[ WP ] : You do n't remember what you do for a living . Literally . You black out for 8 hours 5 days a week and a paycheck appears once per month .

`` What a day, huh?'' I said to Kev, loitering in the parking lot. There were about twenty of us still there, stretching and cracking our joints and expelling the excess ichor. The asphalt was stained with it, half-footprints and tire tracks dragged through tar. Cigarette smoke wafted on the cold air, their lit tips bobbing in the dimming light. It was pointless, hanging around here after our shifts were over, but there was some need for communal bonding keeping us here, co-workers who knew next to nothing about each other. A reassurance that we were not alone in our lives. 
 
 `` They must be trying to meet some sort of quota,'' Kev said, sitting on the hood of his car, his eyes bloodshot. `` Everyone's fucking worn out. Hey. Look at this,'' he said, and stood up and turned his back to me and leaned over on the hood. He untucked the back of his shirt and hiked it up with one hand. `` The swollen ones are new.'' 
 
 Going up his back in two columns, parallel to his spine, were a series of sockets molded into the skin. The ones closer to his waist were still a bright red, inflamed, but as I pulled his shirt up higher I could see older ones, little pockets of flesh almost healed closed. I touched one. Just big enough to fit in a finger. `` Jesus,'' I said. `` What are these? Do I-?'' and reached around to touch my own back. 
 
 `` Nah, nah,'' said Kev, pulling his shirt back down. `` If you had one you'd know, trust me. This stuff's just for us in the implant division, me and Jesse and Kayla.'' 
 
 `` That's what you're calling it?'' I said. 
 
 `` Sure.'' He shrugged. `` People talk. Like gathers like.'' 
 
 `` I dunno,'' I said. `` Might be against company policy.'' I was looking at his wrists, his neck, the other bits of exposed skin, looking for marks. `` There's a reason we're not allowed to remember.'' 
 
 He expelled air through his nostrils. `` Then they should give us a better health plan,'' he said. `` It's not like we're deliberately snooping around. Just watching each others' backs. Seeing what's there to see. Not like'implant division' is an official term or anything.'' 
 
 `` I guess,'' I said, and tucked my hands into my pockets. They were freezing. Ever since I'd started working here my circulation had gone to shit. I'd wake up Barry all the time with my feet like ice. He'd been urging me to quit, but it's not like we could afford for me to lose this job. I edged away from Kev. `` So. Got ta get going. See you tomorrow.'' We really could n't afford anything that would get me in trouble. 
 
 `` Sure,'' Kev grunted. His eyes were grey. `` See you tomorrow.'' 
 
 I climbed inside my car and turned on the heater and looked out the dirty windshield at Kev still perched on the hood, bent over and still as stone. I did n't know what he was doing, pushing it like that, making categories, piecing together the inside of the office in his head. We'd all heard the stories of what happened to people who tried to figure things out, who tried to understand. I thought of Ester, who'd worked here all her life, who'd accumulated the indelible marks on her body, her spirit, until the pattern became inevitable. She'd slit her own wrists, gone all the way up her forearms, nearly turning her arms inside-out. She'd remembered. 
 
 I stepped down on the gas pedal and pulled out of the parking lot, beginning the long drive back home. The leaves were a brilliant orange and gold, falling off now to expose the bare black branches. In the rear view mirror, Kev and all the rest of them shrunk away to nothing behind me. My hands had warmed. Barry would be at home waiting for me.
