Fic: Cold Fusion: True North, Chapter 8
Title: Cold Fusion: True North, Chapter 8
Author: Dal_Niente
Rating: M for later chapters
Word Count: 3,660
Author's Note: You all are seriously amazing. I keep saying that, but it is true. So much love for all of you. Holy moly.
In which there are some explanations, some speculations, some evil outfits, and some steel-toed boots.
Chapter 8
Akos crosses carefully to the edge of the pool and looks in. “Pool” is a bit of an understatement; it’s more like a very large pond or a very small indoor lake, which explains why he and Roxanne had gone down so many flights of stairs to reach it -- it’s underground. Deep and wide and easily fifty yards from end to end, there are shallow steps leading down into the far end, where Roxanne is. The sides of the pool are very steeply sloped rather than going straight down. But the size of the pool is not what Akos is staring at.
He's staring at the reef. There is a full-scale reef in there, complete with brightly-colored coral and fish and waving plants.
He raises his voice, and is totally unsurprised to discover that it shakes slightly. “H-how deep is this?”
He doesn’t get an answer. Roxanne is alternating talking to the pool in a low, urgent voice and dipping one side of her head in. Akos backs away from the water and moves closer to Roxanne’s end of the pool, which - hooray - looks a lot shallower and therefore a lot safer.
“I just don’t get it,” Roxanne is saying. “There’s no reason I should be able to receive some…I don’t know, some hormonal message from you halfway across the city, and you in a tank of water!”
Minion shrugs wearily. “I don’t know either. Sir will probably be able to explain it when he gets back.”
Roxanne can think of several ways to reply to that. Finally she goes with the simplest. “I don’t know that I want be here when he does.”
“Why not?” Minion stares up at her, obviously surprised, and Roxanne realizes with a kind of shock that he doesn’t know what happened.
Well, there’s nothing else for it. She takes a deep breath. “You’re - not going to believe this, but when I came to the Lair last night Megamind was making out with another girl.”
Minion blinks, opens his mouth, closes it, and blinks again. “You’re right,” he says after a moment of stunned silence. “I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t.”
“That was what I thought!” Roxanne shakes her head. “Minion, you know him best. Why would he do that? And why would he let me see? Is he trying to keep me safe, or something? Make me leave him so that I don’t get caught in the crossfire? He said some things to me after lunch a couple days ago, and I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”
“This explains why he was so off today,” Minion mutters, and frowns for a moment. Finally he looks back up at Roxanne. “Miss Ritchi, he hasn’t been thinking clearly lately. All these meetings and public appearances have been doing a real number on his systems, and his judgment is…well, it’s never been great, but he’s second-guessing everything right now. And on top of that, there’s no stability, no routine. Everything is just so weird. For both of us, really.”
Roxanne scowls and opens her mouth, but Minion fans his fins and his ridges light up, and she stops.
“I’m not trying to make excuses!” he says quickly. “It’s just… it’s like he’s stuck watching himself. Nothing comes naturally; he has to think about every move. What exactly did he say to you?”
Quickly, Roxanne tells him about the last time she and Megamind spoke. Minion looks unsurprised. “Miss Ritchi, he’s not really worried about what would happen if another villain showed up. Trust me. He and I both know you can handle yourself - we’ve known it for years.”
“Yes, but…”
“Question for you. Might make more sense to you than me, I don’t know.” Minion looks hesitant, but forges ahead anyway. “Do you know why he would go and visit our old school?”
Roxanne freezes, her train of thought totally derailed. “What?”
“He was acting really strange after you left - threw himself into a random project like I haven’t seen him do in ages. I tracked his movements just prior to that, and he had gone to the old schoolhouse and stayed there for about half an hour before coming back to the Lair.”
Roxanne stares down at him, then scrabbles in her hoodie pocket for her cell phone, which, thankfully, is water-resistant. The two new voicemails glare accusingly up at her.
“Miss Ritchi?”
“Hang on, Minion, I just - I need to check something.” Because if Megamind had gone and visited Wayne and Wayne hadn't tried to warn her about it, Roxanne will find a way past his invulnerability. And she will strangle him.
And, yes, lo and behold, the voicemails are from Mom and WS. The one from WS had been delayed by a few hours. Figures. She needs an upgrade on her phone.
Muttering threats under her breath, she calls her voicemail.
