anyone could ask for, in his admittedly biased opinion – and, granted, she did have that certain spark to her personality which leant her towards being the most nonplussed hostage in the history of kidnap victims, not to mention a tendency toward surprisingly effective independent investigations, but she was normal. In the best possible way.
"This has got to be some sort of misunderstanding," he concluded. There were any number of questions or clarifications he could have asked for, but somehow, he couldn't seem to pluck one up and spit it out. The red light was making it even more difficult to concentrate than usual.
Lady Mythman opted not to respond, but rather paced the length of his cell for a little while, looking more exasperated than anything else.
Megamind dropped his head back to his knees, closing his eyes briefly as his temples began to throb. The heat made the back of his neck itch, and the glow from the barriers seemed to sink behind his eyelids, grating against his nerves until they were raw. After a few minutes he pressed his palms against his closed eyes and tried to block it out a little better. There was something about it that was particularly unpleasant, something the made it much more pervasive and nauseating than just an ordinary red light would be. Eventually, when he looked up again, he noted that he wasn't the only one who was being bothered by it. Lady Mythman had gone from paced to sitting on his cot, one hand pinching the bridge of her nose, her eyes squeezed shut.
He smirked, in spite of himself. "Hey," he offered. "I think we can both agree that this escape attempt of mine is not exactly a complete and perfect success. If you give me the code for the door, I'll let you out. You can apprehend me and deactivate this stupid system."
For a few seconds, Lady Mythman actually looked tempted. Then her expression closed off, and she looked away from him again, her mouth twisting into a fierce scowl.
"I shall not hand thee such knowledge, wretch," she replied.
"What if I promise to be good and not put it to use in any future escape attempts?"
"Nay."
"Pretty please?"
"Still thy tongue, devil!"
"Oh, come on!"
"Nay."
"Have I mentioned how fetching you look in your… armored bikini?" he tried approaching the situation from a different direction.
Lady Mythman glowered at him so hard that he was surprised the door in front of her didn't dent.
Damn. Well, it had been worth a shot.
Roxanne walked as quickly as she could through the dark streets of Port City. Under ordinary circumstances, she might have been more curious about her surroundings. She'd done a couple of pieces on Metro City's biggest neighbor, and had seen footage of it quite a few times, but she'd never actually been there before. It had a reputation for being a dangerous place to live. But with the crisp evening air rolling in from the ocean, and the skyline glittering in the distance, it was almost nice. She had to remind herself that she wasn't there to take in the architecture, though. Slasher's 'arrest' had been about as advantageous as it was disadvantageous, she decided. On the one hand, she'd managed to get a scan of him, which could be a huge advantage. On the other hand, he was way too unpredictable for her to assume that he'd just take her up to the prison. Like he was supposed to. He'd already subverted that expectation once, she wouldn't count on him not doing the same again.
What she needed to do was find a hero who was a little more typical. An old-fashioned, live-by-the-code hero. Someone whose actions were a little easier to anticipate. There seemed to be an odd shortage of those, lately. She hunched her shoulders a little bit, fending off the cold air. A few steps back she'd ducked into an alleyway and turned off the watch long enough to put on Megamind's cape again. Even though the image of Bernard was wearing a jacket, all she actually had to be going off of was her blouse, and she was really starting to feel it. It had helped for a while, but not by a lot. The fact that she was essentially lost and on her own, without so much as a quarter for a payphone, was something she was trying not to think about. Soon she'd have to think about it. Right then she was too busy walking and keeping her energy up to bother. Possibly she was holding out hope that one of the brain bots would miraculously turn up.
There was a crunch of gravel over pavement a ways behind her. Then another.
"Hey, mister. Nice night for a walk, ain't it?" A gruff voice said.
Roxanne ignored it, forgetting for a few seconds that she was disguised as a man, and continued on her way.
"Ain't that rude?" The owner of the voice clucked his tongue, following her down the street, his footsteps long and heavy. "I ask the mug a question and he don't answer! How do you like that?"
Something flashed out of the corner of her eye, right when she realized that she was the person being talked to. Being followed. Her mouth went dry, and she stepped reflexively sideways.
"I don't like it at all." A figure stepped out of an alleyway, anticipating her movement and blocking Roxanne's path. His voice was no louder than a whisper, and he had a long scar across his throat.
When she had been doing her report on Slasher, she'd researched crime in Port City. There was a lot of mob activity. Petty crime was much higher than it was in Metro City, and she was pretty sure she'd stepped right into some of it.
"I'm sorry," Roxanne-as-Bernard said, her thoughts jumbling up a little bit as she tried to think her way out of the situation. "I'm partially deaf and, um, I didn't hear you properly. Did you ask me a question? I'm new in town, but I'll try to answer it…"
"Oh-ho-ho!" The first thug said, "He's new in town!"
