I rouse myself at 5:30 like every other morning, and get to cooking breakfast. I'm halfway through my omelette when I remember there's a teenage girl on my couch. I leave the omelette at the table and go to make her one. I mix in some ham, bacon, and cheese, and set it on the coffee table in front of her. She wakes almost immediately to the smell, at least I'd have to assume so. I move my omelette to the coffee table and bring her a glass of orange juice as well. She must not have eaten in weeks. She nearly inhales the omelette and pushes her plate toward me as if asking for another. I decide to oblige. I make her a slightly smaller but otherwise identical one and slide it across the table to her while I turn on the news. She barely finishes this one, as I anticipated, and leans back on the couch. Her eating may be the first time I've found myself calling something adorable, but I like it, this feeling of taking care of someone. I break the silence of our eating with a question.

"Do you have any family, anyone who'd want to take you?"

"Not that I know of, why?"

"Well, if it's okay with you, I'm gonna adopt you. we can go down to the orphanage and register you under my name. Elena Michaels. Or you can keep your last name. Whichever you like."

"I don't know what my last name originally was. Elena is made up anyway. I'll take the name Michaels."

"Good, good. When's the last time you ate like this?"

"Never. Thank you so much for not shooting me, last night."

"I wasn't going to kill you, even if I had to shoot. I had resolved before I even saw you to go for a leg shot. I am wondering, how did you get past the locks? Two mechanical, one electronic, and the failsafe, all at once?"

"I was taught to hack locks by one of my friends, Jack. I stick in my little device here and just replace all the 'Locked' parts of the script with 'clear'. It's really a bad idea to code a lock in java, by the way." She gestured to a small phone-like device on the table.

"So, the street girl has some computer smarts? Okay, we'll start you off with 6th-grade computer science and coding, that kind of stuff."

"You're schooling me?" She tilted her head like a dog.

"Well, of course. I'm not going to let you live in my home for free. You do schoolwork, I clothe and feed you." I continued with a gentler, yet almost mocking, intonation of voice. "So, that, or combat training."

"Combat training?" She asked, her head almost at a 90 degree angle to her neck, now. 

"Yes, I'm a former Pilot. I can teach you how to handle yourself and a gun. Hand to hand, marksmanship, mid-air marksmanship, the works. But do be aware, the IMC's program has a 90% washout rate, and this will be no different. The chances of you dying are much lower here, but still existent."

"Hmm..." She was clearly deliberating with herself in her head. "I'll think about it. For now, what do I do?"

"Nothing, right now. I do almost all of the cleaning, the bots do what I don't. Just get back to me within a week with what you want to do. normal schooling or combat training." I walked into my room, closing the door and changing out of my pajama pants and T-shirt to take a shower and get ready for work. "I'm getting you registered as my child tonight, okay? For now, I have to get ready for work."

"Kaaaaaaay!" She chirped from the other room.

I smiled to myself, for the first time in a long time.

I spend the whole day at work bored nonetheless, but telling people of my new daughter whenever I could. I couldn't stop smiling. I walked to the grocer again, but today I just handed the cashier a hundred without buying anything. I open my door and hug her before showing Elena the clothes I bought for her. She headed into the bathroom and tossed the ones that didn't fit back to me.

She emerged from the bathroom, clad in the skinny jeans and T-shirt I had guessed she'd like, and asked "So, when are we going to get me registered?"

"Uh, we can go right now." I was looking at my phone, seeing if they were still open for walk-ins and looking up the laws concerning adoption. "Okay, so they need your consent, and the consent of your birth parents, but since they can't be found, according to you, it should be as simple as making you a citizen and then assuming parental rights. How old are you?"

"I'm 16. I never met my birth parents, but other people always kept track of my birthdays."

"Okay, well, let's get walking."

"You don't take a cab, or have a car, or take a cable car, or anything?"

"I like the exercise."

"Weirdo."

I close and lock the door, and we're off. We pass the supermarket where I tipped the cashier 100 and he waves at me vigorously through the window. I give a half-wave back, before continuing on. We arrive at a building made of actual concrete, and I almost whisper. "Is this place mad of actual concrete? This place must be old as hell. I think it was like 2055 when plasteel became cheaper than concrete, right?"

"I'm gonna be honest with you, Mr. Michaels, I have no idea."

"Right." I say, with a sarcastic tone. We walk through the doors and I state my purpose. "I'm here to get a child registered under my name."

A young man, probably no older than 28, turned around. "Okay, I need you both to go down the hall to your left. Follow the arrows on the screens."

"Okay, thank you sir."

"No problem."

We arrived in a waiting room, two lefts and a right later, and took our seats. there were plenty of people there, but Elena was probably the oldest kid in the room. I saw a few fourteen year old looking kids, but the overwhelming majority were babies or kids in the single digits. I turned to Elena. "It sucks that all people adopt are the really young kids." I whisper. No response. I continue waiting, and about fifteen minutes later, a woman comes out and calls my name. "Jason Michaels and... Unidentified?" She looked truly puzzled. I stood up, tapped Elena, and we both followed the woman to what looked like an interview room. "Sir, please wait outside. we'll be talking to..." She looked toward Elena quizzically.

"Elena." She answered the unspoken question.

"Elena, then we'll come back and get you." the woman finished.

"Okay, ma'am." I replied. another fifteen minutes and they emerge. "Okay, Mr. Michaels, so because of Elena's age, this will essentially be a transfer of title. Come with me, sign some papers, and Elena will officially become Elena Michaels. "Yes ma'am," I replied, with my own kind of chirp. Ten minutes to look through the papers and five to find all the parts I need to sign.

I emerged from the room and looked at Elena in the hallway. "Well, Ms. Elena Michaels, how does it feel to have a family?"