On her way down from her shower after an afternoon tryst with Megamind— ever since Olivia's arrival they had strictly limited their amorous activities to their bedchambers— Roxanne could hear her blue boyfriend in the schoolroom singing with their new charge. "The metatarsals are connected to the tarsals! The tarsals are connected to the fibia! The fibia's connected to the tibia!…"
She shook her head, feeling a wry smile on her face. Their little girl was becoming an encyclopedia of knowledge under his tutelage. By the time she got back to her regular school, the teachers weren't going to know what to do with her.
She stopped suddenly, realizing what she'd just thought. Their little girl. When had she started to think of Olivia as her own?
Stupid biological clock and maternal hormones, one side of her mind practically groaned.
Well, what of it? the other side asked. If he intends to adopt her, and I intend to stay with him, then there's no sense in pretending otherwise.
Despite her assurances, she couldn't quite convince herself. The issue, she realized, was that having a child around wasn't the issue, not exactly. It was more a culmination of, well, everything. She loved Megamind, and she was happy to be with him, but... Between the sudden responsibility for a child, her safety-induced relocation to the Lair, and the constant threat posed by Ares, Roxanne was starting to feel as if her life had spiraled well and truly out of her control. Lately, the unreasonably panicked conviction had been growing inside her that if she didn't regain some measure of self-mastery, her entire existence was going to crash and burn.
Breathe, she reminded herself. Breathe. You're fine, everything's fine, just take one step after the other.
Downstairs, she found Minion watching the monitors for any disturbance while brainbots went about whatever task their master had set them.
"Good afternoon, Miss Ritchi! Lunch is a little simple today. We're just going to call it European. There are baguettes, cheese, fruit, pastries, prosciutto, and coffee on the table." At Roxanne's insistence, the occasions when their schedules demanded that lunches become more like a snack bar, the menu had been extended to include something other than sweets. It wasn't only her health she was worried about; while it was clear Megamind needed more sugar than most people, no one should consume an entire pecan pie and three danishes in a single sitting.
That wasn't the part of the list her mind was focusing on at the moment, however.
Oh, thank God. Coffee. That was what today needed. Roxanne had long been half-convinced that coffee could cure nearly any ill. Except cancer. And caffeine addiction.
"Hello, Minion," she answered. "I hope you know that making afternoon coffee makes you my new hero."
"Don't tell Sir that!" the fish laughed.
"Why not? Maybe then he'll actually make the coffee now and again."
Minion shuddered. "Miss Ritchi, please believe me when I tell you that you really, really do not want that to happen."
Roxanne guffawed—See? she told herself. You can laugh so everything is okay— and poured herself a cup. This one bore the legend: "I Drink Coffee for Your Safety." She retrieved creamer out of the mini-fridge under the table and added a small spoonful of sugar.
"Quiet day so far?" she asked, taking the first blessed sip.
"So far, so good!" Was that a slight hesitation in his voice?
"Anything I can help with today?"
"Ah, well, he wants you to make out a list of any personal items you need. I'm going shopping later,"
"I can do that." She took another sip. "Do you remember anything specific about the Little Gifted School?"
He turned in his tank to face her. "Yes. I remember it was terrible."
"Anything else? Did anyone ever visit it?"
He thought. "No, no one ever did."
"Were there any field trips?"
"Not during the short time we were there, Miss Ritchi," he answered. "But then we were only there for a little over two months, as I mentioned before. There may have been field trips planned for later in the year, though I doubt we would have been able to go. We were considered inmates, after all."
She nodded, trying not to let her suspicion show on her face. Minion was being even more communicative than usual– almost as if he was glad for something to talk about. Almost as if he was glad for any subject other than… what exactly?"
"So," she asked, aiming for casual. "Other than shopping, what's on the agenda for today?"
"I think Sir wants to give you another lesson in flying your hoverbike. Other than that I believe he has some business."
