This life is short. Eat dessert first.

  ~ Gregorios

  I hate feeling old,” Sarah said as she moved her sagging, wrinkled old body through the pool in time with the water aerobics instructor.

  The air in the indoor pool room was hot and humid, and the water was bathtub warm, but she still shivered sometimes. She’d never known old bodies couldn’t maintain their temperature.

  “Just think about this month’s bonus,” Jill said from where she exercised close by in the warm pool.

  “Is that really all you think about?”

  Jill smiled, showing perfect white dentures. Today she was a short, wrinkled old lady with wispy gray hair, although her face didn’t fit the shape of the head very well. “Why not? It’s better than whining about how miserable it is exercising these old bones.”

  “I’d think you’d be furious,” Sarah said as she started a set of lunges that pushed her aching frame to its limits.

  “Why? The payout’s going to be awesome.”

  “I’d still be ticked. Instead of enjoying a little home time, you’re stuck exercising that old relic.”

  Jill shrugged. “It’s what we do, remember? We’re donors. Why are you so surprised when renters come knocking?”

  “It’s not that,” Sarah said with a frown. “It’s . . . I’m just frustrated that old biddy got rewarded with your body after wrecking poor Tawnya.”

  The situation was frustrating, although not unusual. Renters often got over excited and pushed the limits of the young bodies they rented. Sprains and bruises were common, despite the high resulting fines. Wat infuriated Sarah about the most recent accident was just how badly the renter had damaged their body. No one had ever gotten killed in a rental, but this one had been pretty close.

  “She’s a top ten renter. It’s in the contract.” Jill stopped and faced Sarah. “What’s really bothering you?”

  Sarah blew out an old lady smelling breath. “I’m just anxious. I get my body back today and I’m suddenly worried what this old crone,” she jabbed a finger at herself, “has been doing to it.”

  Jill shrugged. “If she damages it, you get the insurance payout.”

  “I know. It’s just, I miss being myself.”

  “Who you are doesn’t depend on what you look like,” Jill said with a smile, quoting the poster hanging over the door in the cafeteria.

  Sarah splashed her and focused on pushing the old body through the exercise routine, but her mind wasn’t in it. Since voicing her concerns, she realized she’d been feeling that way more and more over the past few weeks.

  Something needed to change.

  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.”

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  “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. Tomas, their medical technician, was already there, dressed in standard blue scrubs, busy with something at the small desk on the far side of the room.

  The two beds in the center of the room 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.

  While he busied himself preparing the injections, she asked Jill, “Don’t you ever get tired of other people using your body all the time? Don’t you want it back?”

  Jill shrugged. “They keep it in good shape. I get paid a lot. I can do what I want and don’t have any responsibilities.”

  “You’re hopeless.”

  The growing feeling of discontent sharpened into a resolution in Sarah’s heart. When she had first signed up as a donor, dazzled by the incredible salary and potential for fame, she’d felt much like Jill. Over the past couple of years, even as she broke into the top ten, her F-factor reaching a solid F-5, and her pay skyrocketed to obscene levels, she found herself less and less content with the situation.

  “When I get my body back tomorrow, I’m done.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m taking the early out option.”

  Jill gaped. “That’ll cost a fortune!”

  “I don’t care. I don’t want to do this any more. I just want to be myself.”

  “Are you crazy? You’ll kill your career.” With a grunt of effort, Jill rolled up onto one elbow, the loose folds of skin of her arm jiggling with the effort. “You’re number five. A couple more years and you’ll be so rich you’ll never have to work again.”

  “It’s not worth it.” The truth of her words seemed so obvious she couldn’t believe Jill didn’t agree. “I’m leaving. I’ll just take the jet down to the Caymans and spend some time in my beach cottage.”

  Jill frowned. “You don’t have a beach cottage in the Caymans.”

  Sarah frowned in turn. Of course she didn’t. Why did she just say that? For a second, she’d been convinced that she not only owned that cottage, but recalled vivid memories of visiting there with her family.

  She didn’t have a family.

  Sarah managed a weak laugh. “Just kidding.”

  Jill rolled over to her back. “Don’t worry about it. These old ladies are rubbing off on us. Just the other day, I caught myself shopping for birthday cards for my grandkids! How weird is that?”

  “I’ll take the house in the Cayman’s,” Sarah replied.

  Jill’s comment disturbed her more than she wanted to admit. One more reason to get out. The technology was so new, she didn’t doubt there were risks the company had never revealed. After tomorrow, she’d be gone and wouldn’t have to worry about inhabiting creaky old bones again until they were hers, decades in the future.

  “You wish,” Jill said.

  “Maybe I will take a vacation down to the Caymans. Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Tomas said, breaking into the conversation. “Want some company?”

  Sarah started to smile. He’d been hinting in recent weeks that he was interested, and now that she’d decided to leave, she was suddenly tempted to take him up on the offer. But when she met his gaze, her smile faded.

  His normal open expression was missing. He looked preoccupied, as if he’d made the offer because it was expected, as if he was playing a part.

  From her gurney, Jill said with a wicked little grin, “Maybe Tomas should upgrade you to a sexy little number and the two of you can sneak away somewhere private.”

  Sarah would normally have blushed, but Tomas’ odd behavior had rattled her and the jibe didn’t dig like it should. She glanced at Tomas to see how he reacted. He smiled at Jill, but his expression darkened momentarily.

  In the next instant his normal, open smile returned. The change came so fast, if Sarah hadn’t been watching, she never would have noticed.

  Tomas said, “Or maybe I’ll find a pretty little model for you, Jill.”

  She laughed. “You can’t play me, Tomas. I know you’re just hoping to get me alone when my own body gets back.”

  Sarah forced herself to smile along with the others, but she wondered at Tomas’s sudden change. Despite Jill’s number-one rating, he’d always paid more attention to Sarah. Why the change? Why now of all days?

  Tomas moved to Jill’s side, slid a needle smoothly into her arm and injected the pre-transfer tranquilizer. “See you on the other side.”

  “Can’t wait . . .” Jill’s voice faded away as the fast acting drug knocked her out.

  Tomas moved to Sarah and prepared the second needle. He met her gaze for a moment, and he looked troubled. As the needle slid into her arm, an odd chill shivered down Sarah’s spine.

  Must be the drug.