Fic : Fathers and Sons, Chapter 9
Four posts in five days? Wow, sorry to be spammin' the comm. Not, you know, really sorry. But a little sorry ;-)
Title : Fathers and Sons, Chapter 9
Author : Dani Kin
Genre: Drama
Rating: PG-13
Summary : Being a parent is never easy and family relationships never run smooth. Megamind ramps up his efforts at villainy and the warden tries a few last ditch solutions to try to keep things from getting out of hand.
Beta: sharelle. She’s made of sunshine and rainbows. And MAGIC.
Author’s Note: I’d like to thank every prison movie cliché for making this chapter possible.
Past Chapters can be found here.
~~~~~~~~~~~ M ~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The first time Megamind came back to the prison, the warden was not surprised, though it was odd to see him hauled in by a flying Wayne Scott of all people. He knew what the boy was planning to do with his life, but it was another thing entirely to see him doing it. Not that the warden hadn’t thought and worried about him every day, not that he hadn’t hoped it was him every time there was a call or watched the mail hawkishly for a postcard or letter. But he hadn’t actually set eyes on his boy since celebrating his birthday over a year ago.
And now he had no idea exactly who he was looking at.
The man in front of him was dressed in some kind of black spandex catsuit with bold blue lightning bolts all over. And a cape. Yep. The kid actually had a goddamn cape. Then there was this spiked collar, high and dramatic. He was still skinny as a rail, but the clothing made it harder to notice that unless you were looking for it. Somehow it made his neck look even longer, his shoulders broader.
It made him look dangerous.
The warden could see it in the way he moved too, with a certain practiced arrogance he had never seen from the boy before. He had rushed down to intake to see his boy and instead there was this stranger. He just stared.
However when Blue saw him in the doorway and said, “Hello Warden” with a familiar smile… It was like a punch to the gut.
There was no doubt that his little boy was all grown up. And the warden had no idea what to do with him.
Metro Man had brought him here after something involving a robot running around downtown, shooting lasers out of its eyes. The superhero squashed it in five seconds flat, grabbed the boy, then literally just dropped him here before flying off.
Was holding him here even legal? He hadn’t been convicted of a crime. The warden left the intake area without a word, pacing while watching the boy from the other side of the two-way glass that looked into the room. The warden saw something that looked like his familiar boy emerge once the layers of spikes and leather were stripped away. But what the hell was he supposed to do now?
Screw it, he thought, mentally throwing his hands in the air. He may as well just keep him here until there was some kind of trial. When the Metro City DA wanted to charge the boy with something, at least they would know where to find him. At least he would be out of trouble.
Though there was the issue of where to put him. His old cell had sat untouched for months - until one random Tuesday, when the warden went down there with an empty file box and crammed it full of what remained of his boy’s childhood. The cell was currently occupied by a man convicted of cheating creatively on his taxes.
And the warden had concerns about keeping him here in any capacity. He hadn’t been able to actually keep the boy locked in a cell since he was in diapers. Megamind would be out of the building in twenty minutes if they put him in one of those.
He could put him in the solitary confinement wing, but even that was no guarantee. It was highly unpleasant down in solitary, where the thick cell doors had nickel-sized holes punched in them instead of bars. He would only be taken out of lockup for an hour a day for supervised yard time, otherwise he would live his entire life in a 7”x 7” room. The idea of putting his little boy down there broke his heart.
But, he reckoned, if he wanted to keep Megamind here until this mess was figured out, it was the best he could do.
He looked at the kid again, a long look with furrowed brow. They had taken off the collar and cape, the boots and gloves. There was just the matter of the tight black suit.
The flash happened as one of the guards reached for the zipper. The warden didn’t remember falling over, but suddenly he was on the ground and the world seemed shaky and voices echoed around him. He saw a streak of something blue and black, a swirl of fabric that seemed to hover over him for a second then was gone.
He tried to ask the guards streaming into the room what the hell happened, but his voice echoed in his ears. It didn’t help when alarms began blaring. He was still shaky when someone helped him up to a sitting position, but it was clear that their prisoner was gone. It had all happened so fast.
Afterwards he must have reviewed the security camera footage at least hundred times. He would see the moment where the boy palmed something from a hidden flap in his costume. He would see the flick of his wrist and the way he covered his ears before the screen became a blinding white. He would see the boy quickly shove the cape back on, literally hop into his boots, then grab his gloves and rush towards the door on the other side of the glass.
