"Predictable" - Chapter 8
Woo, it's been, like, a month since I last updated this, but Roxanne has been out kicking ass and chewing bubble gum, and she finally ran out of bubble gum.
To recap: The movie, between the scenes, between the lines, with Roxanne as our intrepid narrator. This time around, we've got Roxanne diving headfirst into unraveling Megamind's master plan, and Megamind being Bernard being himself being a dork (shh, don't tell Roxanne it's Megamind, she doesn't know).
Previous chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
My brain was abuzz with ideas as I drove quickly through downtown, a grumbling Hal in tow. Oh, if only his apartment wasn't so out of the way, I could get to work on piecing together Megamind's plan more quickly, but Hal was a hindrance that was necessary to get rid of first. Even so, I did my best to drown out his griping to focus on some preliminary hypotheses before I got the chance to really examine the evidence.
Whatever this plan of his was, he'd dedicated an entire room of his lair to its engineering. It had to be something huge, on a city-wide - or potentially greater - scale. Something he couldn't have done so long as Metro Man was in the picture. After all, he'd been trying to get rid of Metro Man ever since I could remember, and it had to be because Metro Man was standing in the way of something. But what? If it weren't for Metro Man, then he'd be able to... what? Argh, it was so frustrating, and I was just itching to blow up those photos I took and get to work cracking his mind's code.
But now Megamind knew I was on to him. I'd been so excited to collect so much evidence at City Hall and his lair that it was only now that I was starting to consider the implications of interfering with him. If I did turn those videos over to the authorities and they tried to reclaim City Hall... what would he do? Even if he wasn't using the building anymore, would he (correctly) interpret it as an act of defiance, and do something terrible in retaliation?
If that was the case, then just like with Metro Man, the blood would be on my hands. I pursed my lips and gripped the steering wheel more tightly. I definitely couldn't afford to sit back and be afraid to act anymore, but against someone like Megamind, I'd need to plan those actions carefully instead of making rash decisions. The lair assault had been spur of the moment, and if Bernard hadn't been there I probably wouldn't have made it out alive.
I smiled a little to myself at the thought. Yes, with Bernard, we were twice as strong. If we put our heads together, we'd definitely be able to defeat Megamind where it counted.
"That Burnhard guy, though, I don't trust him," Hal broke into my thoughts. "I'm tellin' ya, he's just trying to weasel his way into your space now that Metro Man bit the big one. Guys like that, they act like they're all tough or something, but, I mean, come on, you know what they're really after," he asserted, raising a leering eyebrow. Somehow, I couldn't help but feel offended by that accusation, giving Hal an incredulous look. He raised his hand, the other still holding his nostril closed, defending, "What? Roxy, c'mon, I'm right here for you, all the time, you don't need some new guy to rescue you. I mean, what's so great about him?"
Halfway intelligent conversation, for starters. Not to mention the refreshingly humble attitude. And for crying out loud, I don't need to be rescued! Not wanting to make such cynical remarks out loud, though, I shrugged and responded, "Come on, Hal, he's the premier authority on Megamind, so he's the perfect person to enlist to help crack his master plan."
"Instead of his master plan, why hasn't anyone just cracked the guy's skull?" Hal wondered dejectedly. "I mean, big head, big target, right?" He pointed his finger at his own head, then jerked his head to the side while making a mock "Pew!" noise and recoiling his finger. "Seriously, why didn't Metro Man just blast the guy's face in years ago and save everyone a lot of trouble? He's got those, like, laser eyeball things, right? He could just be like... zap zap zap, and then Megamind's head would be like psheeeew, and then everything would be cool."
The van screeched abruptly to a halt as I gripped the steering wheel firmly. I seethed in silence, though not quite sure why what he'd said had set me off so badly. Yes, Megamind was responsible for countless atrocities and we'd really all be better off if he wasn't around. But I'd already seen what happens to someone when they resort to killing whoever inconveniences them. And that was a path I was determined not to take. "We're here..." was all I could manage to say, still glaring firmly out the front windshield.
Hal cocked his head, then looked out my side window. "Ah, yeah." He fiddled with his door, then, completely oblivious to my expressed mood, continued, "So, I mean, don't work yourself too hard when there's an easy way out. S'what I always do, eh?" He pointed at me with a little click of his tongue, then got out of the van.
As soon as he shut the door, I could not get out of there fast enough. I heard him call after me, but gave it no mind. I'd see him again at work soon enough. For now, though, there were much more important things to do.
I felt like a teenager anxious for the season premiere of her favorite reality show as I impatiently fidgeted my feet while my computer took its sweet time recognizing the presence of and indexing the files on my camera's memory card. Do I want to auto-play this? No, I don't want to auto-play this, why is it even asking me that? No, I don't want to post them directly to Facebook. No, I don't want to make a slideshow. No, I don't want to restart my computer now so that the updates can take effect. God damn it, it's like the computer knew I was doing something of earth-shattering importance and was determined to make it as cumbersome as possible.
