If Jasper had been alarmed by the creeping shadows he didn't show it, but in truth, the kid had taken him by surprise and Joy Buzzer always preferred to do the shocking.

"You're in for a treat 'Mick', only the best at me flat. Hope you like your stouts cause thars some cold Beamish and O'Hara awaitin' ya." Answered Jasper, then he flashed the newest member of their gang a cool look. "I'd appreciate it if'n ya didn' let those things loose in me place." he told Fyedka with a quick wink.

Jasper then took off his three quarter length leather coat and tossed it to the shivering kid, revealing the expensive purple coloured silk shirt beneath. "Put it in on." he told him, "It's yours, it gotta a little scuffed durin' our tussle an I've got a few more at me home. Just keep it, you need it more than I do."

Jasper then followed the others to the car. "Com'on kid." he said looking back at Fyedka, then he hopped into the back of the convertible and took a seat behind John, leaving the side behind Bug for Shadow.

"The place was empty except for the one crate..." The man said nervously.

Oscuro sat in front of him, the masked man had his back to the nervous man.

"It was expected, did you bring the crate?"

"Yeah, but there were complications."

Oscuro turned from his work table to face the thug.
"I don't give a shit about your complications. DID YOU BRING THE CRATE?"

Oscuro was speaking slowly, he practically hissed the last sentence.

"Oscuro, a couple of my guys were killed."

"Leave the crate and get out."
Oscuro turned away from the thug again and went back to soldering on a large circuit board. The thug was furious, nobody talked to him this way especially some shut in freak with a mask.

The thug moved quickly and quietly trying to creep up behind the masked villain.

The room was lit by a single dangling light bulb, a short chain hung from it. It was swinging slowly, casting gloomy shadows back and forth across the room with every pass.

The thug moved closer to the villain, he was holding a tactical knife. He was in range now, he thrust his knife forward into thin air.

"What the f...?" The thug blurted out.

The small light swung lazily overhead as Oscuro slammed his elbow into the side of the thug's head. The hired goon was completely unprepared for the assault as Oscuro seemed to disappear from his chair and materialize at his side. Oscuro struck him again, this time bringing an open hand down onto the man's neck. The thug was knocked out by the blow and crashed to the floor.

Oscuro knelt over the unconscious man, the villain took the knife from the man's hand and held it up to to his goggle covered eyes.

"This is nice knife, I think I'll keep it and the crate. Is that okay by you?"

The man stirred on the ground, Oscuro covered the man's mouth and stabbed him once in the side of the neck leaving the knife embedded in the man's flesh. The man jerked and shuddered for a few seconds and then was still. Oscuro withdrew the knife and wiped it clean on the dead man's clothing.

"Jeez, I guess you get what you pay for these days...Ooh, I almost forgot."

Oscuro pulled a thick envelope from his military style jacket and tossed it onto the man's lifeless body.

"There you go Smith, 25 grand just as we discussed. Don't spend it all in one place."

Oscuro was laughing as he returned to his work desk. He went back to soldering on the circuit board, humming a tune as he worked.

A short time later a wiry man with long hair and a long goatee came into the room.
"You called."
The man said.

"I need you and your men to get rid of this trash for me." Oscuro said motioning to the dead man.

"But before you do that go outside and unload the crate and bring it in here."

The long haired man went outside, a small box truck was parked on the street. He opened the rear door and saw the crate, it was about the size of a brand new oven. It was crated in wood and on all sides of the crate it was stamped- Department of Defense. A small label on one side read: Advanced robotics and unmanned battlefield technologies.

"This ought to be good." The buff long haired man mumbled as he prepared to unload the crate.

While the lackeys of the master criminal Oscuro did his bidding, unbeknownst to them a stolen white caddie barreled past and onward toward the Back of the Yards district. The heroes unaware of the threatening technology that had landed in the hands of the radical mercenary passed by and eventually pulled into an old underground parking garage beneath an eight story apartment block that had seen better days.

