Mind Over Matter - Chapter 2
Rating: G
Summary: A day of spring cleaning yields an exciting discovery.
Notes: Chapter two is here, and it brings with it general fluff and technobabble. Thanks Avaaricious for your useful insight! To everyone else: Enjoy!
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Cleaning out the lair was taking far longer than Megamind expected. What was supposed to only take a couple days was turning into a week-long extravaganza. He was seriously impressed by his own hoarding capabilities. Good thing all was quiet on the crime-fighting scene, otherwise the constant interruptions would have hampered his attempts to decipher his old notes and reorganize and dispose of old materials as needed. He was looking at one such old note, hastily scribbled on a piece of newspaper, when he heard a knock. Roxanne was at the entrance to his work area, two cups of coffee in hand.
"I made some extra for you, if you needed more." She walked over and replaced the empty mug that Megamind had set aside on a deactivated console.
He smiled in appreciation. "There's always room for more coffee." He turned his attention back to the scrap of paper in hand, flipping it over to see if there was anything on the opposite side that would yield any clues as to what it was for.
Roxie gestured toward it, settling herself in a chair nearby. "What's that you've got there?" She could see that her husband was currently rooting around in a cardboard box full of mismatched papers, not unlike the kind that she once assembled in her apartment in her attempt to unravel Megamind's plot to create a new hero. She could even see strings still attached to some of them as the blue alien pulled them out piece by piece.
"Old plans." He shuffled through them, his prominent brow furrowed. "Minion must have thrown them into this box after one of my evil plans failed and I was being carted back to prison for one of my many life-sentences." He handed a couple of sheets to Roxanne to show her what he was talking about while he continued to dig deeper into the box.
His wife held up an old crumpled carbon copy of an acquisition form, trying to determine what the blueprint on the back was written in. "Is this... jelly?" It was royal red and sticky to the touch.
A hand snatched the blueprint out of her grip, and Megamind held the paper up to his mouth and licked it. He thought for a second. "Jam," he decided, "Strawberry jam." The paper was handed back to her.
Shaking her head in amusement, Roxanne watched as he pulled the entire pile of notes out of the box in an agitated fashion, spreading them out on the floor to get a better look at them. "Hmm." His voice was low, lost in thought.
"Hmm, what?" Perhaps she could help her significant other.
Megamind looked over at her, holding up the piece of newspaper. "I'm trying to figure out what 1.47 means."
The writing wasn't the clearest, and Roxanne squinted at it, trying to see if the numbers rang a bell with her. "Are you sure that's even a point?" she suggested.
Rolling his eyes, Megamind threw the piece of paper into another cardboard box serving as his 'sort through later' bin. "I have no idea. It all makes sense when I initially write it and it's incorporated into my idea wall." A wave of the hand indicated the current collage hanging in the lair. It was seemingly a cacophony of colorful chaos, but Roxanne knew there was an undercurrent of logic to it. "I really need to find a better filing system," lamented the hero.
"Did you ever consider putting your ideas in digital format?" she asked casually while sifting through various drawings, appreciating the details that were so minute and meticulous. His response that involved some explanation about how his brainstorm sessions worked faded to the background when a particular blueprint caught her attention. "Honey, what's the illiteracy beam?" The notes that accompanied the sketch weren't making any sense to her, and the name for the device was intriguing.
"What?" Roxanne's change of subject momentarily caught Megamind off guard, but when he saw what she was pointing to, his eyes brightened. "Ah, the illiteracy beam! Yes! It was on the list for my next big evil plan before, you know…" There was no need to explain, and he sidestepped the subject. "Shame, really. It would have been my piece of resistance." He caressed the page with obvious fondness.
She was certain he meant pièce de résistance, and opened her mouth to say so, but decided against it. "How do you go about making people illiterate, anyway? Sounds complicated."
"Oh, it is." He smirked at her, pride behind his words. She leaned forward, waiting to hear the explanation. He was about to indulge her when the sound of mechanized limbs floated around the corner, followed closely by Minion, carrying a grocery bag full of various sugary things. "There you are, Minion!"
The fish bobbed in his illuminated tank that served for the robotic body's head. "I'm sorry that I took longer than expected, sir, but I had to head to the Super Mart on the other side of the expressway to find what you asked for." He removed a small package from the paper sack and handed it over to his ward, who took the proffered item greedily.
"MoonPies!" Megamind exclaimed, ripping open the plastic cover and biting into the marshmallow-y treat with fervor, offering a bite to Roxanne, who shook her head. "But it's banana flavor…" He cooed, as if he were coaxing a toddler with a spoonful of mush. When she didn't budge, he shrugged and proceeded to cram the rest of it in his mouth. "Min-yom," he mumbled through the food, finally swallowing and wiping the crumbs from his fingers, "Roxanne just asked me about the illiteracy beam."
