Fic: Cold Fusion: True North, Chapter 10
Title: Cold Fusion: True North, Chapter 10
Author: Dal_Niente
Rating: M for later chapters
Word Count: 4,126
Author's Note: The Red Hand of Doom is not mine, and neither is anything else in here. Funny story about this chapter - somehow I got it into my head while writing chapter 8 that it was evening. Then I realized it wasn’t; it was actually mid-morning when all the stuff in chapters 8 and 9 happened, and I had to completely scrap half of chapter 10 and rewrite the rest. XD
Oh well. Chapter 10, in which Roxanne is (still) mad, Megamind is (still) tired, Jo is (still) pushy and nosy, and Hal is (still) a nerd. Thanks to immortalwitness for checking my D&D terminology!
Chapter 10
When Megamind gets home, he finds that Minion has fallen into exhausted sleep on the bottom of the pool. Megamind wakes him just long enough to assure him that no, everything’s fine, and get him back into his suit where he’ll be more comfortable.
That done, he knows he should go to bed, too, but he also knows that it’s just past noon and he won’t be able to fall asleep. So, since sleep is impossible, he heads upstairs to his drafting room. He picks up the de-gun on the way. After the events of this morning, he’s determined to have it on his person at all times.
He is flipping back through old blueprints, searching for ideas, something to keep himself busy, when he runs across the third draft of the completed harbor filter and his hands go still. At the bottom of the page is the sketch he did of Roxanne, a lifetime ago. She’s laughing. She’s happy and smiling and he remembers the day in the park and his breath hitches before he can stop it, and then his hand on the page clenches and crumples the sketch and he’s crying.
Because she’s gone. She came to help with Anderson, god knows why, but after what he did? No. She’s gone. And he should be glad, really, because he did what he had to do but it was stupid and he knows it was stupid.
Why can he admit that now, when it’s too late?
Stupid, he thinks, and turns to leave. Whether he’ll be able to sleep or not, he is going to bed. He cannot deal with anything but bed right now.
Then his phone beeps at him, and he looks at it and nearly cries again. He has a meeting in half an hour with the Technology and Change Management Department, never mind that it’s Saturday. At least it shouldn’t take too long. At least he can stop by the newsroom on his way home and pick up…whatever it is that Roxanne has for him.
This hero business is going to be the death of him.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Roxanne doesn’t bother going home to change, just pulls off the makeshift balaclava and dressing gown and bundles them up together. The yoga pants are clean and so is her shirt - short-sleeved but clingy - and they’re both black, so all she really has to do is stop at the dollar store and pick up a pair of three-dollar black flats and a cheap string of fake pearls. It won’t fool anyone who looks closely, but she looks dressy enough to pass as business casual. She doesn’t have any appointments today, and she tells Akos to just leave her at the store, then goes around back and unfolds the airboard. She needs some time to think, and she’s beginning to like the airboard.
Sometimes she actually misses flying with Wayne. The airboard is different, but it’s still flying.
Jo looks up when Roxanne flings herself into her desk chair. She waits a moment, then pokes her head up over the top of the partition. “Hey, hon, what're you doing at work? Thought you were going to take the weekend off, for once.”
Roxanne is face down on her desk. She shakes her head without lifting it up. “I need to be here," she mumbles. "I didn’t sign in. I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to move. I just want to sit here and cool off.”
Jo blinks. “What happened? You get kidnapped or something? Is everything okay with…everything?”
Roxanne is quiet for a few seconds, just breathing. Then she says, “I just watched my boyfriend stab a man in the eye with a lockpick, I pistol-whipped an unconscious guy, and I came to work on a flying snowboard. You know how I got in? Door on the roof of this building. Maintenance staircase. Ta-da, here I am. Jazz hands.” And she wiggles her hands in the air before dropping them back down onto her desk.
Jo frowns. “Go back to the bit about the pistol-whipping.”
Roxanne finally sighs and sits up. “It’ll all be in the paper tomorrow, I think. Remember I told you I was doing some research on Professor Anderson?”
“I remember, sure.”
“Turns out he’s a phony,” Roxanne says, and proceeds to tell Jo everything she was able to find out about Robert Dreyson, and everything that had happened that morning.
“…So that’s all of it,” she finishes with a sigh. “I don’t know what Akos did with the mask. I think he still has it. I kind of feel bad for dragging him into all that, I should send him a thank-you note or something.”
Jo bites her lip. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Rewind to the part where you slapped Megamind. Why? Exactly? Would you do that?”
Roxanne puts her face in her hands. “Oh god,” she mutters. “I forgot you didn’t know. He made me think he was cheating on me so that I would leave him. He also said something to me beforehand to make me think he was lying to me to get me to leave so that I would be safe.”
Jo stares at her for a moment. “Get out of town.”
“I know.”
There’s a brief pause. Then, “Well, you’re not going to go back to him, are you?”
Roxanne bites her lip. “That’s the thing, he wasn’t trying to get me to leave so that I would be safe. Wayne thinks - and Minion I agree - that Megamind was trying to beat me to the punch. Figured I’d leave him eventually, so he’d just spare the both of us a lot of heartache and trouble and make me leave. He knew I’d figure out that he wasn’t really cheating -”
“How?” Jo asks, sounding exasperated. “How would you possibly know that?”
“Because if he were, I’d never find out about it.”
