"It was a puzzle why things were always dragged kicking and screaming. No one ever seemed to want to, for example, lead them gently by the hand." -William de Worde, The Truth by Terry Pratchett


The main problem with trying to rescue the citizens he'd terrorized for the past twenty years was getting past the mistrust. It was the look in their eyes, an 'oh no, we've aleady got these killer zombies, not him too' sort of look.

It didn't hurt his feelings or anything like that, but it was a damned nuisance, fighting off zombies while shouting at a bunch of cowering citizens that he was there to help. Sometimes he'd turn around and find that the people had fled. Other times he'd offer to take them to his Lair and they'd shrink away and mumble gosh, don't know, really have to be going, might have left the oven on must check on that, please don't shoot us in the back.

Sometimes, though, if a situation looked critical with zombies overrunning a place, and the victims were screaming and hysterical and not open to reason, he dehydrated them and scooped them up just to get them the hell out of there.

It made them a lot easier to carry and saved a lot of tedious explanation, but he felt guilty about it. This was no way for a rescuer to behave, forcibly putting people into suspended animation. He knew it wasn't right, and that he'd have to re-hydrate them sooner or later. He was not looking forward to it.

First of all they'd be just as hysterical. Second of all, there were a lot of them. Minion could talk about the spaciousness of the Lair all he liked, as far as Megamind was concerned it already felt oppressively overcrowded. Couldn't even walk around in his comfy robe and slippers anymore.


At last, after that first endless night, as the morning sun began to turn the sky gray, he finally found some people so desperate that even his Lair looked like a better alternative than getting eaten alive. He commandeered a bus to get them back. There were only nine but still too many for two hoverbikes. He suggested having the brainbots fly them back to the Lair, but the rescuees were already pretty freaked out by recent events and looked as if getting seized by brainbots and carried off might have severed their last link to sanity.

Minion drove while the brainbots towed the extra hoverbike. It was slow going. There were abandoned and crashed cars blocking the way, dead bodies and more zombies, until at last he ordered the brainbots to pick up the bus and carry it. There were a few yelps from the passengers, but he was keeping an iron grip on his last nerve and had no energy for soothing.

He wanted to get back to damn Lair to make sure his other guests weren't getting into his stuff. Uncle Lenny and Uncle Sid wouldn't mess around with his things, but they were old and had probably gone to sleep by now. The other three were the unknown variables.

The brainbots punched holes in the roof to get a grip on it and soon were soaring through the air with it.

The closer they got to the Lair, the more zombies there were, but there weren't any living people in the area that he had to protect. Most of the population had fled north and east, and he was so fucking tired and sick of the carnage he didn't feel like blasting anyone else in the head, even if they were zombies.

The zombies were increasing, and there was a certain pattern to their movement. They were heading in one direction. To his horror, he realized where they must be going.

"Minion, they're heading for the Lair! Hurry!" He opened the throttle and shot over the rooftops, through bands of sunlight. Zombies threaded their way through the streets of the peninsula.

He braked hard outside the Lair, where chaos reigned.

Zombies shuffled right through the holographic entrance. Brainbots zoomed around overhead, sometimes shooting at the zombies, sometimes picking them up and flying away with them to drop them several blocks away, in complete confusion that the zombies weren't running away. They weren't programmed to kill unless he or Minion gave a direct order.

The zombies had even pulled down some the brainbots and had smashed them, feeding on the organic cores.

Megamind shouted, "Daddy's here! Here, brainbots, here! Come to Daddy!" The confused brainbots surounded him in a pack. He raised his arm. Zombies lurched around, shuffled toward them. Men and women, young and old, all lifeless, all gray faces and gaping mouths.

He brought his arm down. "Now, kill, kill, kill!"

The brainbots dove, jaws flashing.

The bus arrived, brainbots setting it down with a jolt. "Protect the passengers!" he shouted at Minion. He flew toward the formerly secret entrance, blasting zombies in the doorway, and got in. He brought the hoverbike to a screeching halt in the bay, shot two more zombies, and broke into a run. "Uncle Lenny!" he shouted. "Uncle Sid! Where are you?"

A voice shouted up near the ceiling. But there was a body on the floor, with zombies crouched around it. A zombie lurched around the invisible car right behind him. He whirled and shot her in the chest. She swayed a little... no, it swayed, he couldn't let any preconceived notions get in the way, this woman was dead. It lunged at him, and his next two shots got it in the eye and cheek, passing into the brain, fortunately, and it collapsed.

With their now-familiar tenacity, several other zombies had lurched over. He was surrounded. Cold hands snatched at his cape. He leaped onto the hood of the car and scrambled onto the roof, aimed and fired again and again. "Brainbots!" he screamed. "KILL KILL KILL!" He kicked a hand grabbing at his ankle.

The zombies fell away as the brainbots dove in.

He could see zombies attempting to lurch up the metal stairs to the catwalk. A few of them were almost at the top, where he could see the men in prison orange huddled. Megamind ordered two brainbots to fly him up.

The arsonist, eyes wild, brandished one of the laser rifles. "What the fuck kind of gun is this?" he screamed. "Doesn't even turn on."

