Chapter 5
The next day Megamind fully intended to get up early and go track down the fat freak. The sun was just up when he rolled over to get out of bed when Roxanne murmured beside him.
"Don't go. I'm taking the morning off." She wound her arm around his waist and pulled him closer to her.
"I've just got a couple of things I need to take care of." He said. She didn't let go.
"More important than sleeping in with your bride to be?" she asked. Megamind relented. If he said 'yes' she would want an explanation.
"No. Of course not." He lied as she kissed his chest and snuggled into him. It was nice. Hal could wait. It wasn't as if the little turd was waiting outside with a chainsaw or anything. All he was doing was sending flowers.
He let his eyes drift shut again and tried to relax.
Roxanne woke with that wonderful feeling that it was very late in the morning. She stretched and smiled, then looked over to see Megamind's side of the bed was empty. Huh. He'd snuck away after all.
On cue he came out of the bathroom freshly showered and dressed. She looked him up and down, frowning. He was in his plain black leather suit today wearing a cape whose spikes were a little longer and sharper than normal.
"You're looking dramatic today. What's going on?" she asked. She hadn't seen him dressed quite that menacingly since his disastrous first epic battle with Titan.
"Just some Metrosity business. Nothing to worry about." He looked in the mirror and straightened his collar. Roxanne rolled her eyes. He spent longer in front of the mirror in the mornings than she did. And he didn't even have hair to do!
"Okay. Just don't get banged up before the wedding." She warned.
"No problem." He said. A brainbot zoomed in and handed him his boots. The very slightly platformed ones he wore on special occasions. He said he needed the extra support for fallen arches in his feet. She knew they were to make him look taller.
"Okay. I should be home around nine tonight. By then you and your buddies should...ah never mind." Roxanne realised she almost spilled the beans about his surprise Bachelor Party Minion was throwing him.
"What buddies? Am I doing something?" he asked.
"One last suit fitting." She lied. He slumped.
"Not again! They fit just fine!" he complained. Roxanne pretended to grumble.
"Okay okay. You win." He smiled, obviously feeling he had won that round. She tried to hide her relief. "I need to go shower. I smell like the invisible car."
"Leather seats and new car scent air freshener. What's not to love?" Megamind commented and took a deep breath with his nose nuzzled in the curve of her neck. She smiled and pushed him away.
"Go to work. I'll see you later on tonight." She said and kissed him very briefly, not wanting to subject him to her morning breath. He watched her disappear into the bathroom. Today's mission: Catch Roxanne's stalker, before she finds out she has one. He pulled on his gloves and went downstairs to his office.
Megamind got to work in lab using his computer, and in a few short minutes had managed to track down the address Hall had broadcast his blogs from. Huh. He supposed it wasn't really surprising. It was an apartment in a fairly run-down area of Metrosity. He wrote down the address on a piece of paper (he really did have to get one of those new smart phones; he was still using the one he had...borrowed...from Bernard) and made his way back upstairs. On his way to the car he noticed Minion in the kitchen with his two offspring. Both were floating in their spheres and letting loose streams of bubbles looking absolutely miserable. Minion noticed his quizzical stare.
"Teething." He explained. Megamind raised an eyebrow, not sure how much more of this weird fish parenting he could take. "Could you just hold Rei for a few minutes? She likes you, you might be able to get her settled while I medicate Junior here..." Megamind looked from Minion to the door to the garage and back again. He sighed. Once again Hal would just have to wait a while. He walked into the kitchen and picked up the sphere with the little white coi fish in it.
"Shhhh. It's okay. Come here, Uncle Megamind will tell you a story." He said to the baby fish. She halted the flow of bubbles and looked up at him with sad eyes. She had Minion's eyes, but Shiyounin's pearlescent white scales and elegant build. Megamind decided he would build her a beautiful suit when she was older He took her into the lounge and sat with her in his lap and sighed, wondering when Roxanne would relent and allow herself to fall pregnant with their own hybrid offspring. "Once upon the time there was a dashing blue genius and a smug white prince battling on the rooftop of City Hall..."