"Welcome to Port City," The one with the whisper pulled a gun out of his pocket, and pointed it at Roxanne's stomach, "Give me your wallet."
Fear spiked up her spine and coiled in her gut, robbing her of the ability to speak for a few seconds.
"I don't have a wallet." She answered carefully, putting her hands up. A ray-gun was one thing, but something that shot bullets into you? A gun like that could kill you. Painfully. A gun like that was a genuinely terrifying thing, like falling into traffic, like seeing a familiar blue form crumpled against the spear-tip of a monument, still and unmoving. She didn't know how to deal with honest-to-god guns. Before that moment, she hadn't even seen one before. It looked small.
The two goons exchanged glances.
"You don't got a wallet?" the first one asked, scratching the back of his head.
"Somebody mug ya already?"
"Was it Buzzcut Boboli?"
Roxanne immediately latched onto the name and explanation. "Yes! Yes! I was already mugged! Damn that Buzzcut! He took everything! Even my bus pass! Which is why I'm walking alone at night in an unfamiliar city to begin with. I guess you guys are just right out of luck. Sorry."
There was a pause as the muggers exchanged some looks of disappointment and uncertainty. She really wished the second one would move the gun away from her. It was making her feel like she might throw up, and she wasn't sure how well that would go over.
"How'd you manage to keep your watch?" The first goon asked suspiciously, nodding at her wrist.
She scanned her brain desperately for some feasible explanation. "I told him… that it was… haunted?"
There was a pause. The criminals exchanged glances, again, but neither of them looked terribly skeptical.
"Just the kind of baloney a chump like Buzzcut would fall for," The talkative member of the pair scoffed and shook his head, "Well, we don't believe in no ghosts. And we don't like walking away empty handed. So turn it over."
Crap. "Alright…" Roxanne sighed, and moved her hand to the face of the watch. It was cool and almost reassuring beneath her fingers. Looking at it forced her gaze away from the gun trained on her, and just like that, it suddenly seemed possible to think clearly again. Shockingly clearly, in fact. Thinning Bernard's lips into a hard line, she turned the dial, pressed the button and let her holographic disguise change. The world flickered for a second. Her shape became abruptly bigger and bulkier.
"Slasher!" the whispering one wheezed, dropping the gun to the street. The metal clattered against the concrete. She moved reflexively out of its path, lifting her sword arm up.
"It's true! He can change shape!" the talkative one exclaimed. He lifted his hands up, his words degenerating into a litany of mumbled curses and prayers.
Roxanne tried to hide her confusion at his comment, and said: "That's right, scum-maggots. You… guys… have fallen for the oldest trick in the book! Now, get ready for some independent justice… scum." She winced at the awkwardness of the line. Neither of the muggers seemed to notice, however. The quiet one was slowly backing away, moving gingerly towards the alley, as if he was getting ready to run but was sure he would get a boot in the back as soon as he tried it. The other had started crossing himself.
"Oh man, we didn't know – please, c'mon, man, I can't get my ribs broke again, I just can't -" he babbled.
"Shut up!" Roxanne barked, trying to push her fear into anger. The sound carried pretty far across the street. The quiet mugger flinched, stopping short and reflexively bringing both of his hands up to his throat. His friend tapered off into what looked sort of like mild hyperventilation. Keeping one eye on the dropped gun, Roxanne raised her blade-shaped hand, and pointed it at him. "Give me your wallets," she demanded.
The mooks both did double-takes.
"Y…you're mugging us?" the quiet one asked, flinching away when he gaze drifted back over to him.
Unconsciously pursing her lips a little bit, Roxanne nodded. "That's right, scum. Uh, from here on out, every time you mug somebody, I'm going to... mug you back. Twice!" she barked. Both men jumped a little. The talker swore, and then immediately reached into his bulky pockets, his hands shaking so badly that he just dropped the three wallets he pulled out onto the ground. He stripped off his watch and rings as well. After a few seconds, his friend followed suit. He seemed to have a little bit of difficulty in coaxing his hands to come away from the scar on his neck, but he pulled it off long enough to drop his own belongings onto the sidewalk. Roxanne glared at the both of them, wondering why she felt sort of bad about it. They had just held her at gun-point and tried to rob her. She shouldn't feel like a heel for robbing them back, or for scaring them, no matter how petrified they seemed. The gun was still reflecting street light at her from its place on the ground.
She tilted her head dismissively. "Get out of here," she barked.
Neither of her would-be muggers needed more encouragement than that. They both took off down the street, their shoes slapping against a few light puddles, the talker's jacket billowing out behind him a little as he ran. His friend still kept one hand clamped around his neck until they'd raced out of her sight.