The parking garage looked more like a pit stop. Many of the stalls had been converted into mechanic's bays and the majority of the vehicle were pimped out rides, the types of cars characteristic to Latino gangsters.



"Most o' the blokes in this building are real 'bad-asses', but we sorted out our disagreements a while back." explained Jasper then he pointed to a corner spot and told John, "Y' can park there."

Jasper directed his new friends to the old style cage elevator and pulled it open. It was large and heavy duty, with a greater carrying capacity than average. They went straight up to the top floor. As each level passed by the occupants could read the colourful graffiti on the walls, contain such words as 'Yard Cripz' among other personal tags.

The single light that illuminated the car began to flicker and fade to brown, then Jasper glanced up and it began to burn bright once more. "Sorry 'bout that." he said.

The top floor looked like the remnant of a war. The floor was matted with papers and debris that fallen from the crumbling plaster walls. Windows were broken allowing the elements to blow in and every door was boarded up and marked condemned, except one. At the end of the hall, Jasper directed the group to a green stained wooden door, opened it up and ushered everyone in.

If any were expecting to walk into a dump, they were right. The old apartment had seen better days, but it was tidy and the young Irishman seemed to make some effort to keep the place clean. There was a lot of room, and there were two spare bedrooms with beds, not the best quality but they better than the pavement.

The living room was a wide open space with three windows that jutted away from the building in a canter-liver style that would allow a lot of light to enter. All in all, it was a decent place by the standards of those on the run. It had hot water, a place sleep and large flat screen TV mounted on the wall.

"I've got cable, help yerself to the tele." mentioned Jasper, gesturing to the TV, then he glanced over to John and pointed to the kitchen. "Beers and food in the fridge." he told him, "All of ya, make yerselves at home. I'm gonna take a shower."

Jasper walked down a long hallway and hung a right. Not long after there was the distinct of whine of pipes then the sound of running water.

Fyedka trailed into the apartment after the others. It reminded him vaguely of the apartment he grew up in when he moved to America: Tiny, rundown, but otherwise cozy, packed with Russian immigrants. He pulled Jasper's coat tighter around himself, grateful for the warmth that was finally starting to penetrate through his frozen skin. He still couldn't bring himself to be completely sure about these guys, but he was grateful nonetheless.

At the mention of food, Fyedka paused, eying the others briefly before he abandoned his pretenses and made a beeline for the refrigerator. At first, he tried to be civilized, forcing himself to move slowly, removing one item at a time and keep from inhaling it. It was only a matter of seconds, however, as the first bite hit his starving, still mostly empty stomach, that he reverted to what had become his nature over his years on the streets. He began blindly pulling food out of wherever he could find and devouring it ravenously. Halfway through a pile of random things, he realized he was thirsty and thrust his hand underneath the faucet of the sink, arbitrarily flipping it on and taking several gulps before he realized he'd forgotten to breathe.

For the first time in he wasn't even sure how long, he felt satisfied, almost overstuffed despite the relatively small amount of food he'd consumed in albeit a very short amount of time. He stood leaning against the counter, water dripping from his chin as he paused to catch his breath and let his wits return to him. It was like the apartment was a reminder of what his life should be like and it brought into painfully sharp relief what his life had become-- what everything from his body to his mind was now missing. His hunger and thirst had been satiated and now an overwhelming exhaustion fell over him as though the entire week's events had just then come crashing down on him.

Slowly raising his head, he peeked self-consciously up at John and Bug, but could think of nothing to say and so quickly turned away. The groan of the pipes sounded inviting, too-- watching oneself in public bathrooms every few days wasn't exactly the beacon of hygiene, but right then sleep was the most appealing. As though hoping to simply pretend he hadn't gone wild in the kitchen a moment before, he moved silently over to the couch and lowered himself into it. To most, it may have felt as worn and old as it looked, but to Fyedka it felt like Heaven. His eyelids suddenly weighed a ton and they nearly fluttered shut before he stopped himself, snapping them open and forcing himself to focus on something.

