Saving Face

Chapter Four: Transfer

While they showered and dressed after class, Jill pulled a magazine out of her locker and tossed it onto the bench beside Sarah. “Check it out.” She pointed to a cherry red sports car whose name was a mix of numbers and letters. “That’s my new baby.”

“Another one?”

Jill lifted the magazine and kissed the hot car with her wrinkled old lips. “Oh yeah. With this latest bonus, I can get a pre-production model.”

“Why? You never drive the other ones.”

“I know, but this one is the hottest new model. My collection is worthless without it.”

Sarah toweled her hair, careful not to dislodge the wig. “You’ll never buy out your contract if you keep blowing your bonuses.”

“Why would I want to do that? There’s no other job in the whole world like this one. Can you see me getting a normal job?”

“Fat chance. You’re the number one rated donor. You’d have rich guys lined up to ask you out.”

Jill shrugged. “They’d get rid of me as soon as they saw next year’s top model, just like they did Irina.”

“That’s completely different, unless you decide to go nuts.”

“Doesn’t matter. Once I moved into her spot and she dropped out of the top ten, it’s like she fell off the face of the earth.”

“Still, it’s worth a try at least, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see why.” Jill looked genuinely puzzled. “I’ve got it easy here. Why change things?”

They made their slow way down the plush carpeted halls of Alterego’s corporate facility toward the Corporal Transfer Lab where they would turn in the old bodies. They entered their normal transfer station, a plain white hospital-like room complete with beeping equipment, antiseptic smell, and four standard hospital gurneys.

The two beds in the center were empty while the beds to either side held the bodies they would inhabit after the transfer. A shiver tickled Sarah’s spine at the sight of the waiting bodies, their heads and necks encased in sterile life-support units. The shining aluminum boxes with their rounded edges, beeping lights, and opaque faceplates always made her a little uncomfortable.

So instead she focused on the rest of the body, clearly visible beneath the thin sheet. It looked like she’d been assigned the same young body she’d worn for the past week. The consistency helped. She didn’t like trying on too many different models. Every new one only made her miss her own that much more.

Not Jill. She loved the jumps.

“Hello, ladies,” Tomas said with a grin. He motioned them toward the beds and helped first Jill and then Sarah lie down.

He was not a young man, but not old either. Sarah had asked him his age a couple of times, but he always deflected the question, usually with a joke about how her own age changed so much it didn’t really matter. Wearing the old crone, she wouldn’t give him the chance to tease her again.

He lingered beside her as she settled onto the gurney, watching her with his serious brown eyes. “And how are you doing today, Miss Sarah?”

“The mind is willing …” Jill quipped from her bed.

“But the body has arthritis,” Sarah finished.

Tomas smiled. “Well, soon it won’t be your problem any more.”

He was a rather plain looking man, but he always looked her in the eye, and sometimes she felt she could see his solid, dependable soul. He’d grown on her over the past months until she looked forward to his teasing.