There was no footage of the warden or the viewing room in which he had been. Still security was able to piece together a flow of footage from cameras all over the rest of prison. They tracked the boy as he expertly zigged and zagged through the building, knowing exactly when to pause and wait for a guard to turn his back or switch position. He made it out of the building in 4 minutes and 42 seconds without interacting with a single staff member until he raced out the front entrance. The guard at the tower helpfully hit the alarm which automatically shuttered the gate. However the camera at the entrance had caught some kind of tiny machine flying to meet him, lifting him over the fence and out of frame.
The warden had security loop the footage together into one tape. He rewound it and watched it again and again. He had no idea if his little boy was in there anymore.
~~~~~~~~~M~~~~~~~~
The second time Megamind was brought in the warden had him immediately frisked - hard - and a variety of creative little things turned up in a half dozen covert places. The boy was soon put in a standard orange jumpsuit and black shoes. Given what had happened the last time, the warden wasn’t taking any chances. He personally accompanied a full battery of 4 guards as they escorted the boy to the solitary confinement wing.
After leaving him to stew down there for a day, the warden had the boy taken into one of the visiting rooms. Remarkably, the boy’s face lit up like a Christmas tree as soon as he walked in.
“Hello, Warden!” he said excitedly. The warden just stared at him.
The boy was in prison. How could he be in such good spirits? Then again, this prison was his home. Even in confinement there must be a sense of that familiarity somewhere among the bad food and institutional jumpsuits.
The warden took a seat and said the first thing that popped into his mind.
“So…. all the little ant-like robots. Must have taken a while to build. All those tiny legs.” Seemed as good a place as any to start since he had no idea how to make small talk with a supervillian.
Wait, when did he start thinking of him as a supervillian first and his little Blue second? Christ, this was getting all messed up.
But Megamind actually looked pleased. “Warden, are you finally coming to appreciate my life’s work?” And there was that eager look, the look he used to get as a child when he was burning to show off a new drawing. The warden tried not to let the familiarity get the best of him.
“No. I just want to make sure that you know that there will be no shenanigans like last time. I reviewed those security tapes and I know exactly how you palmed that -- whatever that was. All the guard rotations and cameras have been changed from what you grew up on. I’ve got my eye on you, kiddo.” The warden crossed his arms and gave the boy a firm stare.
That only seemed to make the boy smile devilishly. “Keep watching. You might see something interesting.”
“Well. You know what they say about doing the same over and over again expecting different results."
The boy merely raised an eyebrow at him now.
“You don’t think I’m insane,” he said frankly. “If you did, you wouldn’t be here talking to me.”
The warden shrugged. “Got me there.”
Then they just stared at each other.
“So, how’s Minion?” the warden finally asked. The boy didn’t have time to respond before alarms started sounding everywhere. The warden shot him an angry look.
“What did you do?” he demanded.
“Nothing!” the boy replied incredulously. “I was right here!”
The warden couldn’t stop the sneer from spreading across his face. “Yeah right.”
He stormed out of the visitation room and hastily ordered the pair of guards to escort the prisoner back to his cell. He headed straight for the nearest checkpoint and quickly dialed the number for security.
“All hell broke loose in the cafeteria boss,” the new head of security informed him. “Seems like there was a grudge between two guys that erupted in a fistfight that turned into a food fight. I’ve put the caf on lockdown, probably will take a few hours to get sorted.”
And none of the guys involved had any connection to Megamind. The warden rubbed his temples. He should apologize to the kid for biting his head off. It didn’t seem like this had anything to do with him.
He headed down to the solitary confinement wing once he was confident the situation was under control. But when he turned a corner he found a pair of guards laying unconscious on the floor, hands tied behind their backs with what looked like strips of a prison uniform. This was bad.
And with most of security dispatched to the cafeteria situation, it took forever to even get someone to come down to solitary and start a reasonable search. A search that, of course, turned up nothing, except an empty cell where Megamind should have been.
Even the cameras didn’t detect his presence anywhere in the prison, simply him being escorted by the guards down one hall and then not turning the corner to show up on the next camera. Which was good because that means he didn’t get out. The warden instructed his security team to review the footage again, frame by frame if necessary.
