Whiteout Ch 03 1

Val staggered out of the portal and took a moment to catch her breath. "Sorry I'm late, everyone."

Reuben glanced over at her, but seemed to look through her rather than at her. His blonde hair was perfectly tousled, just enough to give it the illusion of being "natural" but still obviously stylized. "Take your seat, Val."

She nodded and closed the portal as she walked over to the table. It was a large circle, with a hole in the middle for the holographic projector; right now, it just showed the logo for Team Rainbow. She pulled out her chair and sat down in her assigned seat, with Yun-hee on her right and Reuben on her left. From above, one could see that the five members of Team Rainbow were arranged like a pentagon, with Reuben as the top point and everyone else ordered by color in a clockwise fashion. Red, then yellow, then green, then blue, then, finally, violet.

From across the desk, someone called out, "If you're gonna be late, you could at least be presentable." Val winced.

Of course that pasty little shit Brayden would say something.

She looked up and glared at him. "At least I put on deodorant this morning." He scoffed and slicked his light orange hair back, trying to look like he didn't care what she said.

After a moment, the man sitting to Brayden's left cleared his throat to clear the tension. "Seriously, Val," he said. "Are you ok? You're never late to these meetings. And you look pretty tired."

She sighed and scratched her forehead. "I'm fine, Gibson. Just overslept. Alarm didn't go off on time."

Gibson looked at her intently. Val hated when he looked at her like that. She always felt like he could tell whenever someone was lying, but his power was wind, not mind-reading. Still, his dark eyes felt like they were penetrating her soul. He knew she wasn't being honest, but for the moment he seemed willing to drop the issue. "Fair enough."

The truth was that the alarm did go off on time. Val just slept through it. She'd passed out sometime after midnight, during another one of her now-nightly masturbation sessions. In the week since she met Madame in person, she'd been hornier than she could remember being in years. They'd started sending messages to each other online, and Madame was driving her up the wall with her teasing. Every night, she'd start talking to Val about what they'd do together if Val was hypnotized.

Madame had a lot of ideas for sessions they could do together. The one that she sent last night -- the one that got Val so worked up that she passed out with her hand between her legs -- involved Madame slowly taking away Val's language. She'd be fine at first, but gradually, she'd start forgetting more and more words, not just how to say them but how to think them. She'd start speaking in shorter, simpler sentences, and her thoughts would become more and more basic. Eventually she'd even forget her own name; in the end, all she would be able to say, and think, would be "Yes, Mistress."

"If we're done with the chit-chat," Reuben announced, shaking Val out of her reverie, "I think it's time we call this meeting to order."

Everyone sat up straight in their chairs and looked towards Reuben. "Now," he said, for our first order of..." He trailed off as he noticed Brayden's raised hand. "What is it, Brayden?"

"I would like to again voice my displeasure with my current color assignment," Brayden replied.

Gibson groaned. "This again? Dude, we've explained it a million times, we're not changing your color back to blue."

"You're not the leader of this group," snapped Brayden. "So keep your mouth shut."

Val rolled her eyes. No meeting would be complete without Brayden and Gibson getting into a shouting match. She wanted to think the best of her teammates, but frankly, the fact that Brayden always went after the only black member of the group raised a few suspicions.

"That's enough, Brayden," Reuben said. "As Gibson said, we've already discussed this issue. Yellow is the best color option available to you at this time."

"But ice isn't a 'yellow' power!" Brayden whined. "Yun-hee's got electricity, that's a yellow thing, why can't we just swap?"

"We can't have Yun-hee be the Yellow Angel, for reasons I'm sure you're very much aware of." Reuben stared at Brayden like he was a schoolteacher disciplining a kid who stuck bubblegum in some girl's hair.

"Oh, what?" Brayden scoffed. "You're so scared of the PC police that you won't put a Chinese girl in yellow?"

"You know I'm Korean, right?" Yun-hee interjected.

Before Brayden could respond, the group heard a burst of static from the PA. "An incident has been detected matching one or more of your search criteria," the synthetic voice said calmly. The hologram projector switched to a map of the city, with Ardent Tower highlighted. "A 9-1-1 call was intercepted from a cell phone belonging to Mr. Raymond Hawthorne, current president of Ardent Bank."

Then another burst of static, followed by a man's voice. "Yes, uh, there's some woman in my suite." He sounded indignant, annoyed almost. "I don't know how she got in, I have a... uh..." His voice started to trail off. "I have, uh..." He sounded confused. Distant.

A moment of silence. "I'm sorry, operator." Raymond spoke in a calm, quiet voice. "I made a mistake. There is no reason to send anyone here."

Val's eyes widened. She shot up out of her chair. "It's her."

* * *

Green Angel leaned back into the handrail and sighed. "Y'know, Val, you could've just opened the portal in his apartment. Would've saved us the elevator ride, at least."

Violet Angel rolled her eyes. "You know I can't, Green. I need to be able to visualize the place before I open a portal. That's why I always open it on a street, or a rooftop. Something you can see with the satellites. And you

also

know that we don't use our names on a mission."

Green chuckled. "Look, I get it. You're pissed they sent you in with a babysitter."