Megamind landed on the catwalk and shot a zombie. "That one's not charged up," he said, flushing.

"Thanks a lot, man," the man said bitterly. "Big help. Guffin's dead, he went nuts, tried to beat these fuckers with one of these stupid guns, you said we'd be safe here, you said we'd be safe!"

"Hey, you shut your mouth," Lenny snapped. He also had an uncharged laser gun that he was using as a club. But even he was unable to completely keep reproach out of his voice. "How come they ain't charged?"

The other man tangled his hands in his hair and curled up on the floor. "I don't care, I don't care," he groaned.

Minion soon arrived, and together they dispatched the zombies. They conducted a sweep of the Lair to make sure there weren't any more lurking in odd corners.

Megamind trudged over to the dead guard. His stomach had been torn open and the stench was appalling. Megamind crouched down to close the staring eyes.

The others wandered over, Minion, his uncles, the other two. "He saved our lives," Sid said. "Gave us time to get up the stairs."

The guard's mouth lay open in a silent scream. He had been driven half-insane with fear, and Megamind had failed to protect him. He held that knowledge close, and embraced the pain of it. He would not fail again.

He shot the corpse in the head.

He looked up to see they were all staring at him in shock. Minion gasped, "Why...how could you..."

"His brain was intact. In a few hours he would have become a zombie."

"Isn't it kinda...disrespectful?" the junkie said nervously, rubbing his arms and glancing around. "I mean, we don't know what's goin' on."

Megamind heaved a huge sigh. "What. The hell. Are you talking about?"

"This is like...I dunno... the Apocalypse or something," he said. "God's sending a message. We should respect the dead."

"It seems to me that allowing a dead person to get up again as an unholy zombie is incredibly disrespectful." He glared at the junkie, who blushed to the roots of his hair.

"Oh," he mumbled. "I guess so. Didn't think of that."

Minion shyly touched his shoulder. "Sorry, Sir. You're right. You think we can let the others in? They're still on the bus, but more zombies are coming. I think they're coming this way 'cause we're the biggest source of life around here. We haven't seen any other survivors for a while. Just us."

"Yes. This side of 137th Street." In his mind's eye he could picture a map of the city, the Lair on its little spur of land, the old observatory just across the water, the prison off to the northwest. He lifted his hand. If one were to set off a bomb to release a gas, or a contagion, to affect as many people as possible, one would try to place it at a central spot. The wind was from the south, south-east last night...

"Sir?" Minion shook his arm.

He shook his head, blinking. "Yes?"

"The zombies? Coming this way?"

He shook his head again. It didn't really help. He needed food, water, and about five thousand hours of sleep.

"Get these bodies moved to the side," he said to his uncles and the other two convicts. "I don't have time to go around dehydrating them all right now. Enlist the help of the newcomers, if they are able-bodied. There are a few tarps over there. Come." He gestured at Uncle Lenny and the arsonist.

They followed, the arsonist wringing his hands together. "Hey, I'm sorry about... you know... I didn't mean it, got kind of worked up..."

"Never mind," Megamind said, heading for the laser gun cabinet. "Clearly my Lair is not secure. You can help remedy that." He got out a fully charged rifle and gave it to Uncle Lenny, then grabbed another for the other man. "Safety's here, you pull this lever to... what's the matter?" he snapped.

The arsonist had paled. He licked his lips. "Um. I don't know how to... I never shot a gun before. Not even a regular gun."

Megamind felt his jaw tighten until he thought his teeth would crack. And yet, you still found breath to harangue me. He hissed out a breath between gritted teeth in an effort to remain calm.

The responsibility was his. He had failed to protect his guests. He had not enabled them to defend themselves, and he hadn't kept the zombies out. No one had ever breached the web of secrecy around his Lair, its best defense. He had been too complacent, assuming that since he'd kept mere human intruders out, that the same methods would work for zombies. "What is your name?"

"Arnold."

"Well, Arnold, since another wave of zombies is on its way in about five seconds it's not really the best time for a lesson, and I don't feel like getting accidentally shot in the head. You're on clean-up duty. But be prepared to learn, as soon as this attack is repelled."


The immediate need was for a wall, and no materials or time for building one, so he got five thousand of the brainbots and brutebots to unite and form a wall around the Lair, with one opening, in case he and Minion needed to beat a retreat, and also to give the zombies something to focus on, if they were even capable of that much strategy. They'd be easier targets if they were funneled into one direction.

The good thing about this wall was that it fought back.

Of all the refugees, only Uncle Lenny had ever even held a gun before. Uncle Sid was a veteran of numerous street brawls, so Megamind gave him a baseball bat, for cracking skulls. Both men looked about ready to drop so Megamind put them in chairs by the wall opening, in case any zombies slipped past.

Neither of the other two convicts had the violent frame of mind necessary for combat, nor any of the other guests. It took a lot of effort and training to overcome the squeamishness of deliberately assaulting strangers, even zombies. Generally people liked to at least be introduced. It was why the army had to break down new recruits, to get them into the right frame of mind to attack total strangers without question.

So it was him, Minion, two old men who were too tired to stand, and the brainbots, to which he had to give the verbal command to kill each and every time. Good grief.

There were going to be a lot of changes around the Lair, that was for damn sure.

