A trip to a hospital was now warranted. On his third day on Pelorum, Elias had found that his skin had started to begin browning. Thankfully, it had not begun to burn as he had feared. The fact he had accomplished this without using some oily sunscreen that would stain his clothing was one he was quite glad about. It was in these little victories that the Elias Riemen of today found solace. 

He looked at a map on a board on the street after some walking, and after referencing it he looked up to see the faded neon lights of a red cross barely visible in daylight. There it was, the hospital. Just as he took a step towards it, he felt ever so slightly light. That was a fact that was very easy to establish, given that other than his clothing he had nothing but a tattered leather wallet on his person. When you have just one thing on you, its absence becomes quite apparent. He looked around for the offender, until he spotted a kid speed walking away from him. Elias's brief wondering of whether this was the offender was quickly resolved when the teen gave a look behind himself and locked eyes with Elias before promptly starting to flee as fast as his feet would take him. 

Well, Elias knew he wouldn't catch the brat in a sprint. He would probably beat the kid in a marathon, but in an urban setting that wasn't a winning strategy to catching a pickpocket. Looking down, a loose bit of pavement entered his hands. Testing the weight, he remembered his high school years, his time in college. All the sports ma and pa made him sign up for, insisting he get the basketball scholarship in spite of the fact they had a money to pay for tuition a few hundred times over. Well, the piece of cement was nothing like a basketball or any kind of ball for that matter, but Elias knew he had a pretty damn good throwing arm. After a brief wind up, he sent the cement flying in a smooth arc to hit the boy on the shoulder with a meaty thunk even at the meters separating them. 

Quite leisurely now, Elias strolled over to the yelping youth. Picking him up by the collar of his waistcoat, the engineer shook his head. "What a ridiculous outfit for such a planet." He said, or at least tried to in a string of syllables incomprehensible to the boy. Picking through the struggling boy's pockets he eventually retrieved his own wallet, and then another. "H'ahgeh." Elias managed, as close as he could in saying "taxes". He wasn't going to pretend to be a pinnacle of morality by any stretch, but he felt that robbing a thief wasn't going to earn him any more reincarnations until samsara. 

Well, satisfied that he had lunch money and perhaps something to bribe a clerk, he entered the hospital. Strolling up to the counter of the reception, the woman there didn't even look up as he pressed a button that printed a ticket for him and tearing it off extended a hand not busy with a crossword. Taking it, Elias looked at the number. 4812. He began to write "What is the current active number?", when he heard a speaker announce "NOW SERVING TICKET FOUR. SE-SE-SE-SE-SEV-SEVEN. TWO. NINE. REPEATING, NOW SERVING TICKET FOUR. SEVEN. TWO. NINE." 

"Fu'h." 

Three hours passed until he heard "NOW SERVING TICKET FOUR. SEVEN. SEVEN. THREE." At that point his stomach began to make noises akin to an engine struggling to ignite. Looking down at an imaginary watch on his wrist, he decided he had time to go and get some sort of snack. Strolling out he went about until he got himself the cheapest hotdog he could find from a street vendor, reasoning that the dead flies or whatever would be extra protein for the bucks spent. Licking his fingers, he entered the hospital only to turn pale as he heard "NOW SERVING TICKET NINE. TWO. THREE. THREE."

A mixture of panic and confusion overtook him as he sprinted towards reception again, where the crossword enjoying lady repeated the routine of tearing off a ticket to hand him. He swatted it out of her hands, and pointed to his before quickly scrawling "I WAITED THREE HOURS", words he circled three times for emphasis. 

"Sorry hun, you missed it." came the lazy reply.

"HOW THE HELL DID IT SKIP FROM 4729 to 9233?"

The woman chuckled. "Did you not read the ticket? It says the numbers aren't in consecutive order." 

"WHERE????"

"Turn it over."

He did, and still didn't see. 

"WHERE???" he repeated, now with several underlinings of the question mark.

"Look closer."

