...human. Huh. He's mostly ignoring the attention, however, in favor of jamming buttons on his cell phone and looking like he's trying very hard not to slip over the line from frustrated to frantic .] Come on, you worked fine half an hour ago...! ((ooc - this is a very very AU squishy Axl; details here but long story short: lol X-Men. why yes, I do enjoy being a horrible person.))

Boom. The fueling depot went up in a thick mushroom cloud, billowing smoke and flames everywhere. For a second it seemed as though that would be it, but then a figure began walking out of the flames, silhouetted by the light, impossible to identify just yet. Whatever it was, it was tall, it was looming, and it was getting closer.

[Routine reports coming in, routine scans on the monitors, Alia sitting at her console running at least three other pieces of data analysis at once even while she's keeping an ear on the comm systems...least until she stops and leans forward, one hand to her headset, and then opens up a line to all Hunters currently on duty.] We have reported Maverick activity. I'm transmitting the location now

[After the fiasco with Lumine was over and everything was properly reported in, Alia had all but ordered Axl to sit the hell down for another scan, even if he'd just gotten one earlier and come up totally clean. One had been bad enough, but two in one week? That was just pushing the bounds of all that was fair and right in the universe. But he knew she was perfectly right about it being necessary...

[After sneaking his way back out of Hunter territory (and missing the big kerfluffle with Axl and Lumine and the Xes) and moving all the way down to one of the lower air bus stations of Central, Axl started doing some thinking. About his current choices, about what he can do, what he knows, what he can do... What's clear is that even if a future version of himself trusts the Hunters, he's not ready...

[See Zero. See Zero fret. See Zero fret about things he has no power to change and thus make himself (and by extension the area around him for a radius of about 50 feet)  very unhappy. He's already...cards in his hands. His announcement carries to basically anyone in earshot, and he shuffles the deck in his hands while he talks.] Anybody up for some card games? I even won't cheat this time.

[While he's heading over to Central to find that other Axl , Axl opens up a line on the Hunter frequency, full encryption is go...] Zero? X? Got a...minor situation.

...point (such an important sounding name for one of the cheapest, crappiest hotel rooms available in Lagrano, but at least that means the chances of anyone bothering to bug it are just about nil), Axl pushes all those other questions to the back of his mind to focus on what's important right now -- his part in all this. Get ahold of Zero, and if that meeting is going badly...well, a straight-up...

Вот не зря я утверждаю, что терпеть не могу современную европейскую литературу (за исключением, пожалуй, английской). Каждая новая прочитаная по восторженым рекомендациям "ну это тебе уж точно понравится"...сюжеты, диалоги, персонажей, разыгрывать по ролям бесконечные варианты действительности и ни в коем случае не вступать ни в какую коммуникацию. Впрочем, кажется, это до сих пор моя любимая игра.