You have two unheard messages. First unheard message:
Hey, Roxie, it’s…me. Sorry to call out of nowhere like this, but your boyfriend… is he your boyfriend? If so, it’s about time you found somebody, good for you… Anyway, Blue was just here. I think he’s going to try something and I think it’s going to be loads of stupid, but he said…it was weird and kind of convoluted, he was sort of babbling for a while there but I think he’s gonna try to make you hate him, or something? I dunno. Sounded to me like he’s just scared you’ll throw everything in his face and take off, and he figured he’d beat you to it, save you the trouble. Load of crap if you ask me. Or maybe it isn’t. Everything else has kinda exploded on him, you know? Shit keeps hitting his fan. Can’t really blame him. (There’s a pause.) I dunno. I still think it’s crap.
Good luck knocking some sense into him, but… (something that sounds like a sigh)…look, just be careful, okay? I don’t know what’s got him so up-cited, but I haven’t seen him this frantic since grade school. Just don’t yell. He hates yelling. Dunno if you’ve noticed that. Anyway, I’ll leave the details up to you, just wanted to…you know, call and give you a heads-up. You should come hang soon, catch up a bit. Both of you. Sounds weird, but I kinda miss the little guy. Say hey to the fish for me, would you?
Next unheard message:
Roxanne deletes the message from Mom without listening to it and closes her phone, trying to decide how she feels about this new development. On one hand, it could mean that Megamind doesn’t really think she needs protecting and therefore wasn’t leaving her for her own good. If that’s the case, she’s not half as mad at him as she had been.
Well, that’s not really true. She’s still just as angry, but for a different reason: it’s her standard reaction to blatant stupidity. Wayne is right, she can’t blame Megamind for being scared and insecure - a lifetime of conditioning can’t just be ignored - but that doesn’t mean Roxanne should have to put up with any more harebrained schemes.
They can work through it, though, she’s sure they can. It’ll take time, but Roxanne suspects Megamind is just as stubborn as she is, in his way. From what she’s seen, Megamind clings to his ideas with a silent steadfastness that would make any barnacle proud - all Roxanne needs to do is convince him to cling to the idea that she won’t just up and leave him at the drop of a hat.
“Well,” she says after a few quiet seconds tick by, “it sounds like he’s gone further off the deep end than I thought.”
“And?” Minion dances a little in the water, impatient. “What happened? Who called you? What did Sir go do?”
Roxanne looks down and smiles. “He went and talked to an old friend.”
“A friend?” Minion sounds dubious. “We don’t have friends.”
Roxanne shrugs. “An old enemy, then. It isn’t important. I think he probably just needed to get out for a bit.” And then, to change the subject, “Minion, why are we both okay now?”
“Could be a defense mechanism, I think,” the fish tells her after a moment. He sends her a look that says he knows exactly what she’s doing. “Endorphins. Also the acoustics in here throw off the humming, so it’s just white noise. I’m no longer resonating to it - I’m not affected by it, so if I’m right and you’ve somehow bonded to me, the way Sir has, neither are you.” He pauses. “Goodness, that sounds weird.”
Roxanne wades to the steps and sits down, wrapping her arms around her chest. The water is warm, but the air in the lair is as cool as it always is and she’s beginning to shiver. “About that. I don’t think I can possibly do anything like what you're suggesting.”
“Why not?”
She shrugs. “Well, think about it. Megamind only felt it when he got you out of the water, when he touched you, probably because whatever chemicals your body was producing were blocked by the water and the glass tank - like he said, it’s not a mental link, it’s biochemical. How could I feel, immediately, the same thing you were feeling if I was halfway across town? Heck, I can’t even hear you if I don’t have an ear in the water.” She shakes her head. “Also, I’m sorry, but you’re an alien fish. It’s just not possible.”
Minion looks mildly offended for a second, then nods. “Okay. Granted. But you feel fine now, and I feel fine now, and we got sick at the same time, so something has to be going on there.” He blinks up at her, concerned. “Also, you should probably get out of the pool. You look cold.”
“I am cold, but the water’s warmer than the air and -”
“Blankets!” Akos announces loudly, reentering the room with his arms full of them, and Roxanne jumps. She hadn’t seen him leave. “Blankets and who are you talking to?”
Roxanne points at the water. “Minion. You know, Megamind’s friend. He’s a fish, wears a robotic gorilla suit?”
Akos shakes his head. “I try to stay out of the way of the superhero-supervillain stuff. Now get out of the water before you catch your death or drown or something.”
“Thank you,” Minion mutters. “Honestly, what is it with bipeds and refusing to listen to me?”
Roxanne obeys, wrapping one of the blankets around her and huddling gratefully into it. Then an idea strikes and she steps back over to the pool. “Minion, I want to try something and I want to get into dry clothes and I think I can do both at the same time. I’m going to leave Akos with you for a few minutes, okay?”
Minion frowns a little, but nods.
