Cold Fusion: Hallows' Eve, Ch. 12 (Part 2)
Megamind is red-faced and barefoot and Roxanne is grinning, and Wayne swallows the lump in his throat and frowns downwards. "I don't think I've ever seen your feet, before." It's the perfect non sequitur-come-segue. "They're all bony."
Minion stiffens, but Megamind blinks and glances down, wiggles his toes, and grins a bit. "I bet your feet smell," he says, and flounces over to a chair and plops himself into it in an untidy tangle of skinny arms and legs. Wayne just shakes his head.
"Oh!" Megamind exclaims suddenly, hopping back up again. "I almost-wait a minute!" And he dashes out of the room, bare feet barely touching the cool floor.
"What was that about?" Roxanne looks up at Minion, who shrugs expansively.
"Did you two sort things out?" Wayne asks.
Roxanne nods. "Yeah. We've both been…really tense, these past couple of days, and today it all just exploded. But we're better now." She blinks and cocks her head. "You have salt on your face."
Wayne lets out a muffled curse and rucks the collar of his tee-shirt up over his face to his hairline, scrubs his face on the inside of his shirt hard enough to leave scorch marks.
Minion clears his throat. "And did he…?"
Roxanne nods. "I'm going to be living here."
A smile breaks like sunrise over Minion's face, which had been tense and lined with worry. "Oh, good!" he exclaims. "I'm so glad, Miss Ritchi. It's going to be lovely, having you here."
"Found it!" Megamind comes back in like a whirlwind, somewhat out of breath, then looks at Wayne and comes to a grinding halt. "Oh, come on," he cries, glaring at the burn marks on Wayne's collar and drumming his fingers angrily on the box he's holding. "I left you alone for thirty seconds. How does this happen?"
Wayne grins tiredly. "I'm too sexy for my shirt?"
"No," Megamind groans. "No, no, no. No. That would only work if the line were, 'I'm too hot for my shirt,' which it isn't and you aren't." He stops, suddenly contrite. "I'm sorry, that was uncharitable."
Wayne's grin gets a little more lively. "Well, you're not exactly an interested party."
Megamind shrugs and skips around him, heads for his chair again. "Yeah, okay."
Wayne recoils. "'Okay'?" he repeats incredulously. "Wha-you're not an interested party, are you?" Megamind looks horrified and Roxanne bursts into peals of laughter that she had probably been trying to hold back. Wayne chuckles and shakes his head. "Sorry, it's been a long day." It's a weak excuse, especially because it's not yet noon, but it's true. It's also probably part of why Roxanne is laughing so hard.
Megamind sits down carefully, watching Wayne as if fearing for his sanity. "Would it make any difference if I were?"
Wayne snorts. "I very much doubt it. You're not my type."
"Do you even have a type?" Megamind wonders, but it sounds rhetorical and he doesn't give Wayne much time to reply, instead handing him the box he had brought and saying, "Open it."
Mystified, Wayne complies, blinking confusedly down at the contents. "What the…is this hair?" That's what it looks like: skeins of white hair knotted loosely so the strands don't separate. He lifts one carefully out of the box and turns it, frowning at the way it shines in the light.
"It's pretty," Roxanne says, reaching for it.
"Don't touch it!" Megamind's voice is sharp, and Roxanne snatches her hand back, turning to stare at him. "It's glass. Textile fibers, high-silica."
Wayne's expression turns wary. "And I'm supposed to do what with this?"
Megamind gives him a don't-be-stupid look and cocks an eyebrow. "I made Titan from your DNA, don't forget," he says smugly. "I know what you're made of. I know how you get your strength." He pauses. "…I also know how many stomachs you have, but that's probably irrelevant here."
Roxanne blinks. "Wha…"
"Three," Megamind tells her.
Wayne glares at him. "Hey!"
"What?" Megamind shrugs, looking totally innocent, and for once, the expression works. "We're aliens. I have a gizzard, okay?" he says, pointing at his own belly. "You're really not that weird. Shut up and eat your glass."
Wayne's wide white smile is genuine, this time - the first time that Minion has ever seen, and it makes the big man look years younger. And Minion nearly falls over in surprise when Wayne says, "Thanks, little buddy."
Huh.
Megamind just grins, then sighs. "I feel a lot better now," he remarks, to nobody in particular. "Oh, and Wayne. If you want to go visit your mom, I think I can give you a ten-minute window. I mean I can take out their security for ten minutes or so, if you want."