Minion had finally gotten Minion Junior to stop crying (he had dropped a raw lamb chop into the fish's sphere; apparently it was hungry and in need of a chewy toy) and came out to see Megamind sitting on the sofa still telling his story to Rei, who was floating fast asleep in her little glass sphere. Megamind felt the need to finish things.
"And so the egotistical white prince carried the villain away to Metrocity Penitentiary where the devilishly handsome blue warrior would languish for weeks on end until his next prison escape, aided of course by your Daddy." Minion smiled as he watched his daughter dream blissfully in his boss/ward/friend's arms.
"She loves you." He said. Megamind looked up.
"Of course she does Minion. What's not to love?" he said, handing he fish over to her father. Minion put her in a soft cushioned pillow next to her brother on the other side of the room. Both siblings slept soundly.
"Thankyou for that sir. Oh and you need to be home by eight tonight."
"Eight? What for?" Megamind asked. That wouldn't be anywhere near enough time to taunt and monologue Hal Stewart to his satisfaction before handing over his pudgy unconscious body to the Warden.
"Dinner! I'm making you a special dinner tonight."
"Honestly Minion, really?" they hadn't had one of their one-on-one dinner parties for a few years now and Megamind had enjoyed the lack of awkward silences and fussy food. The fish's face fell.
"I just figured we haven't really had any you and me time lately. And now I've got a family and you're about to get married it might be the last time we get a chance to really connect..."
"Of course, Minion, I'm sorry." He cut Minion off before he could go all emo on him. "I'll be home by eight."
"Thanks. It means a lot." Minion grinned. "Oh and put some petrol in the tank while you're out? The car's a little low."
"Okay. See you tonight." Megamind said on the way out, not for the first time wondering who worked for who.
He opened up the front door, relieved at finally getting out of the house and doing his job when...
"Hey little buddy!" Oh no.
"Wayne?" Megamind looked up at the huge man. Ordinarily he would have been happy to see the hero-turned-musician but not today. "What are you doing here?"
"I was just in the neighbourhood and thought I'd drop by. And iBot's missing his daddy." The odd brainbot-ipod hybrid was hovering behind Wayne. He was looking even more pimped-out than ever. In addition to the swallowed iPod, white spray job and Apple logo his glow was now fluoro green and he had upgraded to a bigger set of speakers.
"Bowwwww!" it said and hovered over to Megamind, butting at his hands with his glass dome. Megamind heard bowwing and robotic laughter coming from the handful of stock-standard brainbots hovering behind him. He had to agree. iBot did look ridiculous.
"Yes well I was just on the way out." Megamind said. "Maybe you could come by later?" Wayne's face fell.
"Oh...okay. I guess you're busy with the wedding and all..." he gave his puppy-dog eyes and Megamind sighed, and then a thought struck him.
"Let's go for a drive. You can help me out with something...and no one else has to know about it, okay?"
"It's nothing...you know...evil is it? I know I'm not the hero type anymore but I don't think I could do anything illegal. Well, really illegal anyway."
"Relax. I just don't want Roxanne finding out about it, so Minion and family can't know either."
"Does it involve prostitutes? 'Cause I'm not really comfortable with that..." Megamind raised his eyebrows. There was an awkward silence.
"Um...no. I'll explain on the way. Come on iBot, you can come too."
iBot made a buzzing noise that sounded like 'mission!' and followed its old master to the invisible car. Megamind looked at the almost unrecognisable brainbot-turned-DJ and smiled. He had kinda missed the mischievous creation. Not that he would ever admit it out loud. Megamind got behind the wheel and winced at the creaking noise it made as Wayne got into the front passenger seat. He'd have to get the suspension looked at.