Was that it? Was something else going wrong in the criminal underworld? Was it the Dragons again, or a new threat? No, Megamind had shared all such information with her since she'd moved in. In fact, there was only one person he seemed to feel she needed protecting from…
Minion was eyeing her. "You don't look very happy."
"I'm just worried," she said, hoping she could wheedle more information. "It's been two weeks and Ares still hasn't made his move. What if Megamind's wrong? What if he's figured out a way to bypass the trackers?"
"Have you… um… talked to Sir much today?"
"Not really, outside of training and, um… Well, not really about the case. We haven't... had time." Or rather, in what little time they had had, they had been too distracted.
"Maybe you should," Minion wasn't meeting her eye.
She gave him a long look. "Minion, if you know something, I want you to tell me."
"But, Miss Ritchi—"
She held up a hand to forestall him. "I'm Megamind's lover. I live with him. We're working together on this case as a team, and he's shared a lot of his secrets with me. We are actually considering adopting a daughter together. I think that qualifies me as the Lady of the House, don't you?"
"Y– Yes Ma'am, I suppose it does."
"Well, then," Roxanne forced her voice to remain authoritative. God, she hated herself for doing this. "As Lady of the House, I am commanding you to tell me what you know."
"Um," he fiddled his mechanical fingers, looking miserable. "You know Sir has been working on a new tracking system that scans for unusual disruptions or anomalies in UHC and VHF waves?"
"He mentioned it. He's basically trying to track the jammers themselves rather than the tracker," she couldn't help but smile. "That man really is a genius. I mean, it's seemed so obvious once he told me, but I never even thought about it." She regarded Minion. "Am I to take it that he's had some success? Last I heard he was getting too many results."
The device Megamind had built had turned out to be too sensitive and kept registering everything from police scanners to CB radios to communications from passing airplanes. Even an electrical storm had triggered it. The trick, her blue lover had explained, was finding a way to make it sensitive enough to pick up the "disturbance in the Force," as he'd playfully called it, but also specific enough not to register everything else. The problem was that it was difficult when he wasn't sure which frequency changes characterized the target radio wave anomaly. And, of course, if he had known exactly what he was looking for, he wouldn't have needed the new tracking system in the first place.
Minion seemed to relax a little. "Oh, he has, Miss Ritchi! It's worked! He's been refining it to look for specific types of disruptions for a while. Granted, even when he figured that part out he was still getting a lot of readings—I had no idea so many people in this city had jammers!—but last night it finally paid off. We've found Ares!"
"What?! We've found him? We've caught him?!" She was stunned. How could Megamind have kept this from her?!
"No, I'm afraid not, Miss Ritchi," the aquatic sidekick looked glum. "We've found his current location, but he's been busy. There were a lot of oddly shaped objects stacked around his bed in the motel, with a lot of wires running to the nightstand. There were a lot of other unusual items, too– large bags, crates of bottles– and Sir managed to enlarge and enhance the images well enough for a good view."
"Let me guess: bomb-making materials."
Minion bobbed up and down in a fishy nod, his sharp jaws pulled into a frown. "Bags of fertilizer, bottles acetone and nitric acid… Judging from the trash bags waiting to be taken out, he's already put a lot of similar material to use elsewhere, but he's kept plenty for himself. Sir says there are enough explosives in that room to blow up the whole block."
"And Ares must be desperate enough to blow himself up with it," she sank into a chair. "Oh, God, Minion, do you know what this means?"
"That we can't reach him even though we've found him?"
"No. I mean, yes, but beyond that," she felt sick. "We already know the Dragons weren't the only ones helping him. Someone has to have been bringing him supplies, which means that same person could be taking finished bombs back out. It's been two weeks. Who knows how many of those things he's had planted around the city?"
Minion looked utterly horrified.
Roxanne continued, shaking her head in disbelief. "And now our only hope for stopping Ares is upstairs teaching a little girl about the skeletal system?! Is he crazy?!"