Wayne raises his eyebrows. The skein crunches disconcertingly when he bites into it. "If you could, yeah. That'd be great. Tonight, maybe? The night shift?"
"Not as many people around," Megamind nods. "You know she hasn't come to, yet. They're going to start surgery on her face as soon as she stabilizes." There's a note in his voice that Minion has never heard before-he sounds cautious, almost gentle, and Minion thinks of something.
"Mr. Scott, what's going to happen to the manor?"
"Oh, god," Wayne groans, swallowing forcefully. "There are measures in place, I mean - as soon as it's known she'll pull through, they'll start re-construction. But there's gonna be a mountain of red tape a mile high. The insurance companies are going to have a field day."
Megamind presses his lips together and looks into the distance. Roxanne speaks up. "How about the people who used to work there? What'll happen to them?"
Wayne rubs a big hand backwards through his hair. "They'll be…taken care of. I'll see to that, privately. I know Don stays on the grounds - he's got a little apartment above the boathouse."
Megamind blinks back to reality. "Don?" he says. "Don Giovanni? He's still alive, then?"
Wayne nods. "He's gotta be in his nineties by now, but yeah. You know him?"
Megamind doesn't answer that. "I didn't know he worked for you."
Wayne chuckles. "Yeah, he…I'm surprised he's stayed on as long as he has, but he says he wouldn't leave our gardens for the world."
"Hmm," Megamind says, but that's all. "Okay, well…hm."
"Something wrong?" Wayne wants to know, but Megamind doesn't appear to hear him.
"He's having a brainstorm," Minion tells Wayne, and he frowns a little.
"I really hope you don't mean that literally."
Minion snorts, then tramps back over to the fridge and pulls out the carton of eggs.
"Roxie, as long as the subject's already come up," Wayne begins, and she sits up a little straighter, "have you given any thought to what you'll do if your mother refuses to…um…give ground?"
Roxanne sighs. "Well, what's she going to do - forbid me to see him? There's nothing she can lord over me that would dissuade me. I don't know. I don't think she'll disown me for it, but the way she refuses to let go of this, it's almost like it's personal. Drew thinks she might hate Megamind because he's a whatsit, an outworlder-but Wayne, so are you."
"Does your mother know I'm a…an outworlder?" Wayne asks. "She might still think I'm just a super."
"Just a super?" Megamind pulls back to the present and looks at him, confused. "Supers are even rarer than aliens, and you're the only one of those I've ever met outside the PHED headquarters."
"Yeah, but how many people know that?" Wayne points out, and Megamind has to admit that this is true.
"It's news to me," Roxanne tells them. "Still, she's irrational enough about this that I don't know what she'll do. She's like me - when she throws a fit like that, she tends to say things she doesn't mean. I don't think she'd have said half of what she did earlier if she had been thinking straight."
"What did she say?" Megamind asks curiously, then adds, "If you don't mind my asking."
"That Chad couldn't have been as bad as I was making him sound, or I'd have said something sooner. And then that I must have done something to set him off."
"Ooh," says Wayne, wincing. "Ouch."
Roxanne laughs a little. "Yeah, it was-it was pretty bad."
"Are you still thinking of going down for Thanksgiving?"
Roxanne nods. "Yeah. I think I will. Having Drew there will make it easier, we can present a united front."
Megamind blinks and holds up his hands. "Whoa, wait, when did Drew find out about us? I thought we weren't telling him."
"Drew already thinks Mom is way out of line where you're concerned," Roxanne replies, starting to smile. "Whether we're dating or not won't make a bit of difference. His whole lab is on your side - I've Skyped in a couple of times so that he can show me things, and for a while there I was The Chick Who Knows Megamind."
"Wait, really?" Wayne laughs. Megamind just stares at her.
"I remember one time Drew was talking to me on his laptop, and his friend Extant saw me and said, and I quote, 'Hey guys, it's the Megamind chick!'" She chuckles and shakes her head. "We should definitely put in an appearance at his lab when we go down for Christmas. They would love to meet you. And they have this wild party every year, it's full of science-types, just your kind of people."
"That c-could be fun," Megamind stammers. The knowledge that people other than the ones currently in the kitchen support him never fails to startle him a little.
Minion moves the eggs around in the pan. Spatula in one hand, pan in the other, pink frilly apron. Roxanne laughing at Megamind at the table. Megamind laughing at Roxanne. Wayne, astonishingly, laughing at both of them and actually being a decent person to boot.