Roxanne turns to the cabbie. “Akos, just…stay here? I’ll be back really soon. If I get sick again, then Minion is right and I’ll just come back in here.”
Akos shrugs and nods. “I got nothing better to do, sure.”
Roxanne nods her thanks and jogs towards the door. The room might be the only thing blocking the sick feeling, but she doesn’t think it is, and once she’s in the hallway she stops and waits for a few seconds.
Nothing happens.
So I’m not bound to Minion, Roxanne thinks. She has a theory about that - it might be the something similar to what Megamind had said about growing attuned to other people’s chemical signatures. Her body is tuning itself to both Megamind and Minion, aligning on some level with their bodies, but it isn’t strong enough yet to be consistent. Or she doesn’t feel sick now because her body is defending itself and turning against the offending frequency. Or both.
She could be completely mistaken, but it’s the best guess she can come up with.
She grins and hurries back along the maze of hallways to Megamind’s bedroom. There’s a small box of her clothing by the door, and it doesn’t take too long to find a pair of black yoga pants and a dry shirt.
She also finds the fancy dressing gown she’d bought and stored under the bed so she wouldn’t have to keep borrowing Megamind’s bathrobes and capes. The Lair is usually on the chilly side, and Roxanne isn't comfortable just wandering around in her pajamas. Besides, the dressing gown is one she had thought Megamind would approve of - it's full-length and made of black satiny polyester with blue collar and lining, and there's a blue sash that loops twice around her waist and has tassels on the ends. There are hidden fasteners up the front. Roxanne is pretty sure that it’s meant to be some kind of slinky dress, but she’s also pretty sure that she’d never wear it in public, ever.
But the flowing sleeves are long, and it’s warmer than nothing, and she has to admit that it fits perfectly with the lair even if the blue is paler than the stuff Megamind usually wears. She puts it on over the yoga pants. What the hell, why not? It makes her feel evil. It’s not a bad feeling.
She looks in the mirror and grins. “Raargh,” she says to her reflection, holding up hands with fingers bent like claws, and then bursts out laughing.
She is still grinning when she re-enters the pool room and finds Akos and Minion in a heated debate about - various kinds of cooking oil, it sounds like. Akos is lying on the floor with his ear in the water, both hands white-knuckled on the side of the pool.
She decides not to ask.
“Minion, I have a question,” she calls, going back over to the pool. Akos looks up at her and raises his eyebrows, but says nothing about her outfit. “Where did Megamind actually go?”
“Assuming he has the watch or the car, you could look him up on console 4 upstairs,” Minion replies. “I think he was being sarcastic about the ‘friend,’ though. And please tell your friend here that peanut oil is best for deep frying. He keeps going on about bacon fat.”
“Don’t ask me about frying, I burn salads,” Roxanne says. “I would have thought he would go and fix the reactors, first.” She pulls out her phone. mom - which is better 4 deep frying, Pnut oil or bacon grease?
Minion looks troubled. “About that,” he says slowly. “He and I discovered ages ago that if something goes wrong with the muon reactor, I feel pain all up and down my spines. It’s the cold fusion reactor that makes me sick. But we tested everything that could possibly go wrong, and it’s never felt like that before.”
Roxanne blinks and sits down on the floor, cross-legged. “What’s it feel like?” Her phone beeps twice. both. mostly pnut, add 1/3 or 1/4 bacon 4 flavor. bacons like lard, lots of flavor, but has low burn and smoke point. pnut holds up better 4 deepfry. plz dont hurt urself.
She grins and shows the phone to Akos, who looks at it and grimaces.
“It felt like there was a third note in with the other two.” Minion shakes his head. “But that doesn’t make any sense. That’s where I keep getting stuck, because the only thing that would do that is if there was a third reactor. And that’s impossible; Sir is the only one who knows how to do cold fusion so that it’s actually feasible.”
Roxanne looks up, paling. No, she thinks, because it can’t be, not really. Not seriously.
Can it?
“A third reactor?” she repeats faintly. “A cold fusion reactor?”
“It would have to be, I think. But it’s all wrong. It feels weird. Jangly. Like hitting your funny bone,” Minion says, then adds, “not that I would know.”
Anderson. “That complete and utter toad,” Roxanne whispers, shocked. “He built a reactor. He actually built one.”
“What?” Minion asks, just as Akos says, “Who?”
Roxanne answers neither question. She’s thinking. Distantly, she registers that Akos and Minion have resumed their discussion.
Anderson built a reactor, and Megamind went to go shut it down. But Roxanne very seriously doubts that Megamind did the same digging into Anderson’s background that she did. And if that’s true, and he doesn’t know who he’s really dealing with…
“Minion,” she says quietly, and something in her voice brings both of her companions up short. “How often has Megamind fought the forces of good without you backing him up? I mean, how often has he fought alone?”