"That's not it."

"Yeah, it is, 'Violet.'" He stared at her like he did back in the meeting room. "I know what this means for you. You wanna get this lady. I get that. But..." He rubbed his forehead. "Look, we're worried about you. You say you're okay, but you've been really on edge lately. And..."

"And

what

, Green?"

He turned his head away. "Some of us don't think you made it out of that studio the same way you want in."

Violet stood there, stunned. "What are you implying? You think she left something in my head, some command?"

The elevator slowly rolled to a stop. "We're here," said Green.

The first thing Violet noticed when the elevator doors opened was the music. The sound of thrashing guitars and pounding drums hit her like a punch to the face. She winced and covered her ears. She looked over at Green, who was shouting something to her, but she couldn't make it out over the music.

After a moment, Green walked down the hallway, and Violet followed him. At the end of the hallway was a spacious living room, with couches and chairs that looked like they each cost more than a car. Violet turned her head to the left was Raymond Hawthorne, laying very still on a couch. His eyes were glassy and unfocused, and his mouth hanging open. His pants were around his ankles, and he was slowly, rhythmically stroking his cock.

Violet turned her head to the right.

The music stopped.

"I see you've brought a friend this time." Madame Blanc sat in a comfy-looking leather recliner. The remote for the sound system was in her left hand, and a glass of whiskey in her right. She smiled warmly at the two superheroes in front of her.

Green stepped forward. "You caught Violet by surprise last time, Blanc. That won't happen again. Release this man and surrender."

"It's

Madame

Blanc. And I believe she can speak for herself." She flicked her eyes over to Violet.

Violet swallowed. She hadn't realized she was holding her breath until that moment. "You... you're not getting away this time."

Blanc took a sip of the whiskey. "You seem confident." She stared at Violet like she was prey.

Green took another step forward. "We're done here. You don't stand a chance."

"I don't?" said Blanc. "That doesn't sound right. I mean, if it were so easy for me to ensnare one superhero, how hard could two be?"

"You didn't 'ensnare' anyone!" Violet shouted.

Blanc gasped in mock surprise. "You wound me. You don't have to lie to me just because the designated driver is here. He might not understand now, but..." She reached into her jacket pocket. "Perhaps we can-"

The room shook. Blanc was thrown backwards into the speakers, dropping the whiskey glass on the floor. The chair tipped over and landed on its side.

Violet blinked and noticed Green had his hand stretched out. He strode over to Blanc, who was now lying on her back, groaning in pain. "You get the picture yet, 'Madame?'"

"Starting to, yes." Blanc sat up and raised her hands in surrender. "Take me in."

* * *

"What do you mean, he's not pressing charges?"

Reuben paced around the meeting room. The other members of Team Rainbow were sat around the circular desk, their eyes bouncing back and forth between their leader and the hologram projector. It displayed a video call with the police chief, Marvin Harris. Marvin sighed and took another sip of his coffee, his wrinkled face looking even more haggard than usual. "Red," he said, "I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do. Hawthorne's a big deal, and he's got enough money to shut us down even if we did try to investigate further. And we didn't find anything incriminating at the scene anyway. Our hands are tied."

"But why is he doing this?" Reuben said. "This woman broke into his apartment and forced him to-"

"According to him," Marvin interrupted, "she didn't break in. She had a key, which we found on her when Green and Violet took her in. He says he gave it to her."

"Then explain the 9-1-1 call. He said he didn't know how she got into the room."

Marvin rubbed his eyes. "Alright... I shouldn't be telling you this, but fuck it. Raymond says he's dating her."

Val sat up straight in her chair. "Excuse me?"

"I'm just telling you what he told me," Marvin continued. "He says that they've been seeing each other for a little while, and that what you interrupted today was some kinky thing they had going on."

"What are you talking about?" Val leaned forward, her hands gripping the arms on her chair. "What were they doing together?"

"He didn't go into specifics," Marvin replied. "And frankly, he shouldn't have to. He's a private citizen, and what he does in the bedroom isn't the business of the police. Or superheroes, for that matter."

Yun-hee cleared her throat. "Mr. Harris, pardon the interruption, but I'm not sure we can trust what Raymond Hawthorne says. We have reason to believe that Madame Blanc uses techniques similar to hypnosis, which can create false memories. It's possible that this 'relationship' that he describes is a fabrication."

"And if you can prove it," Marvin said, "good for you. But we can't investigate it ourselves. I'm sorry."

The call ended.

Brayden was the first to speak up. "So that's it? We're just gonna drop this?"

"We're dropping

this

case," Reuben answered. "But we still have twelve other incidents to investigate. And at least Valerie's not gonna drop charges."

While the rest of the group discussed what to do next, Val sat in stunned silence.

Is she really seeing him? If not, why'd she make him think they were together?

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She pulled it out of her pocket and froze.

"

Mistress Weiss sent you a private message.

Hey there, cutie. Gonna be stopping by the mansion tonight. You gonna be there? Thinking I might want some company afterwards~"

She felt a rock drop in the pit of her stomach.

If she could make Raymond think he was in love with her... could she have done the same to me?