The sun came up. The goddamn zombies kept coming, trying to come in and through and over the wall of 'bots. Mostly the 'bots seized them and held on until Megamind and Minion dispatched them.

Megamind plodded back and forth, sweat trickling down his face and soaking his back, sun burning his head. Normally on days like this he'd be holed up in the Lair with the air conditioning on full blast. He examined every zombie, wondering if he'd see Roxanne. His heart cracked a little whenever he spotted a female zombie with short brown hair, and a sense of guilty relief whenever it turned out not to be her.

He tried not to think about her. He couldn't help thinking about her.

Her apartment was on the edge of... of whatever had happened. The event. If an 'event' had, in fact, occurred, if he wasn't making up conspiracy theories in his head, borne of fatigue and paranoia.

There was a lull in activity, and he sent a few brainbots out on recognizance, to see how many more zombies were in the neighborhood. A movement from behind made him whirl. The junkie, Luke, stood several feet away, holding a plastic yellow pitcher. "Um, water, Mr. Megamind? It's hot," he added unnecessarily.

Megamind poured two glasses of water over his head, and drank three. He could see that just inside the gate, one of the new refugees, Doris, was giving water to Lenny and Sid.

She noticed him, and her frown deepened. "I should think you could provide your uncles with some shade. They're wilting. They're not young anymore, you know," she said, as if she'd known them for years.

Megamind stared at her, fresh out of sarcasm. Doris had to be at least eighty herself, if one could judge by the wrinkles.

"Yeah, kid," Sid called, grinning. "How about some foot massages while you're at it?"

Doris turned on him. "Don't think this will get you out of doing clean-up," she said. "I expect all you men to pull your weight and not lounge around. I'm certainly not going to wait on you hand and foot."

Megamind was mildly impressed. He hadn't thought any of these sheep would show such initiative.

Luke sidled over to Minion. "You want some, er... fresh water? Or something?"

Minion clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Say, thanks. Go get my fish flakes? I think I left 'em by the monitor bank."

At last the zombie surge seemed to be over. It was past noon, and Megamind felt like he was melting. The new refugees stood around, eyeballing the killing ground, clearly wondering if this place was really any safer than anywhere else.

Minion, fins drooping, said, "We gotta build a bigger incinerator. Outside, maybe."

Flies were swarming. The need for clean-up was immediate, especially of the pile of dead outside the wall. "No, Minion. A crematorium."

"What? Uh, yeah. Whatever you want to call it."

Megamind looked down at a zombie, a boy of about fourteen. "What do you suppose his name was?" He crouched down and turned over the body, searching the pockets. "No ID. We'll have to set up a morgue, for the unidentified dead."

Minion blinked. "A morgue?"

"Won't be a standard morgue. That would take up too much space, and we need to conserve energy, we can't afford the amount of cooling it would need. Dehydration is the best solution. Until each person can be identified and given a proper burial, loved ones notified, that sort of thing."

Minion gaped at him, and clapped his hands to his dome before he swept his arms around at the corpse-strewn ground. "Sir, there are hundreds of dead! Thousands out in the city, probably! Identify them? It's impossible!"

Megamind set the de-gun to dehydrate. "First we should have the refugees look at them. It's just possible they will see someone they know." He sighed. "We ought to have been doing this all along. So much to keep track of. None of these people asked for this. To die and turn into mindless zombies to feast on human flesh."

He set his jaw. Minion was giving him the ol' 'let's be reasonable' look.

"Look. Sir. I know you're trying to do the right thing, but don't we have enough to do without... all that?"

"What if I died and they chucked my body into an incinerator?" He put his hands on his hips. "How would you feel?"

Minion stared at him with wide eyes, then his little body sagged. "Okay, okay. You made your point."

"All of my citizens will be accounted for. All of them."


He was itching to rescue more people but he badly needed rest, and he couldn't go traipsing off to rescue more people if zombies ate his guests while he was out.

There were a number of things that needed to be done immediately, and preferably yesterday. He set the brainbots to scouring every building and scrap of land on the entire peninsula, to ensure there were no zombies lurking. The point at which the peninsula was attached to the mainland was the border, with permanent rotating squads of brainbots to keep out all intruders. The brainbots didn't get tired, but eventually each would need some time to recharge.

Minion went out to scrounge construction sites for materials to build a permanent wall. Megamind pressured the refugees into cleaning up the Lair. No one wanted to do it, but who the hell did? He didn't like it either, hosing off all the blood and other fluids that did not bear looking at too closely, after the corpses were cleared away.

Then he did something that Minion probably wouldn't have approved of. He slipped out and captured three zombies, to get an average temperature reading (fifty-four degrees fahrenheit), with a no-touch thermoscan thermometer. He considered keeping them caged, in case he needed them for future reference, then decided he was on pretty shaky ethical ground as it was, using dead bodies without anyone's permission (certainly not theirs), even for such a minor detail.

There were serious laws about using the dead for research, at least regular dead people. Regulations hadn't gotten around to deciding whether the undead fell under the same category. He flaunted the law when it suited him, but this was different. This was downright icky. Besides, he didn't want to have to look at those gray, wheezing, slowly decaying faces every day. He put them out of their misery and added them to the morgue.

