"Relax Ned." John grunted taking a step towards the man. John's mech leg clanged and clicked against the old worn hardwood floor of the pool table area. The pool table had obscured Ned's view of the mechanic's large mechanical leg, now Ned could clearly see that these 'thugs' were not your garden variety.

John looked Ned over, he was decked out in top of the line riding gear. He had dragged his stripped bike inside with him. Ned had none of signs of Kristina's 'influence', no sweating or pale skin, his eyes were clear not glassy. This biker may be just what he claimed, a guy having a bad morning. It was too much of a coincidence that the former acrobat and performer would walk into this bar, but John knew that lots of metas having bad days and nights found their way here and for decades Bill was here with a friendly drink and a smile. This kind of early morning randomness was what made this bar legendary (among those who knew of it's open door policy towards friendly metas).

"You a cop Ned?" John asked rather point blank. It was a fair question, this last time John was in custody he learned from some of the loose lipped agents and other inmates that R.A.I.D. was quietly using metas to hunt, bait and draw out some of the 'big fish", metas that the government desperately wanted to have back in custody. It was of course illegal as the RIGGS act forbade any meta from openly serving in law enforcement or the military. It was just like these hypocrites to bar metas from serving in law enforcement and then sneak them in the back door to serve as blood hounds to track and hunt other meta humans. John had no love for any of his kind that would serve RAID or the FBI or CIA as some kind of bounty hunter.

"This is nice friendly place Ned, Bill is kind enough to serve us in the off hours. If you have some beef, me or JB would be happy to discuss it with you outside. If I seem a little prickly Ned it's because I have recently left the company of RAID and have to spend a lot of time looking over my shoulder. As for my friends here, their stories are their own but it goes with out saying that we all agree on this one point- we don't deal with cops meta or otherwise."

This wasn't meant to be an overt threat, more of a statement of fact but John's statements never came across as more than a combination of the two and with Jasper at his side twirling his cane and Fyedka behind them the statement was a serious one.

As the big man stepped forward and intercepted Ned, Jasper was now all the more confident. Seeing that the ex-acrobat had hardly aged in over thirty years, made him suspect that he was either a Meta-human a mutant, or maybe even a combination of the two. Anyway, he had no idea what this guy was capable of, but the Irishman didn't figure there were many out there who could single handedly take them all on.

When, John asked the man if he was a cop, Jasper's eyes narrowed. Was he? That would really throw a damper on things if that were the case, but since when did law enforcement start employing their kind? He'd heard a few rumors about such things but had always dismissed them as urban legend type crap, but if he did turn out to be a copper they have to handle the situation delicately. Even, Jasper during his relatively short time in Chicago had heard of the Gemini. The two headed man represented the double identities that mutant-kind had to maintain, or rather should maintain. It referred to the old code, back when Meta-human's used their gifts for good and did so right in the public eye, the golden age, when they all aspired to be 'heroes'. By day, you lived a normal life, worked your nine to five and supported society while at night, you donned your heroic persona and made a difference enforcing the laws that once upon a time applied to Humans and Meta's alike. The place was legendary in the underground and it was rumored that the owner was a Meta, but looking upon old Bill, one would never suspect that he was different. Jasper, had his doubts, but then again his abilities could be rather insignificant, since why would a Human invest so much time in an establishment that catered to Meta's and mutants alike? Of course, the other story was that his late wife was a Meta, which made a little more sense to Joy Buzzer, but whatever the truth was, the bottom line was that it was plain and simply rude to start trouble at the Gemini.

John knew a little about Mustafa and his crew, and what he knew was that they were some serious bad apples. Like Ned said, they dealt in all sins, gambling, working girls and murder. A man like Mustafa would not be content with just controlling all organized crime in the windy city, he might just be the kind of man that would use a bio agent on metas and regular people alike to assure his complete dominance on the entire city.

John did not care if scum like Mustafa and his men killed off other criminals, hell-what's a few dead pimps and pushers? However when men like this turned their sights on regular hardworking people or even unsuspecting metas it was time for concern.

"Do you know what was in the canister Ned?" John asked as he drank from his beer bottle.

The mechanic wondered what new horror was in the hands of the crimelord, John had heard a few rumors that the Government was cooking up a drug that would help subdue powerful metas, a sort of vaccination against the rare genes that made metas different from normal men and women. But it was only rumor and talk, surely if someone had such a chemical it would be in the hands of RAID troopers and their suited masters by now. What if such a compound never made it to any government agency? What if the place where it was engineered leaked it to the criminal underworld for pure profit? John did not like this theory at all.

The mechanic was no scientist but he could imagine a host of ways that such a chemical could be weaponized, John had a lot of dealings with well armed government agents and well funded rogue metas, in this modern era one side or the other could easily turn this bio agent or whatever it was into an idiot proof street weapon.

The mechanic tried to picture a world where criminal scum had the means to render powerful metas impotent and average. The man who unlocked this secret would have no one standing in his way.

"Tell me more about this restaurant Ned..." John said as he finished his beer.