Sorry for the long time. This chapter has actually been sitting in my notebook for months. Hope it doesn't disappoint. ----------------------------------------------- Ariel was gray. He noticed that immediately. Steel and glass towers, concrete fountains and roads, even the sky, though the sun was shinning, looked like it was about to storm. On Ariel even the worst parts of it were clean and gray, and Gabriel found he did fit, even in his new old clothes and less than perfect hair. At first, he had been relieved when Anna had said the first visit would be to the last planet his children had been spotted. Everything he had learned about living outside the Core over the last few weeks and he still was not sure he could pull it off. Ariel was not a border world so he understood the behavior better, but he would still have to be someone else. Anna had been careful to the point of paranoia. He would leave under an assumed name and await her in a certain spot, while she got rid of anybody tailing them. She used backdoors and tricks to hide who they were becoming. Tricks, Gabriel didn’t think the Alliance knew was possible. He had almost made the point that she was being a bit jumpy, then he remembered what they were attempting to do. She had told him to filter money from his account without drawing too much attention, do it bit by bit. Then she showed him how to open an interplanetary account under an assumed name, several, under several different names actually, and told him to always carry a small amount in cash. Credit was useless in the circles they were likely to make. Be casual and listen to the folks around you, trying to pick up their way of talking. Most folks will still recognize you as an outsider, but don’t let them figure you for who you really are. Don’t flash money, or your weight around; don’t expect anyone to do anything out of the kindness of their hearts. Keep and eye on your pocket. Anna had then proceeded to show him a few pickpocket techniques to “give him an idea of why”. Though Gabriel was sure she took special pleasure in showing off her thieving skills. All of it had paid off. He’d already caught two children trying to lift his money and spotted an old friend who didn’t see him. Without her lessons he would have already been broke and busted by the time she had arrived at the designated location. “Gates!” he actually jumped when he heard that name. Anna had spent a whole month acclimating him to his new identity: Gates Lan. He was glad to see it worked. Her new name was a different matter; he’d never seen her as a “Grace”. She had a lot of grace he supposed, but the name Grace just didn’t quite fit her. Maybe he was just so used to Anna. After a month though, anything became a habit, so after he jumped up at his new name he did what he had been trained to. “About time, Gracie.” That was it; Gabriel Tam and Anna Faun didn’t exist anymore. Until this whole business was over, they would be Gates and Grace, even in private. You never knew who would be listening. He didn’t mourn it. He was relieved to be shed of Gabriel, even for a little while. Gates was a clean slate. Gates would be a good honorable man who never betrayed his family, who didn’t have to worry about appearances. “Oi! Maudlin Man, ya’ comin’?” Grace called. He caught up to her and lifted his eyes from the concrete. She led him to a small café, near the docks, telling him to wait at a table while she went to the counter. The place was full of other people dressed less than perfectly, and spoke like Grace had taught him. Offworlders looking for work or just refueling, the odd dock worker on their lunch break. He had seen something similar at the Osiris docks. Hundreds of people from other places, with little to no money. None of them would ever be able to afford to live on the planets where they landed, but the planets needed them. Somebody had to do the less glorious work. When Grace returned she was carrying a tray of rolls, bad coffee, and a computer he knew she hadn’t brought with her. She frowned when his jaw dropped. “Shut it, Gates,” her tone was more than enough to make him school his features. “I’ll return it when I’m done, Love. It won’t do to get caught w/ stolen goods.” He refrained from narrowing his eyes; he hated it when she called him that. Gates tilted his head in agreement. “What are you doing?” “Hacking the dock records. What did I say about that accent?” Gates pursed his lips, she was the boss. He didn’t like it, but he’d asked her to be. “C’n ya’ show me how?” “Not ‘ere, not now,” she replied, her eyes focused and her fingers moving faster than he had ever seen. “Ah,” she finally broke the silence. She wrote a list into a notebook, told him to guard it w/ his life and then vanished back into the crowed. Grace had really terrible scrawling, but years of deciphering her handwriting made him just barely able to make out the list of ships, destinations and times. All from around the time Simon and River had escaped. The list was very long and he knew it would take a huge amount of time to find each and every ship. “Done, Love?” she asked, returning to their table. He didn’t roll his eyes, as much as he wanted to and followed her out to the packed docks. “What’s next?” “I’m goin’ to go over the list, see if we can’t narrow it a bit. We can’t check twenty ships one by one. We’ll have a hard enough time just finding ten,” she stopped to look over a ship. “We need to get to Persephone. It was the first step on the journey. If we c’n match ships from when they were there it will go a long way ta helpin’.” “We don’ know where they went from there, or if they’re even on the same ship.” “Simon don’t have any money left. He was seen getting onto a Firefly at Persephone, all those ships were Fireflies that took off shortly after they escaped. I’d guess that he’s workin’ on the ship for passage, an’ help.” “You said you can’ trust anyone out here.” “You really can’t, but a doc of Simon’s caliber would go a long way to keepin’ many mouths shut.” “It’s still a lot o’ ships to go through and likely they used a false name on Persephone or Ariel.” “Maybe. Maybe they used a real one. An’ using a false name on an inner planet is harder than on Persephone. We will find out eventually. A lot of this business is luck, Love. This will do.” Gates looked up at the large ugly rectangular ship, that Grace was talking about, and refused to show his disgust. She was watching him intently, this was a test he was determined to pass.