Finally closing out of all of the "helpful" suggestions, I loaded the first picture into my image editor, then proceeded to glare impatiently at the progress bar as it rendered the 12-megapixel file. My heart leapt in excitement when the image finally appeared (albeit resized to fit on the screen) and eagerly zoomed in for a closer look at the individual papers that I'd photographed. I'd been in such a hurry to get a photographic catalogue of everything in the lair that I hadn't had the chance to really read much of what I'd seen while I was there. But now, this was it. Finally, in the safety of my flat, in the leisure of my after-work hours, I'd be able to go over Megamind's plan in detail. His deepest secrets, his most malicious motives, all laid out plainly before me for the first time.
I held my breath when my panning through the image revealed the first page of crisp text. There it was, written plainly before me on a piece of graphing paper, the text already speaking volumes as to the nature of his plan:
"Step 27: Eat more veggies". Accompanied by a helpful doodle of a carrot.
My tensed and excited expression held steady for a few seconds as I re-read the page over and over again. But no matter how many times I mulled it over, I just couldn't really work it into an overall evil scheme of any kind.
Well, no matter, there were still hundreds of pages to look through. This was "Step 27" after all, so it was only natural that it made no sense without context. Once I looked over more, I was sure it would all come together.
Many hours later, my face was planted in my keyboard, an eloquent string of "fgthjjjjjjjjjj" trailing off the edge of my screen. This was hopeless. Hopeless! Further perusal had unearthed other stunning messages such as "Step 12: Mutton chops", "Step 2: Evil jammies", and a stick figure of Megamind hiding behind a bush. These were either the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of a madman, or an ingeniously complicated code that only he could decipher. Though there was really no reason it couldn't be both.
I rubbed my forehead and finally looked at the time. 9:27? Ugh, I'd been at this for over eight hours, then, and had only managed to give myself a migraine. I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but I couldn't possibly have prepared myself for this level of cryptic nonsense.
It was no wonder he left these plans hanging out in the open in his lair, then. Written by Megamind, and only able to be deciphered by Megamind. Decoding this mess would require delving deep into his psyche: Learning everything there was to know about him and his thought process in order to tune the focus of my mind's eye more in line with his.
The prospect was a bit intimidating to me, though. Megamind was a heartless killer who had run the city into the ground for his own amusement. Did I really want to become intimately familiar with the twisted mindset behind all that? Given that I'd had firsthand experience in most of his plots, I'd never bothered to look into his police records or personal history before. Mostly because I'd considered him an annoying yet harmless thrill-seeker, and didn't want to end up inadvertently digging up something that would tarnish that naive image.
And now on this side of the fence, I was still afraid of what I'd find. There had been biographies, psychological studies, editorials, and mountains of other research readily available for all the years of my kidnappings, yet I'd ignored them out of the assumption that I knew what was really going on. But if these writings ended up plainly revealing all the warning signs that would have readily predicted that fateful morning a month ago, then my willful ignorance had...
I clenched my fist tightly and pounded it on the desk. No, Roxanne, stop guilt-tripping yourself so much over this, it's not going to help anything. What's done is done, and second-guessing myself over how I could have done things differently won't retroactively change what happened. I made a mistake - a terrible mistake - but I can learn from it.
Time to change tactics. Delving head-first into this pile of ramblings wasn't getting me anywhere, so it was time to take a break in favor of some good old-fashioned research. And since Bernard was the premier expert when it came to Megamind research, I was certain he'd be able to point me in the right direction.
It was getting kind of late and I knew I said I'd call him tomorrow, but... eh, I wasn't going to be able to sleep on this, anyway. I decided to leave him a text message rather than calling in case he was already asleep, and he could follow up whenever he had the time. "Meet @ Library - RR," I hastily typed into my phone and sent it off as I gathered my coat. Even if he was asleep, with as much material as I had to go through, I wouldn't be surprised if I spent the entire night at the library. I supposed one upside of Megamind's closure of all public services was that there was no longer anyone there to lock the doors and kick me out.
Just as I reached the door, my cellphone buzzed from my pocket. So he was awake, huh? I flipped it open and saw that he had written back, "cant weight lol :)". I blamed auto-correct. But he certainly seemed chipper about meeting up. Though, being the Megamind nerd that he was, he was likely eager to show off his knowledge. And in this situation, I absolutely did not mind.
Yes, Bernard, by all means, dazzle me with your intellect. I can't wait. LOL. Smiley face.
The library was deserted, but I hadn't expected anything different. Even in cities that weren't under the dictatorship of an evil overlord, the library wasn't exactly the hip place to be at 10:00 at night. But I was Roxanne Ritchi, and I didn't care about what was in style. I was getting kidnapped before getting kidnapped was cool.
There was an entire wall dedicated to books about Metro Man, Megamind, and the rivalry between them. Though the books were vaguely arranged based on the aforementioned three categories, the internal arrangement was based on author rather than subject, meaning I'd have to skim through all of them to find the topics I was looking for.