Minion set the grocery bag down next to the now-cooling cup of coffee. "Yes, I remember that plan. I even started on the prototype for you, sir, if you remember." A number of discarded devices that he had worked on lay in a storage room at the far end of the warehouse. The guardian never liked to throw anything away prematurely, just in case Megamind suddenly had need of it. Minion hurried off in the direction of this room, eager to retrieve the piece of machinery in question.
Megamind explained the technicals while Roxie and he waited for Minion to return. "It's easy enough to target and destroy the Wernicke's area, which is responsible for language and text comprehension." He lifted a finger and tapped Roxanne on the back of her head, indicating the section of the brain he was referring to. "But that would have been entirely inconvenient. The Wernicke's area also is responsible for speech comprehension, and if I had employed such a method and goodness forbid, the device malfunctioned to affect a broad area of the population, it would be nearly impossible to reverse the damage and I would have to be content ruling a city full of frustrated babblers."
Roxanne laughed lightly at the image of a modern-day Tower of Babel, Megamind in the middle of all of the confusion. Megamind continued, "I had to find a way to alter the brain to cause illiteracy, but not damage the speech. I also had to find a way to reverse it, just in case Metro Man interfered in such a way that I got caught in the crossbeam, which, as you know, was very likely." He grimaced at some old memory of a thwarted plan that had gone particularly wrong.
This is a roundabout way of achieving the goal," he added, gesturing to an illustration on his blueprint. "Pattern and symbol recognition. Your brain stores information on the patterns for words and letters in semantic networks scattered throughout, so there is no one area that stores it all. What this beam does is essentially scan and identify the areas where particular patterns are stored, and switch off the neurons connected to that area using electrical impulses so that the information cannot be retrieved from your long term memory. If all else failed, the beam could also switch those neurons back on, reversing the damage."
Having only taken a freshman course of psychology in college, Roxanne struggled to remember what she learned about cognitive processes. She had an idea of what the former villain was talking about, but one part especially caught her interest. "Wait, what did you say? Did you say that you could identify where information is stored? And just… make it so that someone couldn't remember it?"
Megamind smiled. "You could put it that way. I spent a considerable amount of time mapping the human brain." He waved his hands in a nonchalant manner as if it were no big deal.
"So you could use the beam for practically anything in your head, like memories of events?" Excitement tinged his wife's voice.
"Yes, if I so chose."
The chair Roxanne was sitting on toppled and hit the floor with a clang when she stood abruptly. "Do you realize what this means?" she exclaimed.
It was at this time that Minion burst back into the workshop, skidding to a halt. He had hurried his pace when he heard the loud noise. There was a large metal box in his arms and he wore an expression of bewilderment on his piscine face. "What did I miss?"
Megamind shared Minion's look of puzzlement. "What does this mean, Rox?"
The cogs in the reporter's head were turning. "Well, what if instead of switching off memories in healthy brains, why don't you use the beam to switch on memories in people who have damaged brains? Megs, what's to say you can't heal people?"
She hadn't even finished speaking when Megamind jumped to his feet, putting two and two together. "Of course! It wouldn't be too difficult." He envisioned a new blueprint, just itching to write it down. "All I would have to do is realign it so that when it scans for pathways, it uses the same electrical impulses to create and fortify new neural pathways so that way the brain works around the damaged areas of the brain and reestablishes the link to long term memory!" He let out a loud laugh, holding a fist up triumphantly. "Another evil invention that I can now use for good!"
Roxanne blinked and found herself caught up by the waist and receiving kisses on her neck from the jubilant hero. After surprise wore off, she leaned into him, enjoying how her skin formed goosebumps in the places his lips just left. But when the enthusiasm of his attentions increased, lips descending ever lower, she looked over and noticed Minion in the corner of her vision. He was arbitrarily cleaning some computer screens, desperately trying to avert his gaze and pretend to be enthralled with something in the opposite direction. She piped up a little reluctantly, putting a stop to Megamind's frenzy. "Save that for later," she murmured, dragging her fingertips across the back of his neck.
The sensation caused the blue man to jerk, and he suddenly became aware of their audience. He toned it down, and settled with cupping her cheek. "My brilliant wife," he said warmly. There was silence for a minute before he finally clapped his hands, rubbing them together. "Minion! We're going to have to put the spring cleaning on hold. I've got some reverse engineering to do, and who knows how much free time I have before the next day that requires my saving!"
"Yes, sir!" The gorilla suit was already moving through the room, clearing up the boxes. "Should I bring out the old neural mappers, too? I have them in a crate somewhere…"
"Great idea. I'm going to also need a lot more string." A pencil had materialized, and Megamind was already hard at work sketching out a large diagram.
Leaving the two boys to tackle their new project, Roxanne headed back to the kitchen. Knowing her husband, he might not break out of this brainstorm anytime soon, so she had to be prepared with lots of fresh coffee on hand.
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Note: If anyone is curious, Look up MoonPies on google. They are nostalgic deliciousness.