The ship they had found to take them to Persephone was certainly not a luxury liner, but it was cheep and clean enough. The War Horse had a decent crew; hand picked by the captain, a jovial rotund man by the name of Monty. He wore a brown leather trench coat and had a bushy black mustache like the bad guys in classic movies. Bad guys rarely wore bushy black mustaches in real life. Anna liked Monty from the start. He was a big blustering man who treated all around him like family. To top it off he ran a ship that would be nothing Gabriel has ever been on. She was constantly testing him while there was still a chance to pull out. So far he hadn’t done a bad job, missed his accent a couple of times, but no complaining, no asking for what would be outta place. All he really needed to do now was not use his real name and not draw attention, and he had done both beautifully. But this was the easy part. They weren’t out of the Core yet, and nobody was looking was wondering where they were yet. She gave it two weeks until someone noticed they were gone, except possibly Regan. Gabriel’s estranged wife already believed the two were having an affair from all the time he’d spent w/ her during the past two months. Anna wondered how long before the poor woman began divorce proceedings. Or how long before Gabriel thought about it. “What’s for dinner?” one of the other passengers asked. A rich wanna be cowboy by the name of Andrew. “Whatever you can fix for yourself,” Gabriel snapped, annoyed at being thrown out of his thoughts. “Aw, come now, Love, no need to get all crotchety about a boy who can’t take care of himself.” Andrew rolled his eyes and ignored the grumpy old people in the kitchen corner. “Think I should grow and beard?” Gabriel asked. “What? Why?” “Cause I don’t think I look scary enough.” “Why should ya’?” He shrugged. “I have to admit, I’m starting to miss home,” he said after a few minutes of quiet. “Any regrets?” Now was the time to pull out, if he wanted to, but he shook his head w/out hesitation. “Only of the past, no regrets about the present.” She squeezed his hand to let him know he wasn’t alone, as Monty and his mechanic, Graham, wandered in. “Something smells good!” Graham said before Monty could. “I’m just fixing some dinner, want some?” Andrew asked. “Hell, yeah!” “So, should I grow a beard,” Gabriel asked again. “I used ta have a beard,” Monty announced. “Really?” Andrew scrunched his eyes together, clearly trying to picture it like the rest. “Hand ta God.” “Oh, it was a horrible ugly thing!” Graham said between bouts of laughter. “That I’d haveta’ see,” Anna snickered. “Oh, I miss it.” “Miss what?” an elderly man and his teenage grandson stood in the doorway. Shaw and Thomas. The other passengers. Quite simply, something was not right about Thomas. Short and stocky, Thomas’s genes must’ve come from the other side of his family, his grandfather stood taller than Gabriel and looked like he hadn’t had a good meal in years. But then if she had to take care of a boy who looked at people the way Thomas did, she wouldn’t eat much. Thomas looked more through you than at you, and Anna had the distinct impression that the boy knew exactly who they were and why they were there when they met. But since he spoke mostly in metaphors that nobody could quite work out, she didn’t worry too much about the secret getting out. Everything had fallen silent when Thomas came out from behind Shaw and meandered around the room, he just had that affect. “Monty’s beard,” Graham grinned, breaking the silence. “I’ve been tryin’ ta grow it back, but it just don’t seem to wanna come out.” “You’re chin hair’s a wuss,” Graham laughed. “Pro’ly ‘fraid Bridgit’d show up again and you’d fall all over yourself again.” “Aw, you shaved your beard for a woman?” Gabriel asked. “Not one o’ my better decisions. Turns out the she-demon was thief. One o’ my buddies had run across her and they had it out. He told me all about it,” Monty shook his head and Anna almost pitied the man. “Women, can’ live with them, can’ throw them out the airlock.” Anna crossed her arms across her chest as the two women crewmembers did the same. Monty hadn’t noticed Ara or Sara’s entrance. “Excuse me?” the twin pilots demanded. The remains of Monty’s black beard was starkly visible against his skin as he paled, realizing his error. “P-present company excluded, o’ course.” “O’ course,” Sara, or was it Ara, snapped back. Clearly he was not forgiven. Anna smiled at the poor man, letting him know at least she didn’t hold a grudge. Gabriel began chuckling, his laughter contagious, because shortly everyone joined him. “Gotta say, Cap’n, this is the most fun I’ve had in a good long time. Tell us more about this devil woman so we can avoid her in our travels.” Monty grinned and began his long twisting tail of Bridgit O’Keefe, which wandered into war stories about some fellas called Mal and Zoë. In the middle of a story about a guy named Tracy and another mustache, Anna realized they’d made a good contact. Monty had mentioned Mal ran a boat named Serenity now. Serenity was one of the ships on the list. ------------------------------------------------- Yeah, this is pro'ly goin where you think it is.