Noel made mental notes about what he had asked and then referred to her phone. "Lessee. Caleb AKA: Calley Schwartz may have it out for me depending on how much of his memory he's been able to recover. Roland-uh... someone wrote some bad words in here. He gave me my scar, but we brought the heat and think he's flown the coop.

Uhm... beyond that it's the normal watch list. Anyone dangerous to police or government. We try to stay out of the Sanctuary's way for our own health. It's a freaking den of vipers even after their leader died, but we've got more tracked mutants congregated there than anywhere else in the city. Until the powers that be decide whatever, we stay clear. Don't want another KP incident."

There had always been a connection between the Sanctuary and KP or FP or whatever if was now, but that chick who had rebuilt the place seemed pretty much clean despite her circumstances. That in and of itself was suspect. Only a couple minor incidents recorded for her: restraining order, formal complaint against an unnamed size-changing mutant, a moving violation... she seemed normal enough.

"Hey, djyou know that the new FP chairwoman is a registered member of the Church of Humanity?" That more than anything gave Noel hope that maybe someone good had taken hold of the old KP site. He probably wouldn't follow her train of thinking, but KP and FP were related if only by their foundation.

After a good winding, life-threateningly normal cab ride they pulled in front of a dingy looking Irish pub. Dark, dank and properly hole in the wall for New York lunch traffic. "What's good here?" She held up two fingers to the hostess.

Jacen listened quietly as his partner gave him the rundown on what sorts of situations they might face. Calley... hadn't he met someone with that name one time? If he recalled correctly one of those twins that had appeared on the hood of his truck had been named Calley but he couldn't be sure. It probably wasn't worth mentioning and it definitely wasn't something he wanted to remember. Having two naked guys and one naked girl suddenly appear out of nowhere was not exactly a pleasant experience.

Roland... that name didn't ring any bells. Sure he had met some dangerous mutants last time he had been in New York City but the most dangerous ones he had never heard the names of.

"The Sanctuary?" Jacen suddenly clicked on another phrase to the whole thing. He had almost gone into the Sanctuary that time when hairbow girl and her savior assumed he was a mutant. That would have been a death sentence once they discovered the truth and so thankfully he had chosen to stay away.

"Is FP related to KP somehow?" Jacen asked as they finally stepped out of the cab and began to walk up toward the door of the restaurant, "I've been away for a while and the last thing I knew about King Pharmaceuticals was the big riot that all of the NYPD got called to."

The hostess, "Or do they prefer maître d’?", guided them to a table and handed them menus as they sat down. After telling them they'd be taken care of by 'Sally', they were once again left alone.

"All I've ever had here is the burger." Jacen replied with a smile. Now that he was out of the office and back on familiar turf he was starting to feel more relaxed. Maybe with some of the tension gone they would be able to be a little more friendly but there was really no telling. "I've heard all of their Irish food is pretty good but their burgers are known all over the City as one of the best."

Burger? How original. "I'll have whatever you're having." Somehow ordering off the menu didn't seem advisable in this environment. Noel smudged the glass top of the table in front of her so that the greasy surface wouldn't make her elbows slide.

"Oh you don't know? FP is the new KP. Fowst Pharmaceuticals or something as opposed to King." Hey. Wasn't this guy's name King? Had to be a coincidence and there had to be at least a hundred Kings in New York, self proclaimed or otherwise.

"The chick that took it over said drug addled mutants came for their next hit and that's why the old building got torn down in that riot." And really RUPERT didn't have too much to contradict that theory. Lots of dots in one place didn't always tell them why they were all in that one place. Maybe drug addicts didn't account for it all, but it answered enough questions that they quit digging.

The lady came by and Noel asked for water- no, tea- no a Shirley Temple- no actually just a coke with lime. And while she was being decisive she ordered their two burger baskets and fries. "Here's to clogging our arteries."

"I'll take a cherry coke." Jacen ordered, grinning slightly at how Noel had taken over the ordering process. He had been intending on once again getting the burger but there was no way she could have been sure of that. For all she knew he was about to try one of their Irish items though that had been a pretty slim chance.

"To clogged arteries... may our active lifestyles hold off our possible doom."

One nice thing was the service... only three or four minutes after ordering their drinks were set down in front of them and then their waitress was off to check on their orders. This place may have been something of a hole in the wall but it was a GOOD hole in the wall.