Jo scowls and opens her mouth to argue, then closes it. “Okay,” she admits. “Okay, yeah. That’s. That's probably true.”
Roxanne nods. “Anyway. He knew I’d figure it out and be pissed, but he wanted me to stay away and he guessed the easiest way to do that was make me hate him. And you know me, Jo. I’d hate anyone who dumped me because he thought it’d be for my own good. Megamind knew that, too.”
“Next question,” Jo says, as soon as Roxanne finishes speaking. “Who is Wayne?”
Roxanne, who had been rubbing her temples, freezes. Then she looks up at Jo, thinking desperately. “Uh. Wayne is. A friend of mine. From out of town.”
Jo snorts. “You can’t lie for shit. Who is he, really?”
“Forget it,” Roxanne says sharply. “Just forget it. Please don’t ask me again.” But she remembers what happened last time she tried to hide something from Jo, and she groans. “Oh god. You did not hear this from me, you did not hear that name from me.”
“Roxie,” says Jo, and then Roxanne sits bolt upright and stares wildly around.
“I’m in a newsroom,” she says. It doesn’t matter that the newsroom is mostly empty. Someone is always listening. “Oh, god, Jo. We cannot have this conversation here. No. Cannot happen.” Her laughter is breathless, and slightly frantic. “Have you had lunch? I don’t care. Come on. We’re going out.” And she leaps to her feet, grabs her friend by the wrist, and heads for the stairs.
They get to the street before Roxanne remembers the holowatch chip, and she has to run back upstairs and get it so that she can leave it with the receptionist to give to Megamind if he comes by. Then she finally leads Jo away from the newsroom.
Jo is laughing. “Roxanne, what the heck? Stop, what’s going on?”
Roxanne drags her into the first building she sees, which turns out to be the library next door. Her research with Ber-Megamind, black bloody damn - had introduced her to some quiet-study soundproofed rooms, and that’s where she goes. And slams the door.
“All right, ignoring the creepy tiny room factor for a moment because you’re bugging out on me, but you owe me big time for hauling me in here. Now who is Wayne?” Jo stares at her. “Good lord, you’d think I’d asked for the mob’s hit list, or something.”
Roxanne licks her lips. “I’ll only say this once, and then you have to swear to drop it. And never say anything, ever, to anyone.”
“Okay, sure.”
“Jo, swear.”
Jo rolls her eyes and puts her hand on her heart. “I do solemnly swear to never say anything, ever, to anyone, about what you’re going to tell me. Now tell me.”
Roxanne swallows. I can’t believe I’m doing this. “Wayne Scott.”
Jo blinks. Narrows her eyes. “Come again?”
“Wayne Scott,” Roxanne tells her. “You know. Big guy, nice teeth, wears a cape, used to fly around in a white suit? Remember?”
Jo looks as if this information is physically painful to think about. “Yes, I remember. Has your little blue man from Mars figured out how to raise the dead, then? Or have you finally lost it?”
“You said you’d drop the subject.”
And that’s when Jo freaks out. Roxanne has to duck to avoid the flailing limbs. “Jesus H Christ, Roxanne! You can’t drag me in here and tell me something like that and expect me to nod and say, ‘right then, jolly good,’ and just leave it alone! And can we please exit this tiny evil room before I start hyperventilating?”
“You’re already hyperventilating,” Roxanne mutters, but she opens the door. Jo bursts out of the little room like a very small angry whirlwind, and doesn’t stop hissing under her breath until they’re out in the sunshine again.
Then she turns to Roxanne and grabs her by both arms. “To clarify -”
“Lower your voice, please.”
Jo presses her lips together for a moment, then says in a quieter tone, “To clarify. Wayne is alive. He was not, in fact, burned to death in an abandoned observatory a year ago.”
Roxanne nods.
“And he’s still alive?”
Roxanne hands Jo her cell phone. “Listen to the saved voicemail,” she says tiredly, and sits down behind one of the huge marble lions that guard the stairs to the library.
Jo holds the phone to her ear. A moment later she goes very pale and sits down on the steps.
When it’s over, she pulls the phone away and stares at it.
“Remember, you can’t say anything,” Roxanne says quickly, then recoils at the scathing look Jo sends her.
“Do you really think I’d betray him like that?” she demands. “If he wants to stay hidden, I’m certainly not going to blow his cover.” She looks at the phone again, frowns, does something to it, then hands it back to Roxanne and stands. “Wow, though. Really wow.”
Roxanne just nods. ‘Really wow’ is a pretty good description of the past couple of days.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Jo says brightly, and Roxanne looks up. “That was fast.”
The young, pale man she’s talking to looks astonished. Jo grins at him. “Right, so, I’m leaving now. Gotta go back to work. But you and me,” and she points at the man and then jerks her thumb back at herself, “need to talk. I have Monday morning off, meet me for coffee at Joes’ Joe at ten.”
His shocked expression is replaced with a thin, brittle smile. “Meeting at ten with Jo at Joe’s Joe,” he replies. “I think I can remember that.”
She grins and knocks a fist against his shoulder. “See you,” she says, then turns and waggles her fingers at Roxanne. “Bye! Have fun! Try not to level the city, okay?”
The young man looks up at Roxanne. His eyes are very green, and he looks very worn-out in spite of the sharp black suit he’s wearing.
For a moment, they just look at each other. Then the man says, “I got the chip.”