“I don’t know, a couple of times?” Minion says. “Two, maybe three.”
Roxanne rises, feeling more than a little bit shaky. “If I take you out of this room, will you get sick again?”
“Almost definitely. Sorry.”
She rubs a hand over her eyes, unable to believe what she is about to do. “Brilliant,” she mutters. “Splendid. Okay. You have to stay here, then.” She chews her lip, trying to remember all the rejected contraptions and inventions Minion had shown her. “I need to go.”
She turns towards the door, then back to the pool. “Akos. I’m sorry, but I’m going to need your help again.”
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
It’s only after Megamind has broken into the abandoned waterfront theater that he realizes he has no idea what he’s doing. Breaking and entering? Smooth sailing. Taking down a cold fusion reactor and the misguided professor who created it? Should be simple.
Taking down the misguided professor who created it without hurting him? That one is going to be a little more difficult. Also, he had left without the de-gun, which he really shouldn’t have done, but he had been in a hurry. He doesn’t wear it around the Lair, and Roxanne’s sudden alarming appearance had thrown him for a loop, and he’d pulled out of the Lair with little more than what was already in the invisible car.
But Professor Anderson isn’t insane, right? This shouldn’t be too hard, right? He’s just a villain, and Megamind knows villainy like the back of his hand. This should be cake.
But a villain would say something like, “You should have been here hours ago, I’ve been waiting,” or, “You’ve fallen into my trap!” upon the arrival of the hero. Not, “What the fuck,” which is what Anderson says when Megamind steps to the edge of the balcony and looks down.
It isn’t fair, really. In these sorts of situations, the hero is supposed to speak first and take the villain by surprise. Anderson isn’t playing by the rules.
But the rules don’t matter anymore when Megamind sees what’s on the stage of the old theater, burning like a very small sun in the middle of a sphere that really shouldn’t be transparent. And what Megamind says is, “Anderson, what have you done?”
“Thought you were a genius,” the man sneers.
“Look, that’s just how it’s supposed to go,” Megamind snaps defensively. “I ask what you’ve done, you reveal your cunning plan, I haul you off to jail.” But he’s got a sneaking suspicion that Anderson, like Hal, really doesn’t care how it’s supposed to go. He decides to forgo the usual procedure. “Listen, Professor, you’ve got to shut it off. It’s all wrong.”
“And I suppose you know how to fix it?” Anderson’s lip curls and he shakes his head. “Please. This is going to save the city millions in energy bills.”
“Oh really,” Megamind says, using the driest voice he can manage. “Is that before or after it costs the city billions in repairs bills?” He shakes his head. “You know, there won’t even be a city in…I give it a week, tops. I can't believe you built that thing on land. Shut it off.”
“Nothing doing.”
“Don’t make me come down there,” Megamind warns, careful not to sound too desperate.
Anderson puts his hands behind his back like a first-class lecturer and paces across the stage. “You know, I thought you might turn up,” he muses. “You were the one who told that reporter girl to ask those questions at the end of the interview, weren’t you? They cut my funding, thanks to you. I’ve just been laid off.”
“Really,” Megamind says again. “How did you pay to build this reactor, then?”
“Sold my father’s yacht.” Anderson shrugs. “He never used it anyway.”
There are entirely too many shades of grey here for Megamind’s liking. Anderson has probably spent his last cent building a machine that he hopes will save electricity bills the world over, someday. He’s trying to do good.
What does that make me?
“Look, I respect ingenuity,” Megamind tells him, “but you really need to shut it off. Now, before it gets any hotter. It’s all wrong.”
He had thought to ask about funding, but not, regrettably, about how Anderson had actually managed to construct his machine. It had taken Megamind half a year and several hundred brainbots to build his. One man, working alone, cannot build and maintain a reactor.
This is the thought that occurs to Megamind when Anderson’s grey gaze flicks to a point just behind him, right before something heavy smashes into the back of his head. Stars burst behind his eyes and he staggers, catching the railing just in time to keep from tumbling off the balcony.
He braces himself against the rail and tries to stay standing, but he can’t keep his feet - the room tilts abruptly and he pitches sideways and has to sit down hard with his back to the railing, still struggling not to lose consciousness. His vision is foggy and whirling and he can’t focus, but he can just make out a large, dark shape standing over him.
The large, dark shape is wearing steel-toed boots. Megamind discovers this when one of them kicks him in the stomach. He curls reflexively, hissing, and then the other boot collides with the side of his head and the lights go out.
