SET Initiative

Austin holstered his pistol and took his armor off quietly.

"Man, what I wouldn't give for some air conditioning..." He chuckled as Addison moved over to sit next to him. He kept his eyes on her even as she looked down- He was truly interested in the story. Anything to take his mind off of the current situation and the responsibilities it held. He listened intently until she was finished. "No, no, it is. Really, that's great. I'm sorry you had to leave it behind. Maybe you could teach other surviving kids how to dance up at the HQ when we get out of here. You seem to handle them pretty well."

She shifted so he had room to take his armor off, but settled near him again. Addison smiled faintly. "It may be hard to believe, but I get along with most people, really..Maybe they like me because I'm smaller than most adults like they are, but.. they listen to me, thank goodness." She sighed, hand reaching to rub against her forehead. "If we make it up there.. I think I might.. Definitely going to find you some coffee." She chuckled lightly, trying to keep the mood light, bumping his shoulder with hers playfully. "Even if you are a jerk sometimes."

"What? You? Getting along with people? Impossible. You're like a worse version of me." He laughed as she bumped his shoulder.

"I'll definitely take you up on that offer for coffee. I've been dying for some since I got my head bashed in." Austin breathed out through his nose quickly. He looked over at the window and squinted for a second.

Was that movement?

No, it was probably nothing. He turned back to Addison. When he looked at the window, Addison had a fair chance to see the computer chip embedded in his neck however.

Addison flinched when he looked over at the window, startled. She had a witty response to his teasing, but it was forgotten. When he turned back to face her, she eyed the window for a moment longer, then back to him. She had seen the chip again, and wanted to ask. So she did, in a much quieter voice.

"What is that chip in your neck?"

Austin looked puzzled for a minute before he reached up and touched the place where it was.

"Oh. That. Right." He looked down for a second. "I'm not entirely sure... I, um... I used to be infected like those monsters. I was completely aware of everything that I was doing, and it was horrible. I had thoughts that I knew didn't come from me, and I felt like I was being ripped apart from the inside. Some guys in armor like mine came and I thought they were going to kill me. Instead, they shot me with some kind of sedative. I don't remember anything after that except waking up in a hospital with a computer chip in my neck. They let me out without any kind of debriefing or anything. It was all hazy after that. Last clear memory from that point is me dropping in to help you out."

Addison would've dropped anything in her hand, had she been holding it up. She was quiet for a time, just watching him. She looked scared, as if she expected him to suddenly turn into one of those monsters and rip her to shreds. After a moment, she nodded slowly. She reached up and, if he didn't stop her, rested her hand on his neck to carefully feel the chip. "So they have a way to stop it.." She moved her hand away after a while, deep in thought.

Austin sighed deeply.

"I don't know what it was, but I had a way to control it. There were voices in my head, and I tried fighting them. I would have gone crazy if given a little more time." He reached up and put his hand over hers to feel the chip again.

"I don't really know what it's there to do. This whole thing was originally supposed to be a sentient drug. A super-shot, if you will. It came into contact with someone who had access to Battery Crystals used to power equipment, and turned into whatever this is. I think they might have gotten rid of it all. Don't worry, I'm not going to stab you in the face."

Addison nodded sheepishly. "I'm sorry, I know you won't." When his hand was on hers, she twisted to give it a gentle squeeze.

One of the children woke then, startled by a dream, and she quickly slid away from her spot by Austin to soothe the child, finally getting him to lay back down. Once he was sleeping, she glanced back to Austin with a small smile. After ensuring the rest of them were alright, she scooted back next to him, sighing. "I ache everywhere..Can't imagine how you feel." for a moment, she rested her shoulder against his as she stretched her legs, wincing. It had been months since she had actually stretched out, and she could feel it.

Austin smiled slightly. When she squeezed his hand it sent tingles down his arm.

He sat up quickly when the child woke. He watched Addison calm him down and quickly make sure everyone else was okay. When she sat back down and stretched out, he nodded in agreement. "I'm a little bit sore, I guess."

His back and head were killing him. And he was pretty sure that if it weren't for his armor he would be dead in multiple instances.

He closed his eyes for a few seconds as Addison stretched.