I pulled one titled "Megamind's Ultimate Objective" that sounded promising. The rear cover read, "The startling truth behind the legendary villain's motives! Is he a scout sent by an alien race bent on galactic domination? Is his goal to destroy the world? Is he a genetically-engineered supersoldier who intends to replace humanity? Find out the real story!"
That book went right back on the shelf. I knew I'd seen this sort of thing in tabloids all the time, but to think that this level of tripe could get published? Though it did make me realize that, of all things, I actually didn't know for sure what Megamind was. Was he an alien? Some kind of creation of science? I remembered that the question had once tugged at me years ago, but after becoming so accustomed to him, I'd honestly forgotten that he wasn't human. But if he really was created or sent to Earth with some purpose, that would definitely help in understanding his current goals. I just wondered if any of these authors truly knew for certain where he'd come from.
The more I browsed, the more I found myself deeply wanting to know more about him, not just for the sake of unraveling his plan, but for a more personal satisfaction. I'd known the guy for so many years, but was still ignorant of basic things such as his race, his place of origin, or even his real name ("Megamind" didn't seem like something likely to appear in mainstream baby name books).
I finally settled on two books to start with: One titled "Megamind's War", whose author promised to detail suggestions for non-Metro Man-based methods of fighting the menace, and the other titled "Megamind Unmasked". Because if there was one thing I absolutely needed right now, it was to get under that grandstanding villainous mask he always wore and look at what he really was underneath.
When I turned from the shelves, I almost dropped my books in shock, as Bernard had been standing right behind me. He straightened up when I saw him, eyes going wide as if he was surprised I'd noticed him standing there. He stared at me, frozen, silent, for what felt like a full minute before finally blurting out, "... Hi!"
"Oh, hi!" I said back excitedly. "I'm glad you could make it! I hope it's not too much of an inconvenience for you."
"Oh, no, no..." he waved me off, glancing around a bit apprehensively. "I was... in need of a bit of a break myself, anyway."
I sat down at a nearby table and wondered, "Oh? So what have you been up to now that the museum's closed?"
"Oh, you know. ... Things," he answered, trying to give a nonchalant wave. He leaned his arm against the back of the chair across the table from me and awkwardly continued, "Just a little... pet project I have going on on the side, it's really nothING--" he attempted to sit down but missed the edge of the chair, catching himself hastily on the back before quickly pulling himself in as if nothing had happened, "--you need to concern yourself with." A quick finger to the bridge of his nose righted his glasses.
He continued to look around as if he was expecting something to jump out at him from behind the bookshelves. He drummed his fingers in his lap with his shoulders hunched, and finally wondered, "Is it normally so... quiet in here? I mean, this is a 'public' library, right? I was expecting there to be a bit more... 'public'."
"Hmm," I grinned, lacing my fingers and resting my chin on them. "So does that mean the libraries you studied at were a lot busier than this one?"
Bernard's mouth gaped open slightly in a silent pause, before he pointed at me and declared, "Yes! Yes, I am... very well-versed in all manner of knowledge, this I assure you. I have read hundreds of books... thousands of books... I've read--"
"Have you read this one?" I interrupted, holding up the "Megamind's War" book I'd pulled from the shelf. "You've probably read everything in this section, so maybe you can give me some pointers on which of these are any good."
"Well, if it's a book on Megamind, it's excellent by default, I'd imagine."
I folded my hands against my mouth and thought, humming into them. "Mmm, I dunno. I skimmed a few on the shelf, and a lot of it is second- or third-hand accounts of questionable accuracy. Like, okay, remember the one with the squids carrying harpoons?"
"Ahh, the Calamari Cavalry," Bernard answered wistfully. "I always liked that one."
"Yes!" I said enthusiastically. "But, see, one of those books claims that they were octopi, not squids."
"What?!" exclaimed Bernard, sounding almost personally offended. "What an inexcusably basic mistake! Didn't they bother to count the tentacles?"
"I'm pretty sure they had ten."
"Not eight! And the shape of the body?"
"I remember them being long."
"Not round!" Bernard's forehead fell into his hands and he massaged himself with his palms. "Ohhh, how can someone claim to even have an inkling of the workings of such a genius mind when they can't even keep their cephalapods straight? It's absurd! Do they honestly believe Megamind to be so dimwitted as to call a legion of octopi the 'Calamari Cavalry'?"
I lightly chuckled into the back of my hand. "Well, he does have a habit of consistently mispronouncing basic words."
Bernard glared up at me through his fingers, which had pushed his glasses up to rest on his forehead. "I prefer to think of it as 'pronunciation enhancement'."
Going the politically-correct route, are we? I leaned forward and prompted, "So, you think 'Metrocity' is superior to 'Metro City'?"