Megamind briefly described the situation of the stalker Hal Stewart and how he had tracked him down as they drove towards the seedier end of town. After filling up the petrol tank (and getting filthy looks from the station attendant who Megamind had robbed several times in the past) Megamind engaged the invisibility cloak a few streets away from their destination (much to the surprise of the other motorists) and parked the car opposite the apartment block on the footpath outside of an abandoned half-finished construction site.
"I'm impressed Megamind. I never got the hang of the whole hacking thing. I just sort of waited for you to show yourself and pounced." Megamind raised an eyebrow.
"What about all the other criminals in the city? You know I wasn't the only trouble maker." Wayne shrugged.
"You know the police handle most of it. If there was anything beyond them they sort of pointed me in the general direction." Megamind shook his head.
"All right. According to the intern-et Hal Stewart is in that building in apartment 5B." He looked at the run-down building.
"5B?" Wayne looked up. "What's the plan then?"
"I'll wait for him to come out and throw him into the back of the car." He said, reaching over and taking his spare Forget Me Stick out of the glove box.
"Good plan little buddy. Um...this Hal Stewart. It's a guy isn't it?" Megamind gave Wayne a flat stare.
"Of course he is. Why?" he answered, exasperated.
"It's just that there's only one person in 5B and it's a woman."
"How do you know that?" Megamind demanded. Wayne rolled his eyes.
"X-ray vision, remember?" he said. Megamind slapped himself on the forehead.
"Of course. A woman you say?" he said, heart sinking. Hal must have somehow hidden his real location and used this fake address. It was late afternoon and he still hadn't caught Hal. He'd been hoping it would all be over by now. "Let's go up. I'll see if I can get a look at her computer, see if I can figure out why her address popped up." He twisted the face on his watch and cycled through a few different appearances, finally settling on Bernard. He could pass for a detective. Wayne raised an eyebrow.
"That's pretty cool." He said as Megamind passed him a spare he kept in the glove box. He cycled through a few appearances and decided on the scan Megamind had done of a police woman some time back. "Whoa. Check out the detail." Wayne exclaimed, looking down his own shirt.
"Focus on the task at hand Wayne." He said and stepped out of the car, scaring an alley cat as he did so. They made their way across the road, entered the building and took the stairs up to the apartment. The elevator was broken.
"Let me do the talking." Megamind/Bernard said. He knocked on the door.
A young woman answered it. She was little more than a girl really, in her late teens or early twenties. She was attractive enough with dark hair and glasses and some fairly generous curves, as Wayne noticed. Despite his music career he had hit a bit of a dry spell lately. Music Man just wasn't as popular with the ladies as Metro Man had been, and being a musician didn't really explain his...anatomy...as well as being an alien superhero did.
"If you're from Mrs Gilesky I paid my rent last week." She said, eyes flicking from Megamind to Wayne nervously. Megamind/Bernard gave her a beaming smile.
"Nothing like that at, Miss. We just need to ask you a few questions. Have you by chance seen this man in the building?" He asked and showed her Hal's mug shot, complete with a piece of napkin shoved up his nose after being defused of his powers all those years ago. The girl stared at the photograph for a moment and shook her head.
"No detective I haven't seen anyone like that around here." She said.
"We traced some video blogs he's been posting online to this address and we think he might have been using this as a fake address. Could we have a look at your computer?" Megamind/Bernard asked. She looked afraid.
"Don't you need a warrant for that or something?" she asked nervously.
"There's nothing to be afraid of miss. We just want to see if your machine has been tampered with in any way." Wayne chimed in. The female officer's voice he was using had a reassuring tone to it and the girl relented.
"Okay then. Come in." She said. "Have a seat. I'll go get my laptop." She gestured them to the lounge area. There were two mismatched old sofas and a television. Megamind and Wayne both sat down and waited. She was gone for a few minutes. Megamind checked his watch. It was mid-afternoon already and they were at a dead end.
