The doctor introduced himself as Dr. Jurgen Idris and led her to an unoccupied room. He looked young, not much older than her. There were traces of some middle-eastern ancestry in his features. Dr. Idris told her that David Anderson paid for the whole thing and she didn't have to worry about insurance. She felt deeply indebted to the man. I'll definitely pay him back somehow, she thought.

"Well, Ms. Caulfield, take a seat," Dr. Idris said, pointing at a bed with lots of weird devices. "Mr. Anderson explained your situation. You don't remember anything but your name, right?"

"Yeah," Max said as she sat down.

"That's odd, but first things first: your DNA sample and a full body scan," he said and did something with a small tablet-like device and handed it over. "I need you to read and okay a few things. You don't have to agree to anything, but the first two points are essential if we want to find out your identity and the cause of amnesia."

Max took the pad and read the long agreement, taking her time to read it carefully. Just like he had said, Max only agreed to provide a DNA sample for an identity and health check. Afterwards the sample would be destroyed. Unless she was a wanted criminal.

"Excellent," he said. "Please lie down, I'll perform the scan."

A soon as she lay down, the doctor did something with one of the devices that emitted something akin a laser line that scanned her whole body. It was still mindboggling that she was so far in the future that she was almost completely clueless about the technology. She wondered if someone taken from medieval would feel the same in 2013.

"Hm… No records in the database. Neither DNA nor biometrics have any matches," he said finally. "No close relatives either."

"Is that a bad thing?"

"Of course not, there are thousands of children born on space ships and some distant colonies. People don't bother sending any information back to Earth anymore. You may be one of them. You'll have to visit the Alien Registration Office within a week."

"Okay," Max said with relief.

"Let's move to the next point. Your head is perfectly fine, so either there's a something the scanner can't detect, or you lied."

Max blanched. "I'm…"

"I'm not here to judge you, Ms. Caulfield," he said. "You probably had your reasons, but I don't appreciate you wasting my time."

Well, good job, Max. You could have handled it better.

"I'm sorry," she said.

"Whatever. There are two problems I have to address. You aren't vaccinated and didn't receive gene correction therapy. The former is required by law. The latter is optional, but I strongly advise you to agree. You have genetic predisposition to a number of dangerous diseases. Some of them are terminal."

"What does it imply?"

"Two injections and an agreement to sign."

Max shrugged and nodded. The second agreement wasn't as long as the first one and it didn't take as much time to read it thoroughly. When she placed her digital signature, Dr. Idris made two injections and let her go. The problem was she had no idea what to do. Alone in the megacity without money or a place to stay, without any meaningful education or a job. She could probably send a message to David, but he had already done more for her than she could hope. It wouldn't be right to use his kindness like this. Deep in thoughts Max left the hospital and sat on a bench in a park nearby.

I wonder what Chloe would think about this city, she thought. No doubt she would find some hilarious and stupid shit to do and end up in a big trouble. Aliens, flying cars, space stations and interstellar travel. The United North American States in place of the U.S., Canada and Mexico with the capital in Vancouver. So much changed... Is there a place for me in this new world? There must be an advice for people in a similar situation on the internet.

Max activated her omni-tool and tried to find something useful.

"How can I earn money without education," she read quietly a title on one of the websites and then glanced over the answers. "Holo-whoring… Show your tits and I'll pay… Ha-ha, typical. Idiots. Time passes, but nothing changes."

She sighed opened a different website and then another one. After an hour of searching Max came to conclusion that there weren't many jobs available for people with no education Basically, the trolls were right, becoming a virtual whore was the only safe option. Absolutely not her cup of tea. She wouldn't join a gang either. That left her with two realistic options: enlisting with the military or joining a colonization project in the Terminus Systems. The latter implied traveling to a lawless part of the galaxy with a chance of being killed or enslaved. The former meant training, education and money. She needed a way to get some money as fast as she could, because she already was hungry and in about ten hours she would need a bed. To say the least, Max was desperate.

