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“Miss Ritchi,” a familiar tenor pulled me out of the novel I was reading. “I am afraid that this infernal heap is not going to be functional anytime soon.”
I marked my page, noting it was number 89, which meant I had been here longer than I thought. I’m a quick reader, but not that quick. It must have been nearly two hours. Stretching my legs, I was suddenly aware of a stiffness in my knees and a soreness in my rear. Now that my mind was no longer engaged, everything from my lower back down protested that I’d been sitting in one position far too long.
“Seriously?” I yawned. Stupid post-reading sleepiness. “After all of that we’re canceling?”
Megamind glanced over the edge of a robotic monstrosity that looked like a pterodactyl and a stingray had made unholy offspring. He was perched precariously on its narrow back, gloved hands still busy with a mechanism attaching one of the wings.
“I would apologize for keeping you so long,” he smirked down at me. “But, really, evil doesn’t care about your convenience. Besides,” the blue man added airily, nodding toward the title in my hands. “Anyone who could possibly be bored with a dark elf ranger for company really wouldn’t be worth kidnapping.”
Than made me smile a little. I’d selected one of R. A. Salvatore’s Legend of Drizzt novels from the stack of tomes a brainbot had delivered.
Tugging my features back into a listless mien with an effort, I pointedly deadpanned: “Oh, I’m bored. I’m so very bored.”
Megamind snickered. “An excellent attempt, Miss Ritchi, but no.”
“Damn. Don't I get points for trying?”
“No you do not," the blue man chuckled. "Supervillains don't give out participation trophies. And even if we did, frankly, I've seen better acting in B movies.” he threw another teasing grin my direction. “That was honestly pathetic."
I stuck out my tongue. "Was not," I objected, even though it totally was and we both knew it. "You just said—"
"I lied. Evil, remember? I merely wanted to save your feelings from—Hey!” he chortled, ducking as I aimed one of my remaining cookies at his big blue head. “Foul! Flagrant misuse of sweets!”
“Your fault for taunting me,” I bit into another cookie. Minion really was an amazing baker.
“Indeed. You really shouldn’t do that, you know,” he added.
“Do what?”
“You’re going to strain your neck tilting it at that angle.” At my confused expression, he nodded toward the book in my lap. “Just pick it up and read it like you were before.”
I glanced down. Out of long routine, I had unthinkingly laid the novel open in such a way that only the pages were visible. Which was silly, I know. The supervillain had obviously noticed that I’d opted for the fantasy novel—a genre that always been a secret pleasure of mine—and even if he judged my choice of reading material, it wasn’t like I cared.
Well, alright, I knew I shouldn’t care.
“People expect someone like me to read serious stuff,” I shrugged by way of an explanation.
“That sort of conformist nonesense is exactly why I chose supervillainy. You shouldn’t bother yourself so much about what other people think. Why should they dictate your tastes, anyway?”
“It’s not dictating, exactly, it’ just… I hang out with too many other journalists and writers. Don’t get me wrong, I love that crowd, but a few people can get really snooty about which books ‘possess literary merit’ and which ones are ‘a little juvenile, don’t you think?’”
“Miss Ritchi,” he offered dryly. “It came out of my own library. I’m not likely to question why you enjoy it. No one should, by the way. Their right to opinions ends at the point where your personal preferences begin.”
That was true. But at the moment I was distracted by something else.
“You have your own library?”
“Off the record, I used to live in a library,” he grinned.
“Okay, now I’m jealous!”
“Be my Evil Queen and you can have all the books your heart desires!”
“I don’t think you understand how many books that would actually be,” I smirked wryly. “And no.”
“My personal library currently contains eight-thousand six-hundred and thirty-two titles,” he stated, features smug. “And your loss.”
“Wow. Holy shit. That is a metric butt-load of books,” I informed him.
“It’s really not,” the blue man motioned to one of his cyborgs for a ratchet. “You can’t measure books in butts. Daddy needs a 5/8 socket, Cthulhu.”
I snorted a laugh. “If you say so.”
“It’s true! Books aren’t liquid!”
“Megamind!”
“What?”
“That’s just wrong!”
He quirked an eyebrow at me. “Really, Miss Ritchi! I’ll have you know a buttload is an actual unit of measurement!”
