The Uploadee

She felt truly relieved. She had done a hard thing. Maybe it had been the right thing, maybe not, but she'd done it, and it was over, and she was herself again, and she would never have to do it again. She wondered about her mother and her sister. She was hopeful that they could find some way to forgive what she had done.

She re-opened her eyes. "There we go now, sweetie," the nurse was saying. "Wake up now. How are we feeling?"

Mr Moncrief was there too. He came over and stood by the bed. He didn't look a day older. She was touched to see him there. Did he feel a bit of tenderness for his wife's old hand-me-downs?What had she chosen this time? Something even more exotic?

The nurse, in making a note of her vital signs, addressed her as Mrs Moncrief. Consuelo wrote this off to force of habit. She could only imagine that Mrs Moncrief, in her co-tenancy, must have cut a loud and memorable figure.

But then Mr Moncrief called her "Darling." If anyone, shouldn't he know the score? Consuelo began to wonder. Shouldn't Mrs Moncrief also be waking up about now? In her newest, even more exotic reincarnation? Shouldn't he be with her instead?

And then who should walk into the room but Mr Pippin himself, proud as a new uncle, shaking hands left and right, lavender shirt and matching lavender tie. She could believe that Mr Moncrief might not have aged a day, but she could not believe it of Mr Pippin.

Consuelo had a sinking feeling. She was not waking up from any second operation, but only from the first. The reason she could remember her walk so clearly was because it really had taken place only yesterday. Her body was not being returned to her, it had never been taken away.

Something must have gone wrong with the procedure. There must have been some kind of glitch. Mrs Moncrief had never taken possession. The nurse, Mr Moncrief, Mr Pippin, they all thought it was the grande dame looking out through her eyes, but it was only her, Consuelo. The enormity of the mishap began to dawn on her. What had happened to poor Mrs Moncrief? What would this mean for her mother and her sister?

Ms Apgard from the Psychosurgery department came in to administer the psychological assay and certify the transference. Consuelo girded herself for what was about to come.

But Mr Moncrief spoke up. "You know, Ms Apgard, I've suffered through the psychological assay several times myself, on both sides of the clipboard. I wonder, would you consider allowing me to make the assessment myself this time? After all, no one knows my wife better than I do. I know you have your protocols, but I think you'd have to agree that the procedure is getting so reliable these days that a successful outcome is pretty much a foregone conclusion."

Ms Apgard did have her protocols, but she also appreciated the political importance of humoring such a psychosurgical high roller. She smiled. "Of course, Mr Moncrief. I think we can allow that."

"Then if you will excuse us," said the handsome multimillionaire with a comically exaggerated leer, "I would like a little time alone with my pretty new wife." Ms Apgard, Mr Pippin, and the nurse laughed politely and stepped out of the room.

Mr Moncrief sat on the bed and took Consuelo's hand. "Hello, my darling. Still a bit woozy?"

Consuelo did feel woozy, dreading what she had to tell him.

Mr Moncrief gazed approvingly at her face, delighting over each attractive feature. "You've really outdone yourself this time, Ducks," he said, looking into her earnest eyes. "Sylvia Armbruster, for one, will be quite jealous. She rather wondered what look you were going for this time. She dropped by the house last night. She was worried that I might be lonely."

Consuelo could sense that he was gauging her reaction, but she didn't quite know what he was looking for.

"Where were you born, Ducks?" he asked her softly. "What year did you graduate college? Goodness, can either of us even remember that far back? We've seen a lot of changes since then, haven't we?"

Consuelo looked up into his loving eyes and tears began to form in her her own.

"There, there," he said, giving her hand a sympathetic squeeze. "It's all right. Don't cry. I just needed to be sure."

He let go of her hand. "As you've no doubt noticed, there's been a change in plans. I still very much want your lovely body for Leti's next installment. But I want it to be you inside, not her."

Consuelo tried to understand what he was saying.

"Call me greedy, but when I saw you the other day, I just couldn't let Leti have you. I had to have you all for myself."

Consuelo finally found her voice. "Where is Mrs Moncrief?"

"Don't worry about her. She's safely tucked away on a shelf somewhere. All her bits and her bytes are in perfect order. A few months out of circulation won't do her any harm at all."

Consuelo's mind was reeling. "I don't understand."

