Alekai fingered the package for a moment. His mind had jumped from barely awake to adrenaline-pumping, acid-metal screaming, pulse-pounding AWAKE!!!
He quickly tore the package apart.
Two discs on ball chains fell out, looking exactly like the one that Tom Duncan wore around his neck.
"Passports?"
"Yep. I got these expedited last night by one of the runners. These are not fakes. They're real."
Alekai blinked. "If you can get real passports from your sources, why were you so excited to get the one that Jesse's grandmother sent to you?
"Because, you lug head." He touched his passport with fondness. "This is mine. I can get real passports, but they're not gonna be mine. Get it?"
"So whose passports are these?"
Tom shrugged. "No clue. But they are real. You can travel with them. You just have to use the names that are on those passports."
"Oh that's right." Alekai grimaced. "We can't use our own names. We're supposed to be dead."
Tom tapped his head. "That's actually a good thing for many reasons. You can get away with doing a lot of things if you're no longer in the databases of living people."
He reached out and took the passport discs from Alekai's hand.
"Hmmm. You are now Cletus Omswick. Turtle girl's new name is," he glanced at the other disc. "Hmmm. Muriel Omswick."
He looked up grinning. "A couple of winning names here."
Alekai groaned and covered his head. "Do I look like a Cletus to you?"
"No but what it will do is it'll keep people from noticing you too much. You and the turtle girl stand out way too much."
"How?" Alekai stood up, stretching.
"Well just look at you! You're six-foot-three and built like a tree! You have thick black hair down to your waist and your face belongs on an international super model."
Tom clicked his tongue. "Tch. The girl is no slouch either. She's a curvy blonde with dreamy blue eyes and a beautiful Barbie doll face. No matter where you go, you're gonna attract attention."
"If you want to escape detection, you both are gonna hafta tone down the good looks a bit."
"What do you want us to do, rub coal on our faces?"
Tom shook his head. "Not to that degree. Keep that long hair tied back and under a hat or head covering. Wear some sunglasses that will cover your eyes."
"I have some cloth face masks from when I was feeling a bit sick!" A voice chimed out from the hallway. "We can both wear the face masks. Along with dark sunglasses, we're both basically covered up!"
Jesse had gotten up and was now joining the group discussion.
Alekai quickly threw on a tee-shirt.
Although he had told Tom Duncan that he was adequately covered, it was another thing to bare his body in front of Jesse. She would have a field day laughing at his back covered in snake scales.
"Here's the packets for your star funds. You have plenty to do what you have to do but try not to spend too much in one place. Spending too much is also going to attract unwanted attention."
"And here," Tom held up two envelopes. "Are your tickets to the starship Anastasia."
Jesse's eyes lit up. "That's a really nice Class A starship for travelers and tourists. I've only ever gotten to fly on military spacecrafts."
"Well I'd suggest you two start getting ready. You're supposed to board at noon today."
Jesse inspected the passports. "Hmm. It says we're married on here."
Alekai threw a cursory look at the discs. "It'll be okay."
"That means we're going to have to stay in one room together." Jesse mumbled.
Alekai patted her shoulder. "Don't worry. I'll let you have the bed. We're just soldiers on a mission."
He slipped out of the room and went to the bathroom to take a shower. The sooner he got ready, the sooner he could take care of a few details that needed to be done.
Breakfast was a non-affair. Alekai popped a couple of pop tarts into the toaster and handed a hot one to Jesse as she was coming out of the bathroom with her wet hair bundled up in a towel turban.
He had little that needed packing and she had nothing other than the Hard Rock Cafe teeshirt he gave her to sleep in the night before. They would have to buy what they needed when they had the opportunity.
Within a couple of hours, they were in the delivery truck being driven to the spaceport. Tom continued to nag at them about all the little details that they had to remember to remain undetected and under the radar.
It didn't take long before they were let off at the front gate of the spaceport.
As Tom Duncan drove away, waving a final goodbye, Alekai turned back to the short girl standing next to him.
"Ready?"
She looked a bit nervous so he held out his hand.
"What?" She looked up at him, then at his hand.
"We're a married couple. We have to hold hands." He muttered.
She blushed to the roots of her blonde hair and reached out to grab his hand. Then she proceeded to pull him towards the gate as if he was a child that needed yanking on to move.
Alekai shook his head. They needed to work more on looking like a real married couple and less like two school kids going out on a field trip and were told to hold hands so they wouldn't get lost.
They approached the first set of gates with a bit of trepidation. It was through this gate that their bio-scans would be cursorily done in the first of many scans to ensure it matched with the information on the passports.
Nobody even bothered to look at the couple as they made their way to the gate, along with the throng of other travelers with their children and tiny dogs and miniature pet monkeys.
Alekai silently chanted a liturgy of protection as he and Jesse strolled through the first check point.
The guard sitting at the gate glanced at the screen on his left with a bored expression and passed them through with a quick wave of the hand.
Their bio-signatures matched with the passport discs around their necks. That was all that mattered to him.
They had barely walked two steps when a loud alarm sounded behind them.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
A computerized voice began calling out in very loud tone.
STOP. REMAIN STANDING WHERE YOU ARE. AN OFFICER WILL BE WITH YOU SHORTLY.
STOP. REMAIN STANDING WHERE YOU ARE. AN OFFICER WILL BE WITH YOU SHORTLY.