“It is not!” I protested, laughing louder.
“Oh, but it is! Roughly one-hundred and sixty-two gallons, for your information!”
“Now I know you’re messing with me!”
“Why, Miss Ritchi, I wouldn’t dream of it!” He swung his feet over the edge of the nonfunctional doom device and vaulted down. The drop was almost twenty feet and I wondered, for about the millionth time, how he managed to do that crap without ever breaking any bones.
“A butt was once a standard unit of measurement for alcohol.” the blue man continued, straightening his collar. “Wine, mostly, to be exact.”
“For real?”
He nodded his large head, grinning. Megamind always did like showing off his intellect. “It was. It isn’t metric, though; it’s Medieval.”
“Huh,” I mused. “You learn something new every day.”
“I should hope so. Any day you don’t learn something is a day you’ve wasted.”
“You should put that on a t-shirt.”
“Better that than one of those annoying posters.”
“I don’t know. The one with the kittens is pretty cute.”
He rolled his green eyes dramatically. “That is solely because of the kittens,” Megamind rubbed his palms down his tight, black, leather pants, dusting the material off. If that was a little distracting, I’m not going to admit it. “Anything is cute with kittens involved. It hardly counts. Ah, Minion!”
My favorite henchfish walked in, drying mechanical hands on an apron, while I took a moment to wonder what it meant that the resident Evil Genius hadn’t argued about the aesthetic merits of felines.
“All fixed, Sir?” Minion asked.
“Not… Exactly...”
“Last time he turned it on there was smoke and a lot of sparks,” I offered helpfully. Megamind glared, earning my best innocent smile in return, and I cheerfully added: “The time before that flames happened!".
“Sir! Did you set yourself on fire again?!”
“Only slightly. Oh, honestly, Minion! I’m fine!”
Minion eyed him doubtfully and the blue man rolled emerald eyes.
“I’m fine,” he reiterated. “Frustrated, but otherwise fine.”
“Yes, Sir. And the Wyvern of Woe?”
The villain cast an accusing frown at his broken creation. “One of the servo motors in the articulated wings jammed up and fried,” he explained, turning back to Minion. “I tried to cobble something together, but it’s useless. I’ll have to build a new one and replace it. The others need to be independently tested again, too.”
While his doom devices sometimes malfunctioned, our Friendly Neighborhood Evil Genius took safety very seriously. He wouldn’t risk anything going wrong while we were airborne.
“Are we done for the day, then, Sir?” his henchman asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Well, then, the veal cutlets are ready, if you’d like to...” Minion let the statement hang in the air and flicked a significant look between the supervillain and myself.
His boss took the hint. “Miss Ritchi, would you care to join us for dinner?”
Okay, yes, that was an unusual invitation—people don’t usually sit down to a friendly meal with the alien who kidnaps them weekly—but it’s not as completely insane as it sounds. After all, Minion prepared snacks for abduction plots all the time. (Hence today’s cookies.)
It wasn’t as if I’d never eaten in the Lair before. It wasn’t even as if I’d never shared food with Megamind. The problem was that somehow this felt completely different. A casual bite while the blue genius worked was entire light years away from actually sitting down across from him at his table. I mean, you eat lunch with your coworkers all the time, but you wouldn’t necessarily invite them out to dinner, right? It would cross a line into something too personal, almost like a date.
Not that I was thinking of this as a date, of course.
I totally wasn’t.
Except now I sort of was and that was making things really weird.
“I don’t know,” I demurred. “I don’t want to intrude and I’m sure you weren’t planning on guests.”
“Oh, nonsense! Minion always makes too much!” Megamind waved a gloved hand. “We would be delighted to have you.”
The first invitation had seemed perfunctory, like the blue man was only trying to be polite, but now he sounded entirely sincere.
Still, I hesitated.
“It’s really no trouble,” Megamind offered. “We insist, don’t we, Minion?”
“Nothing would make me happier, Miss Ritchi!” the henchfish enthused. The thing is, he looked like he really meant it. Minion’s face was so earnest and hopeful, an eager gleam shining in his big, round eyes, and…
Look, there might be someone out there heartless enough to resist that expression—like Satan himself, for example—but I know I can’t. The aquatic henchman obviously loved cooking, and I’ve never met a home chef who didn’t thrive on watching others enjoy their hard work. It suddenly struck me how rare his chances to share his culinary talents must be. Well, with someone other than his boss, I mean.