So far, he had not been given any reason to mistrust these people, but he still barely knew them. He'd seen the people Mikhail sent to find him. He'd seen RAID's deadliest and most ruthless tactics. As far as he was concerned, there wasn't enough assurance, at least not yet, that they wouldn't kill him in his sleep. Even metas could be bribed and RAID wasn't above it. To give them something to do, he let his eyes pan around the room while he searched his mind for some kind of small conversation that would break the silence that to him had become awkward the moment he was done raiding the fridge. As usual, he could think of nothing, so he simply nodded as he made eye contact with John and averted his gaze.

John followed Fyedka to the kitchen, once the thin young man was done preparing his snack John went to the fridge looking for beer. Inside he found several pint cans of pleasantly cold Beamish stout.

John pulled them out and set them on the counter, the mechanic opened one and began drinking it down.
"Always liked these black beers, they're more like breakfast in a can."

John opened a second can and handed it to Fyedka.
"Drink'em if ya got 'em kid." John said with a slight grin.

Bug had gone straight to the living room and curled up on an old over stuffed easy chair and now appeared to be sleeping.

John walked with his beer to the couch and sat, the mechanic picked up the remote and clicked the TV on.

He found a local news channel and after a few minutes the news anchors put up pictures of John, Bug and Gabriel. They were saying that John had escaped Federal custody with the help of Gabriel, Bug and an unknown fourth meta. The news had a rough sketch of Jasper, they did not know his name but the sketch looked a lot like the Irishman.

The news stated that the rogue metas had attacked the federal agent's convoy without mercy and viciously killed one agent. Many more were in the hospital with serious injuries and that tens of thousands of dollars of damage to property had been reported.

John looked at Fyedka.
"We did not set out to kill anyone kid, those RAID mutts had it all over us. They had the guns, there were more of them, they even got these plasma shock rifles..."

The big man took a big sip of his beer.

"Most of them got what they deserved but we didn't set out to kill anyone..."
John finished his first can and opened a second. The mechanic looked over to Bug, the small hero was still and quiet.

"I'd still be locked up if it weren't for him and Jasper."

John turned his attention back to the newscast, a reporter was standing out in front of a government research facility on the other side of town. She was saying that there had been a break-in and some undisclosed items had been stolen. She stated that the facility was known for it's work on projects having to do with unmanned combat vehicles and robotics and that several of the burglars had been killed by security personnel.

Midway through her story John changed channels. Flipping around John found 'The Godfather' on another channel.

"Here we go kid, you ever seen this?"
John settled into the couch and sipped on his can of stout.

Fyedka watched the report and had to smile as a thousand pound weight lifted off of him. Unless they had some strange ability to control what he saw on the T.V., these people definitely not work for RAID. Even then, if the former was true, Fyedka was too tired to care at that point. In his mind, if they were that powerful they deserved to kill him.

When John explained themselves, his tired smile never faltered.

"Don't worry," he replied, "I've unintentionally killed my fair share of people, RAID or otherwise. I've stopped going out with intentions and just started doing what I had to do to live, moment by moment." His expression took on a sort of melancholy, slightly bitter twinge to it. "When you live on the streets as long as I have, you learn to live moment-by-moment and stop thinking about plans."

John flipped the channel partway through the next news report and Fyedka felt himself quickly fading. Leaning over, he rested his arm on the edge of the couch and laid his head on it.

"Here we go kid, you ever seen this?" asked John, pulling Fyedka's focus back to the T.V. Lifting his head up and blinking at it, a reminiscent smile crossed his face and he had to laugh.

"Once," he laughed, "but I was really young and had just moved here and didn't speak English yet so I had no idea what was going on." The images in his mind felt like an eternity ago, shrouded in fog as though conjured from some spell. He could remember sitting on his mother's lap as she sat squeezed between his father and brother on their tiny couch. The images were gone almost as soon as he saw them and he gazed absently at the television, his attention fading. In minutes, his eyes had dropped shut and he drifted off into the most comfortable sleep he'd had in years.

