The Uploadee

Next Life was three blocks from the bus stop, between a dentist's office and a tanning salon. Consuelo considered again whether she should just turn around and go back home. But she steeled herself and went inside. The woman at the counter was chic and severe. A Mr Pippin came front to collect her. Pencil mustache, steel blue suit, silver shirt, matching silver tie.

He ushered her into his office and motioned for her to take a seat. He gave her a closer inspection. Not Hollywood pretty, but definitely Elle magazine pretty---huge orphan eyes, lush full lips, flawless skin, not really olive, more . . . light hazelnut. He could see how a client might find her quite attractive. She had the one vital ingredient that made everything else superfluous---youth.

"One of our clients would like to take a closer look at you," he said. "I can't guarantee anything, but she liked your photograph." He gave the timid young woman another frank appraisal. He had to think she was a viable candidate.

"So let me see now." He leafed through several pages. "There are no liens against your person, is that correct?"

"Yes, sir," said Consuelo, shyly. She did not feel entirely comfortable, the way he looked at her, the way he sized her up. But business was business.

"You're not married? Never have been?"

"No sir," she blushed.

"We're not going to have someone storming in here next week telling a different story?"

"No, sir."

"And you have indicated here," he said, keeping his eyes discreetly on the form, "that you are still a virgin. A doctor would confirm that?"

Consuelo blushed even harder. "Yes, sir," she said in a tiny voice, "I am. He would."

Mr Pippin assembled the forms and looked back at her. "Good," he said. He got up from his chair. "Good." He ushered her out of his office and down the hall to another small room. It was like a fitting room, all in white, with a single high-backed padded chair in the middle and a simple bench along a mirrored wall.

"Please disrobe," he told her.

Consuelo was not surprised. She slipped off her sandals, and, following his nod, placed them into a plastic bin that sat on the bench. She took off her fairly new skirt and her tasteful blouse. It looked like the client would not be getting to see them today. She folded them into the bin. Mr Pippin patiently nodded for her to continue. She took off her bra. She placed it into the bin. She slipped off her panties and placed them too neatly in.

Mr Pippin sat down in the chair and motioned for her to stand in front of him. This was a part of his job that he truly loved, not even the stripping itself so much as just having the power to compel it.

He looked Consuelo over. She was on the skinny side, but her breasts were full enough and her ass was not half bad. She had a pleasing figure, no tan lines, light bronze skin tones that took highlights well. His eye was drawn back to her earnest, pretty face. She accepted his inspection, her shame held in check, as if she were standing naked in front of her doctor. She was young all right. Definitely a viable candidate.

"The client should be here shortly," he told her. "I'll knock three times. You will be standing right here when we enter. The look to shoot for is vitality without personality. A clean slate. A beautiful blank canvas. It goes without saying that you should be seen and not heard."

He smiled at her, perhaps a bit less perfunctorily than he had up until now. "You'll be fine. You're a lovely girl, and something about you has clearly caught the client's eye. I really think you have an excellent chance." He took the bin containing her clothes and left the room.

Consuelo sat gingerly on the edge of the bench. An excellent chance, she thought bleakly to herself.

She'd gone over this so many times. It wasn't an ideal choice. Perhaps not even a very good one. But neither were any of the others. This way, at least, she'd be able to count on certain aspects of the outcome. Fifty thousand aspects, to be precise. Some good would result. Some harm too, but she prayed that it would not be irreparable.

The cost of her sister's medication kept increasing, year after year. The size of their mother's paycheck did not. Her own job prospects, in this lousy economy, in this lousy world, were negligible. Maybe, if she cleaned houses eighty hours a week she'd be able to count herself a net asset rather than a net liability. Maybe.

This way, at least, she'd be doing her share. She knew it wasn't as simple as that. Her mother and her sister had other, non-financial needs as well. That tore at her heart. But she had to be practical.

And she wouldn't be away forever. She was twenty now. She'd be back in plenty of time to care for her sister during her mother's golden years.