The choice was clear. She didn't have much choice, but she felt weird to join military. Max had never considered a military career and wasn't sure if she was a soldier material at all. She imagined that someone like David Anderson would be a good soldier. He looked like one. Would she be able to kill? Although there wasn't any major active conflict in the galaxy, it didn't mean the galaxy was all rainbow and ponies. It would be expected of her to kill people. And possibly dying. Just because she wouldn't be able to fill any non-combatant role due to her lack of education. Not that she was a stranger to death. In the last few days that felt like years she had pulled the trigger on Frank, fully expecting the gun to fire, had seen him die four time when Chloe had shot him. She had seen Chloe and David dying countless times and David shooting Jefferson twice. She had seen death and destruction wrought by the storm.

Looking up the closest Alliance recruiting station didn't take much time but getting there without money wasn't easy. The city looked pristine and safe, but Max knew better. She read a lot about less shiny parts of this megacity and its gangs. The gap between poor and rich was ridiculously huge. Some people owned entire planets, while less unfortunate people lived in the poor depressive slums. The path from the hospital to the recruiting station was safe, but would require time.

The recruiting station was located in a large building three hours walking distance from the hospital. By the time she got there, the opening hours were almost over, so she rushed to the door like a charging bull. Sadly, her charge was interrupted by a man, who moved to block her way. Tired from running she bumped right into him and fell down to the ground.

"Slow down, kid," he said. "Who the hell are you running from?"

Max looked up at the man who hadn't let her pass and forced herself to stand up. She'd rather stay lying on the nice cold ground after three hours of walking and running. The man wore an awesome armor and had a rifle in his hands. Thankfully, he wasn't about to shoot her. A guard?

"Sorry, I was afraid to be late," she said trying to calm her breathing.

"Late for what?"

"To join the Alliance."

That sent the man into fits of laughter. "It's never late, you dork. And here I thought you had an angry krogan after you."

Max had seen pictures of krogans. They were large reptilian creatures that looked as if they were about to bite your head off. A short description she had read hadn't said anything nice about them either.

"In that case I would've run twice as fast," Max said.

"I seriously doubt that. You look dead on your feet."

"I'm fine."

"If you say so," he said. "Let me scan you."

The man did something with his omni-tool pointed at her and nodded.

"You may enter," he said, "but no running."

"Okay."

The building was quite a busy place. It wasn't just a recruiting station. It was filled with lots of uniformed people and nobody was paying any attention to her. Max spent a few minutes looking for the right person to talk and as it turned out she wasn't the only one willing to enlist. A recruiting officer was talking to a young man and there were two more waiting their turn. All of them were higher and a lot more athletic than her, which made her feel self-conscious about her body.

"Good evening," the officer said when it was her turn. "What can I do for you?"

"Good evening," she said. "I'm here to join up."

"Are you?" he asked, looking skeptically at her. "What branch do you want to join?"

"Alliance Navy," she answered.

He raised an eyebrow. "I'll be frank, you look scrawny. What makes you think that you have what it takes?"

"Well… it's either the military service or a shuttle to some small colony in the Terminus Systems."

"The Terminus Systems aren't as bad as they're usually painted."

"Still not my cup of tea."

"Okay, do you have an I.D.?"

On the way to the recruiting station she had crafted a different story and hoped it would work. She had read a lot on the extranet to make it more believable than the memory loss. As it had turned out it wasn't easy to fake amnesia and Max wasn't even sure if Mr. Anderson had really believed her, which made her wonder why he had helped her at all.

"No, I was… I mean, my parents dumped me on Earth with nothing but the dress," Max explained. "I can send you the results of my visit to the hospital."

"We'll have to check it, but it looks bad," he said as he read the results she had received in the hospital. "Have you means to contact your parents?"

"No idea where they are and to be honest, I barely know them. I spent most of my time alone with a VI."

"That's unfortunate. All right, are you sure you want to enlist? I advise you to consider joining colonization efforts. It's safer and easier for you."

"I'm sure," Max answered firmly.

"Well, can't say I didn't try. You have to go through a physical examination on the twelfth floor, room 12.044. Good luck."

"Thank you."