There is nothing like staying home for real comfort.

  ~ Jane Austen

  Unnoticed in the chaos of firemen fighting the huge blaze, swarms of news media, and crowds of renters demanding answers, Eirene commandeered a gurney holding one of the spare female convict bodies.

  With Jill’s face still fastened over her own, Eirene easily convinced the attendant the body was needed for an immediate transfer. The man seemed relieved to speak with someone who looked like they knew what was going on.

  They slipped into one of the still-standing satellite buildings that lay at the outer fringes of the Alterego complex. It stood not far from the back end of the parking lot where all the renter bodies were lined up on their gurneys. The small building housed grounds maintenance machinery and a couple of small offices.

  “This will do,” Eirene said with a nod, and set to clearing one office so they could fit the two gurneys inside.

  Then she draped a hospital sheet in one corner, as if concealing something from view. With a final nod of approval, she said, “Now, let’s set you right.”

  With growing anticipation, Sarah changed clothes with the sleeping Marilyn. Then she helped Eirene remove the life support unit covering the head of the faceless convict they had brought along. So overwhelmed was Sarah by recent events that the sight of the smooth, faceless skin of the body did not even faze her.

  Eirene popped Jill’s face free, and with glowing eyes, pressed it down onto the waiting body.

  After a brief moment of twitching while she settled into the new body, Jill sat up and said, “That was the freakiest time of my life. Who are you?”

  “Better you not know. Now off you go. Find Mr. Fleischer. He’ll need your help preparing for the return transfers.”

  “We can’t trust him.” Sarah cried.

  “Never fear, my dear. Tomas is taking care of everything.”

  “You make less sense all the time,” Jill said but, at Eirene’s shooing motion, she left the building.

  “Now, for you.”

  Sarah lay down on the empty gurney. Her entire body quivered with fear as Eirene lay fingers along her jawline.

  “Try to relax,” Eirene whispered soothingly, then cocked her head, her gaze sharpening. She pressed fingers to either side of Sarah’s skull, then frowned.

  “Your soul feels far stronger than before. How did I miss that?”

  New fear chilled Sarah’s spine. Could Eirene somehow sense what had happened to her? Should she explain? What could she say?

  She didn’t understand anything. Maybe Eirene could explain what had happened to her? Then again, Eirene did not seem like the kind of person who liked delays. Would she just rip out Sarah’s face mask for later study?

  So she frowned and asked, “What?”

  Eirene shook her head. “Nothing we have time to deal with right now. That encounter with Mai Luan rattled me more than I’d thought, and I’m still recovering from a long dispossession. Never mind let’s set you right, dear,”

  Sarah tried to relax, but as the searing heat of the horrible magic rippled down her jaw, Sarah cried out and grabbed at Eirene’s hands. She could not bear it, and had to get those hands off her face.

  Before she could pry the woman’s iron grip loose, her face pulled free and she lost connection with her arms. They flopped down to the gurney at her side as her vision shifted.

  Everything became flat, two-dimensional, and most color drained away until it looked like she viewed the world through an old black-and-white television.

  Eirene sat her down on a nearby counter, and she couldn’t help but laugh hysterically at how ridiculous it was to be looking out at the world through a shimmering face mask. She couldn’t breathe, but her voice still emerged from shrunken lips, a whisper of its normal strength. She couldn’t smell anything, but her ears worked exceptionally well.

  Although she could not turn her head, had no head to turn, she clearly heard Eirene remove Marilyn’s face and apply it to the body Sarah had just vacated. A moment later, Eirene returned Sarah to her own body and pressed her face in place.

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  A rush of feeling flooded her mind. Her lungs, muscles, skin, and every inch of her body clamored for attention as everything reattached in a rush. She gasped a deep breath, and laughed aloud at the wonderful feeling of rightness.

  She was home. Everything felt right, from the weight of her hair to the tips of her toes.

  Then a blue screen appeared in front of her again.

  Transfer Successful. New body integration scan initiating.

  Scan complete. Superior body registered.

  Strength increased from F6 to F7. Toughness increased from F6 to F7. Body rank increased from F6 to F7. Health level increased from F8 to F9.

  A feeling of warmth again swept through Sarah, and with it came a rush of energy that set her muscles tingling with the need to move. It was a wonderfully refreshing sensation, unlike anything she’d felt before.

  Sarah couldn't help sitting up, and asking, “Do you see that? What is that?”

  “What is what, dear?” Eirene asked with a frown.