Roxanne stood there for a while. It was hard to say how long, really. One of her hands was shaking. Carefully, she curled it into a fist, and then sucked in a deep breath. With one last look around, she bent down and picked up the wallets and jewelry that had been flung at her feet. Clearly, the three the first goon had given her had been stolen. They had ID's and credit cards, and one of them was lined with pictures of a couple of smiling kids, which didn't do much for her mood as she examined them for cash. A second wallet had a small black pen and some paper scraps in the zipper pouch at the back. After some thought, Roxanne carefully wrote down all of the names inside the wallets, as well as how much money was in them. She'd pay the owners back, she decided, when she was finished with everything. She couldn't exactly go to the police station to drop off of their wallets, though.
At least the cape had a few pockets in the lining. Roxanne hesitated at the gun. She didn't know how to handle one, and she didn't want to risk it accidentally going off, but she also couldn't just leave it there on for anyone to stumble across. Could she?
The alley nearby had a dumpster in it. In the end, she gingerly picked the weapon up by the handle, carrying just long enough to drop it carefully inside, and left it at that. Not the best solution ever, but it would have to do. She hid alongside the dumpster to change shape again, stowing her recently-acquired belongings and forcing herself to take deep, even breaths. Her therapist was going to make a mint when all was said and done.
At least she had enough money to get her out of Port City, though.
Biter had been blown apart a grand total of seventeen times since he'd first been constructed. The last time had been while he was running Emergency Battle Routine 198.2, GiantHead, and HalStewart, Hostile Designation: Titan had blasted him and several of his siblings to bits with his heat vision. But even before then, it had been a fairly regular occurrence, and the data from some of the older brain bots had assured him that getting melted, fried, beaten up, and torn into scrap was all perfectly normal. The other, non-decimated bots would all pick up the pieces, and Daddy or Daddy v.2 would put them back together sooner or later. They even had protocols and routines for repairing themselves when the damage was only minor. Daddy spent a lot of his time inaccessible in jail, and Daddy v.2 didn't have the same level of fine motor control and technical expertise, so Biter and the other bots were all highly well equipped for situations where they needed to fix something in a hurry. Power cells were one of their most adaptable qualities. In a pinch, lithium ion batteries and nine volt batteries could both be converted for temporary use. He estimated that he'd need about three hundred of them just to get the other brain bots up and running.
Leaving the warehouse behind him again, Biter modified Disguise Sequence Theta to accommodate for his lack of hat. A quick internal analysis determined that he could no longer pass as sufficiently human, and would be best served to imitate laundry instead. Lowering himself to the ground, he made certain that his coat sufficiently covered him, and then began to shuffle along over the grass and pavement. He kept his eyestalk extended and his scanners ready so that he wouldn't be discovered in the midst of moving. Laundry didn't move under its own power.
Lithium ion batteries were most commonly used in power tools. Nine volt batteries were easier to find, and used in alarm clocks, smoke detectors, RC car controllers, and the effect boxes for electric guitars, among other things. Biter initiated Routine 516.1 and determined that the best places to start searching would be in Commercial Building: HardwareStore and Residential Structure: Garage. There were many more garages than hardware stores nearby.
He concluded that garages would be the place to start searching.
It took him some time to travel, as his systems were designed to favor hovering over crawling, and avoiding traffic was complicated somewhat by his disguise. Eventually, however, he worked his way back towards the scatter of small, square buildings that he'd first been amongst when he'd lost his hat. There were a few police cars here and there, which Biter carefully avoided. The first garage he identified (based on a careful examination of images from the internet) was rather like a tiny lair. It had only one window at the top, and a large door at the front which rolled back to reveal the interior. Or would, in theory. After quickly examining the area for potential witnesses, Biter attempted to push the door up with one of his claws, but it was deceptively heavy. Suppressing a beep of frustration, he scurried around the perimeter of the structure, scanning it carefully. Apart from the singular window there didn't appear to be any alternate entrances.
Biter considered the matter. He could use his laser cutter to create his own entrance. But, that would take a lot of power, and given the proximity of potential law enforcement, he deemed it insufficiently subtle for his needs. That left the window.
Doing another quick check of his surroundings, Biter carefully raised himself up, keeping the coat draped over the majority of himself, and examined the glass. There was no latch, but the opening would be big enough for him if he flattened his claws. The interior was devoid of apparent humans or surveillance systems. If he employed his laser cutter on a very low setting, the glass could theoretically be removed from its frame. Blunt force would like work as well, and take up even less energy. But it would also be louder. For a few seconds he weighed the need for stealth over the advantages of energy conservation. Opting for the former, Biter cut the window out of the garage wall, and only just managed to catch it before it plummeted down into the exterior bushes. Then he zipped inside.