So much has happened over the past two days. So much is going to happen over the next few weeks, probably. And yet, somehow, and even after everything that blew up this morning - the little scene unfolding behind him is simple and light-hearted and - for lack of a better word - fun.
Life, for Minion, has always been a series of moments like this one. The little moments have always stood out clearly against the helter-skelter backdrop of building, breaking, and battling. Minion has always taken note of these moments - he sets his life to them. They're what's important, after all.
He stays quiet for the rest of breakfast, just watching the other three interact, watching the weird dynamic develop.
And when Wayne finally gets up and clears his plate and says, "Hey, Minion? Thanks for breakfast," Minion finds himself actually smiling.
It's progress.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Sundown looks down at the body, chewing thoughtfully on his toothpick. Pity. Now he'll have to find a different way to handle the Chairmen.
Well, he'll deal with that soon enough. What's really irritating is that this could all have been avoided if Whitehill hadn't been such a prick. Springing him from jail had been easy, and manipulating him should have been easy too, but Sundown had underestimated the man's ability to hold a grudge. And Whitehill had been intelligent enough to figure out where the Ritchi woman spends a decent portion of her time.
To make matters worse, he had also been one of those rare, special people whose intense xenophobia borders on insane. And jealous to boot. One-track mind in a man like that - no wonder he had deviated from the plan and gone after the Ritchi woman.
He had made himself a liability. If he had only listened, had followed directions the way he had been supposed to do, Sundown could have used him to draw Megamind's attention where he had wanted it to go. But no; the idiot had cast a wrench into his plans and nearly ruined everything.
Sometimes it takes a literal wrench to fix a metaphorical one.
"Thanks," he mutters to the floating cyborg beside him, when it offers him the sticky tool. "I'll hang onto that, yeah. No good if your master found it. And you should probably bleach your claws."
He nudges the body with a toe. Sundown had caught the mistake in time, so the idiot hadn't fouled things up too badly. Sundown had hoped to put Megamind's attention on Chad, give him a jealous ex-boyfriend to play with while Sundown got some work done. With Chad dead it will be harder, but if he plays his cards right he might still be able to pull it off, thanks to Nibs' timely arrival.
There's still too much going on, though. Too many tracks to cover. Sundown will have to step up his game.
At least now he has an ally. Can't trust humans, they're too emotional. But robots, boy. Robots listen to reason without all the emotions getting in the way and buggering things up. Robots, Sundown thinks, make sense.
"So you understand my position," he says mildly, shoving the wrench into his back pocket after wiping it on his shirttails, which have already gone stiff and turned the color of rust. Lancaster won't like it, he thinks, and then answers himself, Lancaster can kiss my ass. "Mente finds out about the Chairmen ahead of schedule, they'll just kill him and adjust plans accordingly. No questions asked. The Chairmen find out I'm playing underground, they'll kill me. They kill me, they'll just continue with their plans."
I'M STILL UNCLEAR AS TO WHY YOU CARE.
Sundown shrugs. "If they win, it won't be fun anymore. Besides, I've worked too hard to get this city where it is to let them burn it down."
AND WE CANNOT REMOVE THEM OURSELVES?
Sundown sniffs and glares into the morning sun. The cold air makes his nose run. "We'd never find all the bombs, and anyway they're international. And I can't leave Metro City. It's a no-go."
SIR COULD FIND THEM.
"What part of, they have all his files, did you not understand?" the cut-eared man demands. "They've prepared for that. They've tailored their defenses to hold up against Mente specifically. Like I said. He finds out, they ain't gonna wait around for him to come to them. Nibs, my buddy, my man," Sundown sighs, shaking his head. "We don't step lightly, Mente goes up in smoke."
IF SIR DIES, THE CITY FALLS. YOU KNOW THAT, RIGHT?
"You bet your sweet synthetic synapses." He flicks a cigarette into his hand and holds it to the brainbot's pilot light without asking.
THOSE THINGS WILL KILL YOU.
"Yeah, yeah. You sound like Lanc." Sundown finally turns and faces the floating brainbot, his face more aquiline than ever in the slanted light. "Look man, I'm real glad you're on my side. You're the key. Mente can't do anything. Ritchi can't do anything. Trouble is, the Chairmen have the cards. Their fort is totally secure, as far as they know. But they don't have our ace in the hole."
UNDERSTOOD.
"But it'll only continue to be an ace in the hole as long as you keep it that way."
UNDERSTOOD.