"I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to be dead by now..." He chuckled silently.

Addison chuckled in return. "You're probably right.. But, I'm glad you're not." She sighed and stretched her legs out straight in front of her, sucked in a deep breath, and leaned forward, hands easily grasping her feet, head pressed down to her knees. She groaned slightly as her spine cracked and popped all the way up. Sitting up, she sighed in relief. "Oh, much better.." She glanced at him. "Do you have any cuts or anything you need looked at? I can try to pop your back, if you want.."

Austin looked up as Addison popped her back, and smiled at her when she asked him if he had anything he needed looked at.

"I'm fine," he said as he rolled his neck. "I'm surprisingly lacking in cuts. I have plenty of sore spots, though." The muscles in his chest and abdomen still burned from when he was rammed by the larger-than-usual Infected across the road and into a car a few days ago. He would be much worse if he weren't wearing any kind of armor. "... You can try to pop my back if you think it'll help... At the very least I wouldn't mind if it felt good." He laughed softly.

Laughing, Addison nodded. She pulled herself up to her knees, and gestured for him to flip over. "I think it'll help. Can't hurt, really." Assuming he did, she stretched her arms before moving to sit on his back, right above his butt, a leg on either side of him. She positioned her hands, one on top of the other, on his spine, right in the middle, and pressed slightly. "Ready?" Unless he stopped her, she lifted up, then pushed down, -hard-, with all of her weight. His back would likely crack and pop similar to hers. She kept her hands on his back,"You alright? Did it hurt?" It usually hurt her if she hadn't had it done in a while. In case it did, she moved her hands to press the muscles surrounding the spine, waiting for his reply.

Austin did as requested, stretching out on his stomach, face down in the mattress.

"Mm-hm." He was ready. He inhaled as he felt her lifting up, and breathed out as she came down on him. He groaned as she pushed out all of the kinks in his back. He felt all of the little pops. "MMpf." He turned his head to the side and smiled.

"I'm fine. Feel a lot better than I did before. Didn't even know it was that bad." He closed his eyes and allowed her to continue to press into the muscles in his back- It felt good, and he wasn't about to stop her.

Addie grinned. "Good. It'll probably feel better in the morning, too." She continued to press down on his back muscles for a time, before she patted his shoulders. "That should help." She pushed herself off of him and settled back against the headboard, wincing slightly.

"How old are you?" She had just realized that she didn't know a thing about him. The rifle was pulled into her lap again, and she glanced down at him, smiling faintly. "If you want to tell me, anyway.. You know pretty much my whole life now." She laughed quietly, remembering to lower her voice down to a whisper. She didn't want to draw attention to their room.

Austin nodded, and sat up, rolling his neck again.

"I feel like a new man." He said, and looked over at her. "I'm fourteen, give or take ten years." He paused and sat back against the headboard. "Would you, um.. Would you mind if I popped your back? I don't like owing people, and I can tell you my life's story in return. You don't have to talk, I'll just tell you everything you need to know. Then we'll be completely even. What do you say?"

Addison snickered at his joke, and as he asked to return the favor, she watched him for a moment before nodding.

"Alright.."She moved the rifle aside, and flipped over, arms crossed beneath her chin, hand pulling her curls away so they wouldn't get tugged. She had her head turned so she could watch him until he moved. When she pulled her hair back, and he was behind her, what appeared to be three long scars seemed to start where her neck met her right shoulder, and spread downwards. She sighed quietly, and waited.

Austin picked up the rifle and set it on the ground, barrel to the sky, leaning against the opposite bed. He had his doubts about an attack happening tonight.

Austin tried to position himself the same way she did, and placed his hands in a similar fashion on her back. When he was a kid, he and his friends had done this one time. Everyone would lay on the ground and take turns getting "massages" and having their backs popped. This was exactly like that, right?

Austin leaned over slightly. "I need you to breathe in for me," he whispered.

Addison teasingly groaned when he sat on her, but relaxed. When he leaned over and whispered, she eyed him over her shoulder for a second before nodding and inhaling deeply. She hoped he wouldn't crush her too much; even without the armor, he was bigger than she was.