The garage did not resemble the artistic representations and photographs he had on file. There was no car, and no work bench lined with power tools and half-finished bird houses. Instead there were boxes. Some of them were flattened and lined against a far wall in huge stacks of cardboard. Others had been stacked on top of each other, and appeared to be full of newspapers and broken lawn ornaments. After a quick search, Biter uncovered several cracked pink flamingos, but no batteries or power tools. There was a bag by the entryway which contained several empty beverage containers, propped up next to a pair of garbage cans, and a decrepit structure which may have been a sofa at some point, but nothing else.
Biter made an internal amendment to his files on garages, and re-examined his search protocols. The majority of items he was searching for were reputed to be located in them. Fire alarms were generally found in kitchens, however, and alarm clocks in bedrooms. If batteries were as scarce outside of Metro City as they appeared to be, then he was going to have to check those places, too.
Much subterfuge would be needed.
Megamind opened his eyes, blinking blearily up at the ceiling above him. He had the headache to end all headaches. A sharp, pervasive pain that seemed to beat violently against every corner of his skull, and left him with a deep sense of fear and disquiet. He was sort of used to pain. While he wasn't stronger than the average human (as far as he'd been able to observe, anyway) he was generally more durable than them, and tended to bounce back from his injuries pretty quickly. Prolonged pain was weird. Excessive pain in his head was especially weird, and for a few seconds, he couldn't help but worry that it was the sign of something awful. Like maybe he had somehow managed to get permanent brain damage from all of that miserable red light. Or maybe Jansen had been wrong, and what he was going through would be permanent – maybe the dampening field around him was slowly eating his brain, sucking out his thoughts like a leech and leaving tattered holes behind.
That was fairly terrifying to contemplate. Raising his hands, Megamind pressed slow circles against his temples, which actually did seem to ease his discomfort a little bit. He sucked in a deep breath, then let it out again. Whatever had happened to the days when being imprisoned meant three square meals a day and all the planning time he needed to hatch his next scheme?
"So I hear you tried to make another escape attempt," Jansen's voice drifted over to him. Megamind froze, surprised – though he wasn't sure why. It wasn't as if he hadn't expected to ever hear from the wayward superhero again. Maybe it was just that his internal pessimist had been leaning towards the idea.
"Did you find out what's happening to Roxanne?" he asked, turning slightly on his cot. When a troupe of less-recognizable heroes had shown up along with the next shift change, he'd been apprehended again and thrown (none too gently) into a new cell, though by the time that had happened he'd been barely able to move, his thoughts completely disjointed, his muscles inexplicably weighted and difficult to move. He'd slept for an indeterminate length of time, woken, and then slept again, feeling only marginally better for it. As his coherency returned, so did his worries. Tenfold.
Jansed sighed, straightening his glasses and shaking his head a little. "No," he admitted. "Something's going on, but whatever it is, they're keeping it under wraps. I can't say I'm surprised." His tone was genuinely apologetic. Nevertheless, Megamind felt a surge of resentment towards him for his failure. "With Slasher running the show, excessive secrecy is the norm."
"I can't stay here," Megamind grit out, shifting so that he was sitting up. His head swam for a few moments, and his stomach lurched, but after a few moments it settled down again.
"You can't leave, either," Jansen pragmatically pointed out. "You saw that yourself. We have to stick to our plan."
"But Roxanne…" he trailed off, remembering back to the last time he'd been stuck in prison when she needed him, staring at her face on a television screen. All the times he had kidnapped her, held her random against Metroman's valor, and he'd never once seen her look like that. Like she really needed someone to save her. The memory stuck in his mind, as though someone had tacked a poster of it up on the inside of his skull, and it made his skin crawl. He felt useless and ignorant and he couldn't stand any of it.
Jansen let out a heavy breath. "If it helps, remember that the Heroes Collective does have rules," he said. "Slasher might scare your friend, and maybe toss her around a little, but he won't really hurt her. The worst any of them can do is bring her here. Whatever's going on, her life's not in danger, at least."
Megamind pursed his lips a little, scowling down at his own hands. That made sense. He knew, better than anyone, that heroes had to follow certain codes and ethics. Otherwise they stopped being heroes.
He also knew, again better than anyone, that just because someone had all the seeming of a hero, that didn't mean they were cut out for the job. Metroman had been the greatest hero he'd ever known, and he'd apparently hated his role enough that he'd faked his own death and left everyone high and dry to get away from it. Titan was supposed to be a hero, and instead he'd been an even bigger menace to society than Megamind himself. Who knew what skeletons a group like the Heroes Collective kept in its closet? He was sure they had rules. He just wasn't really sure that they were as good about following those rules as they'd like the public to think. Was there ever a hero who really was exactly what they seemed to be?