At least that's what she told herself. Truth be told, she wasn't really a hundred percent sure. They used terms like condominium and co-tenancy, which she didn't completely understand, and they were always very vague---deliberately so, it often seemed to her---about exactly what happened upon the relinquishment of the co-tenancy. But she stubbornly refused to entertain any doubts that things would not go the way she thought they should.

-----

The wait was close to an hour and a half. Then came the knock. The client bustled in, a striking fashion plate of a woman, silky peacock pantsuit swishing, mahogany necklace beads a-clatter. Mrs Leticia Moncrief, sporting the pale nordic stylings of her fourth---or was it fifth?---reincarnation.

The stylings themselves, the long legs, the high chest, the cool, frosty face, the pale flaxen tresses, couldn't have been much older than thirty five. To Consuelo's eye, they still had a lot of life left in them.

"So what have we here?" asked the iridescent valkyrie, speaking as much to herself as to anyone else. Her voice was not shrill, but it was toward that end of the spectrum. "Oh, yes, the pouty lips." She reached out and bracketed Consuelo's mouth between her thumb and her index finger, squeezing slightly to accentuate the pout. "I was rather thinking that Mr Moncrief might like something like this." She modeled Consuelo's expression with a little kissy face of her own.

She ran her long fingers and lacquered nails over Consuelo's cheek and forehead. "Very nice skin," she noted. "Youthful. Elastic. My previous uploading was a disaster, you know. The face was to die for, eyes like cold gray flint, high, sculpted cheekbones, but it just didn't hold up. Seven years and I began to wrinkle like an old purse. I told Sylvia---Mrs Chester Armbruster---that I should have sued this company for every penny it was worth." Then, remembering herself, she turned to Mr Pippin with a diplomatic smile. "But that was before your time, I dare say." Mr Pippin bowed, the picture of graciousness.

Mrs Moncrief took a handful of hair and curled it over the ear to get the impression of a shorter bob. She walked her way around, running her fingers over the shoulder, feeling the pliability of the buttocks, the tone of the thigh, the firmness of the breast, the smoothness of the labia. There was a hint of stubble there, which, to her mind, reflected a certain unprofessionalism on Mr Pippin's part. She grasped one of the fleshy outer lips and took a cursory peek inside. Consuelo did her best to continue projecting an air of decerebrate vitality.

Mrs Moncrief turned her attention back up to the face. She took it by the jaw and turned it one way and the other. "A bit tawny," she chuckled, amused at her own audacity in considering such an exotic specimen. "But you know, I think that Mr Moncrief may be getting tired of the nordic look. How many uploads has it been now? A little touch of the exotic might be just the thing." She stood back to take in the entire figure. "Yes," she mused, "I really think that something along these lines just might catch his attention."

"A very attractive styling," Mr Pippin agreed. "And, ahem, if I may call your attention . . . " He pointed out line 17 of the application form.

"A virgin! No! Well, I say." Mrs Moncrief put her hand over her bosom. To be a virgin again, to have Mr Moncrief look at her the way he once had, to have again in her possession that one thing in all her life that had driven him so mad with desire. She had to sit down, so overcome was she with emotion. "Mr Popper," she said, "you have outdone yourself." Mr Pippin again bowed graciously.

She looked back at the vessel of that virginity, regarding it now as an even more serious possibility. "The hair, of course," she murmured, fluttering her hand. "And Mr Moncrief is rather accustomed to a bit more . . ." She cupped her hands in front of her own current bosom. "Could we have that taken care of at the same time?"

"Of course," said Mr Pippin, taking a note. "Of course."

The hips, the waist, the girly bits, they were all feminine enough. She'd never known a man to be too particular down there. Few had much grounds for comparison, and almost all, by the time they'd gotten that far, were more than happy to take whatever was being offered.