Roxanne closes her eyes. “Hello, Megamind.”
“Jo texted me, told me where you were - I was just walking past the library when she did.” He pauses. “I think she wants us to have it out now.”
“I think I’m going to strangle her,” Roxanne murmurs, and Megamind lets out a laugh that sounds like a sob. “Listen, can this…can this wait?” She opens her eyes. “Because quite frankly, I’m…I don’t think I can do this right now. I’ll level with you, Megs,” she says, and her voice is flat and her expression is cold, “I am madder than I think I’ve ever been in my entire life. And if I do this now, I am probably going to yell. I don’t like yelling. Word on the street is you’re not a fan of it either, so let’s just…let’s just leave this until we’ve had some time to think.”
To his credit, he does not look away. “Yes,” he says, and nods. “Yes, I…I agree, that sounds good.” After another brief, awkward pause during which neither of them breathes much, he turns to leave. Then he turns back. He looks very hesitant. “You knew Julius Caesar. Are you…I don’t suppose you’re familiar with Sonnet Sixty-Four?”
Roxanne’s lips thin. “I’m really not in the mood for cultural references.”
“No, I know,” he says quickly, and steps towards her, offering a folded piece of paper. He holds his arm fully extended, and does not come any closer than he has to. “Just…read this? Please. I know it’s cliché, but,” he offers her a brittle smile, “so am I.”
Roxanne takes the paper without speaking, and Megamind immediately turns and walks away, threads his way into the crowded street and disappears into the sea of faces.
She looks down at the paper. It has ragged edges, probably torn from some notebook or other. The side facing her is covered with lines of what look like spidery Chinese characters. They are small, and precise, and actually rather pretty if only because she can’t actually read them. It could just be a grocery list. Roxanne resists the urge to ball it up and just throw it into the wind.
Finally she unfolds it. The words on the other side are English, written in the same spidery hand.
It’s one she hasn’t read, but after reading through it once, she knows exactly why Megamind picked this one. The first half is just a formality, really - she’s willing to bet a few dollars that all he really wanted her to read was the last six lines, which are underlined.
When I have seen such interchange of state, / Or state itself confounded to decay, / Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, / That time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose / But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Roxanne rubs a hand over her face. Then she stands, shoves the paper in her purse, and begins to walk. She needs to think.
She isn’t sure where she’s going, and she doesn’t care. She has a concealed carry permit, she’s armed, and she’s been around the block a few times, so when she finds herself on the wrong side of the tracks a few hours later she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t remember crossing the tracks, but this is definitely the projects on the North Side. The flat grey wall of the Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted is just beyond.
A small boy runs past with a water pistol, chasing a girl who can only be his sister and shouting something in French. He’s barefoot and grubby and tanned, and he’s also laughing. His sister is alternating screaming back over her shoulder and giggling.
Who on earth would build a red schoolhouse here?
“Hey, lady!”
Roxanne turns to find the boy standing maybe ten feet away, his water pistol pointed at her. His eyes are laughing. “This’s a stickup!”
She feigns terror for a moment, then grins. “What do you want?”
He lowers the pistol a few notches, returning her smile. Both front teeth are missing. “Candy?” Behind him, his sister peers out from a narrow passage between two houses with peeling paint. Her eyes are very wide.
Roxanne digs in her purse, comes up empty-handed. “Sorry, no candy.”
“Awww,” he says, but he doesn’t look too disappointed. “That’s okay. No one ever does. Bye, lady!” And off he goes again, bare feet flying over hot pavement and gravel. Probably some broken glass, too. His sister squeals and ducks back out of sight.
Laughing a little in spite of herself, Roxanne turns back to the grey jail. The afternoon sun is hot and bright, and she’s in all black. She’s been cooler, but she walks forward towards the jail along the road that leads out of town. It needs to be repaved.
Some of the inmates are in the exercise yard - there’s a group of orange jumpsuits playing basketball, a few standing around smoking and talking. And a circle of maybe six in the corner by the side of the building and the road, all leaning forward and looking at something in the middle. Talking. Listening. Plotting? Scheming?
Roxanne moves closer, so that she can hear what they’re saying.
“…Okay, guys, make a spot check.”
“Fifteen.”
“Ten.”
“…Two. Maldita sea.”
“ ’S yer fault, man, yer the one what wanted ter play a warforged. I rolled a ‘yes.’”
The first speaker heaves a sigh. “What kind of a yes, dude.”
“The kinda yes what means I see whatever’s out there, Nine K. Twenny-two.”
Roxanne moves a little bit closer, enough to see that the men are clustered around a grid drawn in the dirt of the exercise yard. Little figures are grouped together on the grid.
“Okay, so, you see something up ahead. You wanna say something to your party?”
I-rolled-a-yes shakes his head. “Naw, I’m good.”
“Okay, Ronnie, you’re a paladin. Warn your group or something. Jeez.”
I-rolled-a-yes-Ronnie mutters something under his breath, but announces, “Hey, guys, there’s sompin up ahead!” Then he glares at Speaker One. “Happy?”
The first speaker has his back to Roxanne. He shrugs. “Sure, whatever. Okay. ‘The road crests a small rise and descends into a dusty grove in a large, shallow dell. An abandoned farmhouse, partially visible through the trees, stands on one side of the road.’”
Wait a minute, Roxanne thinks. I know that voice.