Chapter 7
Top of Page
Chapter 9
Return to Master List
Author: Dal_Niente
Rating: M for later chapters
Word Count: 3,660
Author's Note: You all are seriously amazing. I keep saying that, but it is true. So much love for all of you. Holy moly.
In which there are some explanations, some speculations, some evil outfits, and some steel-toed boots.
Chapter 8
Akos crosses carefully to the edge of the pool and looks in. “Pool” is a bit of an understatement; it’s more like a very large pond or a very small indoor lake, which explains why he and Roxanne had gone down so many flights of stairs to reach it -- it’s underground. Deep and wide and easily fifty yards from end to end, there are shallow steps leading down into the far end, where Roxanne is. The sides of the pool are very steeply sloped rather than going straight down. But the size of the pool is not what Akos is staring at.
He's staring at the reef. There is a full-scale reef in there, complete with brightly-colored coral and fish and waving plants.
He raises his voice, and is totally unsurprised to discover that it shakes slightly. “H-how deep is this?”
He doesn’t get an answer. Roxanne is alternating talking to the pool in a low, urgent voice and dipping one side of her head in. Akos backs away from the water and moves closer to Roxanne’s end of the pool, which - hooray - looks a lot shallower and therefore a lot safer.
“I just don’t get it,” Roxanne is saying. “There’s no reason I should be able to receive some…I don’t know, some hormonal message from you halfway across the city, and you in a tank of water!”
Minion shrugs wearily. “I don’t know either. Sir will probably be able to explain it when he gets back.”
Roxanne can think of several ways to reply to that. Finally she goes with the simplest. “I don’t know that I want be here when he does.”
“Why not?” Minion stares up at her, obviously surprised, and Roxanne realizes with a kind of shock that he doesn’t know what happened.
Well, there’s nothing else for it. She takes a deep breath. “You’re - not going to believe this, but when I came to the Lair last night Megamind was making out with another girl.”
Minion blinks, opens his mouth, closes it, and blinks again. “You’re right,” he says after a moment of stunned silence. “I don’t believe it. He wouldn’t.”
“That was what I thought!” Roxanne shakes her head. “Minion, you know him best. Why would he do that? And why would he let me see? Is he trying to keep me safe, or something? Make me leave him so that I don’t get caught in the crossfire? He said some things to me after lunch a couple days ago, and I thought…I don’t know what I thought.”
“This explains why he was so off today,” Minion mutters, and frowns for a moment. Finally he looks back up at Roxanne. “Miss Ritchi, he hasn’t been thinking clearly lately. All these meetings and public appearances have been doing a real number on his systems, and his judgment is…well, it’s never been great, but he’s second-guessing everything right now. And on top of that, there’s no stability, no routine. Everything is just so weird. For both of us, really.”
Roxanne scowls and opens her mouth, but Minion fans his fins and his ridges light up, and she stops.
“I’m not trying to make excuses!” he says quickly. “It’s just… it’s like he’s stuck watching himself. Nothing comes naturally; he has to think about every move. What exactly did he say to you?”
Quickly, Roxanne tells him about the last time she and Megamind spoke. Minion looks unsurprised. “Miss Ritchi, he’s not really worried about what would happen if another villain showed up. Trust me. He and I both know you can handle yourself - we’ve known it for years.”
“Yes, but…”
“Question for you. Might make more sense to you than me, I don’t know.” Minion looks hesitant, but forges ahead anyway. “Do you know why he would go and visit our old school?”
Roxanne freezes, her train of thought totally derailed. “What?”
“He was acting really strange after you left - threw himself into a random project like I haven’t seen him do in ages. I tracked his movements just prior to that, and he had gone to the old schoolhouse and stayed there for about half an hour before coming back to the Lair.”
Roxanne stares down at him, then scrabbles in her hoodie pocket for her cell phone, which, thankfully, is water-resistant. The two new voicemails glare accusingly up at her.
“Miss Ritchi?”
“Hang on, Minion, I just - I need to check something.” Because if Megamind had gone and visited Wayne and Wayne hadn't tried to warn her about it, Roxanne will find a way past his invulnerability. And she will strangle him.
And, yes, lo and behold, the voicemails are from Mom and WS. The one from WS had been delayed by a few hours. Figures. She needs an upgrade on her phone.
Muttering threats under her breath, she calls her voicemail.