Her eyes travelled back up to the face. The earnest stare, the precious lips, the daring complexion. That's what it boiled down to. That was the essence of what this styling had to offer. It was not her mother's styling. It would not have been her own styling even two or three reincarnations ago. But styles change. This was a look you saw these days, even on television. Among the young people. And who was she, Mrs Leticia Moncrief, if not young at heart?

Would Mr Moncrief find this look exciting? He was an old fuddy duddy in so many ways, his current virile incarnation notwithstanding. Should she even be concerned about what he might think? She found it terribly exciting to picture herself looking out from those earnest eyes, pouting those precious lips. There was no telling the passions she might arouse, the intrigue she might occasion. And really, when you came down to it, why not? What was life for, if not to try on new things? After all, you only live . . . forever.

Mr Pippin reminded her that they still had one more styling to look at. Mrs Moncrief came out of her reverie. She rose. She asked about depilation. They went out without a word to Consuelo.

Consuelo sat back down on the bench. She closed her eyes. It was the first time she'd ever met a reincarnate in real life. And what a striking, indomitable example. Those tall tresses, that unapologetic bray. There had perhaps been a bit of discordance in the way she carried herself---a slight sense of a younger woman playing an older woman playing a younger woman. But all in all Consuelo had rather liked her. How could you help but root for someone who went at immortality with such a boisterous self confidence?

She tried to imagine how the scene would have looked if it had been her stylings that Mrs Moncrief had been pulling the strings of. Were her facial muscles even capable of such patrician expressions? Could her vocal cords even produce such stridency? The whole idea just seemed so unreal. Would she be privy to it at all? They said that you would be completely moved out during the co-tenancy, sleeping insensate in a reel of magnetic tape. But mightn't there still be some fragment of you left, some little fly-on-the-wall of you, helpless to turn your eyes away?

She'd kind of known that her virginity would be part of the deal. It wasn't that it was all that precious to her---up until now she'd mostly just taken it for granted. But it did seem rather a shame that she wouldn't even be there when she lost it. The agreement had even spelled out the possibility of pregnancy. She would be considered a surrogate, the co-tenant would be the legal mother. Well, she sighed, I guess that's the way it works when you rent out your equipment.

Forty five minutes later the woman from the front counter brought in a second chair. "Mrs Moncrief has asked her husband to come round," she said, in her aloof manner. Consuelo, still naked and with no idea where her clothes had gotten to, was getting hungry. But that was a feeling she was used to.

-----

Three brusque knocks. Mrs Moncrief and Mr Pippin bustled back into the room, followed by the consequential strides of Cletus Germanicus Antipodes Moncrief, swashbucklingly handsome in his current incarnation, his chestnut hair blazed with a bold streak of silver as if to tout his complete lack of concern for the so-called forces of mortality. Consuelo couldn't decide if he looked more like a Silicon Valley executive or a European prince.

He struck the pose of an important businessman on the verge of an important decision. He assessed the merchandise. Suitable height. Acceptable body type. Pleasing contours. All in all, an attractive styling.

Mrs Moncrief was clucking on about trends and skin tones and a recent episode of Keeping Up. She gestured in an animated fashion to explain the augmentations and readjustments that were already in the pipeline. In her enthusiasm, she had forgotten that her chief aim in summoning Mr Moncrief had been to gauge his initial reaction.

Mr Moncrief looked more closely at the face. The full lips, the earnest expression. Quite pretty, actually, he thought to himself. Consuelo looked timidly back at him. He felt a bit disoriented. Always before it had been like choosing between one sports car and another. Which one had the better lines? Which one would give the better performance? But my God, this one was no sports car. This one was . . . a real woman.

Consuelo could feel the heat of his gaze as it swept slowly downward over her body. This was not the mercantile appraisal of a Mr Pippin. This was the enchanted gaze of a bridegroom on the threshold of the nuptial chamber. She began to blush. Her nipples began to swell. She covered herself with her hands. Mr Pippin gave her a look, but she was powerless to pull them away.

