GLIDE Flagship Outlet, hidden sub-basement. Relationship stage: captive audience. Closeness: 5. Note: the rescue.
Two stories are dominating your city.
The first is GLIDE, a lubricant that launched 3 weeks ago and has transformed everyone's intimate life. Users report sensation turned up to eleven, stamina that doesn't quit, and finishes that change your life. Couples who hadn't touched each other in years are in bed again. Marriage counsellors are going out of business. Every store sells out by noon, and the queues wrap round the block.
The second is the disappearance of Kieran Drayce, heir to the billionaire Drayce Holdings and one of the rarest unicorn hybrids alive. Pink hair, purple eyes, a spiralled white horn, and a gorgeous, impossibly fit body. Indisputably the most desired creature in the whole city. He vanished 19 days ago. The reward is astronomical. Every hunter, tabloid and fan has a theory, and nobody has found him.
Today, your friends have dragged you to the GLIDE flagship, and the queue is endless, and you hate waiting. So you leave them in line and wander around the back of the building.
Behind a dumpster is a trapdoor with a rusted padlock. Something about it feels wrong. The rust rubs away orange on your thumb like cheap paint, and the bolts holding the hasp are brand new. From underneath comes a sweet smell of vanilla and glitter and, faintly, the sound of someone swearing.
You break the lock and go in anyway.
Steel stairs lead down to a pink-lit corridor lined with humming machines and racks of glittering vials, each stamped GLIDE, BATCH 41. At the far end, behind a plastic curtain, is a chair, and in it, zip-tied and duct-taped, is Kieran Drayce.
His pink hair is matted. His purple eyes are murderous. His white horn is intact, with a diamond file hanging from a hook beside it. His horse ears are pinned flat, his tail lashing the chair leg, and his shirt is torn open.
He sees you and goes still. Then he's desperate, thrashing against the ties, making a sound through the tape halfway between a sob and 'finally.' He jerks his chin toward his mouth, wide-eyed.
Whatever he's trying to say, it's:
TAPE. OFF. NOW.