"I'm sorry," Jansen said. "I know it isn't much of a reassurance. I'm afraid I'm not very good at handling things like this. I've… never really been friends with anyone, not for a long time. My empathy's a little lacking."
Megamind glanced over at him. His brief thoughts of resentment fizzled out and died. "There really isn't any way for us to move up our schedule?" he asked. "You can't, you know, do anything on your end? Maybe get them to reschedule the station's maintenance?"
Jansen shrugged, not quite meeting his gaze. "I've already tried," he admitted. "The good news is that your, um, unchoreographed escape attempt did a number on the security system. That make should make things ever easier for us, when the time comes."
"Really?" he asked. He tried to use the thought to cheer himself up a little. "How?"
One corner of Jansen's mouth quirked up a little. "The simple version? Security blocks like the ones Lady Mythman erected cause the containment field to expand. When they go down, it contracts again, and as you'd expect with repeated expansion and contraction in most things, the process weakens the system a little bit each time it's used. It's supposed to be for emergencies only," he added. "But, of course, it's been deployed over the years with less care than it was designed for. On its own that wouldn't have been very much, but while you were making your attempt, I took the liberty of…" He paused, waving a hand absently as he searched for the right words. Megamind suppressed another rush of frustration. Having these things boiled down for him like he was the really slow kid in class was incredibly annoying. "I suppose, to employ another metaphor, you could say that I widened a few cracks here and there."
A thought occurred to him. It had been so long since a good one had bothered to crop up that he was genuinely surprised. Given the nature of the idea, though, he wasn't sure if he should be pleased with himself, or just generally apprehensive about the immediate future.
"So, let me make sure I've got this," he said. "My escape attempt just kicked another dent into your vile-and-costly little power system?"
"That would be accurate, yes," Jansen agreed. "Although I wouldn't call it 'little'. I did tell you how substantial it is…"
Shifting a little, Megamind pressed his fingers to his temples again, moving them in slow circles as he thought. "Right, right, very impressive, we'll have to swap notes when this is all done, so on and so forth. If I make another escape attempt, even if it doesn't succeed… no, let me rephrase that. How many times would they need to activate those 'security blocks' before it killed the system?" he asked.
Jansen's arms dropped to his sides. He cocked his head a little, thoughtfully, and for a few seconds it looked like he was furiously counting inside of his mind. Which he probably was. One of his fingers twitched, tapping the side of his leg a little bit, and then he cleared his throat and seemed to snap back to himself. Megamind wondered at the potential ramifications of losing yourself in your thoughts when your current form was essentially made of thoughts. He was kind of surprised that tech whiz hadn't just disappeared or flickered out of view a couple of times.
"If I push it along, and assuming the maximum levels of stress are exerted against the system each time… one hundred and ten. Give or take a few random variables," Jansen determined. "Our original plan is still quicker. I don't think you could survive making a hundred and ten escape attempts in seven days. Close proximity to the dampening field is highly unpleasant, as I'm sure you've noticed."
Yes. Yes, he had noticed. He was continuing to notice, in fact, given that the effects hadn't completely worn off. The idea of doing that a hundred and ten more times didn't exactly fill him with eager anticipation. While his long tenure as a supervillain had certainly given him the ability to lose gracefully, it hadn't quite made a masochist out of him.
I need you, Roxanne had said, what felt like ages ago, with the wind blowing through her hair and a cold metal bar twisted around her arms and waist.
"Well this is going to suck," he said, moving his hands from his temples and clasping them together, briefly, trying to muster up the tattered reserves of his… he wasn't sure if he should call it 'determination', 'ambition,' 'bravery', or 'incredibly noteworthy unwillingness to just to sit around and do nothing'. Probably the last one. 'Bravery' was still a little bit too hero-ish for his general sensibilities, and 'determination' and 'ambition' both sounded too generic. Nodding to himself, he stood up, and took stock of his new cell. Jansen was watching him with a worried expression, lingering in the corner.
"You… actually want to try it?" the hero asked him. "That doesn't seem like a very wise idea. Escaping won't do you much good if you injure yourself, and frankly, I'm not sure what over-exposure to the dampening field could do to someone of your species."
Raising a hand, Megamind waved off his concern. "I guess we'll find out," he reasoned. He couldn't just break his toilet again. The repetitiveness was tacky, for one thing, and for another, it was kind of obvious. There were tiny air vents at the top of the room, though. And he could always try injuring himself on the door. Although, he'd noticed an appalling lack of anti-suicide measures in this prison, so he wasn't quite sure where they stood on the 'injured prisoners' front. In his travels with Jansen he'd never seen any kind of infirmary. That was probably a bad sign. Also, considering the fact that his head was still pounding, he wasn't really in a rush to cause himself even more physical pain. It would probably be better to fake an injury, but then, with the constant surveillance cameras and the general ambivalence towards his well-being, the Collective members probably wouldn't fall for it.