The kid must be here somewhere. He ordered the whole facility put on lockdown.
He went back down to solitary and paced the floor. There must be something here. He was missing it. What was it? He checked the floor grates, only to find them firmly bolted to the ground. He checked the ventilation shafts, which were also locked. What the hell? Where the hell was he?
He went back up to look at the footage. There the kid was being taken down the hall. Then on the next cam, nothing. Well, nothing but the corner of a laundry cart in the bottom of one frame.
Oh hell.
“Back that footage up,” he ordered.
Then he watched it again, keeping an eye on the cart. Sure enough, about two minutes after the guards took Megamind out of camera range, the cart wiggled. The warden sighed. They spent the next twenty minutes piecing together footage of the cart as it was picked up from the corner of solitary and wheeled into the loading dock, where the laundry service loaded it on their truck.
It got even worse when the warden called the laundry service. Oddly enough, one of their trucks had some trouble after picking up today’s delivery. The back door had popped open and laundry was strewn all over a highway. It seemed like it had just opened of its own accord. The warden resisted the urge to slam his forehead against the desk.
Escape via the prison laundry? Jesus, could this get any more cliché? He rubbed his temples. There was going to be hell to pay and paperwork until the end of time.
And to top it off, the next day there was a message on his machine from Agent Carson. The warden did the only thing he could think of. He called and begged the man for more time. Carson said he couldn’t make any promises. The warden’s only consolation was that the boy wouldn’t be easy for them to hold on to, even if they did manage to catch him.
~~~~~~~~~M~~~~~~~~
The third time Metro Man brought him to the prison, the blue man was damn near unconscious. The warden nearly had a heart attack when he saw his boy limp in his adversary’s arms and rushed to meet Wayne with feet that seemed to be moving altogether too slow given the circumstances.
There had been some kind of explosion with one of his inventions and Megamind looked like a walking bruise. The warden rushed him directly to the medical ward. He seemed to have trouble focusing his eyes or even speaking coherently. A few x-rays later Dr. Patari proclaimed him fine except for a concussion and some broken ribs. None of which were serious enough to warrant a stay in the medical bay, especially with the boy’s history of escape.
So, still groggy and exhausted, he was transferred into the solitary confinement wing. The warden ordered hourly check-ins and slept on the couch in his office for the first time in years, too nervous to leave the building in case he took a turn for the worse. But the boy seemed to sleep it off and while he was stiff moving around in the morning, he was in generally good spirits, if a bit quieter than usual. He also showed no signs of trying to escape as days turned into weeks.
The warden couldn’t deny watching him like a hawk, sure that his recent spate of good behavior was just a cover for something worse. But as time passed he let his guard down. One of the guards who had known Megamind since he was small asked if it was ok to give him a poster or something for his cell, to cheer him up when his ribs were still mending. The warden hadn’t seen the harm.
And he started going to talk to the boy each day during his yard time.
Megamind usually seemed disinterested but the warden felt like he had to say something. Something that would make up for all the lost opportunities and things he hadn’t said before.
He tried being as blunt as he could.
“What are you doin’, Blue? You don’t have to do this. You’re too smart for this.”
Megamind simply looked quietly at him and gave him an arrogant smile. “I think am exactly the right amount of smart for this, Warden.”
“He has superpowers. Look, kid, he could kill you if you’re not careful.”
“Not if I destroy him first,” Megamind replied with a cheerful, almost delusional, calm.
The next day the warden tried a different tactic.
“I’m just trying to look out for you. So far it’s fine because they brought you back here, but if this escalates, you could be looking at federal charges.”
The boy rolled his eyes. “I don’t care about that,” he said, waving his hand dismissively, then wincing as the motion pulled on sore ribs that seemed to be healing unnaturally slow, especially for him.
“Look, I’m trying to help you. But if they put you into the federal prison system then I can’t protect you anymore,” the warden appealed. He couldn’t deny hoping that there would be some part of the boy that appreciated everything he did for him.
“My dear warden, do you think there is any prison that could hold me? That I couldn’t escape from if I truly wanted to?” His mouth actually turned up into a smirk. “Perhaps escape from a federal penitentiary would be an interesting challenge.”
A few days later the warden ended up losing his temper.
“Look, I know Wayne Scott was a little shit to you when you were kids but it was a decade ago. Get over it. You’re not making him pay. You’re only hurting yourself!” He pointed a finger right in the boy’s face.