Bernard gave a sly smirk, then leaned forward as well, narrowing his eyes. With a light purr, he breathed out, "'Metrocity'..." The way he said it was such a dead-on impersonation, I couldn't help but get a little chill up the back of my neck. I giggled nervously before he continued in the same tone: "'Shool'..." Okay, now he was just being silly. I began laughing, which must have taken him by surprise, as he receded from me a ways, blinking. His face regained a much less wily smile, and he continued with a dorky, "'Revaaahnge'..."
I couldn't help it. I buried my face in my hands and burst out laughing. Finally I lifted a hand and waved, conceding, "Okay, okay, you win. 'Pronunciation enhancement'."
He cocked his head at me. "I... what?"
I cleared my throat, smoothing out my bangs. "I said you're right. That maybe his pronunciation is a feature, not a bug."
"No, no, I'm pretty sure that you just told me I 'won'," he prodded. "I don't understand, I wasn't even trying to fight you in anything, and now you're telling me I won."
"Well, you sounded serious about it and made a compelling argument," I said, resting my chin back on my hands and smiling. "Being honest takes the least effort, but has the greatest reward."
"Huh..." he replied, looking contemplatively at the edge of the table beside him. I honestly couldn't tell if he was acting naive to be cute, or if he really was that socially awkward. Well, it was cute either way. I could see how someone as timid as he was would be drawn to studying someone with as much bombast and charisma as Megamind.
"Oh, speaking of which," I said, holding the "Megamind Unmasked" book out to him, "I want your honest opinion of this passage. I mean, I know Megamind makes his share of mistakes, but you're right, very few of them were blindingly obvious, so he's obviously not stupid. So I was wondering what you'd think of this."
Bernard skimmed his finger down the page, mouthing the words to himself. "... 'Though one must wonder if even Megamind's intellect has its limits, as illustrated by one highly uncreative prison break attempt that consisted merely of hanging off the underside of a meal cart'..." Bernard set the book on the table before him and held up a finger, "Okay, funny story about that. You see, the reason it was such an 'uncreative prison break attempt' is because... it wasn't a prison break attempt."
I clasped my hands in interest. "Really? So was he just... going for a ride for fun?"
"Ohh, it was of much more importance than that," Bernard explained. "Say what you want about prison food, but the Metrocity Prison--" he paused suddenly and looked up at me apprehensively, but I just started giggling at the slip. Bernard fidgeted in his chair and straightened his shoulders, regaining that sly smirk as he continued in his Megamind voice, "Yes, the Metrocity Prison for the Criminally Gifted, a wretched hive of scum and villainy though it may be, has an absolutely delectable peach cobbler. But it's only on the menu once a month! So, you can imagine Megamind's utter dissatisfaction that, despite being the top criminal mind in the entire facility, they had unforgivably neglected to include it on his platter of otherwise unidentifiable processed food product."
I started laughing into my hands. "So he hid in a meal cart just because he was mad he didn't get dessert?"
Bernard's brows tilted, seemingly realizing how petty and silly this was, laughing a little to himself, but held his hands in front of himself in a pleading gesture, continuing, "This isn't just any dessert! After weeks of bland, tasteless, unmemorable meals, it is the one thing a prisoner has to look forward to!"
"Well, even though he didn't manage to break out of prison that way, did he at least get his peach cobbler?" I wondered between giggles.
"No!" Bernard exclaimed with a helpless chuckle, which just sent me over the edge. "After all that, it turned out they'd forgotten to order it that month! So..." he turned his head and started laughing into his hand, "and here's the best part: The next time Megamind broke out of jail, he bombarded the courtyard with fifty crates of peaches... to make sure they would never forget again!" he emphasized, cocking his eyebrow and baring his teeth in a grin.
I lost it at that point. I didn't care if he was exaggerating or completely making this story up, it still seemed like something Megamind would do. I rocked back in my chair laughing, and Bernard ended up joining me, slapping his hand on the table and crowing, "Oh, what a funny story! And brilliantly told, by the way." The two of us caught our breaths and settled back into our seats, as Bernard eagerly suggested, "Okay, now you tell one."
"Bernard, I never knew you were so funny," I said with a bemused grin, gazing at him across the table.
"And... I've never heard you laugh before," he admitted, peeking up at me shyly over his glasses.
It was true... there hadn't been much to laugh about in the past month. With Metro Man's death and Megamind's conquest of the city... it seemed inappropriate to laugh. But maybe laughing now was an act of defiance. That, no matter how bad things got, we wouldn't let it wear us down. We had to get up, get over it, and move on if we wanted anything to change, and in order to do that, we had to be willing to laugh at ourselves.
I sighed and absently played with my hair, admitting, "Yeah, it's been a while... feels pretty good." Bernard gave me a heartfelt smile as the two of us returned to our books. Though we had plenty of material to go through, like Megamind's disjointed scrawlings, it was going to be yet another task to pick out what was relevant and what wasn't. What was real and what was just someone's assertion of how things should be. But whether I was ultimately successful in breaching Megamind's armor or not, at least I knew now that I was in good company.