“‘You've passed a dozen spots much like this one already today, but this one feels wrong. Then you glimpse the glint of mail through the brush by the side of the road. Fierce warriors -- tall, hairy humanoids with wide mouths and flat faces -- are lying in wait!’” The speaker finishes with a flourish. “Okay, guys, roll for initiative.”
“Wait, wait, what are they? Can I make a wisdom save, or whatever you call it?”
“Like, a knowledge check?” The first speaker shakes his head. “Don’t bother. It’s just a bunch of hobgoblins.”
Roxanne really shouldn’t be surprised. She’d just thought he was more of a video-game type, rather than a paper-and-dice RPG type.
“Hal?”
He turns, blinks, and then his round face lights up. “Roxie! Hey! Hold on a sec, guys.”
He gets up and comes over to the fence. Roxanne isn’t sure what effect jail is having on Hal, but he actually looks pretty good. He’s obviously happy to see her, and he seems to have made…friends.
“Hal, what are you doing?”
He gives her another toothy smile. “Running a campaign! Tried fourth ed, but it sucked, like, major balls, so we went back to three-five. Red Hand of Doom. It’s pretty sweet. My man Ronnie, he’s like, a hacker or something, he got the books online for free!”
Roxanne shakes her head. She only understood about half of that. “So, you’re doing okay, then?”
“Are you nuts?” He laughs. “I’m doing great! This place is epic, no lie, everything is free and they let you get stuff if you don’t make a lot of fuss, so I’m set with all the games I want. But enough about me, what’s new with you?” He leans on the fence, still smiling. “You still working the big stories? Heard something went down today over by the docks.”
Roxanne nods, and wonders if she should be suspicious. Hal looks happy, sounds happy, seems to bear her no ill will - what is going on in his head? And how does he know what happened this morning? “Yeah, something…went down. We fixed it, though.”
He cocks his head. “We? Who’s ‘we’?”
“Well, I say we, but I don’t mean… I mean, I’m just a reporter, Hal, you know that.” She sounds defensive, and inwardly, she kicks herself. That’s the second slip she’s made today. “I meant Megamind fixed it.”
Hal wilts a little. “Oh yeah. Him.”
Roxanne watches Hal closely. Megamind’s name had an initial dampening effect, but Hal brightens right back up again a moment later. “So he’s still doing the hero thing?”
“Seems to be.”
“Kinda weird, he ends up taking over the city and then taking care of it. Kind of a major life change, huh? Well, good for him.”
Roxanne blinks. Is there something wrong with her ears? “Good?” she echoes faintly. “But I thought you…I mean I thought you would…”
“What, hate him?” Hal grins, shakes his head. “Nah. I kinda did, at first, ‘cause you know, he was pushing me to do all that stuff, and then he took everything away and I went to jail, plus he lied to you and Space Stepmom like, majorly.” He looks at her, raises his eyebrows. “I mean, c’mon. You’d be pissed too, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “But then I was talking to Ol’ Mitch and Big PM, and they told me some stuff. Made me think a little. Got my head on straight, you know? And you know - if you see him -” Hal glances over both shoulders and leans in, drops his voice. “You should prob’ly warn him he didn’t make any friends switching sides like he did. Made a lot of enemies. Ol’ Mitch and Big PM are still sticking up for him, and nobody argues with them, ‘cause Vincent’s on their side, but they’re getting kinda old and maybe they won’t be around much longer.”
Roxanne’s head is spinning. “Wait, wait, who are these guys? What are you saying?”
Hal rolls his eyes. “Man oh man, Roxie, you got no idea. Vincent’s the boss, okay? So most people won’t say they’re against Blue. But personally, I think it’s prob’ly a thirty-seventy, maybe forty-sixty split against.” He grimaces. “Just warn him, okay? If you see him. Tell him Ol’ Mitch says to watch his back.”
“Oy! Nine-K! Drag your ass back over, huh? Yer girlfriend kin talk t’yer later!”
Hal jumps. “I gotta go. But hey, wow, it’s good to see you, Roxie! Stay safe!”
And then he’s turned around and back to the game, laughing and tossing dice and actually being social. The mind boggles.
But what he said about staying safe is good advice, and the sun is going down, so Roxanne gets one of the guards to call her a taxi.
She is still thinking hard. Who are Old Mitch and Big PM - what’s their connection to Megamind? What ‘stuff’ did they tell Hal? How does Megamind know the boss? Does everyone in there have a nickname?
And how is she going to go about talking to Megamind?
Best to sort things out tonight, probably, before anything else happens. But Roxanne wants it to be on her terms - get Megamind off-balance, take him by surprise before he has a chance to think out what to say or how to say it. She’s sure he’s already thought of what he should and should not tell her, but she doesn’t want to hear that; she wants to hear the truth.
And the quickest way to get him to say what he really thinks will be to blindside him. It’s not nice, but it’ll be more effective that way - he’s probably going to be angry and defensive, and she’ll need to put an end to that as quickly as possible.
She can’t just walk in the door, either. That’s not enough of a surprise; that would give him too much time to think. It might only be a few seconds, but at the rate Megamind thinks, even a few seconds is too much.
An idea occurs to her. It isn’t a very nice idea, but it might actually work.
“All right,” she mutters as the taxi pulls up to the curb. “Time to test the lair’s security.”