"Of course not!" Minion, bless him, actually sounded defensive. "When Sir can't find a solution, he focuses on something completely different and just lets the inner workings of his mind do their thing. I know it seems counterproductive, but this is how he's come up with some of his best plans. Believe me, Miss Ritchi, he's worried. And even if it doesn't seem like it, he's working on it right now."
"You're right, Minion. I'm sorry. That was way out of line. I know he does his best for this town. I guess I just panicked. But even so, I've got to talk to Megamind," Roxanne jumped up. "We've got to figure this out before it's too late. And I think I have an idea."
"Of course, of course!" Megamind ran an agitated hand over his bald head. He'd left Olivia in the schoolroom working on a set of math problems, and joined Minion and Roxanne in the workroom for an impromptu war council. "You're right, Love! It's obvious, now that you say it! Ares has to have some reason for creating explosives beyond his initial target—otherwise, he would have simply detonated that one and been done—which means there is another goal here we're not seeing! That's the key!" he turned and began searching through the hanging notes of an idea cloud. "That's what we need to make this all make sense!"
"The question is, how many bombs could he have created in two weeks?" asked Minion.
"Ammonium nitrate and pentaerythritol tetranitrate both take time to refine, especially under imperfect conditions, and— What? Roxanne, this is hardly funny!"
"I'm sorry," she managed between giggles. "I'm really sorry, I think it's the stress… It's just… You can pronounce pentaerythritol tetranitrate but the word school gives you trouble?!"
His mouth quirked wryly to one side, but something else flashed deep his eyes for the briefest second. Was that hurt? Roxanne struggled vainly against her inane, panicked humor.
"I'm sorry… It's really not you..." she tried to explain.
"I happen to pronounce shool exactly as suggested in Crawdrey's A Table Alphabeticall!" the blue hero sniffed. "But that's not important—"
"That's… That's from the early seventeenth century!" Roxanne interjected. Another hysterical laugh bubbled like indigestion. "I'm really, really, sorry," she gasped. "I'm not making fun of you… I'm not… Everything, all of this, is just getting to me… Six weeks ago I had a normal life and a normal job and a normal apartment… Now I live with a former supervillain, and a psycho killer might blow the entire city to pieces because we're hiding his daughter upstairs… and I love it… I love being here with you, unexpected motherhood and mad murder bomber and all… And that sounds so utterly insane that… I just… I feel like… Like if I don't laugh I'm going to cry…"
Megamind studied her for a moment, and then, to his credit, subdued whatever irritation he felt with a deep breath. He focused on her, his expression a blend of tenderness and playful mischief that was all his own. "Shool," he said pointedly. "Spee-ider. Mellun-calia. La-sag-nah," he ducked his head a little to let her see his wry smile more clearly. "Ape-art-ment. Booty-flees."
"Booty-flees?" her stomach was aching with laughter now; pure, humorous laughter without the sour edge.
"Yes, you know, flying insects with colorful wings. Bee-ooty-ful booty-flees!"
It was silly, it was absurd, and it was the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her. The tears in her eyes were no longer from mirth alone as she considered how much this gesture must cost him. Megamind. Her Megamind. He was the Defender of the city and the most feared and respected person in the criminal underworld; a man who cultivated his reputation like a garden and harbored secret, aching self-consciousness over his lack of formal education. This was the smartest being on Earth, who, despite that fact, had seen his incredible abilities too often overlooked and had spent too many of his boyhood years as the butt of everyone's jokes. Yet here he was, encouraging her to laugh at him because he didn't want her to weep. She threw her arms around him, planting kisses all over his face.
"I love you," she said between laughing sobs. "I love you, and I love the way you pronounce things. I love everything that makes you yourself. Don't change, Megamind. Never ever change. You're perfect exactly the way you are."
"I love you, too." he crushed her to him, pressing a kiss into her forehead, and lingering to smell her hair. "And I'm here with you. We will get through this together, alright? Now, I need you to take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. That's my girl. Do it again for me. And again. Are you feeling better?"