“Please, this isn’t about anything as petty as vengeance,” Megamind scoffed.
“Then what’s it about? It - ugh - all of this doesn’t even make any sense!” The warden threw up his hands but the boy just stared at him calmly.
“It makes perfect sense to me.” The boy furrowed his brow and paced in a circle as he talked. “Two aliens land on this planet from a broken star system. One looks perfectly human and lands in the lap of lux-you-ry, while the other sticks out like a sore thumb and has been wreaking havoc since he was a toddler. One to be the hero and one to be a villain.”
“Life doesn’t work like that Megamind,” the warden said with an exasperated sigh.
“Mine does.”
The warden stewed on that for most of the afternoon, until a panicked guard showed up in his office to explain that the boy’s cell was empty. They rushed down to find that the cell was indeed still locked but there was no one inside. What the hell? Did he invent a teleportation machine?
Then he noticed something odd. There was a poster of some random local news reporter hanging on the wall. He remembered it now. He tore the poster down and damned if there wasn’t a small hole in the wall behind it.
He called for a flashlight and shone it down the tunnel. It was far too small for the warden to get into, but even with his large head Megamind still had such a tiny frame…..
~~~~~~~~~M~~~~~~~~
The warden wasn’t on the grounds the fourth time Megamind came back to jail. He was actually in Chicago for a conference. But as soon as he got the call, he jumped into his car and immediately sped home. He pulled into the parking lot just in time to see what looked like a swarm of something land on the prison roof and cause a small explosion.
The guards informed him that Megamind had been carried out on a fleet of little metal robots with sparking electrical domes. He had missed the boy but arrived just in time to survey the wreckage. Concrete dust and mangled metal filled the space that had once been his solitary confinement cell. Thankfully, the damage was limited to that one particular cell and none of the other prisoners or staff had been harmed.
He knelt and frowned as he fingered an orange scrap of cloth that was probably all that was left of the boy’s uniform.
“Maybe he was just born evil, you ever think of that?” one of the guards offered, interrupting his internal reverie.
“Excuse me?” the warden replied defensively. More defensively then he probably should have given the pile of wreckage in which they both stood. Who was this guy? Jake something?
The man blundered on obliviously. “You know, sent here from an alien planet to enslave the human race. I don't buy that ‘destroyed homeworld’ story. He could have a full invasion fleet stationed in low orbit, just waiting for him to make all of us into mindless slaves.” The guard was chuckling to himself until he saw the look his boss was giving him.
If looks could kill, then the glare the warden was giving this man right now would have melted the flesh from his face.
The guard made a hasty exit from the wreckage and the warden sighed. There was nothing of the boy here anymore.
It hadn’t been the same since Leroy had retired. The warden mentally ran through a roster of his staff. Most of them had never known the boy as anything other than Megamind, Public Nuisance or, at best, Megamind, Surly Blue Teenager.
They hadn’t been the guards in the prison yard at midnight searching for the child’s lost binky, or the ones who called him at home when the boy awoke crying from a nightmare. They hadn’t watched him play chess with Wally Jenkins all afternoon or had to remind him several times to put down his book before he missed dinner.
They didn’t know him. Then again, most of the time the warden didn’t feel like he knew him either.
~~~~~~~~~~M~~~~~~~~~
The fifth time set the record for Megamind’s shortest incarceration. Metro Man had flown off and the warden had arrived just as the guards were moving to take his personal effects. However the boy quickly ducked and reached for something hidden inside the heel of his left boot. Before the warden knew it he was looking down the barrel of something that looked a lot like a miniature version of the boy’s old dehydration gun.
“Ok, calm down, Blue. Let’s talk about this like-“
He saw the bolt as it was fired and then a flash of blueish light. Then he was simply sitting on the floor feeling moist. One of the guards was holding an empty glass over his head.
Shit. He couldn’t believe the boy had shot him.
~~~~~~~~~~M~~~~~~~~~
The seventh time, the warden was mostly just irritated at the timing. He hated leaving the facility while the boy was there. Not only because of the increased likelihood of escape, but because it just seemed a waste. He already barely got to see him. Now he had to give up what little time he had.