To recap: The movie, between the scenes, between the lines, with Roxanne as our intrepid narrator. This time around, we've got Roxanne diving headfirst into unraveling Megamind's master plan, and Megamind being Bernard being himself being a dork (shh, don't tell Roxanne it's Megamind, she doesn't know).
Previous chapters:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
My brain was abuzz with ideas as I drove quickly through downtown, a grumbling Hal in tow. Oh, if only his apartment wasn't so out of the way, I could get to work on piecing together Megamind's plan more quickly, but Hal was a hindrance that was necessary to get rid of first. Even so, I did my best to drown out his griping to focus on some preliminary hypotheses before I got the chance to really examine the evidence.
Whatever this plan of his was, he'd dedicated an entire room of his lair to its engineering. It had to be something huge, on a city-wide - or potentially greater - scale. Something he couldn't have done so long as Metro Man was in the picture. After all, he'd been trying to get rid of Metro Man ever since I could remember, and it had to be because Metro Man was standing in the way of something. But what? If it weren't for Metro Man, then he'd be able to... what? Argh, it was so frustrating, and I was just itching to blow up those photos I took and get to work cracking his mind's code.
But now Megamind knew I was on to him. I'd been so excited to collect so much evidence at City Hall and his lair that it was only now that I was starting to consider the implications of interfering with him. If I did turn those videos over to the authorities and they tried to reclaim City Hall... what would he do? Even if he wasn't using the building anymore, would he (correctly) interpret it as an act of defiance, and do something terrible in retaliation?
If that was the case, then just like with Metro Man, the blood would be on my hands. I pursed my lips and gripped the steering wheel more tightly. I definitely couldn't afford to sit back and be afraid to act anymore, but against someone like Megamind, I'd need to plan those actions carefully instead of making rash decisions. The lair assault had been spur of the moment, and if Bernard hadn't been there I probably wouldn't have made it out alive.
I smiled a little to myself at the thought. Yes, with Bernard, we were twice as strong. If we put our heads together, we'd definitely be able to defeat Megamind where it counted.
"That Burnhard guy, though, I don't trust him," Hal broke into my thoughts. "I'm tellin' ya, he's just trying to weasel his way into your space now that Metro Man bit the big one. Guys like that, they act like they're all tough or something, but, I mean, come on, you know what they're really after," he asserted, raising a leering eyebrow. Somehow, I couldn't help but feel offended by that accusation, giving Hal an incredulous look. He raised his hand, the other still holding his nostril closed, defending, "What? Roxy, c'mon, I'm right here for you, all the time, you don't need some new guy to rescue you. I mean, what's so great about him?"
Halfway intelligent conversation, for starters. Not to mention the refreshingly humble attitude. And for crying out loud, I don't need to be rescued! Not wanting to make such cynical remarks out loud, though, I shrugged and responded, "Come on, Hal, he's the premier authority on Megamind, so he's the perfect person to enlist to help crack his master plan."
"Instead of his master plan, why hasn't anyone just cracked the guy's skull?" Hal wondered dejectedly. "I mean, big head, big target, right?" He pointed his finger at his own head, then jerked his head to the side while making a mock "Pew!" noise and recoiling his finger. "Seriously, why didn't Metro Man just blast the guy's face in years ago and save everyone a lot of trouble? He's got those, like, laser eyeball things, right? He could just be like... zap zap zap, and then Megamind's head would be like psheeeew, and then everything would be cool."
The van screeched abruptly to a halt as I gripped the steering wheel firmly. I seethed in silence, though not quite sure why what he'd said had set me off so badly. Yes, Megamind was responsible for countless atrocities and we'd really all be better off if he wasn't around. But I'd already seen what happens to someone when they resort to killing whoever inconveniences them. And that was a path I was determined not to take. "We're here..." was all I could manage to say, still glaring firmly out the front windshield.
Hal cocked his head, then looked out my side window. "Ah, yeah." He fiddled with his door, then, completely oblivious to my expressed mood, continued, "So, I mean, don't work yourself too hard when there's an easy way out. S'what I always do, eh?" He pointed at me with a little click of his tongue, then got out of the van.
As soon as he shut the door, I could not get out of there fast enough. I heard him call after me, but gave it no mind. I'd see him again at work soon enough. For now, though, there were much more important things to do.
I felt like a teenager anxious for the season premiere of her favorite reality show as I impatiently fidgeted my feet while my computer took its sweet time recognizing the presence of and indexing the files on my camera's memory card. Do I want to auto-play this? No, I don't want to auto-play this, why is it even asking me that? No, I don't want to post them directly to Facebook. No, I don't want to make a slideshow. No, I don't want to restart my computer now so that the updates can take effect. God damn it, it's like the computer knew I was doing something of earth-shattering importance and was determined to make it as cumbersome as possible.