Chapter 9
Top of Page
Chapter 11
Return to Master List
Author: Dal_Niente
Rating: M for later chapters
Word Count: 4,126
Author's Note: The Red Hand of Doom is not mine, and neither is anything else in here. Funny story about this chapter - somehow I got it into my head while writing chapter 8 that it was evening. Then I realized it wasn’t; it was actually mid-morning when all the stuff in chapters 8 and 9 happened, and I had to completely scrap half of chapter 10 and rewrite the rest. XD
Oh well. Chapter 10, in which Roxanne is (still) mad, Megamind is (still) tired, Jo is (still) pushy and nosy, and Hal is (still) a nerd. Thanks to immortalwitness for checking my D&D terminology!
Chapter 10
When Megamind gets home, he finds that Minion has fallen into exhausted sleep on the bottom of the pool. Megamind wakes him just long enough to assure him that no, everything’s fine, and get him back into his suit where he’ll be more comfortable.
That done, he knows he should go to bed, too, but he also knows that it’s just past noon and he won’t be able to fall asleep. So, since sleep is impossible, he heads upstairs to his drafting room. He picks up the de-gun on the way. After the events of this morning, he’s determined to have it on his person at all times.
He is flipping back through old blueprints, searching for ideas, something to keep himself busy, when he runs across the third draft of the completed harbor filter and his hands go still. At the bottom of the page is the sketch he did of Roxanne, a lifetime ago. She’s laughing. She’s happy and smiling and he remembers the day in the park and his breath hitches before he can stop it, and then his hand on the page clenches and crumples the sketch and he’s crying.
Because she’s gone. She came to help with Anderson, god knows why, but after what he did? No. She’s gone. And he should be glad, really, because he did what he had to do but it was stupid and he knows it was stupid.
Why can he admit that now, when it’s too late?
Stupid, he thinks, and turns to leave. Whether he’ll be able to sleep or not, he is going to bed. He cannot deal with anything but bed right now.
Then his phone beeps at him, and he looks at it and nearly cries again. He has a meeting in half an hour with the Technology and Change Management Department, never mind that it’s Saturday. At least it shouldn’t take too long. At least he can stop by the newsroom on his way home and pick up…whatever it is that Roxanne has for him.
This hero business is going to be the death of him.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
Roxanne doesn’t bother going home to change, just pulls off the makeshift balaclava and dressing gown and bundles them up together. The yoga pants are clean and so is her shirt - short-sleeved but clingy - and they’re both black, so all she really has to do is stop at the dollar store and pick up a pair of three-dollar black flats and a cheap string of fake pearls. It won’t fool anyone who looks closely, but she looks dressy enough to pass as business casual. She doesn’t have any appointments today, and she tells Akos to just leave her at the store, then goes around back and unfolds the airboard. She needs some time to think, and she’s beginning to like the airboard.
Sometimes she actually misses flying with Wayne. The airboard is different, but it’s still flying.
Jo looks up when Roxanne flings herself into her desk chair. She waits a moment, then pokes her head up over the top of the partition. “Hey, hon, what're you doing at work? Thought you were going to take the weekend off, for once.”
Roxanne is face down on her desk. She shakes her head without lifting it up. “I need to be here," she mumbles. "I didn’t sign in. I don’t want to do anything, I don’t want to move. I just want to sit here and cool off.”
Jo blinks. “What happened? You get kidnapped or something? Is everything okay with…everything?”
Roxanne is quiet for a few seconds, just breathing. Then she says, “I just watched my boyfriend stab a man in the eye with a lockpick, I pistol-whipped an unconscious guy, and I came to work on a flying snowboard. You know how I got in? Door on the roof of this building. Maintenance staircase. Ta-da, here I am. Jazz hands.” And she wiggles her hands in the air before dropping them back down onto her desk.
Jo frowns. “Go back to the bit about the pistol-whipping.”
Roxanne finally sighs and sits up. “It’ll all be in the paper tomorrow, I think. Remember I told you I was doing some research on Professor Anderson?”
“I remember, sure.”
“Turns out he’s a phony,” Roxanne says, and proceeds to tell Jo everything she was able to find out about Robert Dreyson, and everything that had happened that morning.
“…So that’s all of it,” she finishes with a sigh. “I don’t know what Akos did with the mask. I think he still has it. I kind of feel bad for dragging him into all that, I should send him a thank-you note or something.”
Jo bites her lip. “I’m sorry,” she says. “Rewind to the part where you slapped Megamind. Why? Exactly? Would you do that?”
Roxanne puts her face in her hands. “Oh god,” she mutters. “I forgot you didn’t know. He made me think he was cheating on me so that I would leave him. He also said something to me beforehand to make me think he was lying to me to get me to leave so that I would be safe.”
Jo stares at her for a moment. “Get out of town.”
“I know.”
There’s a brief pause. Then, “Well, you’re not going to go back to him, are you?”
Roxanne bites her lip. “That’s the thing, he wasn’t trying to get me to leave so that I would be safe. Wayne thinks - and Minion I agree - that Megamind was trying to beat me to the punch. Figured I’d leave him eventually, so he’d just spare the both of us a lot of heartache and trouble and make me leave. He knew I’d figure out that he wasn’t really cheating -”
“How?” Jo asks, sounding exasperated. “How would you possibly know that?”
“Because if he were, I’d never find out about it.”
Jo scowls and opens her mouth to argue, then closes it. “Okay,” she admits. “Okay, yeah. That’s. That's probably true.”