But tonight he had a prior engagement. He had gone through hell and high water to secure a ticket to the Metro Corp Gives Back Charity Ball. He milled around and nibbled on hors d'oeuvres served by waiters in crisp tuxes that probably cost more than his cheap rental. But he wasn’t there to make the fashion pages. He was a man on a mission, and his mission was currently enacting a similar dance: standing across the room making polite chitchat and trying to snag a beef carpaccio.
Then there was a lull as the band started up a lively tune and the warden saw his moment. He took it and approached the other man.
“How’s the consulting business going?” he said abruptly, catching his target by surprise as the other man chewed and quickly swallowed.
“Well. Thank you for asking, Mr….?”
“Woodridge. James Woodridge. I was sorry to hear about the passing of your father. He was a great man,” the warden said as he shook Wayne Scott’s thick hand.
“Thank you,” Wayne said, studying him. “You look familiar. Have we met before?”
“No, but we have a mutual acquaintance. Someone you go back a way with,” the warden said with a practiced shrug designed to put the larger man at ease.
“Are you Austin’s dad? Because I haven’t seen him since prep school…” Wayne said as he racked him brain.
“Don’t know an Austin, but I do know someone who goes by the name Megamind,” the warden said with a cool smile. “But he went by Blue when you were busy chucking dodgeballs at his head.” Wayne’s face only flickered for a second to register surprise.
“You must be mistaken. I have never met our fair city’s resident supervillian,” he replied with a well-rehearsed smile.
“You can cut the crap, Wayne. I know you’re Metro Man. I don’t know how the hell the rest of the city doesn’t know just by looking at your hair, but that is the situation we find ourselves in.”
Wayne looked from side to side to see if anyone was close enough to hear that. Then he looked at him warily and abruptly grabbed the warden’s shoulder.
And that was when things got really weird. They were still at the ball, surrounded by whirling dancing people. But it was like the partygoers were moving so slowly they were barely moving at all, yet the warden and Wayne Scott seemed unaffected.
What the hell? The warden’s heart raced and he instinctively tried to pull back from the man’s grip. But this was Metro Man, possibly the strongest man on the planet, and the warden wasn’t going anywhere.
“What do you want, Warden Woodridge?” Wayne asked in a hushed tone, making the warden suddenly very aware that he was threatening a man who could crush him in the palm of his hand. Literally. He steeled himself before answering.
“I want you to do what you’re already doing. When Megamind does something destructive, you stop him. No extra work required. But I want you to make one quick phone call to that effect and then we can forget we ever had this conversation.”
“You want me to make a phone call? Right now?”
“Not this minute but soon. Tonight.”
“Who the hell am I calling?”
“Just some government officials. You tell them you have Megamind under control and to stay out your business.”
“And why would I want to do that?”
“Because you know this supervillian crap is as much your damn fault as his,” the warden hissed. Wayne blinked. The warden continued.
“I cut a deal with them years ago. Now it’s your turn to make sure nothing bad happens to him. Well, nothing worse then what you’ve already done.”
“Look, Warden, I feel bad about what happened when we were kids. I do. But maybe he would be better off in a prison that could actually keep him inside,” Wayne said pointedly.
“Please, we’re not talking about some federal Supermax here. Do you think he’s gonna be any ‘better off’ in a secret lab somewhere being used for scientific testing? Is that the kind of justice you’re looking to dish out as a superhero?” The warden flicked a simple white business card out of his breast pocket.
“If that’s what these people do to aliens, then I don’t want them anywhere near me either,” Wayne muttered in reply.
The warden rolled his eyes. “Please. You pass. You’re rich, you’re powerful, and you look human. He doesn’t have that.”
Wayne looked down at the little white card the warden held in his outstretched hand.
“You’re supposed to be the big hero here. Standing up for the helpless and all that. Call this man. Tell him S.W.O.R.D. needs to back the hell off because you have this situation under control.”
“What situation? He’s just going to keep coming at me. Maybe I don’t want to spend the rest of my life babysitting his.”
The two men glared at each other.
“Maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to become a superhero. Great power and great responsibility and all.” And maybe this is karmic payback for you taking a crap on his childhood, the warden thought as he held the man’s gaze.
Slowly Wayne took the card from him and let go of his arm. The noise and flurry of the room returned as the two men simply stared at each other. Then the warden started to walk away.
“He’s been like this for a decade. You ever… do you think there’s any chance he’s ever going to change?” Wayne called after him.
