"Well, it's a good thing we aren't building a rocket, isn't it?"
The bag Minion carried in from the car contained gifts from Uncle Billy Bob: venison sausage from a deer he'd shot several months ago, and eggs from Darlene's backyard flock. The sausage had thawed while they drove home and Minion was now making an afternoon breakfast. Roxanne and Megamind sat at the lair's kitchen table, enjoying the delectable smells. She had just filled him in on the conversation with Metro Man.
"How can you go into space without a rocket?"
"Rocketry is the way NASA does it because they don't have the antigravity technology, or the robotics, to send up the parts and do the assembly in orbit. We had been assembling a weapon up there, to use on Metro Mahn. Now we'll be cannibalizing it to build our starship. On the last day, we'll each get into a little sealed compartment and let the brainbots haul us up there. The only thing we need to do to stop Wayne from interfering is to disguise everything. Perhaps," he put his hands together in front of him, the fingers spread wide, "we'll create a fictional weather research project that will be releasing several large balloons from a local roof every day. He can search in vain for a disguised rocketry project. Actually, we can use real balloons for the first leg of the journey. The brainbots can recharge at the Death Ray and pick them up when they get to the top of their range."
"Death Ray?"
"Oh, that's the orbiting weapon. It's actually a giant version of the Destroy setting on my ray gun, but I decided to call it the Death Ray for reasons of style. It's turned out to be very convenient that we've got an orbiting platform in place, with batteries that have been charging for months. Won't have to worry about getting fuel up there. It will also allow us to send a message ahead of ourselves, to let them know we're coming. Mainly to let them know you're coming. Even if the message arrives only a few days before we do, that will give everyone a little time to get used to the idea of you being part of the package, so to speak."
Minion set a plate of fried sausage and a plate of scrambled eggs in the middle of the table, then sat on a low stool on one side. It was just the right height to put his face at the same level as theirs. Three places were already set. They helped themselves and dug in.
Roxanne took one bite of the sausage, then stared at her fork. "What seasonings does your uncle use in this?"
Minion answered. "Poultry seasoning, basically, with a little extra pepper and a dash of Worcestershire sauce."
"Ever have venison before?" Megamind asked.
"Yeah. I've had it in restaurants, but it wasn't like this."
"Restaurant venison has been fed cattle feed, so it tastes almost like beef. Uncle Billy Bob makes a big deal of the superiority of wild venison which has browsed the woodlands."
"Yeah, that's how it tastes: wild."
"Wild food, or crops only a few decades removed from the wild, are most of the diet on our destination world."
She thought about that as she started chewing again. "You know, it's funny how certain things that are obvious never cross my mind until they're right in my face. I'm just now realizing that, once we go, I'll probably never have American food again."
"Not necessarily," Minion responded, raising a steel finger. "I've been collecting a few species to bring along: seeds, bread yeast, mushroom spores. I've ordered fertile coffee beans. I'm trying to talk the boss into adding a module for a flock of chickens, but he's not sure how well they'd do in zero gee. Plus dried seasonings and stuff, just enough to kind of fake American flavors using their plants and meats. Plus basic recipes."
"Wow. You're gonna be a regular Johnny Appleseed, aren't you?"
"Hey, that's what pioneers do, isn't it? They know they're not coming back, so they bring as much good stuff from their old life as they can."
"But I'm surprised you aren't going to just dehydrate the chickens. In fact, why aren't you bringing dehydrated cattle and pigs, too?"
Megamind answered. "Dehydration only works in a decent gravitational field. We found that out when we first started building the Death Ray. When we got to about one twentieth gee, they popped right back out into their original form. So bringing any animal species will require building a habitat for them, and bringing supplies, not just for the journey, but for the time afterward while we're trying to figure out how to keep them alive on the fodder of our destination world. Which we might not be able to do. I will miss coffee with cream, but not so much that I'm willing to quadruple our preparation time while we work out the details of livestock maintenance."
"Well, what about just bringing a couple of big coolers full of frozen meat and milk and stuff? We'll thaw it out and feed it to people and they can decide whether it's worth building habitats and making the twenty year round trip for seed stock."
"You're absolutely right. Minion, why didn't we think of that?"
Minion shrugged.
When the meal was over, as brainbots lifted away their dishes, Megamind said "I've worked out how we can be legally married without my being immediately arrested. Minion! On my marco." They both stood and touched their wrists. Megamind had a watch there; Minion just had a button built into his suit. "Marco..."
"Polo," said the fish. Their outlines blurred into vague bluish shapes, then reformed... different. Two men now stood before her. Two human men. Megamind was still short and thin, with black curly hair and a "black Irish" complexion, very pale with the blue veins showing through. He was wearing a tuxedo with a sapphire stud fastening the shirt collar. Minion was a little less tall than in his true form, tanned and athletic-looking, with a blond crew cut. He was in a navy blue business suit. Roxanne gaped in astonishment. "And look," continued her fiancé, galloping to a drawer. "Picture IDs." He pulled out two completely official-looking driver's licenses and showed them to her. The one with the photo that matched Minion's disguise gave his name as Ronald Waterman. The other had Megamind's disguise in the photo and his legal name, John Smith.
"This is amazing," she said, "but everyone knows that's your name."
"Everyone in Metrocity, you mean. I was thinking we'd take the Evil Jetboat to Wolf Lake."
Indiana, which does not require a waiting period between the issuing of a marriage license and the wedding, adjoins two states that do have waiting periods, Michigan and Illinois. A few Indiana jurisdictions have taken advantage of this legal disparity to develop "quickie wedding" industries similar to the one in Las Vegas, and none catered more enthusiastically to impatient couples than the dying industrial town of Wolf Lake, just across the state line from greater Chicago. In addition to a 24-hour county clerk's office and a medical testing lab that would do the required blood test in fifteen minutes, there were several chapels for tying the knot, hotels for consummating the union, and nightclubs for celebrating, featuring a variety of musical styles, all in a few lakefront blocks. It was perfect: they could be wed in style while being anonymous in a crowd of couples, and it was close enough to home that they could be back by morning with no one the wiser.
That was when she realized that Megamind intended for them to do this tonight. She asked for a little privacy with her fiancé, saying that she had something very private to tell him. Minion immediately announced that he had to go look for something downstairs and disappeared.
"Listen, sweetie," she said as soon as they were alone. "There's something you should know. These," she gestured at her bosom, "are falsies. I'm really only an A cup."
"Oh, that. Yes, we know that."
"Really? They're top of the line. I was told when I bought them that they'd be undetectable."
"To the eye, yes, but after the third or fourth kidnapping, we started to worry that you'd take to wearing a transmitter, so we installed a scanner in the back seat of the Invisible Car to detect anything concealed in your clothing. That's when found the, er, falsies. But since we're giving advance notice, did you observe, when you watched the message, how the men were, er, endowed?"
"Yeah, I did." It had looked like the penises had no shafts at all, just the heads coming directly out from the torsos. "I assume that it, ah, grows?"
"Oh, yes. Once aroused, I am indistinguishable from a human male in the dark."
She smiled at that, and moved closer. "Unless somebody touches your head." He still had the disguise generator turned on. She pressed close, put her hand up to the black curls, and her expression changed to surprise. "This feels like real hair. How'd you do that?"
"Manipulation of the object-environment space-time interface. It's basically shapeshifting."
"Huh. Well, can you feel it when I do this?" She ran her fingers through his hair as she spoke.
"I feel a strange tickling sensation on my scalp, which I rather like, probably because it's you doing it." He leaned in to kiss her, but she held back.
"Could you shut that thing off so I can kiss the real you?"