It didn’t take Genesis long to pack: a photo of Mom, a letter from Dad, all the cash she could get her hands on, a rotting log wrapped loosely in plastic, and about two thousand blue-tinged capsules.
All she and her parents had ever had in common was the agrimune. Without it, what else was there between them? It was a question she could easily avoid as long as Mom was in a coma and Dad was in custody.
Part of her wondered if her parents had purposely incinerated their marriage on the same weekend that Genesis had gone out of town for Hazel’s wedding. But that would be giving them too much credit—they rarely listened when she told them her plans.
The way she looked at it then, AfterImage was her inheritance—selling it was her right. Her duty, even, given how well it worked. But that wasn’t why she was packing.
Tomorrow, her new job as a fungal engineer started—a role Hazel had offered her at the wedding. Initially, she’d declined, though she appreciated the perks that came with knowing Pupil’s head of placement. After she’d dreamed of the Retina topped with a mushroom cap for a week straight, though, she felt compelled to take the job. Besides, mycology was more interesting than forest fire suppression, even if she wasn’t all that sure about moving to a corpmune.
Zip! Only a month ago, she’d struggled to stuff her bridesmaid dress into this bag amid her souvenirs. Now it contained her entire life, and there was plenty of space to spare. Souvenirs seemed pointless—the agrimune had already forgotten her.