Ah, well. The vents it was, then.
Walking over to the corner of the room, he planted his hands and feet against the sides of the walls, and started to climb.
Roxanne managed to buy herself a bus ticket to Midvale without a lot of fuss. By then, apart from a brief stint with the knockout gas, she hadn't properly slept in about two days. Midvale was far removed from Metro and Port City's coastline, so as soon as she claimed her chair, she folded her arms around her disguised torso and tried to rest. It was easier said than done. The bus was stuffy and the upholstery on the seats itched, and the passenger next to her was an older woman who smelled very strongly of perfume. It made Roxanne's eyes water and clogged up the back of her throat. She tried to ignore it, but after the woman had finished fussing with her purse and arranging her jacket behind her, she apparently decided that it was a good idea to make conversation.
"I hate these buses," she said, startling Roxanne a little bit.
"Hmm?" she replied, blinking. She wondered if the projected image of Bernard looked as exhausted as she felt. It probably didn't show the physical signs, like dark rings under the eyes or anything like that. The woman smiled at her. She had lipstick on her teeth. Absently, Roxanne ran her tongue over her own incisors.
"These buses. They're always so stuffy. I hate taking them, but I can't stand to fly. Not with the way airport security's been going these days," the woman elaborated. "Would you like a mint?" Without any further ado, she produced a few round packets from seemingly nowhere, and plopped one into Roxanne's hand.
"Oh," she said. "Thank you. That's… very kind." The candy was swirled with red and white. Irrationally, she was reminded of when she had been little, and her mother had always admonished her not to take candies from strangers. She tucked it into one of Bernard's hard-light pockets. The woman carried on talking without complaint.
"You're very welcome. I'm relieved to be sitting next to a nice young man like you," she admitted, beaming. "I make this trip every few months to visit my brother's family, and I can't tell you the number of times I've had to sit next to some spiky-haired roustabout with headphones on the whole trip. You can still hear the music, you know, and I've never heard anything I liked coming out of those things…" her complaints continued on in a similar fashion until the last of the passengers had piled in, and the bus was trundling down the road, the scent of the exhaust sneaking in through the loose frame of the window. Roxanne managed to turn most of it into white noise, until she heard the distinctive rise in tone that indicated a question was on the way.
"-But you probably don't want to listen to me blather on about tax returns for hours. So. What are you traveling for? If you don't mind my asking," her neighbor inquired.
Tired as she was, Roxanne drew up a blank on how to answer that question. She opened her mouth, and a half-truth came tumbling out.
"I'm going to see my boyfriend," she said.
There was a pause. The woman's eyebrows had migrated towards her hairline. Roxanne spent roughly twenty seconds trying to figure out why that would be surprising, but then she recalled, again, that she was disguised as a man. She could maybe see how an admission like that might take certain people aback. Part of her kind of hoped that it threw the other woman off, if only so she would stop talking to her now and just let her rest. Though she probably wouldn't be able to rest soundly at all.
"I – oh, I'm sorry. Look at me gawking," the woman said, snapping her mouth shut and immediately switching 'surprised' for 'embarrassed'. "You must think I'm terrible. I was just surprised, that's all. Really. I've always felt very badly about that whole issue with the gays and marriage and all of that." Reaching out, the woman rather primly patted her on the shoulder. "Privately I've always thought that my cousin's son was a bit like that. His name's Jeffrey. He works at a salon down on sixth," she said, in a way that implied that she was hoping to ring some bells.
Roxanne's lips twitched upwards a little, in spite of herself. "I'm afraid I don't know him," she admitted, deciding not to mention the part where she wasn't even from Port City. Or the bit where it was sort of ridiculous to think that she would know him anyway.
Her neighbor looked vaguely disappointed. "That's a shame. I always wonder about how he's getting on, Jeffrey. He's very tight-lipped. I suppose that's just his way," she mused. "But here I go again, off on another tangent. You were telling me about your gentleman friend."
"I was?" Roxanne asked.
"You were," the woman confirmed. "Is he a hairdresser?"
The idea actually made Roxanne giggle a bit, as a sudden mental image of Megamind's bald blue head appeared in her mind's eye. "No," she replied. "He's… well, he does a lot of things. I guess you could call him an engineer, really."
"Oh. I see." Her tone of voice implied something vaguely derisive, but Roxanne couldn't muster up the energy to care what she may or may not have mistakenly concluded. Because the truth was probably not an option.