He fitted fourteen brainbots with heat sensors and worked out the set of parameters that would enable them to recognize and kill zombies on sight, but to leave living humans alone. Soon he would outfit all of the 'bots with the sensors, but that meant another excursion into the city for supplies, and hours of labor. The programming itself, now that he'd established the parameters for giving brainbots the license to kill, would be a simple matter of uploading it to the entire population, but the heat sensors would be crucial, so they didn't kill every person on sight.

His eyes felt like they were lined with sand, his stomach had been threatening to devour itself for the last ten hours, and, as much as he'd been trying to ignore it, his hands were shaking. Folding up and collapsing was not going to inspire confidence in the refugees.

He finished screwing the last panel back on, and sent the brainbot on its way. He rubbed his gritty eyes. Christ, he needed a shower. He was still covered in splatter from the excursion into the prison.

The Lair was quiet. The refugess were lying on whatever blankets Minion had scrounged up, sleeping, or at least curled up in the fetal position. He had found a couple of cots for Sid and Lenny, though Doris, another elderly person they'd rescued, was making a lot of noise about how she was certainly not going to be able to sleep on the rock-hard floor.

Megamind went to the bathroom and tried to turn the knob.

"Occupied!" an elderly female voice snapped. "I only got in here. I'm not well, you know, the facilities in this place..."

Megamind rolled his eyes. Had to wait to use his own bathroom, terrific. He trudged toward his lab, picking at the scum layer on his neck. Why in the hell did attackers always go for his neck? It was repulsive. There was an emergency shower in the lab, at least no one else was allowed...

His hand touched the raised scab on his neck. The zombie scratch.

He stopped. His breathing seemed very loud, and part of some other world.

He should have been horrifed, in despair, weeping, stumbling out to find Minion, but what he mostly felt was numb.

The strange thing was, and this could be the exhaustion talking, but with complete and utter certainty, he did not believe he was infected. He simply did not believe it.

He picked at the dried crust of sweat and zombie gunk, and went to look at his reflection in the stainless steel tabletop in the lab. Yeesh, he looked like a serial killer fresh off the job. His blood-shot eyes were hollowed out and wild-looking, and his outfit was crusted over with dirt and other unmentionables. Maybe this was the reason refugees shrank back.

It had been over twenty-four hours since he'd gotten scratched. It was a little early to be showing symptoms, but the scratch itself was healed up, which was normal for him since he healed so quickly, but this was not the normal course of the disease. From what he'd read, the site of infection should have been swollen and discolored.

Carefully he washed his neck. The scratch looked no different from any other superficial scratch. Peeling off his gloves, he took a blood sample.

After peering at it through the microscope, he went to ask his uncles for blood samples, since they were less likely to freak out about it.

And he summoned the brainbot with the soil samples.

Minion came in two hours later to make him go to bed.

"Testing for the zombie virus, my finny friend," he said, in response to Minion's questioning look. He sat back, stretching out his back. "Got scratched back in the prison. It seemed like..." He yawned. He really was tired.

Minion made a shuddering gasp. "Scratched? Oh no. Oh, Sir..."

Megamind waved his hand to interrupt him. "Don't worry, Minion. It is not my destiny to perish and become a zombie." He began to walk over to the wall to turn on the slide projector. "Here, take a look at..."

Minion shouted, "Don't worry?!" Beakers rattled on the shelves.

Megamind whirled, startled. "Well, yes. Because..."

"Not your destiny?!" Minion shouted, his dorsals bristling. "You've been exposed to a virus that is one hundred percent lethal! One! Hundred! Percent! And you tell me not to worry because it's not your destiny? Have you completely lost your oversized blue mind?"

Megamind slowly crossed his arms, transfixed. He had never seen that vein throb in Minion's side before.

"You're pretty resilient, Sir, but you're not immune to everything just because you hardly ever get sick, you almost died from the measles, remember that, the warden was so worried he slept on the floor, and I... I..." Minion clenched his fists, shaking, and shouted, "It's a virus! It doesn't care about destiny!" He let out a sob, and sank lower in his bowl, squeezing his eyes shut.

Megamind watched him for a moment. "Minion, I'm not infected," he said quietly.

Minion's eyes shot open. "Oh yeah? Prove it," he snapped, but his scowl faded. "Wait. You... can prove it?"

Megamind reached for the switch and clicked on the screen to show the close-up of his blood cells. "This is a sample of my blood from two hours ago." He enlarged the view, to show one odd, scraggly gray elongated bit, being slowly surrounded by a white blood cell. "That," Megamind said, pointing at it, "is, I believe, the version of the zombie virus that has infected the city."

They watched as the white blood cell enveloped the gray smudge and destroyed it.

Megamind grinned. "Impressive, isn't it?" he said smugly. "My superior physiology in action. Want to see the recording again?"

Minion stared at the screen. "The version. There are different versions?"

"As loathe as I am to admit it, I'm not entirely sure. I don't have any examples of the original virus. I could have hacked into NIH to find out what it looks like, but now we're cut off from the internet." So galling, having to rely solely on what he had stored in his own databanks.

