For the next few weeks, everything went fine. Not ideally… in an ideal world, Axl and Castus wouldn't be wasting their real skills… but fine. Modesty was getting more hours and managing to cope, while Rocco cheerfully researched and wrote articles which she had no guarantee would ever be published. His own book was almost done, and he'd begun researching publishers, but there were no guarantees.

Then something unexpected happened. Unexpected, but not at all unpleasant.

"Hi everyone!" Rocco burst into the apartment in a state of high excitement. No one looked up. Modesty was asleep on one side of the sofa, Castus was out, and Axl was too tired to be interested. He was rapidly coming to hate his job. A lot of his coworkers had the brains of weevils, and the customers could be even worse in a lot of ways. Getting cleaned up after that woman had dumped a cup of water on him hadn't been fun… "Guess what?" She grinned widely, and Axl sighed, changing the channel.

"What?" he sounded bored and didn't much care. Rocco didn't care either, though… she was confident her news would get a reaction eventually.

"I bought a DVD player!" She said gleefully, and opened a large shopping bag she had brought in. "And a ton of movies! And some pizzas and coke! We're having a PARTY!" That did catch Axl's attention, and he turned in his seat to stare at her.

"Rocco, you haven't paid the rent yet." He said, slightly overwhelmed, and she gave him a wink.

"I have now." She stepped forward with a smile and deposited four hundred dollars neatly into his hand. Axl stared at the money for a moment, then blinked at her.

"Did you knock over a 7-11, or am I missing something?" he couldn't imagine Rocco doing something illegal, but… "Oh! Did you sell that news article?"

"Finally figured it out!" Rocco bounced on the balls of her feet, then plopped down on the sofa beside him. "Two thousand dollars worth right in my account." Axl looked impressed at that. It was enough to pay her rent and utilities for three months and still have enough left over for food and a bit of fun. No wonder she'd decided to celebrate.

"Wonderful! If you can keep that up, we might all be able to get a better place." Rocco made a face, but didn't disagree. They had all discovered the downside to quickly thrown up, subsidized housing. A lot of the families and groups living here were refugee like Rocco, but not all had reacted as well to the loss of their homes and livelihoods.

The family across the hall was fine, although their kid could sometimes be a bit of a brat. He'd stolen Modesty's welcome mat once, but his parents had brought it back with apologies. So they were okay. But the Reploid couple next door quarreled violently half the time, and they could hear every word through the thin walls. Last but not least were the pot smokers down the hall. Axl had suspicions they were doing something harder than pot, but he couldn't prove it. All he knew for sure was that someone had tried to pick their lock, and they'd had a load of laundry stolen. Rocco had not been amused to lose the last undamaged shirt and skirt she owned.

Now she would be able to buy more, though. Axl grinned at the thought.

"Let's get the pizza on the cook!" He stood up to go do that, then was distracted by the DVD's. "Ohhh, Nightmare on Elm Street 16? Is that series immortal or what?"

"As immortal as the protagonist." Rocco smiled as Axl laughed, then popped the pizzas in the oven and set the timer. Then he got some cups as Rocco gently poked Modesty awake. He filled up his and Rocco's with Diet Coke, and Root Beer for Modesty. Glancing at the clock, he got a Sprite for Castus. The older Reploid should be back any minute.

"To success!" He toasted Rocco, who grinned and sipped her Diet Coke. Modesty squealed in pleasure as she set up the DVD player, and found a copy of the Little Mermaid in with the DVD's.

"Can we watch this, please?" she asked pleadingly. Rocco giggled, and Axl shrugged.

"Why not?" he said agreeably. Nightmare on Elm Street would probably give Modesty a panic attack, but Disney movies were good too, in a different way. They could watch the horrors after she went to sleep.

Axl sipped his drink, and concentrated on enjoying himself while he could. He'd be back at his job all too soon.

Elsewhere…

It had taken almost three weeks for Zero to finally notice something was wrong. This actually was not entirely his fault. His mission to Africa had turned out to be a lot more difficult than he had expected, and he'd only been able to come back twice for supplies. He'd been in and out too quickly to greet anyone much, even X.