She nodded. "I really am sorry. I didn't mean… I never want to hurt you."
"I understand," he leaned his forehead against hers. "I'm not upset. I think the pressure is getting to all of us a little, but you're new to this sort of thing, so you're feeling the strain more. I should have realized sooner, but, honesty," he smiled warmly. "You're so accomplished at dealing with anything thrown at you that I sometimes forget this isn't all," his smile shifted to a teasing grin, "elderly headpiece for you."
"I really do love the way you say things," she chuckled, reaching up to run her fingers along his jaw, down the patch of black hair on his chin. "Even when you do it on purpose. It makes you special, unique, and I adore that about you. I love being here with you. You are my home. And I want to stay," she leaned her head on his shoulder. "Please let me stay."
"Sweetheart, of course you can stay," he gave an incredulous chuckle. "I want you here with me, but only if that's what you want, too."
"I do. I really, really do."
He lifted her face with a gentle hand on her chin, and she could feel his smile against her lips as he kissed her. Then he pulled her to stand beside him, one arm still wrapped around her waist so that they both faced Minion, who was busying himself with the thought clouds of hanging notes, trying desperately to give them a modicum of privacy.
Roxanne reached out to him, wordlessly flexing her hand, and Minion assented to her unspoken request by gently closing his robotic fingers around hers.
"Thank you for becoming my family," she said.
If a fish could have blushed, Minion probably would have.
"We wouldn't want you anywhere else, right, Sir?"
"Absolutely." Megamind pressed Roxanne a little closer to his side. His tone became serious. "Ares is planning something big. We need a plan," he said, looking at his two companions.
"What's your estimate on how many he could have made?" Roxanne asked.
"And how much time have we got?" added Minion.
"Ares is good, but he's also wounded, and he didn't have a full lab kit. I would say ten or twelve. There were four large bombs in the room with him, along with several sticks of dynamite—enough to destroy that building and more besides."
"That leaves six or eight unaccounted for," Minion said.
Roxanne's mind was racing with an idea. "Megamind, Ares isn't one of the children of Cronos in Greek myth, more like a grandson, right?"
"Yes."
"And how many children is Cronos supposed to have had?"
"Six. What are you thinking, Love?"
"I meant what I said before when I was, you know, having complete hysterics. Sweetheart," she added when Megamind opened his mouth to protest. "That was one-hundred-percent pure, unadulterated, grade A quality hysterics, and I know it. Let me call it what it was."
"Alright, fine, but only if we agree they were excusable hysterics. Now, what is that beautiful mind of yours thinking?"
"I think this is connected to Olivia; it's the only thing that makes sense given the timeline and his sudden shift from focusing on his actual target. Six children of Cronos plus the god of war makes seven, and Olivia is seven years old."
"And Ares can hardly be targeting a single kill with several bombs, but he might be planning to use them as a threat to get his daughter back! Brilliant! It fits, and it's just the sort of thing he likes to work into his plots! You're a genius, Roxanne!" Megamind began typing on one of the keyboards. "Ares likes symbolism, and he likes his kills to tie into something significant to him! I need a list of everything in this city that might be linked to one of the children of Cronos or the god Ares!"
"The Classical Art exhibit at the museum might be one location," Minion suggested.
Roxanne nodded. "He might also target things tied to what each god represents, like the War Memorial for Ares."
"Excellent! Let's start building a list of possible locations! Brainbots!" he shouted, and a swarm of cyborgs obediently gathered to hover before him. "First new objectives, high priority status: search all databases for locations in Metrocity relating directly or indirectly to Greek myths! Search parameters: Children of Cronos and/or God of War! Second new objective, high priority status: search the entire city for any suspicious or out of place objects! Scan for explosive materials and report back immediately!" The blue man dug out his cell phone and dialed. "Simmons, I need you to get a team looking for any suspicious objects found in public places. Call me as soon as they find anything. Don't do anything else, just call me..."