That was a problem for later. "The way this disease is spreading, it's not behaving the same way as when it first appeared in North Carolina. But here." He brought up the next slide. "Uncle Sid's blood. He's been exposed to the virus. His blood is riddled with it. He ought to have fallen ill with fever by now, but he hasn't." The little squiggles floated docilely next to the corpuscles.

"I believe it lies dormant until death occurs. Then, if the brain is intact, the zombification process begins. To fully test this, I'd need a person who has been infected by this virus, and has recently died of non-zombie causes. All we'd have to do is tie up the corpse or put it in a cage, then wait to see what happens. Bit of an ethical quandry there, obviously. But it would explain why that guard in the prison ward, the one that died of a heart attack, turned into a zombie, even without having been touched by one."

He gave Minion a grim look. "People don't stay dead any longer. Whenever someone dies, for any reason, the brain must be destroyed, or they will rise again."

"But, how did zombies appear? So many?"

"Simple, Minion. Someone killed them. They lay dead for a while, about four to six hours or so, the virus got to work, and boom, they rose as zombies. The soil samples from the prison grounds had extremely high levels of organophosphates. Nerve gas. Possibly sarin, or something equally nasty. A common ingredient in some nerve gases smells a lot like Vicks VapoRub, which one of the prisoners smelled. I could probably find out the location of ground zero, if I could spare any brainbots to take more soil samples. I'm not sure how important that is right now, other than to satisfy my own curiosity."

Minion backed away from the screen. "Are you saying, someone infected the city with this virus, and then set off a nerve gas to..."

"To jump start the zombification process, yes," he said grimly. "Most likely what happened in Bloomington and Louisville, too."

"But that's monstrous," Minion whispered.

Megamind felt his mouth tighten into a thin line. "Monstrous about sums it up. But as you can see, I told you it wasn't my destiny to become a zombie. Not to worry."

There was a creak of metal as Minion's hands dug into the edge of the table. His little face was screwed up and he seemed to be having some sort of internal struggle. Then he slumped within the containment unit and released his grip, leaving behind deep finger-shaped grooves. "Sorry about the table, Sir," he muttered. "But the next time you have something important to tell me, could you please, please, not talk about destiny? Get to the facts right away? I don't think my heart can take it."

Megamind sniffed. "I only meant to reassure you, Minion, but if you insist."


The days dragged by. It took over a week to pour the cement and get the wall built.

He returned to Miss Ritchi's place again and again, even though he'd left a brainbot permanently stationed there. He couldn't help but go look for himself.

He failed to get a hold of any of his contacts in the outside world. The frequency jamming was thorough, and incredibly effective. He wondered if the feds had designed it with the knowledge that they would be up against the evil genius of Metrocity.

He wasn't even sure who to contact, or how to make anyone believe that the terrible plague had evolved.

Or been deliberately altered. It was an unusual virus indeed to become less lethal. Maybe they already knew, and still believed a total quarantine was the best solution.

The city became a ghost town. People were in hiding. As fuel ran out, cars and trucks were abandoned. Only zombies wandered the streets freely, though sometimes Megamind spotted small groups of people moving quickly and furtively, scavenging.

He rescued more people, made refugees in their own city. He took time to pick up the dead, a sickening, depressing job. He brought refugees back to their homes, looking for their lost families.

He and Minion made time to return to the prison, and recovered all the bodies. Time had not improved matters. It was beyond unspeakable. He wore a hazmat suit, and the stench still made him gag.

He was never going to be able to eat pasta again. Or rice. Possibly any kind of meat. He had seen way too many intestines. Too many maggots.

Megamind noticed that Minion had become less affected by the corpses, seeming to be able to gather the pitiful scattered body parts with a quiet dignity that Megamind envied. Maybe Minion's predatory ancestry had helped him become immune to the sight of so much raw meat.

He brought along a generator so they could operate one of the computers, and downloaded the inmate and employee list. Some of the corpses were in such bad shape, especially the ones he'd blown up with the de-stroy feature, they might never be identified even with dental records.

He used the computer in the warden's office because... well, just because. Waiting for the download to finish up, he curled up on the floor in a corner, and stared out the window at the blue sky.

Minion pulled off the huge gloves, boots, and apron that protected his robot body from the gore, and stuffed them in his carryall. "Did you take the pictures?"

"What pictures?"

"The ones on the desk. There was one of you as a kid, one of his wife, and photos of Melanie and Sam, all grown up."

"Fell on the floor or something."

Minion leaned down to look under the desk. "I don't see them."

"Who the hell cares?" Megamind snapped, temper fraying. "Why are you so obsessed with these trivialities?"

Minion stuck out his toothy jaw. "He's my dad too," he said, looking away.

Megamind felt like a heel. The warden had adopted them both, but Minion had never given any sign that he cared one way or another. Probably because Megamind had always been so sneering and dismissive of the warden's efforts at parenting. This is my fault. Minion almost always follows my lead. Minion and the warden probably could have formed a closer bond if Megamind hadn't been such a brat about the whole thing. Instead, to demonstrate loyalty to his beloved brother and friend, Minion had kept his distance.

Megamind climbed to his feet. Minion tapped his fingertips together anxiously. "Um..."