Finally closing out of all of the "helpful" suggestions, I loaded the first picture into my image editor, then proceeded to glare impatiently at the progress bar as it rendered the 12-megapixel file. My heart leapt in excitement when the image finally appeared (albeit resized to fit on the screen) and eagerly zoomed in for a closer look at the individual papers that I'd photographed. I'd been in such a hurry to get a photographic catalogue of everything in the lair that I hadn't had the chance to really read much of what I'd seen while I was there. But now, this was it. Finally, in the safety of my flat, in the leisure of my after-work hours, I'd be able to go over Megamind's plan in detail. His deepest secrets, his most malicious motives, all laid out plainly before me for the first time.
I held my breath when my panning through the image revealed the first page of crisp text. There it was, written plainly before me on a piece of graphing paper, the text already speaking volumes as to the nature of his plan:
"Step 27: Eat more veggies". Accompanied by a helpful doodle of a carrot.
My tensed and excited expression held steady for a few seconds as I re-read the page over and over again. But no matter how many times I mulled it over, I just couldn't really work it into an overall evil scheme of any kind.
Well, no matter, there were still hundreds of pages to look through. This was "Step 27" after all, so it was only natural that it made no sense without context. Once I looked over more, I was sure it would all come together.
Many hours later, my face was planted in my keyboard, an eloquent string of "fgthjjjjjjjjjj" trailing off the edge of my screen. This was hopeless. Hopeless! Further perusal had unearthed other stunning messages such as "Step 12: Mutton chops", "Step 2: Evil jammies", and a stick figure of Megamind hiding behind a bush. These were either the stream-of-consciousness ramblings of a madman, or an ingeniously complicated code that only he could decipher. Though there was really no reason it couldn't be both.
I rubbed my forehead and finally looked at the time. 9:27? Ugh, I'd been at this for over eight hours, then, and had only managed to give myself a migraine. I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but I couldn't possibly have prepared myself for this level of cryptic nonsense.
It was no wonder he left these plans hanging out in the open in his lair, then. Written by Megamind, and only able to be deciphered by Megamind. Decoding this mess would require delving deep into his psyche: Learning everything there was to know about him and his thought process in order to tune the focus of my mind's eye more in line with his.
The prospect was a bit intimidating to me, though. Megamind was a heartless killer who had run the city into the ground for his own amusement. Did I really want to become intimately familiar with the twisted mindset behind all that? Given that I'd had firsthand experience in most of his plots, I'd never bothered to look into his police records or personal history before. Mostly because I'd considered him an annoying yet harmless thrill-seeker, and didn't want to end up inadvertently digging up something that would tarnish that naive image.
And now on this side of the fence, I was still afraid of what I'd find. There had been biographies, psychological studies, editorials, and mountains of other research readily available for all the years of my kidnappings, yet I'd ignored them out of the assumption that I knew what was really going on. But if these writings ended up plainly revealing all the warning signs that would have readily predicted that fateful morning a month ago, then my willful ignorance had...
I clenched my fist tightly and pounded it on the desk. No, Roxanne, stop guilt-tripping yourself so much over this, it's not going to help anything. What's done is done, and second-guessing myself over how I could have done things differently won't retroactively change what happened. I made a mistake - a terrible mistake - but I can learn from it.
Time to change tactics. Delving head-first into this pile of ramblings wasn't getting me anywhere, so it was time to take a break in favor of some good old-fashioned research. And since Bernard was the premier expert when it came to Megamind research, I was certain he'd be able to point me in the right direction.
It was getting kind of late and I knew I said I'd call him tomorrow, but... eh, I wasn't going to be able to sleep on this, anyway. I decided to leave him a text message rather than calling in case he was already asleep, and he could follow up whenever he had the time. "Meet @ Library - RR," I hastily typed into my phone and sent it off as I gathered my coat. Even if he was asleep, with as much material as I had to go through, I wouldn't be surprised if I spent the entire night at the library. I supposed one upside of Megamind's closure of all public services was that there was no longer anyone there to lock the doors and kick me out.
Just as I reached the door, my cellphone buzzed from my pocket. So he was awake, huh? I flipped it open and saw that he had written back, "cant weight lol :)". I blamed auto-correct. But he certainly seemed chipper about meeting up. Though, being the Megamind nerd that he was, he was likely eager to show off his knowledge. And in this situation, I absolutely did not mind.
Yes, Bernard, by all means, dazzle me with your intellect. I can't wait. LOL. Smiley face.
The library was deserted, but I hadn't expected anything different. Even in cities that weren't under the dictatorship of an evil overlord, the library wasn't exactly the hip place to be at 10:00 at night. But I was Roxanne Ritchi, and I didn't care about what was in style. I was getting kidnapped before getting kidnapped was cool.
There was an entire wall dedicated to books about Metro Man, Megamind, and the rivalry between them. Though the books were vaguely arranged based on the aforementioned three categories, the internal arrangement was based on author rather than subject, meaning I'd have to skim through all of them to find the topics I was looking for.