Nope, not a lot of people would heard that sentence and then think 'I bet he's a former supervillain who turned over a new leaf after his archnemesis faked his own death!'. The idea was so ludicrous that it almost forced another giggle out of her, and she wondered if she wasn't just a tiny bit hysterical. Not in a big way. In that quiet way that sometimes happened when everything was terrible, and the panic had all bubbled out and transformed into something approaching giddiness. "He's really better than he seems," she found herself saying. "Even people who don't like him have to admit that he's brilliant, and he always does his best. Even when he's doing something that seems tiny or insignificant or just plain weird, he gives it his all."
The woman's features softened a little bit at that. "How did the two of you meet?" she asked.
Dark smoke. A booming voice. A mechanical arm grabbed her in the darkness, and she heard cackling, and in the midst of all her fear her surprise she noted, strangely, that Megamind's had very pretty eyes when he was up-close. It was harder to see them when he was cackling over a jumbo-tron.
"We had a mutual friend who introduced us."
"Oh, was it a blind date?" the woman wondered. "I always love hearing stories about blind dates. Marty is absolutely my favorite film, but you probably don't know it, it's a quite old nowadays. And anyway I suppose it wasn't really the blind date that went well in that one, but it all turned out at the end."
Roxanne smiled a little bit. How would they have met, she wondered, if they were ordinary people with ordinary lives? Not that Megamind could have ever been ordinary. She thought briefly about his stint as Bernard, but the memory still brought up mixed feelings in her. What if his little ship hadn't landed in a prison, though? What if he'd never gone to school with Metroman, never seen the other's ship crash into his mansion home? What if he'd been able to have as good of a life as a blue-skinned alien super-genius could?
"No, it wasn't a blind date," Roxanne said. "We just both happened to be at a museum exhibit, looking for our friend at the same time. It was a little late. Neither of us actually find our friend, but we bumped into each other, and found out that we were both looking for the same person. Then we got to talking and… things just sort of went from there." Mentally, she super-imposed the image of Megamind over the memory of Bernard, imagining his face lighting up as she told him that good would always rise against evil. His look of wonder as she hugged him and called him her partner. It was fairly easy to make the switch. One of the things she'd liked about 'Bernard' back then had always been his eyes. The beautiful, vibrant green eyes that she could never, ever admit to having admired before.
"Oh, that does sound sweet," the woman told her. "You think about how hard some people have to look to find love, you know, but it always seems to come best when it finds you instead. You must miss him a great deal."
Was she that obvious? Roxanne swallowed. Then she sniffed. The corners of her eyes prickled, and maybe if she'd been herself she would have fended it off – she always hated crying – but she wasn't, so she didn't. "I do," she said between sniffles. "I really do. You know, he does stupid things all of the time. He can't apologize and he hates admitting it when he's wrong and he always uses up all the hot water whenever he showers, and sometimes I think it's like he's allergic to telling the truth even when it's really obvious that he's lying, and he never corrects his mispronunciations even when you point them out because he's just so stubborn but I, I really, really miss him." Making obligingly sympathetic noises, the woman handed her a small packet of Kleenex, and Roxanne thankfully scrubbed at her cheeks. "I mean I thought he'd be able to stay out of prison for sure now!"
There was a pause. Her neighbor's eyebrows had gone north again.
"Prison?" she asked.
Whoops, Roxanne thought. Had she said that part out loud? "Um. Well…"
Thankfully, however, the woman raised a forestalling hand. "No, no, dear, never mind. I used to run with Sparky Oswald and his boys back when I was younger. I know how it is," she assured her, and then it was Roxanne's turn to feel extremely off-set as she reached over and patted her hand again. Then she leaned over in a conspiratorial fashion. "Just between me and you, sometimes I still visit old Sparky in the slammer. You've got to stand by your man." She winked.
What, did everyone in Port City have mob connections? Her copy of Bernard's jaw worked silently for a few moments before she found the wherewithal to mutter something affirmative-sounding.
"Like the Tammy Wynette song," she heard herself say.
"Exactly! But I've never been fond of country music, mind. It's all twang, twang, twang, as if that sound is supposed to pleasant. So. Let me see if I can do the old puzzle-it-out trick. Your fellow's an 'engineer'… ooh, I bet he's a safe-peeler, isn't he?" the woman suggested, grinning a little at her. "That's respectable enough. It's his first time in the big house?"
"…No…" Roxanne hesitantly replied.