Then he finally from the mission, grinning widely at his success.

"And I totally vaped the Maverick base." He concluded the story he was telling a pretty young medic, who giggled and flirted charmingly. "Hey, honey, how's Axl been doing?" The medics usually knew, since he had to visit them frequently. The medic looked surprised, then put a hand over her mouth.

"Um… I really wouldn't know, sir." Zero blinked, tilting his head. Just a second ago he'd been her sweet Zero, now he was back to being 'sir'.

"Oh come on, what's he done now?" Zero said coaxingly. "You can tell me." That only made the medic more tense, and she stepped back.

"It's really not my place to say…" She said wretchedly. She really liked Zero and enjoyed his attentions, and this was ruining it. "Maybe you should ask Commander X?" Not that X would thank her for that, but the likelihood that Zero would repeat her name to him, on a scale of one to ten, was a negative five. Zero's eyes narrowed, and he stepped back.

"I'll do that," he said, annoyed. He wasn't going to do it right away, though. First…

He walked quickly towards Axl's room, and then pounded on the door until the person inside finally answered. A tired, annoyed rookie answered.

"What the hell do you-SIR!" The rookie went from sullen to terrified in a moment. Zero would have enjoyed the transition in other circumstances, but not right now.

"Where's Axl?" he demanded. The rookie stared.

"Who-gark!" Zero grabbed him by his collar, pulling him close.

"A kid with orange hair. Used to live in this room. Where. Is. He." The rookie squirmed, terrified by that deadly tone.

"I don't know! I was put here last week, I just got here two weeks ago!" Zero snorted, but let go, dropping him. The rookie was clearly useless. He stalked off to find someone, anyone, who could tell him what the hell was happening. He was getting seriously pissed off. Had Axl gotten killed… or worse? An edge of fear infected his emotions, but that only made the anger worse.

He finally found one person who was willing to give him the entire scoop, mostly because she was just as upset.

"…And so he just left!" Cinnamon said, distraught. "He didn't even take his things! Are you going to find him? He sent some people to get his stuff and never came back!" She sniffed, then rubbed her face with one hand. She had always adored Axl, more as a big brother than anything else. She had taken his loss hard. Zero patted her shoulder.

"Don't worry, Cinnamon," Zero said, his voice deceptively mild. "I'll find him. If you'll excuse me…" He walked away slowly, deliberately. All the Hunters and rookies who caught a glimpse of his face immediately flatted themselves to the wall. There was something about the way he was moving that said he wouldn't stop for anything, up to and including brick walls.

Certainly not the door to Signas' office. The door slammed into the wall so hard it raised a cloud of dust.

X didn't have time to react before there was a red blur at his throat, yelling obscenities at him. X couldn't really appreciate the things Zero was saying about his ancestory… he was having a lot of trouble breathing and trying desperately to peel Zero's hands away from his neck.

"Zero!" Signas shouted and tried to pull Zero away, but ended up getting swatted into a wall. X took advantage of the brief respite to surge up against Zero-

Alia ran into the room, and latched onto one of Zero's arms just as several Hunters piled into the room. It took all of them to subdue the red hunter, and even then they only managed it because Zero wasn't quite enraged enough to use his beam saber.

"X, I'm going to fucking KILL you!" Zero raged, infuriated. "You little asshole! You scuz! You-" his description got extremely vivid, and went into X's sexual habits. X blushed, mortified, and rubbed his neck.

"Zero, I didn't mean for him to leave-" X began desperately, but it was no use. Zero wasn't listening at all.

"-and the horse you ran in on!" he glared at a wilting X. "Now where is he? Don't you know?"

"No, but we've been trying-"

"Try harder!" Zero raged. "And I'm going to look myself. Don't send anyone after me!" He jerked away from the Hunters, and stalked back out.

He didn't care what Signas, X, or anyone else thought. He was going to find Axl.