I pulled one titled "Megamind's Ultimate Objective" that sounded promising. The rear cover read, "The startling truth behind the legendary villain's motives! Is he a scout sent by an alien race bent on galactic domination? Is his goal to destroy the world? Is he a genetically-engineered supersoldier who intends to replace humanity? Find out the real story!"
That book went right back on the shelf. I knew I'd seen this sort of thing in tabloids all the time, but to think that this level of tripe could get published? Though it did make me realize that, of all things, I actually didn't know for sure what Megamind was. Was he an alien? Some kind of creation of science? I remembered that the question had once tugged at me years ago, but after becoming so accustomed to him, I'd honestly forgotten that he wasn't human. But if he really was created or sent to Earth with some purpose, that would definitely help in understanding his current goals. I just wondered if any of these authors truly knew for certain where he'd come from.
The more I browsed, the more I found myself deeply wanting to know more about him, not just for the sake of unraveling his plan, but for a more personal satisfaction. I'd known the guy for so many years, but was still ignorant of basic things such as his race, his place of origin, or even his real name ("Megamind" didn't seem like something likely to appear in mainstream baby name books).
I finally settled on two books to start with: One titled "Megamind's War", whose author promised to detail suggestions for non-Metro Man-based methods of fighting the menace, and the other titled "Megamind Unmasked". Because if there was one thing I absolutely needed right now, it was to get under that grandstanding villainous mask he always wore and look at what he really was underneath.
When I turned from the shelves, I almost dropped my books in shock, as Bernard had been standing right behind me. He straightened up when I saw him, eyes going wide as if he was surprised I'd noticed him standing there. He stared at me, frozen, silent, for what felt like a full minute before finally blurting out, "... Hi!"
"Oh, hi!" I said back excitedly. "I'm glad you could make it! I hope it's not too much of an inconvenience for you."
"Oh, no, no..." he waved me off, glancing around a bit apprehensively. "I was... in need of a bit of a break myself, anyway."
I sat down at a nearby table and wondered, "Oh? So what have you been up to now that the museum's closed?"
"Oh, you know. ... Things," he answered, trying to give a nonchalant wave. He leaned his arm against the back of the chair across the table from me and awkwardly continued, "Just a little... pet project I have going on on the side, it's really nothING--" he attempted to sit down but missed the edge of the chair, catching himself hastily on the back before quickly pulling himself in as if nothing had happened, "--you need to concern yourself with." A quick finger to the bridge of his nose righted his glasses.
He continued to look around as if he was expecting something to jump out at him from behind the bookshelves. He drummed his fingers in his lap with his shoulders hunched, and finally wondered, "Is it normally so... quiet in here? I mean, this is a 'public' library, right? I was expecting there to be a bit more... 'public'."
"Hmm," I grinned, lacing my fingers and resting my chin on them. "So does that mean the libraries you studied at were a lot busier than this one?"
Bernard's mouth gaped open slightly in a silent pause, before he pointed at me and declared, "Yes! Yes, I am... very well-versed in all manner of knowledge, this I assure you. I have read hundreds of books... thousands of books... I've read--"
"Have you read this one?" I interrupted, holding up the "Megamind's War" book I'd pulled from the shelf. "You've probably read everything in this section, so maybe you can give me some pointers on which of these are any good."
"Well, if it's a book on Megamind, it's excellent by default, I'd imagine."
I folded my hands against my mouth and thought, humming into them. "Mmm, I dunno. I skimmed a few on the shelf, and a lot of it is second- or third-hand accounts of questionable accuracy. Like, okay, remember the one with the squids carrying harpoons?"
"Ahh, the Calamari Cavalry," Bernard answered wistfully. "I always liked that one."
"Yes!" I said enthusiastically. "But, see, one of those books claims that they were octopi, not squids."
"What?!" exclaimed Bernard, sounding almost personally offended. "What an inexcusably basic mistake! Didn't they bother to count the tentacles?"
"I'm pretty sure they had ten."
"Not eight! And the shape of the body?"
"I remember them being long."
"Not round!" Bernard's forehead fell into his hands and he massaged himself with his palms. "Ohhh, how can someone claim to even have an inkling of the workings of such a genius mind when they can't even keep their cephalapods straight? It's absurd! Do they honestly believe Megamind to be so dimwitted as to call a legion of octopi the 'Calamari Cavalry'?"
I lightly chuckled into the back of my hand. "Well, he does have a habit of consistently mispronouncing basic words."
Bernard glared up at me through his fingers, which had pushed his glasses up to rest on his forehead. "I prefer to think of it as 'pronunciation enhancement'."
Going the politically-correct route, are we? I leaned forward and prompted, "So, you think 'Metrocity' is superior to 'Metro City'?"
