Burg - Day 7

"Electrical, actually, from what I've seen. I hopped a ride on a convoy, but no, I'm not military. They wouldn't trust me as far as they could throw me. And I them, I suppose." Jason lied a bit here, he figured that not everyone needed to become aware of his newly acquired talent, so he kept his mouth shut, something that was also a new talent.

"It was pretty much the worst thing you could imagine, times like, three. It was so bad that we started to fight alongside the police."

Burg: Day 7

"We?" Xandria gathered the few fruits she wanted and fumbled with her cash to pay for it. She hastily stuffed the hundred back away and paid for it. She turned back to Jason and studied him. "What do you mean, we? How'd you learn to fight?"

Burg: Day 7

"I learned at fight club, but we don't talk about that." Jason raised an eyebrow at the bill that she tried to hide, but decided to say nothing about it. He'd earn her trust before breaching that topic.

"Lets just say that I've got some connections. Some of them I'm not terrible proud of."

Burg: Day 7

"Fight club?" Xandria glanced at him again, then shrugged. Her ears perked up when he mentioned connections. She broke open one of the oranges and offered him half.

"Connections, however dishonorable, may be what life comes down to, if things don't get fixed soon enough," she mused. "So beside having done a lot of things you don't want to talk about, what else do you do?"

Burg - Day 7

"Thanks," he said, taking the half. Now as to what he did for fun, well that was a good question. Jason didn't do much for fun anymore, he flirted with girls and drank. Obviously that wouldn't go over well in this conversation.

"I run, a lot."

Burg: Day 7

"Really? That's cool. You a marathon man, or do you run just for fun?"

Xandria started moving on to the next stand, hunting for some granola bars, or something else of substances. She glanced back at Jason, gave a half smile, then turned back to the stand. She had to admit, she was enjoying someone paying attention to her again. She hadn't realized how much she missed it. Perhaps he just was being kind, but she suddenly realized how much she had gotten used to all of the attention she received as a professional athlete.

Burg: Day 7

"Recently it has been mostly for fun, to keep in shape really. Once upon a time I could have made a career out of it, but I blew that opportunity. How about you, what did you do before this mess?"

Burg: Day 7

"Swimming," Xandria said. "That and working for the Water for Kids foundation."

Burg: Day 6
Lawrence Manor

After Xandria had left, Malcom had disappeared into the city for the rest of the day leaving Selena at the mansion to do as she pleased. When she had finished reading a stack of books in the library, Selena had ventured out as well. In her "superhero" outfit, of course.

Lawrence and Selena never ran into each other that night, but both had a successful evening in their own ways. Malcom was able to stop a total of fifteen crimes, most petty but still crimes nonetheless while Selena discovered that most of the downtown district was slowly getting back on its feet.

The two returned to the manor separately and did not see each other until the next morning, when Lawrence asked his guest and Jennings to join him in The Cave.

--------------------
Burg: Day 7

"As you can tell, this tunnel leads all the way to the old industrial compound about a mile away from Cunningham's lab. If I rig it just right, this should give us easy access to the storehouse Cunningham showed me." Malcom shouted over the roar of the nearby waterfall and hum of the generator several feet below the trio. "It's also wide enough we should be able to get some of those experimental crafts in and out of here if needed."

"And you're sure we can trust this Cunningham fellow?" Selena questioned trying not to shiver anymore than she already was. Jennings had told her it would be cool down in the Cave, but he had failed to specify how cool it would be.

"Marcus Cunningham has been a longtime friend of the Lawrence family. Also, I can personally vouch for the man as being trustworthy and a good ally, if you need one." Jennings offered as Lawrence walked back to his friends.

"Like Jennings said, he's a longtime friend of the family and doesn't care much for the current government or the way things are being handled now." Malcom wiped the sweat off of his brow before continuing. "And if Jennings trusts him, well, I can't argue with that."

"You could, sir, as you have in the past."

"Aye, but what would be the point? You always win anyway." Lawrence admitted with short laugh before turning to miss Browning. "I need some help clearing out that tunnel and some water manipulation would be very handy. Mind helping me out?"