"Her viking had to be returned to its original owner. I just arranged for her bits and her bytes to go into temporary storage for a while rather than being uploaded into her next incarnation right away. It's kind of against the rules, so they had to make it appear like they were sticking to the standard protocol." He gestured at the medical equipment all around them. "Your brain wasn't actually touched. Or your boobs either, by the way. Ms Apgard and the others don't know. They think you're her. "

He looked at Consuelo with a burning earnestness of his own. "It turns out that eternity is a pretty long time. Leti and I do care for each other, but over the years we've found that it just works better to sometimes take separate vacations. Nothing quite like this before, though. There'll be hell to pay when she comes back. But I just couldn't help myself. I'm afraid it's true what they say. Once you start to think of yourself as immortal, you start to think that none of the other rules apply either.

"So here's what I'm proposing. Come along on this little charade. In public you'll be my adoring wife and I'll be your adoring husband. In private you'll be my beautiful mistress, and I'll do everything in my power to make you the happiest woman alive."

Consuelo didn't understand why he was asking her rather than telling her. She'd already signed the contract. But she was touched. "And what if I say no?"

He gaze didn't waver. "You'll break an old man's heart."

Consuelo had no real reason to say no. Perhaps this trick he was pulling on Mrs Moncrief should give her pause, but he really did seem kind and sincere at heart. She'd already sort of agreed to everything he was proposing anyway---to be his surrogate wife, to be seen on his arm, even to relinquish him her virginity. The only difference would be that now she'd be around to enjoy it. Plus, he was filthy rich. She had to be practical. She gave him an appraising glance. His rugged profile, his earnest, eager expression, his endearing blaze of silver hair.

"You don't look so old to me," she said, shyly.

Cletus Germanicus Antipodes Moncrief grinned at her like a schoolboy. Then he jumped swashbucklingly into the air and clicked his heels together.

-----

Leticia Moncrief's sixth reincarnation was an unqualified sensation. You couldn't go to the grocery store without seeing her orphan eyes and brimming lips on the covers of a dozen magazines. You couldn't turn on the TV without seeing her shy, captivating smile on every other channel. She seemed not only to have regained her youth and defined a whole bold new ideal of exotic beauty, but also to have acquired a sweet tinge of almost childlike innocence that stole the heart of the nation.

Sylvia Armbruster, her closest friend and eternal confidant, had to be brought into the picture. She put on a respectable show of outrage at first, but, truth be told, she found the whole idea rather clever and began to think a bit more creatively herself about her own husband's upcoming rejuvenation. She took Consuelo under her wing and coached her in the ways of society. The two of them were often seen arm in arm at gala openings and charity balls. In fact, they became quite good friends.

Cletus Moncrief had never been happier. These schemes of his didn't always work out as well as he hoped, but this one certainly seemed to be. His pheromonal attunement got richer and deeper with each passing week. His sexual pleasure was tinged with a delicious velvety lushness that made every conjugal embrace with his captivating mistress as mesmerizing as their first. Sometimes in the middle of a long board meeting, his unquenchable pecker would grow hard of its own accord, like a compass needle yearning for its one true north.

Consuelo was the happiest woman alive even before Ms Apgard came back in to collect the affidavit. Simple in her desires, the comfortable villa with its charming orchard and gardens, the picnics on the beach, the dinners at Delmonico's, the galas and the balls, the amorous nights and playful mornings brought her no end of joy. It turned out that the pheromones worked both ways, and she grew quite fond of her surrogate husband, his granite muscles, his silver blaze, his unquenchable pecker, his endearing old-fashioned gentlemanly ways.

The couple of months stretched into a year, then two, now three. When the time came to relinquish the stylings that were so deliciously attuned to his beautiful consort, Mr Moncrief found himself reluctant to do so. He arranged instead to have the original swashbuckler's psyche uploaded into the body of a young athlete that had been salvaged after an unfortunate skiing accident, and he kept the silver blaze for himself.

He's decided to take his chances with the new cellulux therapy, at least for the time being. Though still quite expensive, it shows remarkable promise for slowing the effects of aging right at the cellular level, an approach that also fits in more closely with Consuelo's idea of the way that longevity ought to work. In fact, the immortal class as a whole have been putting off their reincarnations longer and longer lately, much to the consternation of poor Mr Pippin.

Consuelo isn't quite as adept at shopping as her predecessor had been, but she keeps herself presentable, and she's managed to spend an impressive amount establishing the Moncrief Institute for Recombinant Gene Therapy, whose first target is a cure for her sister's condition. Her mother is not altogether certain that she approves of Consuelo's situation, but, like her daughter, she's a practical woman and keeps her feelings to herself. Besides, there are the grandchildren now to look after.

The original Mrs Moncrief still bides her time in a bank of magnetic tapes in a cryogenic vault in a basement corner of the hospital annex. Mr Moncrief keeps promising to do something about her any day now.