You have two unheard messages. First unheard message:
Hey, Roxie, it’s…me. Sorry to call out of nowhere like this, but your boyfriend… is he your boyfriend? If so, it’s about time you found somebody, good for you… Anyway, Blue was just here. I think he’s going to try something and I think it’s going to be loads of stupid, but he said…it was weird and kind of convoluted, he was sort of babbling for a while there but I think he’s gonna try to make you hate him, or something? I dunno. Sounded to me like he’s just scared you’ll throw everything in his face and take off, and he figured he’d beat you to it, save you the trouble. Load of crap if you ask me. Or maybe it isn’t. Everything else has kinda exploded on him, you know? Shit keeps hitting his fan. Can’t really blame him. (There’s a pause.) I dunno. I still think it’s crap.
Good luck knocking some sense into him, but… (something that sounds like a sigh)…look, just be careful, okay? I don’t know what’s got him so up-cited, but I haven’t seen him this frantic since grade school. Just don’t yell. He hates yelling. Dunno if you’ve noticed that. Anyway, I’ll leave the details up to you, just wanted to…you know, call and give you a heads-up. You should come hang soon, catch up a bit. Both of you. Sounds weird, but I kinda miss the little guy. Say hey to the fish for me, would you?
Next unheard message:
Roxanne deletes the message from Mom without listening to it and closes her phone, trying to decide how she feels about this new development. On one hand, it could mean that Megamind doesn’t really think she needs protecting and therefore wasn’t leaving her for her own good. If that’s the case, she’s not half as mad at him as she had been.
Well, that’s not really true. She’s still just as angry, but for a different reason: it’s her standard reaction to blatant stupidity. Wayne is right, she can’t blame Megamind for being scared and insecure - a lifetime of conditioning can’t just be ignored - but that doesn’t mean Roxanne should have to put up with any more harebrained schemes.
They can work through it, though, she’s sure they can. It’ll take time, but Roxanne suspects Megamind is just as stubborn as she is, in his way. From what she’s seen, Megamind clings to his ideas with a silent steadfastness that would make any barnacle proud - all Roxanne needs to do is convince him to cling to the idea that she won’t just up and leave him at the drop of a hat.
“Well,” she says after a few quiet seconds tick by, “it sounds like he’s gone further off the deep end than I thought.”
“And?” Minion dances a little in the water, impatient. “What happened? Who called you? What did Sir go do?”
Roxanne looks down and smiles. “He went and talked to an old friend.”
“A friend?” Minion sounds dubious. “We don’t have friends.”
Roxanne shrugs. “An old enemy, then. It isn’t important. I think he probably just needed to get out for a bit.” And then, to change the subject, “Minion, why are we both okay now?”
“Could be a defense mechanism, I think,” the fish tells her after a moment. He sends her a look that says he knows exactly what she’s doing. “Endorphins. Also the acoustics in here throw off the humming, so it’s just white noise. I’m no longer resonating to it - I’m not affected by it, so if I’m right and you’ve somehow bonded to me, the way Sir has, neither are you.” He pauses. “Goodness, that sounds weird.”
Roxanne wades to the steps and sits down, wrapping her arms around her chest. The water is warm, but the air in the lair is as cool as it always is and she’s beginning to shiver. “About that. I don’t think I can possibly do anything like what you're suggesting.”
“Why not?”
She shrugs. “Well, think about it. Megamind only felt it when he got you out of the water, when he touched you, probably because whatever chemicals your body was producing were blocked by the water and the glass tank - like he said, it’s not a mental link, it’s biochemical. How could I feel, immediately, the same thing you were feeling if I was halfway across town? Heck, I can’t even hear you if I don’t have an ear in the water.” She shakes her head. “Also, I’m sorry, but you’re an alien fish. It’s just not possible.”
Minion looks mildly offended for a second, then nods. “Okay. Granted. But you feel fine now, and I feel fine now, and we got sick at the same time, so something has to be going on there.” He blinks up at her, concerned. “Also, you should probably get out of the pool. You look cold.”
“I am cold, but the water’s warmer than the air and -”
“Blankets!” Akos announces loudly, reentering the room with his arms full of them, and Roxanne jumps. She hadn’t seen him leave. “Blankets and who are you talking to?”
Roxanne points at the water. “Minion. You know, Megamind’s friend. He’s a fish, wears a robotic gorilla suit?”
Akos shakes his head. “I try to stay out of the way of the superhero-supervillain stuff. Now get out of the water before you catch your death or drown or something.”
“Thank you,” Minion mutters. “Honestly, what is it with bipeds and refusing to listen to me?”
Roxanne obeys, wrapping one of the blankets around her and huddling gratefully into it. Then an idea strikes and she steps back over to the pool. “Minion, I want to try something and I want to get into dry clothes and I think I can do both at the same time. I’m going to leave Akos with you for a few minutes, okay?”
Minion frowns a little, but nods.