That more than anything is what made me do something crazy.
“Sure,” I said. “I’d love to stay for dinner.”
The living quarters of the Lair weren’t exactly what I’d expected. Oh, it was clearly a bachelor pad—largely functional rather than stylish—but the space was oddly homelike. It was also almost surgically clean, but then with Minion in charge of housekeeping and an entire army of cyborgs to perform tasks, I supposed that made sense.
I also wondered briefly whether I could convince Megamind to give me a cleaning bot, but quickly decided against it. I didn’t want to press my luck.
Because I did feel strangely lucky. My expectation had been that my villainous host might clear off one of the eternally cluttered work tables or command brainbots to fetch more suitable furniture. It had never occurred to me to hope that I might be granted access to he and Minion’s living quarters. But that’s exactly what happened. After reminding me that he would be “extremely displeased” if photos and descriptions of his home found their way into a news report, the Master of All Villainy offered me one black-clad arm and escorted me upstairs.
That display of trust meant more than I was willing to admit, even to myself.
“Would you like wine with dinner?” Megamind asked, pulling out my chair for me. “Yes? Brainbots! Bring Daddy a bottle of Red Zinfandel! And the corkscrew!”
Minion, it appeared, had already set a third place at the table. Before I could ask him about it, he disappeared into the kitchen, leaving me with the Master of All Villainy. I watched my host fiddle with his dinner fork, catch himself, and resolutely lace his fingers together.
Damn, it felt awkward sitting across from him like this without being tied up.
I made a desperate attempt at light conversation, bringing up a TV movie marathon from the previous weekend, and was shocked by how easily we both fell into a relaxed discussion about old sci-fi films. We were just animatedly comparing warning themes in Forbidden Planet and The Day the Earth Stood Still when Minion returned bearing the first covered serving platter. As I’d expected, he presented each dish with an artist’s pride.
“Parmesan and herb-crusted veal cutlets, grilled artichokes in caper sauce, and brown rice pilaf with wild mushrooms! Sir, don’t look at me like that. You did say you wanted to eat more vegetables,” the fish added with brotherly tolerance as he began serving our plates.
“Yes, but artichokes?”
“They’re good for you.”
“They’re horrible.”
“They won’t be.”
The supervillain raised a disbelieving eyebrow. His friend huffed bubbles in his tank.
“At least try them, Sir,” he reasoned. "You really ought—"
“Yes, yes, very well,” Megamind patted the air with one hand. “I shall try. But that’s all I’m promising.”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Maybe I just don’t want my favorite henchfish to be moody all week.”
“I'm your only henchfish. And I’m never moody,” Minion sniffed, but he couldn’t quite stop grinning. Or maybe it was just the shape of his mouth.
“Oh, you get into tiffs all the time!” his boss laughed. “What about the Laser-Powered Hot Dog Cooker experiment?”
“That wasn’t moodiness, Sir. That was unbridled rage. The Hot Dog Explosion Incident is one of the many reasons I permanently banned Sir from the kitchen,” Minion explained, turning in his bowl to face me. He was definitely fighting a smile now.
I couldn’t blame him. Wracked by giggles myself, it took a moment to catch my breath enough to say: “I can’t imagine you angry, Minion.”
“That’s because he’s terrible at it,” Megamind assured me, cutting into his veal. “Biggest marshmallow in the Henchpersons' Association—well, perhaps except Shayde, Vampira's right-hand man. Please, my fantastic fish," he added at his friend's look, playfully poking one mechanical shoulder. "You couldn’t be enraged if you tried! Your idea of an insult is ‘Mr. Meanie!’”
“That is a perfectly reasonable insult!” the fish insisted.
“In kindergarten, perhaps.” My host turned bright green eyes on me. “I’ve never heard you laugh before.”
“It’s been a while,” I admitted, sipping my wine. Which tasted amazing, by the way. I made a mental note to ask about the vineyard. “You guys remind me of my younger brothers.”
“We are brothers of a sort, Miss Ritchi,” the henchman explained.
To my surprise, his boss didn’t object to his sharing that little secret. What the hell was going on?