He did, and at last his squinting gaze spotted the beige print on the white paper. His hands trembled with rage, but the part of his brain that got straight As in university managed to soothe the ape within that was eager to rip off faces and throw feces. Rather lamely he stooped down, and picked up the ticket he swatted out of the woman's hands and once more took a seat. 

After some fifteen minutes of waiting, an elderly man and his grandson sat near him. Looking to them, Elias wrote "MY NUMBER IS 5599 COULD YOU TELL ME WHEN IT IS CALLED? I HAVE BEEN HERE HOURS, GOING TO FALL ASLEEP ANY MOMENT", the final letters being tiny to accomodate the piece of blackboard the struggled to fit them. As an afterthought, he added a bill appropriated from the thief. While the elderly man began to grumble something, his grandson was all too eager for some candy money.

With a boar-like snort Elias awoke from the boy tapping his shoulder, just as the PA system finished calling his new number. Patting the child on his head Elias arose and rushed to the waiting nurse. 

Clumsily he sat upon the chair that was far too small for him, the nurse typing something into a computer. "Name?" she asked.

"ELIAS RIEMEN." he wrote on his blackboard. 

"Hmmm, you're not local then. Not surprising really. Alright, do you have any ID?"

"NO THEY TOLD ME TO COME HERE TO GET BIOMETRIC VERIFICATION."

"Oooooh, sorry. This site doesn't have that equipment, you're going to have to go up to the Memorial Hospital in the downtown. Is there anything else I can help you with?"

The man's hands began to tremble, then his legs. After a very brief hyperventilation, he wordlessly stood up and left the building.

Arriving at the memorial Hospital, a very similar routine happened, albeit the staff and conditions were of a far higher quality with smiles and the sickening white cleanliness that smelled of chemicals permeated the establishment. "WHY IS IT CALLED MEMORIAL HOSPITAL? ITS SUPPOSED TO BE IN SOMEBODYS MEMORY" Elias wrote to a passing worker at some point, out of pure curiosity.

Spotless white teeth moved to reply "Oh, its in memory of everybody, because everybody deserves to be in our thoughts." Such a line reminded Elias of shitty speeches he had to write for English class in high school. The thought was so meaningless yet pretentiously high-brow that it made bile rise up his throat. 

At last however, another nurse tended to him. "What can I help you with sir?" he babyfaced fellow asked, quite pleasantly before asking who he was.

"I NEED TO RESTORE IDENTITY, I WAS TOLD TO GO HERE AFTER THE OTHER HOSPITAL DID NOT HAVE THE EQUIPMENT FOR THAT."

"Oh my gosh, I am so sorry sir. The issue is that right now that equipment is going through some maintenance. It is not available right now, I am afraid."

Again inconceivable anger came over Elias, but there was no point venting it on the guy before him. "WHEN WILL IT BE READY?"

"A week or so from now. Again, so sorry."

Elias pinched the bridge of his nose which was all that was left of it, but he had not yet given up. "CAN I SUBMIT MY WORK NOW, AND YOU WILL PERFORM THE TESTS WHEN ITS READY?"

"Sure!" 

"OK"

"...."

"WHAT DO I HAVE TO DO?"

"One second."

Eventually the man returned with a doctor and a wheeled table with some equipment. In a lengthy process they took all sorts of measurements of him, pictures of things like eye colour, and samples of things like blood, fingerprint, and saliva. On the one hand, Elias feared that in his new ship-bound life having records of him like this would be quit detrimental. On the other, they hypothetically already had all of this.

At last, following a payment of all that he had on him, he received a card with a bar code on it. Unfortunately, the card was not ID. Simply, it was a means of verification that he would have access to the results of the work done with his measurements and scans and analyses. But, at least he was now getting somewhere.

"WILL I BE ABLE TO ACCESS THIS OFFWORLD?"

"You'll have to pay extra for that." The nurse said. 

If this had happened earlier, Elias would have been angry again. But compared to his other trials, this wasn't so bad. He just had to go get the money to upgrade the card. Once more, he simply picked up his chalk and blackboard and ran off in pursuit of a little coin.