Roxanne nods. “Anyway. He knew I’d figure it out and be pissed, but he wanted me to stay away and he guessed the easiest way to do that was make me hate him. And you know me, Jo. I’d hate anyone who dumped me because he thought it’d be for my own good. Megamind knew that, too.”
“Next question,” Jo says, as soon as Roxanne finishes speaking. “Who is Wayne?”
Roxanne, who had been rubbing her temples, freezes. Then she looks up at Jo, thinking desperately. “Uh. Wayne is. A friend of mine. From out of town.”
Jo snorts. “You can’t lie for shit. Who is he, really?”
“Forget it,” Roxanne says sharply. “Just forget it. Please don’t ask me again.” But she remembers what happened last time she tried to hide something from Jo, and she groans. “Oh god. You did not hear this from me, you did not hear that name from me.”
“Roxie,” says Jo, and then Roxanne sits bolt upright and stares wildly around.
“I’m in a newsroom,” she says. It doesn’t matter that the newsroom is mostly empty. Someone is always listening. “Oh, god, Jo. We cannot have this conversation here. No. Cannot happen.” Her laughter is breathless, and slightly frantic. “Have you had lunch? I don’t care. Come on. We’re going out.” And she leaps to her feet, grabs her friend by the wrist, and heads for the stairs.
They get to the street before Roxanne remembers the holowatch chip, and she has to run back upstairs and get it so that she can leave it with the receptionist to give to Megamind if he comes by. Then she finally leads Jo away from the newsroom.
Jo is laughing. “Roxanne, what the heck? Stop, what’s going on?”
Roxanne drags her into the first building she sees, which turns out to be the library next door. Her research with Ber-Megamind, black bloody damn - had introduced her to some quiet-study soundproofed rooms, and that’s where she goes. And slams the door.
“All right, ignoring the creepy tiny room factor for a moment because you’re bugging out on me, but you owe me big time for hauling me in here. Now who is Wayne?” Jo stares at her. “Good lord, you’d think I’d asked for the mob’s hit list, or something.”
Roxanne licks her lips. “I’ll only say this once, and then you have to swear to drop it. And never say anything, ever, to anyone.”
“Okay, sure.”
“Jo, swear.”
Jo rolls her eyes and puts her hand on her heart. “I do solemnly swear to never say anything, ever, to anyone, about what you’re going to tell me. Now tell me.”
Roxanne swallows. I can’t believe I’m doing this. “Wayne Scott.”
Jo blinks. Narrows her eyes. “Come again?”
“Wayne Scott,” Roxanne tells her. “You know. Big guy, nice teeth, wears a cape, used to fly around in a white suit? Remember?”
Jo looks as if this information is physically painful to think about. “Yes, I remember. Has your little blue man from Mars figured out how to raise the dead, then? Or have you finally lost it?”
“You said you’d drop the subject.”
And that’s when Jo freaks out. Roxanne has to duck to avoid the flailing limbs. “Jesus H Christ, Roxanne! You can’t drag me in here and tell me something like that and expect me to nod and say, ‘right then, jolly good,’ and just leave it alone! And can we please exit this tiny evil room before I start hyperventilating?”
“You’re already hyperventilating,” Roxanne mutters, but she opens the door. Jo bursts out of the little room like a very small angry whirlwind, and doesn’t stop hissing under her breath until they’re out in the sunshine again.
Then she turns to Roxanne and grabs her by both arms. “To clarify -”
“Lower your voice, please.”
Jo presses her lips together for a moment, then says in a quieter tone, “To clarify. Wayne is alive. He was not, in fact, burned to death in an abandoned observatory a year ago.”
Roxanne nods.
“And he’s still alive?”
Roxanne hands Jo her cell phone. “Listen to the saved voicemail,” she says tiredly, and sits down behind one of the huge marble lions that guard the stairs to the library.
Jo holds the phone to her ear. A moment later she goes very pale and sits down on the steps.
When it’s over, she pulls the phone away and stares at it.
“Remember, you can’t say anything,” Roxanne says quickly, then recoils at the scathing look Jo sends her.
“Do you really think I’d betray him like that?” she demands. “If he wants to stay hidden, I’m certainly not going to blow his cover.” She looks at the phone again, frowns, does something to it, then hands it back to Roxanne and stands. “Wow, though. Really wow.”
Roxanne just nods. ‘Really wow’ is a pretty good description of the past couple of days.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Jo says brightly, and Roxanne looks up. “That was fast.”
The young, pale man she’s talking to looks astonished. Jo grins at him. “Right, so, I’m leaving now. Gotta go back to work. But you and me,” and she points at the man and then jerks her thumb back at herself, “need to talk. I have Monday morning off, meet me for coffee at Joes’ Joe at ten.”
His shocked expression is replaced with a thin, brittle smile. “Meeting at ten with Jo at Joe’s Joe,” he replies. “I think I can remember that.”
She grins and knocks a fist against his shoulder. “See you,” she says, then turns and waggles her fingers at Roxanne. “Bye! Have fun! Try not to level the city, okay?”
The young man looks up at Roxanne. His eyes are very green, and he looks very worn-out in spite of the sharp black suit he’s wearing.
For a moment, they just look at each other. Then the man says, “I got the chip.”
Roxanne closes her eyes. “Hello, Megamind.”