Jasper wandered round the corner, shirtless and toweling off his long hair. The guy was built and sported several scars, a few John recognized as the remnants of gun shots.

"Well would ya, look at that!" He exclaimed when his composite flashed across the screen, "If'n they didn't get me good side, wouldn' ya say so!" Jasper quipped, giving the big man a playful slap on the shoulder.

Un-phased by his mug appearing on the news as one of Chicago's most wanted, Jasper skipped into the kitchen and grabbed himself a beer. He put the can to his lips and took a good swig as he returned to the living room. Flopping down into a chair that looked like a giant blue coloured hand he leaned back and took another drink, swiveling back and forth with unbridled energy. In fact, Jasper seemed right charged up.

When the big man stopped at the Godfather, Jasper shouted, "Good on ya, John!" and leapt out of his chair landing the near the big meta and did his best impression of Clemenza, "Leave the gun..." he started, prompting the mechanic to finish the line with him and when he chimed in and they said in tandum, "....Take the cannoli." Jasper beamed.

The electrical meta then returned to his seat and finished off his can, crushed it and chucked into a corner where it bounced off an over flowing box of empties. "Y'know it's been a while since I've had a good bit of craic." he mentioned, the Irish term at the end, sounding like the word 'crack' and one could pretty much make the deductive leap that had nothing to do with cocaine but rather meant, 'fun'.

"All of ye, make sure ye polish off the food. I'll not be returnin' ta this place once we leave and sleep where ya like. There are a couple o' extra beds, me room's the one at the end o' the hall."

Jasper then leapt out of his chair and scampered back into the kitchen for another beer. He quickly returned, jumping into his seat and firing off another beer to John.

The Irishman then sat quietly engrossed with the movie and enjoying his company. If the recent events bothered him in anyway, he sure didn't show it, in fact he seemed to be having a great time.

"...take the connoli" John blurted loudly.

John finished his second beer, Jasper tossed him another and the mechanic sipped it happily.

"Thanks for the cold ones Irish, and the hospitality..." John held his beer up at the Irishman.

Bug was still cat napping in the chair across from them, the strange young hero really did not sleep like most people, he tended to take short power naps. Bug had not said much since the death of the RAID agent, and he had not eaten in hours.

John went to the kitchen and threw together a ham sandwich, nothing fancy just ham and bread. He walked back to the living room and set it on the small side table next to bug.

"You should try and eat somethin' buddy..." Bug stirred in the chair but did not open his eyes.

"Well, it's here if ya want it." John went back to the couch and back to enjoying 'The Godfather'.

John was getting a nice buzz on and really enjoying the movie. The big man slipped his mech hand off and placed it in his lap. Jasper could see the purple and pink scars of his wrist, it looked as if the hand had been blown off in an explosion with signs of terrible burns. Of course the damage had healed years ago but it still looked tender.

John was not shy about the exposed wrist.
"Sometimes it itches..." He said rubbing it.

"Gotta let it air out from time to time." He said resting the stump on his mech hand.

The big man was relaxing for the first time in a long time, he took his dingy street cap off and ran his fingers through his buzz cut hair. Jasper could see a lot of scars on the mechanic's head, some were good sized.

"Cheers, Irish." John said as he raised his drink.

Jasper flipped open a chest next to him and took out a couple of blankets while he watched the movie. He tossed one to Bug and the other to Fyedka. The Irishman despite his boisterous nature seemed inherently motherly in his actions some of the time and then but a moment later could up and be quite the opposite.

The Irishman watched intently as John removed his mechanized prosthetic and rubbed the stump. He'd never seen the like before and was quite curious how it all it worked. He was just about to make some inquiries when the mechanic took off his hat, revealing his scarred scalp.