Megamind held up his hand. "No, it's all right. Of course he is," he said gently. He rubbed the back of his neck and cleared his throat. "Now. So, then. You're sure they were on the desk last time we were here?"

"Positive."

They searched the office, but there was no sign of the photos.

It had to have been the warden. Who else would walk through a building full of corpses just to remove a few photographs?

Though they had just gone through the whole prison, Megamind ordered the brainbots to conduct a full scan of the entire grounds to search for any signs of life. He paced restlessly out into the hall and back in again. He didn't expect much, and he wasn't disappointed. The scan was negative.

Minion sniffled a little. "I... I kinda hoped..." His voice trailed away.

Megamind patted his arm. "If he was here, filet mignon, he's gone away again. He might still be alive. Or not. I can't..." He raised his hands and let them fall again. "We'll stop by his house again," he said wearily. "But don't expect much. I feel like..." He clamped his mouth shut, afraid to say the words. I feel like there's no hope left. For any of us.

He didn't know if it helped any, hope. But without hope, what was the point?

The brainbots set the charges. Megamind and Minion exchanged looks for a moment. He supposed he should say something. If ever there was a time for a grandiose speech, this was it, but he was not feeling it. He pressed the button.

They watched the explosions from a safe distance, as the walls of their childhood home crumbled into rubble, and a cloud of dust rose into the air. There went the offices, the dining hall, the single ultra-maximum security cell with its cheerful cartoon critters.

No one would ever use the prison again. He could just see it happening, the authorities repurposing it for business as usual. He would come back one day and see that a memorial was built over it.

Pebbles of rubble pattered around them and the tail ends of the shockwave rocked them slightly. It was over. Megamind began to turn the hoverbike, but Minion said, "Hey, look!"

A little green speck moved across the skyline. Megamind squinted at it suspiciously. "You, there. Fetch," he ordered a brainbot. "Gently."

They watched the brainbot fly away, becoming a speck itself. It swooped onto the first speck and snagged it. The brainbot darted back with a little robot clutched in its jaws, a drone with little propellers on the ends of its four arms, three of which were still whirring madly.

"A military drone. All right, my evil little cyborgs, listen up. Whenever you see one of these, bring it to Daddy, intact." He directed the brainbot to disable the other three propellers, then reached for it. "Let go, there's a good... let go!" Megamind yanked it away. The brainbots quivered expectantly, hoping he would let them attack the new toy. He waggled his finger at them. "Ah ah ah. Intact, little ones. If you are good, and bring in enough, I'll give you a few to play with later."

"Is it transmitting?"

"Probably not. That would mean they've stopped the frequency jamming, and I don't think they've stopped. It's collecting information. Looking to see how quickly we fall over dead, maybe." He frowned at the distant line of army vehicles, where there were little flurries of activity. The prison explosion had not gone unnoticed. Megamind made a few rude gestures at them before taking off.


A repeat visit to the warden's house proved both fruitless and maddening.

Because someone had been there, taken all the food from the kitchen and stuff from the bathroom, and carefully locked up the house again. If it wasn't the warden, it was the politest looter he'd ever seen. Megamind left a note, telling the warden to come to the Lair, and drew a map. For good measure, he spray painted "COME TO THE LAIR. MAP IN HOUSE" on the front and back doors.

It occurred to him, belatedly, guiltily, that they should check on the mental ward at Metro City General to see if they could find his wife. If she was still there. Poor Joyce. Neither he nor Minion had given her any thought, but they hadn't seen her in years. She had spent most of the last decade in and out of the hospital, suffering from clinical depression.

Metro City General was crawling with zombies. A scan of the hospital campus revealed no life forms larger than a rat.

He called up a larger squad of brainbots and went to more hospitals, knowing that if there were survivors, there would probably be an army of undead as well. But only at one did he find any survivors, four people who had been scavenging, gotten surrounded by zombies and trapped on the roof. As far as he could tell from the scattered bodies, a lot of doctors and nurses had perished trying to protect their patients.


People were so needy, for food, a change of clothes, toothpaste and toilet paper, and medicine, and on and on and on. They'd taken all the medications from the prison infirmary, something he should have done the first time, but the refrigerated ones, including the insulin, were, of course, ruined. He was still kicking himself for that.

In between excursions, he did what he could to train people on the guns and the hovercraft. He really needed to make more of those hovercrafts. Eventually he hoped some people would be capable enough of going into the city on their own, because they seriously needed more rescue groups.

It took a certain amount of shouting, but people managed to do their chores and show up for the lessons. Minion kept trying to get him to tone it down, but for God's sakes, he had to keep it up. No room for shirking.

The adults took turns looking after the few children. Doris was surprisingly helpful in that department.

He wished she would go back to being scared of him, though. She got into her head that he valued her input, and reported her disatisfaction with the Lair, the food, the lack of beds, and when was he going to do something about getting the TVs back on, she was missing her shows.