“Jo texted me, told me where you were - I was just walking past the library when she did.” He pauses. “I think she wants us to have it out now.”
“I think I’m going to strangle her,” Roxanne murmurs, and Megamind lets out a laugh that sounds like a sob. “Listen, can this…can this wait?” She opens her eyes. “Because quite frankly, I’m…I don’t think I can do this right now. I’ll level with you, Megs,” she says, and her voice is flat and her expression is cold, “I am madder than I think I’ve ever been in my entire life. And if I do this now, I am probably going to yell. I don’t like yelling. Word on the street is you’re not a fan of it either, so let’s just…let’s just leave this until we’ve had some time to think.”
To his credit, he does not look away. “Yes,” he says, and nods. “Yes, I…I agree, that sounds good.” After another brief, awkward pause during which neither of them breathes much, he turns to leave. Then he turns back. He looks very hesitant. “You knew Julius Caesar. Are you…I don’t suppose you’re familiar with Sonnet Sixty-Four?”
Roxanne’s lips thin. “I’m really not in the mood for cultural references.”
“No, I know,” he says quickly, and steps towards her, offering a folded piece of paper. He holds his arm fully extended, and does not come any closer than he has to. “Just…read this? Please. I know it’s cliché, but,” he offers her a brittle smile, “so am I.”
Roxanne takes the paper without speaking, and Megamind immediately turns and walks away, threads his way into the crowded street and disappears into the sea of faces.
She looks down at the paper. It has ragged edges, probably torn from some notebook or other. The side facing her is covered with lines of what look like spidery Chinese characters. They are small, and precise, and actually rather pretty if only because she can’t actually read them. It could just be a grocery list. Roxanne resists the urge to ball it up and just throw it into the wind.
Finally she unfolds it. The words on the other side are English, written in the same spidery hand.
It’s one she hasn’t read, but after reading through it once, she knows exactly why Megamind picked this one. The first half is just a formality, really - she’s willing to bet a few dollars that all he really wanted her to read was the last six lines, which are underlined.
When I have seen such interchange of state, / Or state itself confounded to decay, / Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate, / That time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death, which cannot choose / But weep to have that which it fears to lose.
Roxanne rubs a hand over her face. Then she stands, shoves the paper in her purse, and begins to walk. She needs to think.
She isn’t sure where she’s going, and she doesn’t care. She has a concealed carry permit, she’s armed, and she’s been around the block a few times, so when she finds herself on the wrong side of the tracks a few hours later she doesn’t mind. She doesn’t remember crossing the tracks, but this is definitely the projects on the North Side. The flat grey wall of the Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted is just beyond.
A small boy runs past with a water pistol, chasing a girl who can only be his sister and shouting something in French. He’s barefoot and grubby and tanned, and he’s also laughing. His sister is alternating screaming back over her shoulder and giggling.
Who on earth would build a red schoolhouse here?
“Hey, lady!”
Roxanne turns to find the boy standing maybe ten feet away, his water pistol pointed at her. His eyes are laughing. “This’s a stickup!”
She feigns terror for a moment, then grins. “What do you want?”
He lowers the pistol a few notches, returning her smile. Both front teeth are missing. “Candy?” Behind him, his sister peers out from a narrow passage between two houses with peeling paint. Her eyes are very wide.
Roxanne digs in her purse, comes up empty-handed. “Sorry, no candy.”
“Awww,” he says, but he doesn’t look too disappointed. “That’s okay. No one ever does. Bye, lady!” And off he goes again, bare feet flying over hot pavement and gravel. Probably some broken glass, too. His sister squeals and ducks back out of sight.
Laughing a little in spite of herself, Roxanne turns back to the grey jail. The afternoon sun is hot and bright, and she’s in all black. She’s been cooler, but she walks forward towards the jail along the road that leads out of town. It needs to be repaved.
Some of the inmates are in the exercise yard - there’s a group of orange jumpsuits playing basketball, a few standing around smoking and talking. And a circle of maybe six in the corner by the side of the building and the road, all leaning forward and looking at something in the middle. Talking. Listening. Plotting? Scheming?
Roxanne moves closer, so that she can hear what they’re saying.
“…Okay, guys, make a spot check.”
“Fifteen.”
“Ten.”
“…Two. Maldita sea.”
“ ’S yer fault, man, yer the one what wanted ter play a warforged. I rolled a ‘yes.’”
The first speaker heaves a sigh. “What kind of a yes, dude.”
“The kinda yes what means I see whatever’s out there, Nine K. Twenny-two.”
Roxanne moves a little bit closer, enough to see that the men are clustered around a grid drawn in the dirt of the exercise yard. Little figures are grouped together on the grid.
“Okay, so, you see something up ahead. You wanna say something to your party?”
I-rolled-a-yes shakes his head. “Naw, I’m good.”
“Okay, Ronnie, you’re a paladin. Warn your group or something. Jeez.”
I-rolled-a-yes-Ronnie mutters something under his breath, but announces, “Hey, guys, there’s sompin up ahead!” Then he glares at Speaker One. “Happy?”
The first speaker has his back to Roxanne. He shrugs. “Sure, whatever. Okay. ‘The road crests a small rise and descends into a dusty grove in a large, shallow dell. An abandoned farmhouse, partially visible through the trees, stands on one side of the road.’”
Wait a minute, Roxanne thinks. I know that voice.