"S-sure. B-but let me go and g-get some warmer clothes first..." Selena said before heading back to main area of the basement and to the lift that would take her back to the mansion.

Burg - Day 7

"Oh really? I think I've heard of that charity before, it was run by some famous swimmer if I remember correctly. Never followed swimming much, it never really caught my interest. So do you like, swim for fun, or did you manage to make a career out of it?"

Burg: Day 7

Xandria nearly choked, then started coughing.

"Yeah, that's my job," she said, clearing her throat and studying the bobbles in front of her.

Burg - Day 7

"So, what are your plans now? I mean, do you think we'll ever get back to normal?"

Burg: Day 7

"What's normal anymore?" Xandria sighed. "I doubt it. At least, not for me. But perhaps for everyone else. I don't know."

Day 7
Burg

That little voice in Irene's head was getting harder and harder to ignore. It started with all the things she didn't know but really should, and it was starting to come up every time she thought about... oh, anything. She started wishing she had a book--oh, and what book would she like? That's right, she couldn't remember any. She got lonely and started wondering what'd happened to her family... except, did she even have any family? Somehow, it seemed wrong to miss people she wasn't sure existed.

For the past few days, Irene had been pushing all that to the back of her mind, reminding herself that at least she was alive, free, and her situation was relatively stable. No one had been poking around; she was perfectly safe here. Safe... and completely bored. She was a little old to enjoy playing with the selection of toys they had here; even things like puzzles got mind-numbingly boring after the first ten. How long, exactly, was she planning to live here? Forever? What would she do here forever? And if not forever... then what was she waiting for?

The last straw came one morning when she woke up, and noticed that her hand was half-way in her pocket. She thought nothing of it, until she stretched and sat up, pulling her hand out of her pocket... and realized she was holding something. Irene was bewildered; she'd been wearing the same jeans since the Supernova. And she knew she'd checked her pockets for anything useful before now. So, either it had just appeared there last night (in which case, how?), or she'd somehow missed it before now (again, how?).

Now thoroughly intrigued, Irene inspected it. It was a card, which read "Burg Public Library" across the top. It was pretty generic, all things considered--it was a maroon-colored card with the image of an open book on the front. 'Someone should fire the graphic designer.' She flipped it over to the back. Just under the card's bar code was a line with a signature on it... a very smudged signature, but one word she could make out clearly: "Irene".

Okay, so... she had a card from the library. It told her nothing about anything, except that she apparently had a library card. She was about college age, so that seemed like a no-brainer. But still... that was more than she'd known last night. It was as good a place as any to start, if she really cared to find out.

Irene rolled her eyes, almost throwing her arms in the air in defeat. "All right, you win." She muttered to the little voice in her head. She headed up to the front counter, hoping that someone had a map of the city somewhere up there. It was a long shot, but... well, surely customers asked for directions from time to time?

As it turns out, they did have a map in the office, which Irene found out after about 15 minutes of opening every drawer in the store. Unfortunately, from what Irene could tell, the library was a couple of miles away. Sure, especially with the entire day before her, she could probably get there before it got dark, but that was still a lot farther than she'd been thinking. She pondered it for a moment, wondering if she should reconsider, before shrugging and muttering, "Well, why not?"

Irene folded the map back up and slid it, as best as she could, into her pocket, before heading out the front door. Before she could change her mind, she briskly strode in the right direction, giving herself no time to look back. A few blocks later, Irene felt something, almost like pressure lifting from the back of her mind. 'Maybe my brain's just happy that I finally made a decision, instead of sitting around doing nothing.' Irene decided. Her opinion probably would have changed if she had been standing outside "her" store, in time to see her illusion of the ruined storefront collapse....

Burg - Day 7

"Well, things have changed. I don't think we can ever go back to the way it was before and I'm not entirely sure that we should. Somethings aren't going to be fixed, if they needed to be fixed in the first place, that is. I dunno, these are questions for someone way above my paygrade."