Part 2

After exiting the plane, they walked quickly towards the customs office where they were to obtain their work permits. They entered the office and marched up to the counter. There sat a tall, lanky customs officer in his late fourties with had a bored, lifeless expression on his face.

"Can I help you?" he inquired.

"Yeah, I'm Rollie Tyler and this is my partner Angela Ramirez. We're supposed to pick up our work visas here. Tectonic productions arranged for them yesterday."

"Give me your passports."

Rollie reached into the side compartment of one of their bags and pulled out the requested items. He grimaced when was reminded of the poor condition of both his and Angela's passports. He placed them in the officer's outstretched hand.

"Boy, haven't seen a passport this abused in quite a while. Let's look in the computer and see what we find. "

He picked up the first passport and turned to the identification page. He then turned back to his computer and started searching his keyboard for the T key. He slowly repeated the process until he had entered all of Rollie's information. After a minute, he looked up, "Found you. Everything appears to be in order."

The customs officer then hit another key on his computer and the printer on the opposite side of the room whirred into action. The officer retrieved the printout and brought it back to the counter. "Sign here, here and initial here please," said the officer pointing to several different places on the page.

Rollie obediently signed where the officer had pointed. The officer then reached under the counter and pulled out a large rubber stamp. He proceeded to stamp the top and bottom copies of the document. He then tore off the bottom copy and stapled it to the back cover of Rollie's passport. "You might want to get a replacement passport soon, before this one falls apart," he suggested.

The customs officer then directed his attention to Angie. He entered her information into the computer, using the same slow hunt-and-peck method. He stared intently at the monitor, which now had a big flashing error message. "Hmm. There doesn’t appear to be any record of you being issued a work permit, Ms. Ramirez."

"What?" Angie exclaimed. She pivoted so she faced Rollie, "I thought you said they were looking after everything."

"They were supposed to," Rollie replied. "Can you check again?" he asked the customs officer.

"Give me a minute." was the response. The officer shuffled through an open door in the back of the room. He started talking to another, much younger, officer. After an animated discussion, the younger officer started a computer search and printed the results. A few seconds later, the original officer returns to where Angie and Rollie stood.

"Could this be you?" said the officer and started rattling off Angie’s vital statistics.

"That’s me." she confirmed.

"Do you have any proof? Besides your passport, that is. Driver’s license, immigration documents, anything at all?

Angie pulled out all the identification she had on her, and laid it out on the counter. The customs officer inspected the papers, to make sure the information they contained matched what Angie had told him.

With a satisfied look, the officer said, "OK, this permit’s yours. It was just issued under the wrong name. It has you listed as Angel Ramirez. We’ll fix that up in a jiffy."

The officer made the corrections in the computer and re-printed the permit. After following the same procedure he went through with Rollie’s permit, the officer turned all the documents over to Angie.

"Now, go back out there and go through checkpoint 1 to clear customs," ordered the officer.

The F/X duo walked side-by-side to the specified checkpoint. Once they reached their destination, they joined some of their fellow travelers in the short queue. A few minutes later, it was their turn.

The man stationed here asked Angie a few basic questions then sent her through the metal detectors. He seemed satisfied and told Angie she was OK to enter the country. He then focused all of his attention on Rollie.

"What's in here?" questioned the officer, pointing to a small, black, rectangular backpack.

"Just a laptop, and a PDA " was the reply.

"Please take them out. What about that other case?" pointing to the slightly larger, gray case Rollie was carrying.

"That's Bluey. He's an …"

"Take it out too, " the officer stated, cutting Rollie off in mid-sentence.

Rollie, looking a little miffed at Bluey being called an "it", complied with the officer's orders. Silently, the officer reached for a stack of paper, picking up three sheets. He ran the first two all over the laptop and the PDA. He proceeded to wipe the third one all over Bluey. Rollie cringed as he saw how roughly the officer. He thought about saying something, but after catching a glimpse of the officer's face, he decided not to. The officer looked like he was dying for an excuse to detain him.

"Why didn’t they do this to you?" Rollie whispered to Angie.

"I don’t know. Maybe I don’t look like the criminal type, on the other hand..." she said letting her voice trail off as she gestured towards Rollie.

"Thanks, " he said sarcastically.

Meanwhile, the officer continues to intently study the papers. Abruptly, he threw them into the garbage can and said, "walk through."

Rollie walked through without setting off any alarms so the officer said, "you can go," leaving Rollie to repack his belongings. Rollie quickly did that and went to join Angie who was gazing out the window onto the tarmac.

"What 'cha thinking?" Rollie whispered as he stood behind her.

Angie sighed and leaned back, resting her head on the Australian's chest. "Nothing, just letting my mind wander," said Angie as she straightened up and reached for her backpack. "Let's go pick up the luggage."