“‘You've passed a dozen spots much like this one already today, but this one feels wrong. Then you glimpse the glint of mail through the brush by the side of the road. Fierce warriors -- tall, hairy humanoids with wide mouths and flat faces -- are lying in wait!’” The speaker finishes with a flourish. “Okay, guys, roll for initiative.”
“Wait, wait, what are they? Can I make a wisdom save, or whatever you call it?”
“Like, a knowledge check?” The first speaker shakes his head. “Don’t bother. It’s just a bunch of hobgoblins.”
Roxanne really shouldn’t be surprised. She’d just thought he was more of a video-game type, rather than a paper-and-dice RPG type.
“Hal?”
He turns, blinks, and then his round face lights up. “Roxie! Hey! Hold on a sec, guys.”
He gets up and comes over to the fence. Roxanne isn’t sure what effect jail is having on Hal, but he actually looks pretty good. He’s obviously happy to see her, and he seems to have made…friends.
“Hal, what are you doing?”
He gives her another toothy smile. “Running a campaign! Tried fourth ed, but it sucked, like, major balls, so we went back to three-five. Red Hand of Doom. It’s pretty sweet. My man Ronnie, he’s like, a hacker or something, he got the books online for free!”
Roxanne shakes her head. She only understood about half of that. “So, you’re doing okay, then?”
“Are you nuts?” He laughs. “I’m doing great! This place is epic, no lie, everything is free and they let you get stuff if you don’t make a lot of fuss, so I’m set with all the games I want. But enough about me, what’s new with you?” He leans on the fence, still smiling. “You still working the big stories? Heard something went down today over by the docks.”
Roxanne nods, and wonders if she should be suspicious. Hal looks happy, sounds happy, seems to bear her no ill will - what is going on in his head? And how does he know what happened this morning? “Yeah, something…went down. We fixed it, though.”
He cocks his head. “We? Who’s ‘we’?”
“Well, I say we, but I don’t mean… I mean, I’m just a reporter, Hal, you know that.” She sounds defensive, and inwardly, she kicks herself. That’s the second slip she’s made today. “I meant Megamind fixed it.”
Hal wilts a little. “Oh yeah. Him.”
Roxanne watches Hal closely. Megamind’s name had an initial dampening effect, but Hal brightens right back up again a moment later. “So he’s still doing the hero thing?”
“Seems to be.”
“Kinda weird, he ends up taking over the city and then taking care of it. Kind of a major life change, huh? Well, good for him.”
Roxanne blinks. Is there something wrong with her ears? “Good?” she echoes faintly. “But I thought you…I mean I thought you would…”
“What, hate him?” Hal grins, shakes his head. “Nah. I kinda did, at first, ‘cause you know, he was pushing me to do all that stuff, and then he took everything away and I went to jail, plus he lied to you and Space Stepmom like, majorly.” He looks at her, raises his eyebrows. “I mean, c’mon. You’d be pissed too, right?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. “But then I was talking to Ol’ Mitch and Big PM, and they told me some stuff. Made me think a little. Got my head on straight, you know? And you know - if you see him -” Hal glances over both shoulders and leans in, drops his voice. “You should prob’ly warn him he didn’t make any friends switching sides like he did. Made a lot of enemies. Ol’ Mitch and Big PM are still sticking up for him, and nobody argues with them, ‘cause Vincent’s on their side, but they’re getting kinda old and maybe they won’t be around much longer.”
Roxanne’s head is spinning. “Wait, wait, who are these guys? What are you saying?”
Hal rolls his eyes. “Man oh man, Roxie, you got no idea. Vincent’s the boss, okay? So most people won’t say they’re against Blue. But personally, I think it’s prob’ly a thirty-seventy, maybe forty-sixty split against.” He grimaces. “Just warn him, okay? If you see him. Tell him Ol’ Mitch says to watch his back.”
“Oy! Nine-K! Drag your ass back over, huh? Yer girlfriend kin talk t’yer later!”
Hal jumps. “I gotta go. But hey, wow, it’s good to see you, Roxie! Stay safe!”
And then he’s turned around and back to the game, laughing and tossing dice and actually being social. The mind boggles.
But what he said about staying safe is good advice, and the sun is going down, so Roxanne gets one of the guards to call her a taxi.
She is still thinking hard. Who are Old Mitch and Big PM - what’s their connection to Megamind? What ‘stuff’ did they tell Hal? How does Megamind know the boss? Does everyone in there have a nickname?
And how is she going to go about talking to Megamind?
Best to sort things out tonight, probably, before anything else happens. But Roxanne wants it to be on her terms - get Megamind off-balance, take him by surprise before he has a chance to think out what to say or how to say it. She’s sure he’s already thought of what he should and should not tell her, but she doesn’t want to hear that; she wants to hear the truth.
And the quickest way to get him to say what he really thinks will be to blindside him. It’s not nice, but it’ll be more effective that way - he’s probably going to be angry and defensive, and she’ll need to put an end to that as quickly as possible.
She can’t just walk in the door, either. That’s not enough of a surprise; that would give him too much time to think. It might only be a few seconds, but at the rate Megamind thinks, even a few seconds is too much.
An idea occurs to her. It isn’t a very nice idea, but it might actually work.
“All right,” she mutters as the taxi pulls up to the curb. “Time to test the lair’s security.”
Chapter 9
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