His pent-up reservoir of sarcasm overflowed. "Well, Doris. As soon as I reconfigure the antenna, increase the power levels of my transmitter to knock through the state-of-the-art jamming frequencies that are aimed at the city and appear to be configured precisely against my tech, which quite frankly I find very disturbing, then I can ask them to pretty please stop the quarantine, and then maybe they'll say 'well, all right, since you said please', and then they'll send in medical aid, fresh food, and candy bars, and let us watch the latest soaps again. In the meantime I'd like to concentrate on keeping everyone from getting eaten alive by the undead, starving to death, or getting dysentery. But I'll be sure to get right on your little project right after that. Will that be soon enough for you?"

She'd sniffed and looked down her nose at him. "That'll have to do."


The cube he'd stuck in his pocket fell out into a puddle, and that's how he met Hal Schtewart, who surprisingly turned out to be Roxanne's cameraman. His heart leaped with excitement, but his hopes were dashed. Hal didn't know where she was either.

The irritating little man turned out to be a real piece of work, too. That peeping tom! And Megamind even gave the scumbag another chance! After the second incident Megamind decided to stop being so fucking understanding and kicked the bum out. He wasn't going to stand for that shit. "Just looking" was never harmless. He'd been on the receiving end of leering, predatory looks when he was younger and more vulnerable.

No woman, man, or child would be subject to any kind of harassment in his Lair, not while he lived and breathed.


Every day brought some new horror, some new tragedy, bodies dismembered in strange ways. There were few children's corpses, even fewer child zombies. The smaller the child, the more likely they were to be devoured whole.

Megamind feared he was losing his mind, especially after what happened to Sandy's family. Her husband and two kids died in their house. The kids reanimated first, but weren't strong enough to get at the nearest available brain, so they fed on the soft tissue. When their daddy became a zombie, most of his face was gone.

Megamind could not let that poor woman see what had become of her husband and children. He killed the zombies right away, and dehydrated them. The photos on her smartphone was identification enough. There was no doubt these were her kids, but he had to take it on faith that the dead man was her husband. He showed her the wedding ring from his finger, and they had to assume that this was him.

She asked to see them. He hesitantly said he didn't think that was a good idea, and explained, a little, why it was so. She wept and thanked him, actually thanked him, which was worse than if she'd shouted at him.

She had a surprising request, though. She didn't want them cremated. "I want you to keep them in that morgue of yours. So you can show them. Show them what they did."

He didn't ask who she meant by 'them.' Whoever was responsible.

The images of that man and his children were burned into his memory. He tried to continue on as before. There was so, so, so much to do, but he couldn't get out of bed. Despair anchored him to the mattress. He stayed in bed for two days. Fully dressed. It wasn't very comfortable. The mantle made his shoulders and neck stiff, the spikes dug into him, the belt chafed, but it was all right. He didn't deserve comfort.

Ghosts emerged from the shadows and stood silently in the corners. The dead, with holes that he himself had shot into their heads, stripped of flesh.

He deserved their recrimination. Was he doing any good at all? His city was dying. His citizens were dying. He could no longer dismiss them as faceless drones. These needy, irritating, frightened people.

Roxanne, Roxanne, where could she be? He wondered if Metro Man had snuck in and whisked her away. He didn't believe for a second that she would have left of her own accord, but it was possible Metro Man might have defied the authorities and stolen her away in secret, in spite of her objections.

Megamind hoped so. At least she'd be alive. Or had she perished in pain and terror, as so many others had?

He was so selfish. So many were in need and he couldn't do anything but lie there like a lump, heart breaking for Roxanne, and wishing he was dead. Fifty-seven he'd taken in, and a few hundred more living souls still stuck away in the storage unit, awaiting rehydration, but he dreaded adding more to the Lair with food in short supply, and the facilities barely adequate. He was letting everyone down. He was letting Minion down. The tidal wave of need was too great. He was drowning.

Minion came in about halfway through the second day, and sat down on the floor next to the bed. Megamind pulled a pillow over his head.

"Oh, good. You're alive. So, uh, we almost got the new bathrooms built. Want to come see?"

Megamind tightened his lips. It was hot under there, but he wasn't coming out.

Metal squeaked as Minion shifted his weight. "Stalls, individual showers, ten sinks each. Could even get the water turned on tonight, if we work on it after supper."

Megamind felt the blankets being tugged away. He snatched them back, but Minion tsk-ed. "You didn't even get undressed? When's the last time you changed your clothes?"

"I changed," Megamind muttered, burrowing in deeper.

"When, last week?" Minion started poking him in the arm. And kept poking.

"God damn it, knock it off!" Megamind shouted, clobbering him with the pillow. Minion grabbed it on the next swing and wrenched it away. He grabbed Megamind, scooped him up, and carried him out. "Time to get up," the hendchfish said almost cheerfully.

Megamind was so shocked he couldn't move for a second, then he began kicking and fighting for all he was worth. Minion anticipated his attempt to hit the override button on the robot suit's chest and seized his wrist before Megamind could punch it, in a gentle, unbreakable grip.

"This is mutiny!" Megamind hissed, craning his neck around. As soon as Minion got around the next set of shelving, they'd be in the main refugee hangout, and everyone would see Minion carrying him around as if he was an invalid. "Let me go, or else I'll..."

Abruptly Minion stopped and set him on his feet. "This is close enough. Take a look."