Roxanne turns to the cabbie. “Akos, just…stay here? I’ll be back really soon. If I get sick again, then Minion is right and I’ll just come back in here.”
Akos shrugs and nods. “I got nothing better to do, sure.”
Roxanne nods her thanks and jogs towards the door. The room might be the only thing blocking the sick feeling, but she doesn’t think it is, and once she’s in the hallway she stops and waits for a few seconds.
Nothing happens.
So I’m not bound to Minion, Roxanne thinks. She has a theory about that - it might be the something similar to what Megamind had said about growing attuned to other people’s chemical signatures. Her body is tuning itself to both Megamind and Minion, aligning on some level with their bodies, but it isn’t strong enough yet to be consistent. Or she doesn’t feel sick now because her body is defending itself and turning against the offending frequency. Or both.
She could be completely mistaken, but it’s the best guess she can come up with.
She grins and hurries back along the maze of hallways to Megamind’s bedroom. There’s a small box of her clothing by the door, and it doesn’t take too long to find a pair of black yoga pants and a dry shirt.
She also finds the fancy dressing gown she’d bought and stored under the bed so she wouldn’t have to keep borrowing Megamind’s bathrobes and capes. The Lair is usually on the chilly side, and Roxanne isn't comfortable just wandering around in her pajamas. Besides, the dressing gown is one she had thought Megamind would approve of - it's full-length and made of black satiny polyester with blue collar and lining, and there's a blue sash that loops twice around her waist and has tassels on the ends. There are hidden fasteners up the front. Roxanne is pretty sure that it’s meant to be some kind of slinky dress, but she’s also pretty sure that she’d never wear it in public, ever.
But the flowing sleeves are long, and it’s warmer than nothing, and she has to admit that it fits perfectly with the lair even if the blue is paler than the stuff Megamind usually wears. She puts it on over the yoga pants. What the hell, why not? It makes her feel evil. It’s not a bad feeling.
She looks in the mirror and grins. “Raargh,” she says to her reflection, holding up hands with fingers bent like claws, and then bursts out laughing.
She is still grinning when she re-enters the pool room and finds Akos and Minion in a heated debate about - various kinds of cooking oil, it sounds like. Akos is lying on the floor with his ear in the water, both hands white-knuckled on the side of the pool.
She decides not to ask.
“Minion, I have a question,” she calls, going back over to the pool. Akos looks up at her and raises his eyebrows, but says nothing about her outfit. “Where did Megamind actually go?”
“Assuming he has the watch or the car, you could look him up on console 4 upstairs,” Minion replies. “I think he was being sarcastic about the ‘friend,’ though. And please tell your friend here that peanut oil is best for deep frying. He keeps going on about bacon fat.”
“Don’t ask me about frying, I burn salads,” Roxanne says. “I would have thought he would go and fix the reactors, first.” She pulls out her phone. mom - which is better 4 deep frying, Pnut oil or bacon grease?
Minion looks troubled. “About that,” he says slowly. “He and I discovered ages ago that if something goes wrong with the muon reactor, I feel pain all up and down my spines. It’s the cold fusion reactor that makes me sick. But we tested everything that could possibly go wrong, and it’s never felt like that before.”
Roxanne blinks and sits down on the floor, cross-legged. “What’s it feel like?” Her phone beeps twice. both. mostly pnut, add 1/3 or 1/4 bacon 4 flavor. bacons like lard, lots of flavor, but has low burn and smoke point. pnut holds up better 4 deepfry. plz dont hurt urself.
She grins and shows the phone to Akos, who looks at it and grimaces.
“It felt like there was a third note in with the other two.” Minion shakes his head. “But that doesn’t make any sense. That’s where I keep getting stuck, because the only thing that would do that is if there was a third reactor. And that’s impossible; Sir is the only one who knows how to do cold fusion so that it’s actually feasible.”
Roxanne looks up, paling. No, she thinks, because it can’t be, not really. Not seriously.
Can it?
“A third reactor?” she repeats faintly. “A cold fusion reactor?”
“It would have to be, I think. But it’s all wrong. It feels weird. Jangly. Like hitting your funny bone,” Minion says, then adds, “not that I would know.”
Anderson. “That complete and utter toad,” Roxanne whispers, shocked. “He built a reactor. He actually built one.”
“What?” Minion asks, just as Akos says, “Who?”
Roxanne answers neither question. She’s thinking. Distantly, she registers that Akos and Minion have resumed their discussion.
Anderson built a reactor, and Megamind went to go shut it down. But Roxanne very seriously doubts that Megamind did the same digging into Anderson’s background that she did. And if that’s true, and he doesn’t know who he’s really dealing with…
“Minion,” she says quietly, and something in her voice brings both of her companions up short. “How often has Megamind fought the forces of good without you backing him up? I mean, how often has he fought alone?”
