Cyberpunk

it and who was going through the motions. Grizz marched up to her test machine like she was going to kick its ass three times around the block. I slid into my seat and waited for instructions.
    You see vidplots this time of year circling around the Exams. Someone gets placed in the wrong job—wacky! Two people get switched by accident—hilarious! Someone cheats someone out of their job but ultimately gets served—heartwarming and reassuring!
    In the programs, though, all you see is a quick shot of the person at the Exams. They don’t tell you that you’ll sit there for three hours while they analyze and explore your wetware, and then another two for the memory and experience tap.
    And after all that, you won’t know for days.
    Grizz wouldn’t say anything about how she thought she’d done—she was afraid of jinxing it, I think, plus she was still pissed at me about the Lorelei business.
    I could tell as soon as we walked out, though, she was happy. I walked her back to Ajah’s and said I was heading down to the court to see if our forms had come in. She nodded and headed inside. It was a gray morning. But nice—some sunlight filtered down through the brown haze that sat way up in the sky for once. The smoke-eater trees along the street gleamed bright green, and down near the trunks sat clumps of pale-blue flowers, most of them coming into their prime, although a few were browned and curling. I could feel all that memory on my back, lying across my shoulder blades, and I found myself Capturing.
    I’d only heard it described before—most people don’t have the focus or the memory to do it more than a split-second. But I opened to every detail: the watery sepia sunlight and the shimmer playing over the feathers of the two starlings on a branch near me. The cars whispering across the street and two sirens battling it out, probably bound for St. Joe Emergency Services. The colors, oh, the colors passing by, smears of blue and brown and red flashes like song. The smell of the exhaust and dust mingled with a whiff of Mexican spices from the Taco Bell three doors down. Every detail crystal clear and recorded.
    I dropped out of it, feeling my whole body shaking, spasms of warring tension and relief like hands gripping my arms and legs.
    I tried to bring it back, tried to make the world go super sharp again, but it wouldn’t cooperate. I stood there with jaw and fists clenched, trying to force it, but nothing happened.
    Within three days, Grizz had heard. A year of training at the Desmond Horticultural Institute, then a three-year internship at the State Gardens in Washington. Student housing all four years, which meant I wouldn’t be going along.
    At first we fought about it. I figured it was a no-brainer—go there jobless or stick here where I had contacts, friends ready with a handout or a few days’ work. But once Grizz had been there a while, she insisted, she’d be able to scrounge me something so I could move closer.
    Ajah’s girlfriend Suzanne got her set up with a better wardrobe and a suitcase from the used clothing store she ran. I bought her new shoes, black leather boots with silver grommets, solid and efficient looking.
    “What are you going to do without me?” she asked.
    “I’ve gotten by before,” I said. “You work hard for us, get somewhere. Five years down the line, who knows?”
    It was a stupid, facile answer, but we both pretended it was meaningful.
    And we did stay in touch, chatted back and forth in IMs. She was working hard, liked her classmates. She read this, and that, and the other thing. They kept telling her how well she was doing.
    And unwritten in her messages was the question: What are you doing with it, with the memory?
    Because certainly it was doing the same thing on her body as it was on mine: thickening like scars healing in reverse, bulky layers of skin-like substance building over each other. In Ajah’s bathroom mirror, I could see the skin purpling like bruises around the layers. My sole consolation was Capturing; extended effort had paid off and I could summon the experience longer now, perhaps ten seconds all together. I kept working at it; Captured pieces sell well in upscale markets if you can get a name for yourself.
    And I had the advantage of being able to do it as often as I liked, although each time still left me feeling wrung out and weak. I kept trying to Capture and never hit the memory’s end; the only limits were my strained senses. My eyes