She brought out her machine. It was an older model with a broken hinge on the lid and a fairly crappy webcam.
"Thankyou, Ma'am." Megamind turned it on and sat through the start-up sequence. Once it was turned on he had a good look through the parts that mattered. "This was recently formatted?"
"Yeah. I got a virus from one of those file-sharing programs. Not that I file share or anything." She said hastily, remembering they were the police. Wayne shook his head. She was cute but not too bright. Megamind examined the machine inside and out but couldn't find anything of use. He sighed.
"Sorry for wasting your time Ma'am. There's nothing amiss here." He handed the computer back to her. She shrugged.
"It's okay." They stood up to leave.
"If you see that man in the photo please call Metrosity PD." Megamind/Bernard said. The girl nodded and then froze.
"I will." She said after a moment.
"Thankyou Miss..." Wayne looked at her.
"Rogers. R-Roxanne Rogers." She answered. Megamind paused. Roxanne? Roxanne R? That couldn't be a coincidence.
The name. The address he had traced. The formatted computer. And the way she had looked at him when he had said 'Metrosity'...
He closed the door to the apartment again and turned the face on his watch, morphing back into his usual self. Wayne stepped back. All in black with the cape and the spikes he actually did look quite menacing. He approached the girl and kept going as she stumbled backwards and fell into a sofa. He loomed over her and roared at her with an edge to his voice Wayne had never heard before;
"WHERE IS HAL STEWART?"
The sun had just set as Roxanne finished her live report from the site of Metro City's most heinous crime of the day. She winced as she thought of the drama she'd put into her voice as she desperately tried to sensationalise the latest farce that passed as news.
"Citizens of Metro City, as law abiding citizens we share our disgust at the perpetrator of this crime. In this current climate of global uncertainty and conflict going on between our oil-producing allies it is an outrage that certain members of our community see fit to steal fuel from hard-working Americans just trying to make a living." At that point Barbie chose to cut to a close-up of the very Un-American looking service station attendant who expressed his anger at the perpetrator of this crime in his own native language that required subtitles on-screen.
The shadows had lengthened by the time Roxanne and Barbie had packed up the van. Roxanne watched the recorded footage on her laptop in the passenger seat of the van while Barbie filled up the petrol tank. She sighed. She really should win the International Bullshit Award for that story. It was even worse than the 7-11 robbery of a few days ago. She sighed and watched the CCTV footage of the short, fat little criminal in the hoodie speed off in a crappy hatchback. Sometimes she missed the Megamind days of epic battles between good and evil. He had been right about one thing. He definitely had the 'presentation' skills to appeal to a television audience.
She watched the footage again, something nagging in the back of her head. That fat little man in the jacket looked familiar. Could it be...it was! It was the same guy from the 7-11 robbery. Even after making that connection her investigative reporter brain remained largely dis-engaged. Big deal. He was a repeat offender. Maybe one day he might escalate to stealing a car or vandalising a mail box. She turned off the laptop. Maybe next week she could do a story on the one-man crime-wave. Tonight she just didn't care. She was getting married in three days. It was her last day of work before she got into a mad last-minute panic about the big day.
She wondered where Barbie had gotten to. Roxanne couldn't see her through the windows of the petrol station. The attendant was inside with an over-sized pair of earphones attached to his iPod, nodding in time with the music. She looked around. Most of the street lights in this part of town were broken and the roads were deserted. After business hours in the industrial sector were pretty quiet.
A few more minutes of silence had Roxanne wondering if maybe she should call out for Barbie. She had been a while now and there was no sign of the girl. Roxanne drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and then got out of the van.
"Barbie?" she called. "Barbs? Where'd you go?" There was no answer. She walked around to the back of the van. There was no sign of her eccentric camera operator. Roxanne shivered. Surely nothing could have happened to her...
There was a movement behind her, a painful thud and she saw black and white splotches cloud her vision. She hit the ground in a crumpled mess.