“Well,” I offered coyly. “I appreciate you trusting me enough to show it.”
“I make a point of returning trust for trust,” the supervillain answered.
“Because I agreed to stay for dinner?” I fished. Hey, what can I say? My reporter senses were tingling, and knowing that I couldn’t use what I learned for a story didn’t make me any less curious.
“Among other things,” he shrugged as if it didn't matter.
But it did matter. I knew that. Supervillains played their cards notoriously close to their chests. Caution was a necessity, and Megamind never did anything without some sort of assurance.
That thought made me pause, a bite of pilaf halfway to my lips, well-honed insight reading between every line of his recent actions. “The books,” I said after a moment. It wasn’t a question.
“You really are brilliant,” Megamind’s smile was soft, almost awed. In the face of another man, I would have said it was attraction. But, of course, that was ridiculous. “If you were trying to impress me, you would have chosen Hawkings The Universe in a Nutshell,” he continued. “If you were seeking to keep up appearances, it would have been Ethan Frome, and if you were maintaining a professional distance, you’d have chosen The Red Zone by your fellow journalist, Steven Vincent—I recommend it, by the way. Instead, you went for the fantasy novel you really wanted to read.”
“Huh. So it was a test.” It sort of bothered me how little that bothered me. Rather, I was impressed by his insight and intellect.
Impressed and… Well, let’s just say I’m sapiosexual. Smart guys really do it for me.
God, that was such a weird thought to have at his dinner table.
“Merely curiosity on my part,” Megamind, thankfully oblivious, was explaining. “I wanted to see what you’d select.”
“If I’d chosen one of the others, would you have still asked me to stay?”
To his credit, the blue man gave that a moment of serious consideration rather than spitting out the obvious polite answer.
“No,” he said finally. “I would have instructed Minion to pack a dinner for you and taken you home.”
That was extremely interesting. It meant three things: first, the local villain knew Minion well enough to foresee his silent suggestion. Second, he also knew me well enough to realize that, like him, trust would encourage me to behave ethically. If I’d had to sneak in, I wouldn’t have thought twice about revealing whatever secrets I could find, but because he’d decided I was trustworthy enough to invite into his home, I felt compelled to keep them to myself. Third, it was further proof that the man truly was a genius. He’d quickly assessed the risks and come up with a perfect plan to mitigate them.
It made the hindquarters of my brain start wondering what others of my reactions he could intuit with that incredible intellect. Maybe it was the wine, but I found myself noticing all sorts of things I had no business thinking about—the handsome lines of Megamind’s face, that roguish patch of hair on his chin, the way his tight uniform revealed the definition of a slim-but-strong body underneath—and I quickly changed the subject.
“This is all amazing, Minion.”
“Indeed. This had been a very pleasurable meal," the blue man met my gaze directly as he spoke. Did I imagine the slight color in his cheeks? A moment later he cleared his throat and looked to his henchman. “You have excelled as usual, Filet Minon. Even the artichokes were palatable, and that is saying a lot. A toast to the chef!” he raised his wine glass with a grin.
I followed suit, glad to be on safe ground once more.
“You’re too kind!” Minion fluttered his fins in delight. “Who’s ready for dessert?”
After a long day, a large meal, and the enjoyment of pleasant company, I was heavy with contentment. It had grown into a comfortable weariness by the time Megamind helped me into the invisible car and, lulled by the engine, I soon fell asleep.
What felt like only a few seconds later, I became groggily aware of a change in motion—more a gentle up-and-down sway than a cushy car ride—along with cool night air on my cheeks. There was more light as well, and that was annoying. Mumbling my objection, I turned my head to bury my face against something warm and solid. It smelled like leather, motor oil, and cologne. There were a few soft metallic sounds, a click like a lock opening, and we passed into a warmer location.
The next thing I remember is a plush mattress beneath me, pillows infused with the familiar scent of my shampoo, and someone gently removing my shoes. Careful hands delicately tucked a blanket around me, and I felt myself beginning to drift off once more.
Before unconsciousness could fully engulf me again, however, I thought, for just a moment, that gloved fingers stroked my bangs back from my forehead. I could have sworn I heard Megamind’s voice softly croon: “Goodnight, my Dear Miss Ritchi. Sleep well.”
But that was probably just a dream.