"Fowst Pharmaceuticals... interesting. Hopefully they can control their products a little better than KP did so that we don't have any more riots." Jacen thought, his mind trailing back to that day so long ago. He had faced down mutants outside the building and then had been called by that one girl... Maya was it? She had led him inside to where he found the giant metal orb that ended up being Lori. After the shock of seeing her he could remember exactly what happened. All he knew was that in that moment he had gotten an amazing look into Lori's potential.

"I think it was more than just some drug addled mutants though. Something there was actually amplifying the power of several of the members. I never got to read reports about all of them but I know that several of the NYPD SWAT teams experienced mutants that were exhibiting far more strength than they'd ever seen before."

There had been several reports from outside the building and while he wasn't sure if it was truth or exaggeration, the SWAT members had been swearing to at least four or five amped up mutants. That was of course without adding Lori to that number.

"Were you hear to take care of clean up after that riot?"

"Well yeah, what better drug would there be for a mutie besides one that pumped you up? Sort of like testosterone or steroids?" Noel had to be feeling comfortably chatty if she was hypothesizing about what drugs a low life mutant might want other than the norm. When her drink came out Noel went immediately to squeeze the hooey out of her lime. "Anyway, we haven't seen any more outbursts. No massive mutant riots and only selected mutant-related boosts. I think the drug, or whatever they were all swarming around got blown to smithereens." In fact, hadn't the new guy reported something like that? She couldn't rightly remember.

A swirl of her straw and all he lime was mixing in to her coke. Mmm. It wasn't all too often that she got to choose her drink. Public places were places of lies. Lies tasted gross so she usually tried to drowned them out at mealtimes with super sugary libations. With a nice cooshy 8 foot radius, there was really nothing to worry about in this crowded place.

> "Were you hear to take care of clean up after that riot?"

"I was indeed. Messy, messy stuff." Stuff that some internal operatives had elected to forget. "The reports you've read are likely all I know on the subject, though. My memory goes when I do a wipe and that day is squeeeeaky clean from my brain." along with several other days. "If I have an adapted nearby I can relearn what's been lost, but it's gotta be pretty close in to the wipe. Something that big means I was probably at it for a couple days." And she sounded okay with not knowing.

Their perky little waitress was back in no time with two of the most heavenly smelling baskets of fried. Noel hadn't realized how hungry she was until it was right under her nose making her salivate. A big slap of ketchup, a smattering of mustard on the burger and she was good to go. "What about you? Were you training then?" She didn't have the best gage on time passing. Hard dates were only as good as their numbers. The passage of time wasn't something easily felt when you didn't retain the memories of days.

Oh, but there was nothing like that first bite of a big juicy burger.

Picking up his own drink, Jacen took a sip while he thought about Noel's observations. It was true that a drug that increased power would be the one of choice for mutants but then there was the question of how it was discovered and marketed. From what he had seen so far, most mutants were intelligent but not scientists. Sure there had to be a few scattered here and there but as rare as scientists were among the human population they had to be even more scarce among mutants. Surely this was a drug that would have to be developed by other mutants because what human in their right mind would come up with something like that?

"I'm sorry I wasn't around to help." Jacen offered politely though he didn't actually feel the slightest bit sorry. He had seen more than enough destruction that day and his concern had been more for those he cared about instead of keeping things hidden. That was for secret government organizations to handle not for a regular SWAT member. Of course now that he was a part of said organization, he felt sure that eventually he would be facing yet another uprising like the one he had experienced that day.

"No, I didn't start training until several months after that experience." Jacen replied slowly as he tried to decide how much he should tell her. She had been honest with him about her enemies so shouldn't he be honest with her?

"I was part of NYPD SWAT at the time. I was called out to the incident and ended up getting separated from the rest of the group. I ended up inside the building stopping a metal manipulator from completely tearing everything apart."

The words were spoken calmly and controlled before Jacen turned his attention to the burger. Since Noel's mouth was currently full he had at least a few moments to prepare his own lunch and take a bite before she could say anything. Or at least, he hoped he did.

"Whoa, whoa. You were there?" Noel talked past her food. It was juicy, but not as juicy as King's first hand account was gonna be. "What was it like? Did you take down the guy eventually? I mean, the building came down so that was a fiasco, but you were on the inside! Tell me everything. You kill the guy?"

There would be no better account than a first hand witness. "You can even tell me your secrets, you know. I'm likely to forget them as soon as you walk away." That was so true it made her happy. Or maybe it was the good food and the prospect of a good story.

