Archive Mutants & Masterminds: Future Imperfect - Getting to Know Me [Complete]

[Travis Kincaid]

Early November 2011

Travis sat in his condo and tried to find something to occupy himself. Leads to his past were thinning out after only a month. He looked at what he had and to him it was so obviously fake it was almost ludicrous, but he knew that everything was well layered and impeccably forged. Travis Kincaid was a lie so perfect even he could not see past it. He allowed a bitter laugh to escape his lips. Sighing he flipped off the TV and grabbed the phone. The phone book within his cellphone had one number. He scowled and pressed send. The screen switched to show a phone beaming out little radio waves toward a second phone, below them the name Ronnie, appeared.

After a moment it connected and rang. It was picked up on the second ring and Ronnie answered, "Yeah." Not much for conversation it seemed.

"It's Travis, I'm going nuts, meet me for a drink?"

"Sure I know just the place. Its called the Spearmint Rhino."

Travis frowned, he'd heard of the Spearmint Rhino somewhere. It came to him, "The strip club? You want to go to a peeler joint?"

Ronnie's voice came back half amused half sedate, "Yeah, I thought you'd want to be comfortable. See you in an hour." The line went promptly dead.

"Comfortable? A strip club?" Travis scratched his head, confusion was something he'd gotten used to but this was different, it felt oddly right.

An hour later Travis got out of the red Porsche and a man immediately stepped forwards, "Mr. Kincaid! It's been a while, welcome back to the Spearmint Rhino, I'll have your car parked. Your usual private booth is already ready for you."

"Uh ..." Travis looked at the well dressed man, this was clearly a high end establishment based on the way he was dressed. "Sure. I've a guest coming ..."

"Ms. Collins has already arrived, sir."

Travis blinked, "OK. Lead the way."

The man smiled, "Certainly sir." Five minutes later Travis was seated comfortable in a supple leather upholstered booth. Ronnie sat across from him, the small, low table between them already had a pair of shot glasses and a chilled bottle of Vodka set out.

[z-May Allman]

Ronnie was slouched on the cushion, idly watching the dancers. A shadow fell over her, and she glanced up, expecting exactly who she saw. Some fat retard stared down at her lechrously. "You have lovely hair," he oozed. "Such a gorgeous col-"

"Yes, it goes all the way down, no you can't see it, yes I'm a fucking mutant, fuck off and die, you fat fuck," Ronnie said, throwing him the middle-fingered salute. "I'm waiting on a real man not a walking tub of lard and stale testerone."

"How dare-!" His angry exclamation cut off when Ronnie put her feet under her and stood; the man's eyes widened and he backed up as she towered over him. She watched him with angry purple eyes until he was gone.

Sitting down, she went back to watchng the dancers until a more familiar shadow fell over her table. "Hey, Trav," she said casually, looking away from the blond shaking tits at her with a hopeful expression. "How's it hanging?" She glanced at his crotch, smirked and added, "Or not hanging, whatever..."

[Travis Kincaid]

Travis actually turned red for a moment before realizing that he was, if fact, not standing at attention. He sat down and found the seat amazingly comfortable. "So ... apparently I have an account here. Apparently the doorman knows me by name." Travis looked down at the vodka, "And apparently I'm an alcoholic." He sighed and yet found himself reaching for the bottle within moments.

"This is too weird, its like I'm on autopilot, I don't remember any of this but it all feels as natural as ... as breathing." He looked out as the various nearly or totally naked forms and then leaned forward squinting. There was a large breasted Oriental girl with bright orange hair hanging upside down on a brass pole by her legs. A spike of recognition went into Travis' mind. "I think I fucked her. She was a bitch."

[z-May Allman]

"Looks about your speed," Ronnie drawled easily, grabbing the bottle and pouring her own shot when he released it. "Big boobs, long hair. That seems to be your connecting point. And don't worry about the hard-on - it was weird the first time we had a serious conversation with you pitching a tent in your pants. After the hundredth or so time, it was old hat. Heh, or old hat rack, I guess."

She threw back her vodka, let it burn down, then looked at him more seriously. "So what's up? I assume you didn't call me over to discuss your attempts to become a dirty old man before your time."

[Travis Kincaid]

Travis shook his head, "Actually I can point to half a dozen girls here I'm pretty certain I've ... Not. The. Point. No that's not why I called, though it does illustrate the point entirely." Travis let the comment about his penis, and its capacity to double as a hat rack or a stripper pole, slide. "I'm ... this is a bit weird. I don't know who I am. I mean, is this stuff normal for me? Was I nothing but a lecher in my spare time? I mean I don't even know what kind of person I was, though one can only assume I was insatiably horny all the time." He looks at her up and down, "Not my type, can't even believe I asked that when we first met. Met again, I mean." He gives a bemused smile and shrug of the shoulders to Ronnie before he continues, his eyes already being drawn out into the room, "I guess I want you to tell me about myself ..."