The warden just shrugged. He wasn’t about to discuss his most ardent hopes and dreams with a near-stranger.
He left the party straightaway and drove straight home. The rented tux was placed back on its hanger, and he tried to sleep but found it impossible. Just before dawn he arrived at the prison and walked straight down to the odd little dome that had recently been constructed to house their most famous prisoner.
“Happy 24th birthday, kiddo,” he whispered though the portal glass.
The boy didn’t respond. He was fast asleep.
~~~~~~~~~~~~M~~~~~~~~~~~~
By the tenth time Metro Man flew off, the predictable pattern was clearly established.
Though there had been one distinct difference this time. The boy had kidnapped a woman, a sassy reporter from Channel 8 who had behaved admirably during the whole ordeal. She was clearly shaken but the warden thought she held her own against the city’s resident supervillian admirably.
The warden had particularly enjoyed the look in the boy’s face as she insulted his taste in clothing and asked if she was tied down to a conveyor belt heading for a saw blade because he had a secret fetish for Saturday morning cartoons. Her voice shook but her snark was still enough to throw him completely off course in the middle of a sentence.
The whole situation had made for highly entertaining television before Metro Man had crashed the ceiling and cut today’s evil plan short.
The other difference was that the prison was ready for him this time. The state had brought in a special psychologist to assess the frequent escape situation. She had reviewed every escape attempt, every piece of security tape about him, every prisoner and guard report. The warden had put on his best professional prison administrator act through numerous interviews and hadn’t given up a damn thing about his relationship with the boy.
In her final report, she suggested that Megamind’s problems lay in a failure to adjust properly into an adult role and that regression into a more childish stage would be beneficial. Her solution had been to paint the inside of the special secure cell and to station a permanent guard with specialized monitoring equipment.
The warden should have been appalled, even insulted, by the final paint job. But he wasn’t. The woman who came up with it was clearly a complete moron. But hey, if the state was willing to pay for her time and the people to paint this ridiculous mural that was fine by him. He was getting a high tech monitoring station out of the deal and the heat sensors were particularly impressive, just in case the boy was hiding an untriggered explosive somewhere on his person.
And the moment when he showed the boy the inside of the cell for the first time? That was priceless.
The warden made sure he was the one to personally escort the boy down to the dome. Despite being defeated yet again, Megamind seemed in fairly high spirits after his exchange with his spunky hostage. Until the door to the special cell opened and he stepped inside.
Megamind’s jaw literally dropped as he took in the sight. The warden did his best to keep the smirk off his own face. “Pretty ugly, eh?”
“Ugly…. ugly is an under-stat-e-ment.” The boy spun in a circle, the appalled look still hitched on his expressive face, taking in the mural in all its bizarre glory. “Ugly may be the biggest under-stat-e-ment in the history of the universe.”
The warden chuckled a bit to himself. “The cute little deer aren’t making you feel less inclined towards mass destruction?”
“You can also add insipid and condescending to your list of adjectives that adequately describe how truly dreadful this room is.” The warden watched through the portal window as Megamind got up closer to the walls to study them. “They could have at least gotten someone with a modicum of artistic talent. These happy little woodland creatures appear to have been given an overdose of a restricted class sedative,” he mumbled.
The warden muffled a smile at that. “Sorry, artistic talent costs extra.”
“Please tell me you did not suggest this.” Megamind crossed his arms and turned to stare at him.
Again, the warden couldn’t help but smile as he tapped the glass portal. “Nope. I had nothing to do with that. You can thank the taxpayers of Michigan for these fine improvements in your accommodations.”
The boy shook his head one last time. “Whoever came up with this is clearly a complete moron.”
“Hey, don’t be so negative,” the warden said, trying to hold in a laugh at the boys expense. “Happy thoughts make happy people you know.”
They stared at each other for a beat and then the boy burst out laughing.
More than that, the boy laughed honestly in a full-throated belly laugh, not his practiced theatrical cackle. Then the warden let out a legitimate chuckle and pretty soon they were both cracking up while the little mural deer watched with their vacant and overly cheerful eyes.
It was the best conversation he had with the boy in years. So maybe there was still hope for him yet. Of course, he managed to break out again within a week. He might have everyone else in this city fooled into thinking he was a bad scary villain. But still, the warden thought, hope.