Chapter 7: Madame Vice

Travis flies back into the sky, having given Karla Yuu (a freelance blog-reporter, as he learned) the rundown of his evening. Literally writing the article as he spoke, she promised she'd send it to her contact at "Hero Press Blog" as soon as she was done.

As Travis soars up into the clouds, he sends his H-Chip a thought-command to set a search alert for any mentions of his heroic personage. He'll definitely want to archive the first official press-related Legend boost of his career.

He takes off high across the sky at top speed, knowing he need to get to Static Lane before the police do—or before another hero encroaching on his case does.

As he flies, he consider how any Powered Heroes stupid enough to take on The Splice Circle in the past have always ended up dead. The only notable exception has been Static, the self-proclaimed champion of the Eastern Fringes (named after the Fringes's most crime-clogged neighborhood, Static Lane). While most heroes concentrate on more glamorous and less dangerous heroing outside of the Fringes, Static has done good work cleaning up some of The Splice Circle's mess.

However, no one has seen Static in months, a troubling mystery that has gone unsolved.

Worst of all, Smyther and The Splice Circle are responsible for funding the rival Ani-gang activity in the Fringes, using the gangs as a recruitment base to pipeline "employees" into the various branches of the organization. The Ani-gangs are constantly vying for top billing with the Circle and a gang war has been brewing for months (as evidenced by the fight he broke up earlier today).

Without a doubt, Smyther is responsible for making life in the Eastern Fringes highly hazardous. Knowing that he is involved with The Gravitas theft hits close to home but Travis wants to take on this case mostly because It will serve as a blow to The Splice Circle's criminal practices and further disorganize Ani-gang activity in the Fringes.

Smyther has remained untouchable thanks to a team of high-priced lawyers and some corrupt contacts within the HC government. So catching him with The Gravitas could be a rare, illegal thread capable of unraveling the entire Splice Circle organization. And doing so would definitely improve life in his hometown quite a bit—he can't think of a more worthwhile heroic pursuit.

However, as he begins to breathe a bit heavier from the exertion of flying so fast, he thinks about how advanced this case could prove to be. Smyther is no joke—he and his crew will kill him in a thousand different ways, without hesitation. Perhaps this might be a bit more than he can handle on his first night out.

Then Travis reminds himself that he were born for major-league cases like this. Moving forward, no matter how successful he became, this kind of fear and doubt are going to be a part of his career at every level.

In fact, the pressure to stay afloat is only going to get worse so he'd better learn to cope with it now.

After a super fast flight back to the Fringes, he land on a roof across the street from Smyther's club, Shed. His favorite hero-tipoff blog, "Just The Tip", says it's rumored that Smyther has his secret base of operations hidden somewhere in Shed, since he was once romantically linked to Madame Vice, Shed's owner.

Madame Vice has the Power to seduce people into doing her bidding, and he also reads that, ever since being unceremoniously dumped by Smyther, she might have aspirations to take over his head-honcho role.

While this is a tidbit he may be able to use to his advantage if things get nasty inside, right now he need to discover the location of Smyther's hidden headquarters within Shed.

Travis float down to the street and walk up to the front door, which is blocked by two very large bouncers. From the massive horns protruding from their foreheads, Travis gather they're both part gene-spliced rhinoceros—not really dudes he have time to mess with. So he pulled out his ID and hand it to one of them, hoping it will be that easy to get in.

The rhino-bouncer looks him over from head to toe—which makes sense since Travis completely forgot that he's wearing his Gravitate costume. He's sure Shed doesn't want hero-types snooping around, so he clenches his fists, ready for a fight.

But the rhino-bouncer just hands his ID back and opens the door.

"Twenty-dollar cover. And absolutely no Power use allowed inside," he says in a thundering voice. "Got it?"

Travis nod, thankful to not have to crack any rhino skulls at this particular moment.

Paying the cover and stepping inside, he stop. It's very dark and all he can make out at first are iridescent glows coming from all around. But when his eyes do adjust, he realize that those glows are actually figures dancing. Each one's skin glows in a different neon-bright color as they move across various stages.

He takes a second to stare at the mesmerizing colors but pulls himself away—that's not what he's here for. He walks toward the bar to see what he can learn but before he gets there, he spot a deep-red light coming from somewhere in the back of the place.

He look at the light and suddenly one step follows another.

"Fuzz…feels nice…moving…back, back, back…there stands…"

Madame Vice. So pretty, Travis think. So, so pretty with the blood-red eyes.

"Tell me, rude thing," she says, her voice oozing, "what on earth brings you to my dark corner of the world?"

Travis want to tell her everything. Her with her flowing, auburn hair. Wrapped in that tight, red leather. Her body impossibly curved with plastic enhancements. Her perfect chest spilling out of that corset. Her full lips wet. He wants her to trust him more than anything. He wants to touch, he wants to tell. She's so pretty. Just tell.

"I'm here to-" But as the words leave his lips, one thought breaks through the rest—Madame Vice has hypno-seduction Powers! Which must be why he can't seem to think straight….

As he feels the slightest bit of control creep back, he decides that he'd better not waste the opportunity.

"You'll want to get out of here," Travis say with real concern. "Very soon."

"Why would I want to do such a silly thing?" Madame Vice purrs, causing Travis head to feel woozy again. Concentrate. Concentrate!

"Because the police will be here any minute to recover The Gravitas," Travis manage. "Don't go down with the ship, Madame!"

No more smile. Angry Vice. Eyes bore, not good. Not good! Bad…. He wants Vice to like him. Love him. Will Vice hurt him?

Suddenly something snaps and he can feel his thoughts return to normal. He watch as Madame Vice crosses the dark room and opens a safe in the corner.

"Well then, I think it's a lovely time for a stroll around the block, isn't it?" Madame Vice says, approaching Travis. She grabs Travis's hand and her touch feels better than anything he ever felt.

"Be a dear and do forget you saw me, yes?"

Travis heart flutters and he blink, overwhelmed with desire.

A moment later he opened his eyes to find that Madame Vice is nowhere to be found. He feels a cold rush of emptiness wash over him, but tries to force away the feelings by telling himself it's only the after-effects of Madame Vice's hypno-seduction.

Then he realizes there's something in his hand—a long, red whip tipped with gold.

He examines the gold tip of the whip and can't believe his eyes. The gold mechanism is a Telepoint—a wildly expensive (and wildly illegal) security measure that grants teleportation entrance into doorless rooms. The only way into Smyther's secret headquarters must be through one of these Telepoints, which he imagines only his Splice Generals carry.

Since Telepoints take the form of tokens unique to each owner and only respond to their brain waves, it's useless to him without Madame Vice. Though there is one trick he might try.

But before he can give it a shot, he feels a tap on his shoulder.