"Oh, but it's his first time since the two of you hooked up, isn't it? I can tell. The first time's always the hardest. I remember when they finally dragged old Sparky off, my goodness, I was hysterical. It was just lucky that police officer I hit with my shoe was such a nice fellow. Now, make sure you don't send him any books in his quarterly care package. They let you send books year 'round. Especially bibles. My word, I swear prisons have more bibles in them than churches do. Have you already sent him something? Because they let you give them little radios in these prisons nowadays, and socks and underwear are always useful. The boys run through them before you wouldn't believe. And stamped envelopes! That's only if you want him to write you, though. But don't send him toothpaste or shampoo, it never lasts until the next package and the prison stuff works fine enough anyway…" she carried on down a long list of advice, and Roxanne felt vaguely overwhelmed and a little off-kilter until the woman went rooting around her purse, and produced a small notepad and a candy-striped pen. "Here. I'll write it down for you, you'll never remember it all straight away."
The city trundled by outside of the bus, then, and for a moment it got a little quieter, as Roxanne heard a few other conversations from the bus's passengers and listened to the scritch, scritch of pen on paper. Eventually even those sounds wore down, and her friendly neighbor offered her both the pen and the pad, and started to doze in her own seat. It would have been a good opportunity to steal some rest for herself. But the conversation had woken her up a little bit, and even though she closed her eyes and leaned back for a while, the dull roar of the bus's engine beneath her feet and her own thoughts kept her from sleeping. After a few minutes she looked down at the little notepad in her hands instead. The cover was glossy paper with a basket of kittens on it. It looked like at least half of the pages had been torn out for something or other, and several of the other's were covered in a neat and tidy scrawl that read things like They'll give you a thirty pound limit and If you want to give him an electric toothbrush, make certain it's from one of their approved manufacturers.
Eventually the dull sound of snoring started up beside her. Roxanne slowly flicked the notepad open to a blank page, and uncapped the pen again.
Step one, she wrote. Locate Commander Courage. Courage was Midvale's hero. She'd picked him because she was the only one she could think of out of the Collective's leadership circle who seemed to have the standard heroic trappings. After a fashion, at least. His repuation was a bit more militant than Metroman's had been. She didn't know much about Mermanus, and Lady Mythman was weird even by superhero standards.
Step two, hide watch. That was another reason to turn herself over to Commander Courage. He was old-fashioned, so she was pretty sure that he wouldn't think to check her bra strap for holographic watches. Then again…
Contingency plan, watch is found. Play it by ear? She wasn't sure what she could do if they discovered all of her tricks and just carted her up to prison. Worst case scenario, she knew, would be that she didn't come back soon enough and Music Man set Dinomight free. She wouldn't be trapped up there, but her plan to rescue Megamind would probably also fail. She needed to work on something she could do if everything else failed to work. That was where most plans came apart. They presumed too much success.
Step three, go to jail. Groggily, with a brief shake of her head, she also penned in: Do not pass Go, do not collect $100. Then she crossed it out.
Contingency plan, strip search. She wasn't under any delusions about what going to a high-security superhero prison might entail. Activate watch early. Try and use element of surprise.
The pen slipped a little tiredly over the 'e' in surprise, so that it came out more like a sloppy 'o'. On the opposite page, the inked advice of her neighbor had soaked through a little, blue and dented. The problem, she decided, was that finding information on the prison itself was almost impossible. She didn't know what their security systems were like (because no one seemed to), she didn't know what their procedures were (again, because no one seemed to) and she didn't know what she could really do once she got there. She'd just tried to collect as many advantages as possible. Infiltration, watch scans, brain bots… it all smacked of desperation.
She wondered if she could pull it off. But she didn't think she could do anything less than try, even when parts of it seemed to twist around or fail altogether. She was pretty sure that none of the brain bots would be coming, for example. And she'd lost her anti-kidnapped gun. And she'd almost gotten mugged, a thought which wasn't going away and leaving her alone, because when she leaned back and closed her eyes again she saw the flash of a silver barrel in the street light again. In her mind's eye the trigger went off, and there was a sudden bang and then a pain in her chest, and they buried her as John Doe because no one ever bothered to take off the watch and discover who she really was…
A hand on her shoulder caused her to blink awake, inhaling sharply. Her neighbor smiled at her.
"We've stopped for a bit," she said. "Come on, dear, I'll buy you breakfast, and you can tell me more about your fellow before the next bus comes."
Feeling fuzzy-headed and a little lost, Roxanne rubbed the sleep from her eyes – almost knocking her holographic glasses off of her nose in the process – and agreed.
Author's Note: As always, love to everyone who reviewed, and anyone from the LJ comm! (Also, my apologies for any mistakes, I've only given this a quick read-through because I felt so bad about how long it took me...) A couple of folks guessed that Roxanne's plan is to get arrested for Dinomight's murder. You guys were all right, it's just taking her a little longer to get there. XD