"Christ Mick!" He exclaimed, flicking on the overhead light beside him and flashing it on the big man's skull. "I was just gettin' ready to re-enact the ol' scar swappin' scene in Jaws wit' ya but from the looks o' ya you've beat me ten times o'er. What the hell did ya get into?"

John thought for a moment, truth be told he had a hard time remembering where he got every scar.

"Well, it all started about 6 or 7 years ago when the mob bombed my shop back home in Jersey. Ya see, they wanted me to pay for 'protection', well I don't need protection and I told'em where to stick it. Those jerks didn't like that and tried to lean on me for weeks, when I wouldn't pay they planted a bomb in my shop. I came in one morning and flipped the lights on and 'Boom!' bye bye hand and leg. I caught a lot of shrapnel in the blast in my head."

John rubbed his head as if he was remembering some old pains.

"Most of the marks on my melon are from the bomb, some I got later though. There was the time I was inside a old brick building when it collapsed, I got a few scratches from that. I've been shot a few times too, once in the shoulder with an AK, once in the arm and a few times in my legs. I've been mauled by dogs and had my head kicked in by RAID a few times. And don't forget those shock rifles those mutts have, I probably won't be able to have kids..."

John winked at Jasper as he joked but most of what he had just related was no joke. The mechanic had been fighting for years, first he took down the neighborhood crime lords back in New Jersey, then he fought with other metas as a government 'active', a sort of secret weapon the government called upon when traditional law enforcement could not handle certain threats. Since the RIGGS act, John had been fighting for his friends and his very life.

"Yeah Irish I ain't what ya call a 'classic beauty"." John said rubbing his buzzed head.

"You get some of your scars back home? You said ya ain't been here too long so I figure you took a few lumps back in Ireland."

Fyedka listened from beneath the blanket, staring at John. Sleep had been impossible since Jasper emerged, but the conversation had proven interesting. His eyes widened slightly as he listened, blinking in disbelief at what he man had survived. He couldn't help but wonder what it was he'd done--besides being a meta-- that had pissed off the authorities so much. Even he, Fyedka, hadn't experienced quite that many threats on his life, nor as elaborate, even with the added threat of Mikhail's crazed hunt. Still, he didn't think asking John about this would be in the best taste.

Slowly, Fyedka sat up and leaned on his thighs, listening quietly as John finished his story by cracking a joke and shook his head. His attention then turned raptly to the Irishman, eager to hear his tale. He figured it was worth putting off an already overdue shower for just a few minutes.

When McManus made mention of his scars, Jasper looked down at his ribs, where one of the scars left from a grazing bullet was still pink. "Yeah, I suppose you might call these the boot that kicked me arse outta me mother's arms." he answered.

"Ya see, Mick I made the mistake of gettin' a little to friendly with the cops. In me part o' town, they were all on the take and well, I guess I crossed that wee line, y'know?" he took a swig of his beer before continuing, "Well, things would'a been fine; I'd stepped over me bounds before but this time I just couldn'a keep me mouth shut over those pigs skimmin' off both sides while we barely scraped out a living. So, to make a long story short me and a few of me mates went up against the bastards and if'n ya haven't already guess the outcome of it all, we lost."

Jasper finished his beer and coughed up a cleansing laugh.

"Still, it seems you've seen a hell of a lot more action than I, 'Secret Agent.John McManus'." he jostled, obviously not making offense, just trying to keep the conversation light despite their heavy memories.

There was a knock on the door.

Jasper sensing that his knew friends might be a little paranoid considering they were meta's and had just tangled with the people that meta's should never tangle with, raised a staying hand, assuring the big man that who ever had come calling wasn't RAID. He wandered down the hall, and through on a silk sea foam coloured dress shirt and grabbed another beer as he passed by the kitchen on the way to the door.

He checked the spy hole, then opened the door. There were two young hispanic man, sporting red bandanas standing out in the hall. The greeted Jasper in spanish, and the Irishman knew enough to answer back in their native tongue. They then exchanged typical gangster hand shakes and leaning against the door jam, Jasper asked them, "What's up?"

