Sorry for the long time. This chapter has actually been sitting in my notebook for months. Hope it doesn't disappoint.

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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