Megamind took a moment to straighten his collar, and his lightning bolt, giving Minion the Glare of Extreme Death. Minion crossed his arms and gave a little nod toward the refugees. "Go on," he said. "Look."

Oh, fuck this. Trying to play on his heartstrings? Scowling, Megamind peered around the corner.

People stood around chatting, or folded clothes, or wandered about on small errands. Two of the men that had been working on the new bathrooms were talking over a set of blueprints. One of them walked away, saying. "I better sweep. Almost time to put the blankets down again."

"Yeah, don't wanna get dehydrated." They chuckled.

Actually chuckled. Megamind wasn't sure if he should be angry about that or not. Did his threats carry no weight? Well, it was Upton's turn to sweep the main floor, and he was, in fact, doing it.

One of the kids was pretending to be a zombie. Doris's youngest granddaughter screamed and hid her face. Another boy clobbered the 'zombie.' "Quit it, you jerk! You're scaring her!"

Megamind looked up at the sound of the elevator. Three people brought it to the main floor, and stepped off it. "There any more hoses? We should ask Minion," one woman said.

Megamind frowned. "What were they doing on the roof?"

"Setting up a hydroponic garden."

Megamind nodded, slowly and reluctantly. "That was a good idea," he muttered.

"We can make a greenhouse, too."

"One greenhouse? For the number of people that we'll be bringing in, it'll take more than that. What am I supposed to do, rip up the streets and start plowing?" He bristled at the prospect of yet more tiresome tasks, but now his mind was working. "Have they started anything yet?"

"Some tomato and lettuce seeds."

"Is that all? If the average person needs 2,000 calories a day, it's going to take a hell of lot more!"

"Well, it's sort of a test run, to see..."

"No no no, no time for that, there's hardly any growing season left, barely two months, three if September is unseasonably warm. Potatoes are the best bet. They're slow-growing, but they're dense and filling and a fairly decent source of most nutrients, even protein, even vitamin C. Entire populations have been built on potatoes."

And fallen, as well. He chewed his thumbnail. They'd need to find as many varieties as possible, which might be difficult, but the city's nurseries would probably have a few rarer ones in stock.

He gave Minion a suspicious look. He was sure Minion had been grinning a second ago, but now the henchfish was gazing stoically into the distance.

Megamind looked at the refugees again. Normal people doing semi-normal things, as normal as they could, in the strangeness of his Lair.

"I don't know if we're doing any good at all, filet mignon. If any of it matters."

Minion waved his hand. "It matters, Sir. It matters to them. That night we started the mission? I was so proud of you, Sir. For sticking by the city. We can make this work. We can do it." Minion touched his back. "I know you miss her, Sir, I do, too. If you want to..."

A black wave of despair rose up within him and he jerked away. "Don't," he whispered. He choked on the words. Images of Roxanne had haunted him, the memory of her last broadcast, when he did not go to her immediately as he should have...

Minion hovered, hand still upraised. "I-I'm sorry, Sir, I thought it would help to talk..."

He shook his head violently, swayed and clenched his fists, and fought back the darkness. He was a hearbeat away from breaking, from curling up on the floor and weeping. He took a few breaths, and gradually the pain loosened its grip on his chest. "I thank you, Minion, but please don't. I just. Can't talk about her right now. Otherwise I'll crawl right back into that bed again and never come out."

He glanced at Minion, and away again. He took a deep breath. "Undo all your hard work of getting me out of it," he said, in an almost casual voice. He clutched the edge of his torn cape. "Someday, we can talk. But not right now."

Minion put his hand around Megamind's shoulder and Megamind leaned into him. Minion pressed his containment unit against the side of Megamind's head and they stood in silence, reaffirming their bond and their unspoken pain, knowing that despite the grief and loss, they still had each other.


He went to do some work in the lab, to see if he could replicate one of Doris's heart medications. But he kept thinking about how to get more people to safety, and how many he could squeeze onto the peninsula. He'd have to expand his territory onto the mainland and build more walls to keep the zombies out. Maybe dig a trench...his vision kept blurring, and at last he lay his head down to rest his eyes.

Minion shook him, jostling him awake. Megamind tugged his cheek off the lab table, leaving behind a puddle of drool.

"Sir, you have got to see this!" he shouted in his ear, and rushed to the door. "Come on, hurry!"

Megamind staggered off the stool, dragging his wrist over his face. "So what is it, fire, blood, or zombies?" A terrible thought loomed. "Irina's not in labor, is she?" It was two months too soon, what would they do if...

"No, she's all right, but you gotta come see. Hurry!"

Grumbling, and feeling like a large fluffy towel had replaced his brain, Megamind plodded after him. His mouth had a horrible cottonball taste, and his face was scratchy with three days' worth of stubble. Minion danced ahead and led the way to the monitors, though he kept looking back, an excited grin splitting his face.

The refugees were talking in excited little clusters. They stepped back from Megamind's scowl.

He growled, "Don't see what's so important that I have to get dragged out of my lab, you've been nagging me to get more sleep, and I finally start getting more sleep, and then you come bursting in, yammering some nonsense, I don't see what's so..."

Minion's broad back moved out of his line of vision.

Megamind froze with a gasp.

Roxanne Ritchi was on the screens. Alive alive alive.