Noel dribbled ketchup on her collar and had to stop the hamburger scarfing for a quick attempted save of the shirt. If it was stained, she would have to make a note to herself about getting it dry cleaned and another about picking it up. She napkin-ed her hands off and tapped away at her phone's keyboard to do that. She was oblivious to that fact that it may or may not appear as if she were taking notes on what he was saying. Because she was listening, it was just that she had to make note of the stain.

"Don't sound so surprised." Jacen said with a bark of a laugh as her sudden question crushed any hope of having time to gather his thoughts, "Pretty much every NYPD officer that wasn't on vacation, sick leave, or disciplinary action ended up getting called out to that thing."

"Although not everyone was a first responder like my team was." Jacen thought to himself as he took a bite of his own burger. Normally the tastes were absolutely wonderful but as he thought back to what he had dealt with inside the building it seemed to turn to ash in his mouth.

"When my team arrived it seemed pretty straight forward. We had to stop the mutants that were trying to get into King Pharmaceuticals. But in just a few minutes we realized that apparently there were mutants on both sides. Some on the outside trying to get in and some on the inside apparently trying to keep the others out. Worse of all were the humans security members that were getting caught right in the middle of it all."

Jacen was trying to approach his story with clinical precision but in his minds eyes he was already reliving what had happened. He had been expecting a standard riot when he and his team were sent out but what they had experienced was more akin to a war zone.

"It was utter chaos for a long time and we started getting separated from each other. Some of the mutants seemed to be sure of who they were fighting but some of them seemed to be striking out at anyone that showed up. Security forces, police men, other mutants... it didn't matter."

Pausing, Jacen took another bite of his burger and slowly chewed as he tried to come up with some way to describe what had happened. How could you? Only if someone had experienced could they really understand.

Team? Oh. SWAT. That was right. He didn't run in there John Wayne style and shoot 'em up. And really, more's the pity for that. Noel chewed more thoroughly once she was listening instead of bouncing toward the end of her seat. He didn't really share anything she didn't already know, though. She'd read that much. She'd seen pictures of... messy aftermath.

"You're cutting out the gossip." She paused for another bite. "But if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine." He could have just said so. Noel leaned back in her chair and worked on that burger. It was good and only mildly sullied by the atmosphere.

Meanwhile she racked her brain for something work-related to talk about. Work-related was safe. Did she have a list of topics stashed away somewhere on her person? "I once met a griffin." Random, but true.

"You're cutting out the gossip."

"And you're interrupting in the middle of the story." Jacen replied after swallowing his bite of burger.

"I once met a griffin."

Now that was a statement out of nowhere that definitely held promise however Jacen had already started down this path. He was going to finish the story whether she liked it or not! Worst case, she walked out in the middle and he had to ask her about the griffin some other time. "Note to self... ask about griffin."

"And I had to face down a mutant that turned itself into a giant ball of wire and metal and was sucking in more and more so that it threatened to collapse KP." Jacen replied with a smirk as he returned to his story. Now, where had he been?

"After starting to deal with a mutant that had somehow merged with a big construction vehicle of some sort, I got grabbed by another mutant that I'd had dealings with, a girl by the name of Maya. She was calling for help to deal with a mutant that was several floors up in the building and was apparently starting to tear everything apart. She was dressed rather strangely in a man's shirt but you see everything on the battle field I suppose."

Honestly that was about as far as his memory went. Sure there were small bits and pieces here and there but the next main memory was of the giant floating ball that turned out to be Lori.

"We made our way inside and Maya took on this ghost like state up ahead of me to keep an eye on what trouble we might be running into. Eventually we got up to the right floor and I found myself looking down a long hall that was stripped completely bare of everything metal. Floating down at the end was a large somewhat spherical shape that was just covered with pieces of metal jutting out at all angles."

Jacen paused, taking a swig of his cherry coke and was suddenly hit by inspiration. Why not try and torture Noel just a little? She was obviously a curious person so why not make her suffer ever so slightly.

"So tell me about this griffin." Jacen said with a straight face, as though there was absolutely nothing else to tell with his story.

Her distraction almost worked. She was glad it didn't because... well, he'd just been sucking up courage to share some more. For a time her attention was rapt. Then the sharing stopped. Just stopped. He pulled the rug right out from under her.

Fine. She could trade information for information, if this was indeed how he wanted to play this game.

"He's about yea high, wings, chirrups, lives at the Institute..." And that was only half the story. "He once tried to steal my purse." Not that she usually carried one unless she was carrying a load of cash... Had she been carrying cash that day? She must have...

"And the metal mutant? You kicked his butt?"