“I don’t know, a couple of times?” Minion says. “Two, maybe three.”
Roxanne rises, feeling more than a little bit shaky. “If I take you out of this room, will you get sick again?”
“Almost definitely. Sorry.”
She rubs a hand over her eyes, unable to believe what she is about to do. “Brilliant,” she mutters. “Splendid. Okay. You have to stay here, then.” She chews her lip, trying to remember all the rejected contraptions and inventions Minion had shown her. “I need to go.”
She turns towards the door, then back to the pool. “Akos. I’m sorry, but I’m going to need your help again.”
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
It’s only after Megamind has broken into the abandoned waterfront theater that he realizes he has no idea what he’s doing. Breaking and entering? Smooth sailing. Taking down a cold fusion reactor and the misguided professor who created it? Should be simple.
Taking down the misguided professor who created it without hurting him? That one is going to be a little more difficult. Also, he had left without the de-gun, which he really shouldn’t have done, but he had been in a hurry. He doesn’t wear it around the Lair, and Roxanne’s sudden alarming appearance had thrown him for a loop, and he’d pulled out of the Lair with little more than what was already in the invisible car.
But Professor Anderson isn’t insane, right? This shouldn’t be too hard, right? He’s just a villain, and Megamind knows villainy like the back of his hand. This should be cake.
But a villain would say something like, “You should have been here hours ago, I’ve been waiting,” or, “You’ve fallen into my trap!” upon the arrival of the hero. Not, “What the fuck,” which is what Anderson says when Megamind steps to the edge of the balcony and looks down.
It isn’t fair, really. In these sorts of situations, the hero is supposed to speak first and take the villain by surprise. Anderson isn’t playing by the rules.
But the rules don’t matter anymore when Megamind sees what’s on the stage of the old theater, burning like a very small sun in the middle of a sphere that really shouldn’t be transparent. And what Megamind says is, “Anderson, what have you done?”
“Thought you were a genius,” the man sneers.
“Look, that’s just how it’s supposed to go,” Megamind snaps defensively. “I ask what you’ve done, you reveal your cunning plan, I haul you off to jail.” But he’s got a sneaking suspicion that Anderson, like Hal, really doesn’t care how it’s supposed to go. He decides to forgo the usual procedure. “Listen, Professor, you’ve got to shut it off. It’s all wrong.”
“And I suppose you know how to fix it?” Anderson’s lip curls and he shakes his head. “Please. This is going to save the city millions in energy bills.”
“Oh really,” Megamind says, using the driest voice he can manage. “Is that before or after it costs the city billions in repairs bills?” He shakes his head. “You know, there won’t even be a city in…I give it a week, tops. I can't believe you built that thing on land. Shut it off.”
“Nothing doing.”
“Don’t make me come down there,” Megamind warns, careful not to sound too desperate.
Anderson puts his hands behind his back like a first-class lecturer and paces across the stage. “You know, I thought you might turn up,” he muses. “You were the one who told that reporter girl to ask those questions at the end of the interview, weren’t you? They cut my funding, thanks to you. I’ve just been laid off.”
“Really,” Megamind says again. “How did you pay to build this reactor, then?”
“Sold my father’s yacht.” Anderson shrugs. “He never used it anyway.”
There are entirely too many shades of grey here for Megamind’s liking. Anderson has probably spent his last cent building a machine that he hopes will save electricity bills the world over, someday. He’s trying to do good.
What does that make me?
“Look, I respect ingenuity,” Megamind tells him, “but you really need to shut it off. Now, before it gets any hotter. It’s all wrong.”
He had thought to ask about funding, but not, regrettably, about how Anderson had actually managed to construct his machine. It had taken Megamind half a year and several hundred brainbots to build his. One man, working alone, cannot build and maintain a reactor.
This is the thought that occurs to Megamind when Anderson’s grey gaze flicks to a point just behind him, right before something heavy smashes into the back of his head. Stars burst behind his eyes and he staggers, catching the railing just in time to keep from tumbling off the balcony.
He braces himself against the rail and tries to stay standing, but he can’t keep his feet - the room tilts abruptly and he pitches sideways and has to sit down hard with his back to the railing, still struggling not to lose consciousness. His vision is foggy and whirling and he can’t focus, but he can just make out a large, dark shape standing over him.
The large, dark shape is wearing steel-toed boots. Megamind discovers this when one of them kicks him in the stomach. He curls reflexively, hissing, and then the other boot collides with the side of his head and the lights go out.
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