Bernard gave a sly smirk, then leaned forward as well, narrowing his eyes. With a light purr, he breathed out, "'Metrocity'..." The way he said it was such a dead-on impersonation, I couldn't help but get a little chill up the back of my neck. I giggled nervously before he continued in the same tone: "'Shool'..." Okay, now he was just being silly. I began laughing, which must have taken him by surprise, as he receded from me a ways, blinking. His face regained a much less wily smile, and he continued with a dorky, "'Revaaahnge'..."
I couldn't help it. I buried my face in my hands and burst out laughing. Finally I lifted a hand and waved, conceding, "Okay, okay, you win. 'Pronunciation enhancement'."
He cocked his head at me. "I... what?"
I cleared my throat, smoothing out my bangs. "I said you're right. That maybe his pronunciation is a feature, not a bug."
"No, no, I'm pretty sure that you just told me I 'won'," he prodded. "I don't understand, I wasn't even trying to fight you in anything, and now you're telling me I won."
"Well, you sounded serious about it and made a compelling argument," I said, resting my chin back on my hands and smiling. "Being honest takes the least effort, but has the greatest reward."
"Huh..." he replied, looking contemplatively at the edge of the table beside him. I honestly couldn't tell if he was acting naive to be cute, or if he really was that socially awkward. Well, it was cute either way. I could see how someone as timid as he was would be drawn to studying someone with as much bombast and charisma as Megamind.
"Oh, speaking of which," I said, holding the "Megamind Unmasked" book out to him, "I want your honest opinion of this passage. I mean, I know Megamind makes his share of mistakes, but you're right, very few of them were blindingly obvious, so he's obviously not stupid. So I was wondering what you'd think of this."
Bernard skimmed his finger down the page, mouthing the words to himself. "... 'Though one must wonder if even Megamind's intellect has its limits, as illustrated by one highly uncreative prison break attempt that consisted merely of hanging off the underside of a meal cart'..." Bernard set the book on the table before him and held up a finger, "Okay, funny story about that. You see, the reason it was such an 'uncreative prison break attempt' is because... it wasn't a prison break attempt."
I clasped my hands in interest. "Really? So was he just... going for a ride for fun?"
"Ohh, it was of much more importance than that," Bernard explained. "Say what you want about prison food, but the Metrocity Prison--" he paused suddenly and looked up at me apprehensively, but I just started giggling at the slip. Bernard fidgeted in his chair and straightened his shoulders, regaining that sly smirk as he continued in his Megamind voice, "Yes, the Metrocity Prison for the Criminally Gifted, a wretched hive of scum and villainy though it may be, has an absolutely delectable peach cobbler. But it's only on the menu once a month! So, you can imagine Megamind's utter dissatisfaction that, despite being the top criminal mind in the entire facility, they had unforgivably neglected to include it on his platter of otherwise unidentifiable processed food product."
I started laughing into my hands. "So he hid in a meal cart just because he was mad he didn't get dessert?"
Bernard's brows tilted, seemingly realizing how petty and silly this was, laughing a little to himself, but held his hands in front of himself in a pleading gesture, continuing, "This isn't just any dessert! After weeks of bland, tasteless, unmemorable meals, it is the one thing a prisoner has to look forward to!"
"Well, even though he didn't manage to break out of prison that way, did he at least get his peach cobbler?" I wondered between giggles.
"No!" Bernard exclaimed with a helpless chuckle, which just sent me over the edge. "After all that, it turned out they'd forgotten to order it that month! So..." he turned his head and started laughing into his hand, "and here's the best part: The next time Megamind broke out of jail, he bombarded the courtyard with fifty crates of peaches... to make sure they would never forget again!" he emphasized, cocking his eyebrow and baring his teeth in a grin.
I lost it at that point. I didn't care if he was exaggerating or completely making this story up, it still seemed like something Megamind would do. I rocked back in my chair laughing, and Bernard ended up joining me, slapping his hand on the table and crowing, "Oh, what a funny story! And brilliantly told, by the way." The two of us caught our breaths and settled back into our seats, as Bernard eagerly suggested, "Okay, now you tell one."
"Bernard, I never knew you were so funny," I said with a bemused grin, gazing at him across the table.
"And... I've never heard you laugh before," he admitted, peeking up at me shyly over his glasses.
It was true... there hadn't been much to laugh about in the past month. With Metro Man's death and Megamind's conquest of the city... it seemed inappropriate to laugh. But maybe laughing now was an act of defiance. That, no matter how bad things got, we wouldn't let it wear us down. We had to get up, get over it, and move on if we wanted anything to change, and in order to do that, we had to be willing to laugh at ourselves.
I sighed and absently played with my hair, admitting, "Yeah, it's been a while... feels pretty good." Bernard gave me a heartfelt smile as the two of us returned to our books. Though we had plenty of material to go through, like Megamind's disjointed scrawlings, it was going to be yet another task to pick out what was relevant and what wasn't. What was real and what was just someone's assertion of how things should be. But whether I was ultimately successful in breaching Megamind's armor or not, at least I knew now that I was in good company.