"You'll keep it off the records. No video, no audio. Infrared, too. You've got two days before they gather up the feed to review it."
UNDERSTOOD.
"You're sure you can do it."
I AM CERTAIN. IT WILL NOT BE DIFFICULT. Nibs lifts his claws and waggles them like a magician revealing a party trick. I CAN REBUILD IT; I HAVE THE TECHNOLOGY.
"So do they." Sundown glances back out at the horizon, the city skyline. Then he rouses himself. "Okay, look, you better go. I've got things I need to do. Stuff to wrap up. You get me?"
YOU WILL BE IN TOUCH?
"Whenever possible. You'll let me know if you find anything?"
CROSS MY CPU AND HOPE TO BLUESCREEN.
Sundown's crooked mouth cants into a grin like a knife. Smoke trails up from his nose. "Cheers." He glances down at the body one last time. "You know where I can find Mente?"
DOCK FIVE, HEADING NORTH.
"All right, I'll catch you later." Nibs flits away and vanishes into the morning sunlight. Sundown clamps his cigarette between his teeth and grabs the body by an arm, drags it to the edge of the high roof. Peers over the edge to the sidewalk below. He isn't watching the pedestrians; he could care less about them. They aren't important. What's important, as always, is that the bodies hit the floor. And they do, of course, assuming there are no pesky shop awnings or balconies in the way
Knives dull, guns jam, even arrows are sometimes not quite sharp enough-but gravity is forever.
He pulls a knife from his belt, plunges it into the dead man's chest, cuts in a circle. It's a beautiful morning. A beautiful day, he thinks, and hums under his breath. Let's make the most of this beautiful day…
Bone is no problem, flesh and arteries even less so. Sundown hums, feeling unaccountably pleased in spite of everything that's gone wrong. "Bm bm, a neighborly day in this beauty wood-" he pauses to grit out an oath in a language that sounds like crackling fire when the knife turns and sticks, then resumes. "Bm, neighborly day for a beauty."
When he has what he wants stowed safely away, he straightens and plants one bare foot on the side of the body and rolls it unceremoniously off the edge of the building.
Screams and cries of alarm echo up from the street. Sundown grins and throws his arms out, exulting, spinning on the balls of his feet, laughing like a child. "Would you be mine? Could you be mine?" Nobody hears him but the pigeons, and they keep their distance.
"Please won't you be my neighbor?"
He laughs again, then whirls and dashes out across the rooftops, forearms bared and bloody, jeans cuffs rolled up, jacketless, shoeless, heedless of the November wind. He dances and leaps over the office buildings of central Metro, utterly unconcerned about gravity and the fact that the ground lies a blinding thirty stories down. A quick glance up at the sun tells him what he needs to know, and he adjusts his direction as he needs to, aiming for the docks at the edge of town.
He has had so little hope, for so long, and now there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That little robot is a godsend, and just in time. Sundown can win, now-he has a fighting chance, now.
More than a chance. A guarantee. He's going to win. He darts over the rooftops, running like a dancer, laughing like bonfire, burning his way to Megamind.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
The blue alien is huddled down into his jacket, gloved hands clenching and unclenching in his pockets, when Sundown drops onto the roof behind him and tumbles to his feet.
"Mornin,' neighbor." He stretches, rolling his shoulders. "Looking for me?"
Megamind turns, already on his guard. Sundown sounds very pleased this morning, and there's something strange about his voice. "Yes, actually. How did you know?"
Sundown shrugs and looks at his cigarette, which has gone out. Megamind takes it wordlessly, gives it a quick pulse from his de-gun and hands it back. He says nothing about the blood crusting on Sundown's fingers, nor the fact that the other man's pupils are so dilated that his eyes are nearly black.
"Thanks."
"You could carry a lighter, you know."
"Where's the fun in that?" Sundown's wide, closed-mouthed grin flashes briefly below his flat doll's eyes. "What's eating you?"
"Roxanne Ritchi." Megamind searches Sundown's face for some trace of recognition, but finds none. "You know her?"
Sundown doesn't blink, but then, he hardly ever does. "Might. Who's asking?"
"I am."
Sundown rolls his eyes, trying not to grin at the sound of Megamind gritting his teeth. "Yesss, and? What's your interest? Come on, Mente, you know the drill."
Megamind's nostrils flare. He's keeping his tone as flat and controlled as he can, but Sundown knows the difference. "I'm asking, because we're dating. There was an incident this morning. You interfered. You don't normally interfere. I want to know what your interest is."