"Hey, man we saw you on the news tonight." mentioned one, his cold eyes peeking out from under his bandana.

"Wasn't me." Jasper told them, casually drinking his beer and casting a wry smile.

The two men smiled back. "You want us to be keepin' an eye out, ese?", one of them offered.

Jasper nodded. "Appreciate it, gentlemen."

The two gangster nodded, flashed some gangland signs and made there way down the hall toward the elevator.

Jasper closed and locked the door then returned to his chair.

"That was Julio. They'll keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary." he explained to John and suspecting that the big man would be curious of his affiliation with hoodlums simply said to him, "Better allies than enemies, eh?"

John watched as the young Hispanic men left the apartment, they seemed genuine about keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. John wondered briefly if they were the type of men that would call RAID and try to earn a cash reward for themselves. But Jasper seemed comfortable with their brand of home security so John let his doubt slip from his mind.

The mechanic was feeling tired, he decided to take Jasper up on the offer of the spare room.

"Gonna grab some shuteye JB, where'd ya say yer spare room was?"
The mechanic yawned.

It had been weeks since John had any good rest, when he was in RAID custody they did their best to keep him awake all day. They played loud music, kept the lights on 24 hours and carried out hourly bed checks. Now that the big man was on the outside again he felt the weariness in his body, an honest to goodness real bed sounded like paradise.

Elsewhere, at an upscale bistro across town.
"I don't need you."
The woman said plainly
"I work alone, do not need babysitter." She said in her heavy Russian accent.

"I know that you do not need any help Ms. Valyeev I am not here to 'help' you I am merely an observer, my job is to report what I see."

"I don't like this and I think that I don't like you." The woman said.

"Regardless, we have a job to do and as of an hour ago we have a list of targets. Come, Kristina let's try to enjoy lunch and if all goes well we will soon be much richer. How hard can it be to locate a short list of Russian born metas in this city?"

The man poured the woman some champagne as the waiter brought their steaks and lobsters. Kristina picked up her glass as the fancy lunch was set before her.

"Now this I like..." She said with a bright smile.

Fyedka tilted his head towards the steaming hot stream of water and let the heat penetrate his cold skin. He felt as though the last layer of ice was chipping away from him and for a moment he just let himself completely thaw, the steam filling the bathroom. Finally, with memories of hot water being in short supply drifting into his mind, Fyedka reluctantly shut off the water and stepped out of the shower. Grabbing a towel, he squeezed out his long black hair before rubbing it quickly over his body and tying it around his waist.

For the first time in what seemed like years, he stared at himself in the mirror. He'd seen himself over his time on the streets, but he could only get so clean in public restrooms. Now, with his skin glowing and moist from the hot water and his dark hair clean and neatly back against his head, Fyedka hardly recognized himself. Still, the effects of the streets still lingered on his body, in the faint scars and the heavy dark circles beneath his eyes. Fyedka sighed, wondering if his life had just improved or if this was merely the calm before some horrible storm. Invigorating though the shower may have been, he didn't want to think about it. He picked up a comb he found and pulled it quickly through his tangled hair, ripping out the most stubborn of knots before he finally got it completely combed out. He then picked up the stretched out hair tie and pulled it back into the neatest ponytail he'd had in ages. Looking with disdain at his filthy clothes, he could only shrug, figuring he was still better off than he was, and pull them back on.

When he emerged from the shower, John was talking about the spare bedrooms and yawning hugely. Fyedka smiled, both at the prospect of sleep and simply because he felt a million times better than he had in seven years. Heading automatically back over to the couch he collapsed back into it, sinking into its softness and pulling the blanket over himself. Before he could stop them, his eyes dropped shut as though weighed down but he forced them open again, looking over at John and the Irishman.

"Hey," he said, "thanks for everything. No one's ever done anything like this for me before. Thanks." He then let go and let himself drift into a deep sleep.