  She was standing right next to Sarah's gurney, with that floating blue screen right next to her face. There was no way she couldn't see it, unless it was again some kind of crazy, fever dream nightmare illusion that her own mind was making up to try to deal with the insanity of what she was experiencing..

  She did not want Eirene to think she was cracking, so she shrugged and said, “Never mind.”

  Eirene looked like she wanted to ask another question, but Marilyn started to shake, as her soul bonded with the new body.

  “Hurry now, dear. Move along before Marilyn wakes up.” Eirene helped her rise, and ushered her behind the curtain.

  Only seconds later, Marilyn awoke, confused and a little angry. Eirene did a remarkable job of deflecting her concerns and explaining about the disaster that befell the corporation.

  When Marilyn learned how staff had risked their lives to free her from the collapsing building, her concerns evaporated. Eirene led her outside, and her cries of dismay at seeing the inferno echoed through the small building.

  Hidden behind the white curtain that concealed her from view, Sarah hugged herself and ran hands along her flanks and limbs, relishing the feeling of being once again herself. Although that convict body had felt very similar, it wasn’t her, and now that she was home, the difference was like night and day. She belonged in her real body. Anything else was just a temporary replacement, a lesser rental.

  She took a deep breath, thoughts turning to that strange announcement screen she just saw after waking up. “What did that do to my weird character sheet?”

  The same warm woman's voice spoke.

  Character sheet.

  A blue screen appeared, listing out her character sheet again. Just like the screen suggested, her body rank and two body stats had all been updated since the last time she looked. Her Health Points had also increased, and now had a number listed in parentheses after the rank value. It showed 98.

  “So weird,” she muttered to herself.

  Somehow, she really did have a character sheet, and she was able to pull it up just by mentioning it. It was like the magical explosion had unlocked some kind of game interface inside of her head. That last announcement suggested that by changing back to her natural body, the stats adjusted based on her new body’s abilities.

  That kind of made sense, at least if she was in a video game, but not in real life. She'd never heard of anything like this. Could it be a good thing, or was it a sign that her mind was breaking down?

  Tomas had suggested all of the transfers she'd undertaken in the last couple years might have fragmented her soul beyond a safe threshold. Picking up bits and pieces of old people's memories was one thing. Suddenly getting some kind of bizarre game interface activating in her mind was an entirely different level of crazy.

  Sarah decided not to mention those screens to Tomas or anyone else until she had some time to reflect and figure out what the heck was going on. Ground zero of a major catastrophe was not the place to explore her potential mental breakdown.

  She felt only a momentary stab of guilt at deceiving Marilyn, but it passed quickly. The woman wanted to return to youth, and she was getting her chance. The body she wore was very similar to Sarah’s, so she’d have nothing to ever complain about.

  The convict woman hadn’t been so lucky. She’d been stuck in the vault with who knew how many other prisoners. No doubt she was dead, and now another woman was wearing her body. That sucked at a level beyond anything Sarah had ever heard. The world had turned well and truly insane.

  But as horrible as that poor nameless woman’s fate was, the selfish part of her could not deny that her sacrifice gave Sarah the only way to escape Alterego with her own body intact. She wasn’t about to refuse that gift out of a sense of unfairness.

  After a moment, she rounded the curtain and found Eirene waiting with a serious expression on her face. Sarah tensed. Had Eirene somehow sensed that her mind was fracturing?

  Instead of telling her she was about to call a couple of friends in white jackets who would take her to a padded cell, Eirene just said a little wistfully, “You cannot understand how important your own flesh and bones are until you lose them.”

  Sarah suddenly had a thought. “Where’s your body?”

  Eirene’s lips twitched into a soft smile, “It was lost long before Maerwynn got the best of me. Enjoy the time you have, my dear. It’s never long enough.”

  Sarah was not sure what to say to that. Eirene shook off her melancholy and led Sarah to the door. “Try to stay focused. We have much to do.”

  She explained that Jill and Tomas would spread the word that one of the transfer machines had survived the blast. They would claim it had been in storage, right in the building where the two of them stood. All renters were to be restored immediately.

  “There are going to be so many questions,” Sarah breathed.

  “That’s why we have to move fast.”

  Eirene opened the door, and Sarah was surprised to find Almeda and Tereza, a mousy little woman who was Dr. Maerwynn’s final assistant, standing nervously in the doorway. Two burly security officers flanked them.

  “Go help Jill,” Eirene commanded Sarah, and then motioned the other two women inside.