"That's more like it." Sundown studies the glowing end of his cigarette, watches the way the smoke turns and curls. "Well, ain't much to tell you, sorry. I was in the right place at the right time."
Megamind's irritated expression turns to one of flat anger. "You expect me to believe it was coincidence?"
"No. That would be stupid, and you and I may be many things but stupid is not one of them. No. You ain't stupid." He raises his black eyes to hold Megamind securely in his gaze. "But that's what I'm telling you. And that's all I'm telling you. You best take what you can get and quit while you ahead."
Megamind seethes quietly for a moment, but there's not much he can do against Sundown, especially when he's like this-it's his voice, the way he's sliding in and out of the street cadences Megamind knows and something distressingly cultured and articulate. "Fine. What can you tell me about Chad Whitehill?"
Sundown sniffs and stares out at the bay. Let the bodies hit the floor, let the bodies hit the floor. It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood. "Oh, a lot of things. What do you wanna know?"
"Where is he now?"
Sundown grins and shakes his head. "Too blunt. You know this." Let the bodies hit the floor. He's in a dangerous mood. Flying high, whirling above the ground. Like singing.Let the bodies hit the floor; something's got to give. It really is a nice day, he thinks.
Megamind shifts his weight impatiently. "Sundown, I do not have time-"
Let the bodies hit the-
Inhale. Blink. And turn.
Sundown's eyes roll over white and he whirls, wraps one hand in the front of the blue man's coat, and drags him stumbling around in a tight circle as his other hand comes to rest lightly on the column of Megamind's neck. "No," he hisses, with the sun in his eyes and the smell of blood and fear sharp in his nostrils, "no, you don't have time. But I have time, all the time in the world, and I owe you, and that is answer enough to all of your questions. Do not test me, Mente, and most especially do not tempt me."
Sundown smells adrenaline; Megamind is fighting not to struggle. "Y-you could at least tell me your plans-okay. Okay!" He shakes his head and starts back when Sundown's thumb presses gently under his jaw-his hands are big enough that he can wrap one all the way around Megamind's neck, and Megamind can feel his pulse drumming a frenetic tattoo against steady fingers. "Sun-Sundown, please! Okay?"
Sundown lets out a bark of trumpeting laughter that chokes up from his lungs and cracks harshly over the roof, and shoves Megamind roughly away from him. Any more of that and he's liable to do something he'll regret. "Chtaon! As if your knowing would change my plans. No, Mente, you will take what scraps I give you and leave the rest for the circling buzzards." It's a hell of a lot more direct than he usually is, but his mind is spinning and the world is whirling sunspots behind his eyes; he can barely think, let alone speak. "Be glad it is not your heart they're eating, yeah? Chtaon!"
He thrusts a wooden box into Megamind's hands, hard enough that it slams into Megamind's thin chest and sends him back a couple of steps. "Do not open this," he grits out; "it is not yours to open. This belongs to the reporter lady. Give it to her when next you see her, and tell her to open it now. Where she is?" He frowns, sucks his teeth for a moment, tips his head to the side so that his neck cracks loudly. "Where iszz she? Now. Tell me."
Megamind knows better than to disobey-he's caught Sundown at a dangerous time, and there's no telling what he might do when he's like this. I should have left this until tomorrow, he thinks, but it's too late for that now. The de-gun is at his hip, set to De-ath Ray, and he hopes to whatever god may be listening that Sundown hadn't seen him changing the settings when he had pulled it to light the man's cigarette earlier. "S-she went home to start packing," he stammers. "I'll be heading over to help her in a little while."
His phone rings. Sundown steps away, a terrible smile tracing hard lines over his harder face. "Answer it."
Megamind hesitates. The smile broadens eagerly, and his lips pull back from double rows of teeth like needles. "Anszzwer't. Now."
Gloved hands flick the phone open. It sounds like Roxanne had already been speaking, babbling a stream of high-pitched gibberish into the phone even before Megamind had answered.
"What?" Megamind says. "What? Slow-slow down, I can't understa-what? He what?"
The phone slips from his fingers and he spins, looking wildly around for the creature that calls itself Sundown, but the roof is deserted.
Megamind's knees abruptly refuse to hold him, and he sits down heavily to pick up his phone. His hands are shaking, but he does his best to ignore it. "Rox-Honey? Don't panic. I'm on my way."
Sundown. We rarely see him like this; usually he appears more or less human.
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