She shifted her head so that her forehead was against her arms, facing down towards the mattress. Her legs crossed comfortably behind them, locked at the ankles, acting as a sort of brace for when he pushed down on her. Just the warmth from where he sat on her back helped to relax her rather tense muscles.

Austin's hands were resting on her back as she inhaled, he felt her body expand, and he whispered again.

"Okay, now breathe out." Assuming she did so, he pressed down slowly and gently with just his hands- It was likely that there was less popping because she had already stretched herself out. He mimicked her, massaging his hands and fingers gently into her muscles around her spine. He could only imagine how tense she had been these past few days.

"Let's see..." He looked around absentmindedly. "I'm a Scorpio, like long walks on the beach, and shooting things. I guess I always really wanted to be in the military. My older brother kinda raised me until he went and joined up with the Air Force because my mom had left my dad and my dad was busy all of the time. So I kinda followed my brother's route. Well, up to a point. I skipped college, and tried to start inventing things with my best friend. We actually had some cool ideas, like a gun that you could compress into a wristwatch. We tried to sell some of our stuff to the military. Instead, they sent some guys in suits over to us to recruit us into a 'top secret' type of deal. We signed on without hesitation, and soon we were out catching those mutants you saw on TV. My job was mainly to map out where we were supposed to go and what we were supposed to do. When we weren't catching those guys, I just tweaked the gadgets we had with the resources I was given."

He sighed, putting his elbow into Addison's right upper back and gently rubbing it in. "There were originally just five of us: Me, my best friend Red, our leader Jack, and these two 'Experiments' that apparently weren't evil. One had telepathy powers, her name was Amy. And the other could generate lasers from his body, we called him Arrow, but he didn't speak and only Amy could understand what he was thinking. They helped a lot, but they were definitely different from the rest of us. Jack was Infected pretty early on, though. He attacked us in our HQ in the middle of the night one time and almost killed Amy and me. He killed himself sometime later and left me in charge. We found a safehouse built by a previous team- Oh, yeah. We were apparently a new version of an old group called SET. Jack was the only living member of the old one. They were also five or so people. We hid in the safehouse for a bit, trying to figure out what to do, and then one of those freaks attacked us. He had the ability to shapeshift, and he killed Red."

Austin paused.

"We got the heck out of there, and ran towards the nearest city. That happened to be overrun with the Infection that now rules planet Earth. We started recruiting people to be a part of our team, though, and soon we had a sizable militia. Within a few years, I was heading a worldwide organization designed to take down Cyborgs mutants. Things went really great- Well, as great as they could go, before there was a guy who was infected. But the Infection disappeared, dropped off of him. Amy was standing over him to make sure he was okay, and I realized just in time that he wasn't okay. I jumped over him to push her away, and his arm became a scythe that hit me through the chest."

He changed sides, pushing his elbow into the left before continuing.

"It was weird. I healed really quickly, as if I had never been hurt at all. Within a month I was okay to go. We were getting ready to head out and evacuate some people from a quarantined area when I suddenly blacked out. When I woke up, I could only see in shades of red, and I had apparently killed two people. I ran away at that point."

Austin sighed. "The red stuff knew how to control my armor as well. I could materialize weapons. It was really hard to not kill people, but somehow I managed it. I was attacked by two Cyborgs, and the next thing I know I'm sitting in a medical bay bed with a computer chip in my neck. I get up, put on some regular clothes, put on my armor and head out. You know the rest."

He pressed his palms into her lower back by now. "Pretty dramatic, right?"

Though she had indeed already stretched out, Addison's spine popped as he pushed down with her exhale. She sighed.

As he spoke, she nodded now and then, turning her head so she could halfway look back at him as he told his story. She frowned as hie spoke of his friend being killed, eyebrows crinkled sympathetically. When he finished, she smiled lightly. "I've never been to the beach.. Can you believe that?" She laughed slightly. " I'm a Scorpio too.. October 31st.. I just turned 23.." She winced as his hands pressed on her lower back, sucking in a sharp breath through her teeth. Ouch. She shifted beneath him.

"Sounds a little too dramatic for my taste.. But, I'm glad you came to help.. I don't think we would've made it another week there.."