[z-May Allman]

"You like cold vodka when you're looking for sex," Ronnie said, her eyes getting a little distant. "When you're melancholy, you like Guinness, though if it went on too long, you'd go looking for sex." Awkwardly, she shrugged. "You liked women a lot. You're attractive enough to get them, and rich enough that even if you weren't attractive to them, you got them. Oh, sometimes, you enjoyed a hand of poker or some blackjack, but not often, though you played craps and roulette when you needed money. Mostly, though, you were chasing skirt, catching it or taking skirts off women. It was why-" Ronnie caught herself and took another drink. "It was what you did, Trav. Drank and fucked." She tossed him another lopsided grin. "Kinda like a big, blond fish."

[Travis Kincaid]

Travis put down his empty shot and Ronnie realized it was already his third. "I see. Well, that doesn't sound so bad." He paused and frowned, "Doesn't sound so great either. Kinda makes me look like a jackass." He sighed, and slipped a fifty into the garter around one of the passing naked beauties who rather promptly directed herself to his lap.

Ten minutes later he dismissed her with a tap on the rump and she moved away with a pout. "Hmm. So it sounds like I was pretty much a fuck-up. Like I am pretty much a fuck-up. We've been here what half an hour? I've already blown how much cash? Shit, no wonder the company didn't come looking for me. I'm a waste of a human being, too hedonistic for my own good, let alone anybody else's."

[z-May Allman]

"Hey," Ronnie said a little sharply, jerking his eyes back up to her. She looked a bit irritated. "I'm inclined to agree with you in your off time, but on-mission, you were spot on. I dunno, maybe the whoring and boozing were your ways of dealing with the stress. Better than the guy I worked with who set mice on fire in his free time.

"You're good at your job," Ronnie reiterated, "just a bit of a jackass off-duty. Whatever. I still felt bad about leaving you when I thought you were dead. I felt horrible when I realized you'd lived, that I'd consigned you to god-knows-what. When you told c-me that you'd lost your memories, I was... ugh."

Careful. Barbara's warning came with the firm gentleness only she was capable of.

I know, it's just hard to see him like this, Ronnie said. I'm waiting for him to be off-duty Travis, but he's not, and he's not on-duty Travis either. I'm... confused.

She sat up, hunching over the short table and filled the shot glass nearly to the brim. "Fuck it all, I suck at this," she said. "Look, there were two people. One was a jerk who cheated at craps and roulette so he could make money and chase tail. The other was a dedicated, driven partner who saved my ass a couple of times." Sighing, she dug out a cigar and lit it, then offered him one. As she spoke, the scent of the cigar smoke saturated the air - an oddly familiar scent. "See, it's a matter of perspective."

[Travis Kincaid]

Travis nodded silently, after a moment he spoke, barely loud enough to be heard above the pelvis grinding music, "Thank you." He took another shot and the offered cigar and for a while he stared at the ceiling blowing smoke rings. "I don't know who I was. I can barely remember myself. I don't know who I am, things are different, I can see in your eyes that I'm different. I just wish I knew what happened to me, I wish I had answers."

[z-May Allman]

Nana murmured to her, and dutifully, Ronnie tried it. It sounded like shit to her, but Nana had a way with gentleness. "Look, I think all you can do is the best you can do. What do you want to do or be right now? You may never be who you were, so maybe you should be who you wanna be now. You've got a chance to change, something most of us don't get. Hell, for all we know, you aren't Travis Kinkaid, either. That whoring/drinking thing could have been a front; it was just gratuitous enough to be a front. The point is: make your own choices. Live your life, now.

"Now that I've blown sunshine up your ass, wanna go do something? We could catch a movie or sumthin' like that, if you want to avoid boozing, which is what you seem to be saying, we can catch a show or something. This is Vegas."

[Travis Kincaid]

Travis looked at Ronnie with a twinkle in his eye, "I don't remember you from a hole in the wall but damn if that wasn't bottled sunshine." He smiles though, "But thanks anyways, maybe I've already changed some. The old me doesn't sound like one to waste even a moment thinking about stuff like this."

He banged back another shot and looked at the bottle, already very nearly three-quarters gone. "I may not be fit to drive at this point," he said with a chuckle. He looked around the place once more, there were plenty of beautiful women there who would be more than willing to make his evening. He shrugged, appealing as it was on one level it lacked any draw on others. "I got nothing against it, feels right in a lot of ways, but there's something else, like I'm missing something. Dunno. Fuck it, let's go. Want a steak? I'll buy."