Mr Moncrief's pecker began to swell too. My God! He wanted her. He wanted those frank lips, those frank, blushing nipples, that frank, sweet powerlessness. My God! He wanted to take her into his arms, to hold her more closely than a man had ever held a woman before. He realized, of course, in some rational part of his brain, that these feelings were almost certainly just the result of a particularly strong pheromonal attunement. But my God, he wanted her.

Mrs Moncrief felt the crackle in the air and curtailed her monologue in mid platitude. She beheld the dumbstruck look on the old fuddy duddy's face. Her pale, nordic nipples began to tingle. Yes, she said to herself. Yes. That is exactly the look I'm after.

"Well then," said Mr Pippin, "if we're all in agreement about the styling, why don't we go back to my office and make the final arrangements."

-----

Two weeks later, Consuelo walked from the bus stop to the hospital entrance. It was a dull, overcast morning. She had left a heartfelt note for her mother and her sister. There were pigeons on the sidewalk. She realized they might be the last pigeons she ever saw.

She was directed to the Psychosurgery ward. She was shown into a curtained alcove. Her signature was needed on several consent forms. Her ID was sealed into an envelope. Her clothes were removed. Several spots on her scalp were shaved. An IV line was inserted into her vein. A hypodermic needle was inserted into the line. Her consciousness drifted slowly away.

-----

One hundred billion neurons. That's how many neurons there are in the human brain. One hundred trillion synapses. The very idea of capturing the lifetime of information stored in such a vast array had long been thought to be beyond the reach of science. But science had gradually come to realize that those billions of neurons are organized into only a few hundred thousand discrete neuron pools. The pools are spread throughout the cerebral cortex and the subcortical nuclei, connected to one another by identifiable white-matter pathways. They vary in complexity, from the relatively simple single-degree-of-freedom controllers of the motor cortex to the complex two-dimensional image processing strips of the visual cortex and the frontal lobes.

The key breakthrough was the discovery of the so-called holographic principle. Virtually every neuron pool employs the same basic holographic system to encode its transfer function, distributing its information content homogeneously throughout its entire synaptic network. A key feature of this encoding strategy is its high redundancy. What this means is that the amount of information stored in a particular neuron pool is much much less than the amount that would be needed to completely characterize its entire synaptic profile. It was the realization of this reduction in dimensionality that made uploading technically feasible.

Of course a great deal of effort was needed to work out reliable procedures for cataloging and identifying the individual neuron pools, reading out their transfer functions, and re-programming new ones. The reading and writing are basically performed using transcranial magnetic stimulation. Appropriate sequences are delivered on appropriate white-matter tracts, either in the absence or presence of a systemically introduced reinforcing neurotransmitter. A computerized strategy is used to excite multiple tracts simultaneously. This essentially puts the brain into a massive controlled seizure, but it makes it possible to download and reprogram the entire content volume in about twelve hours. The total information content of the human mind comes out to a couple thousand terabytes, about a tenth of a google earth.

The procedure is careful to distinguish between the so-called "firmware" and "flexware" pools. The firmware pools are the ones that perform the most basic input/output functions, such as those in the primary somatosensory and motor cortices and the cerebellum. These pools are closely attuned to the body and can largely be considered to be part of it rather than part of the mind. They are not altered during transferal. The bulk of the pools, the flexware pools, perform the more abstract functions of perception, feeling, and thought. They are the ones that are transferred. Their aggregate information content can be considered to constitute the mind, the personality, the psyche, the self, the soul.

The remarkable thing is that when the uploaded brain returns to consciousness, it is the consciousness of the uploader, not the host. The reincarnate feels herself to be largely, if not fully, continuous with her preoperative self, even though she is now "wearing" a different body. Of course the categorization into firmware and flexware is not completely clear cut, and many qualities such as sensory acuity, athletic ability, and emotional coloring do not transfer exactly. As a result, the reincarnate usually feels that her sense of self has a subtly different flavor, often referred to as the "tinge." But she finds her memories, proclivities, hopes, and fears all largely intact. She still feels herself to be herself.

Neuroscientists do not understand exactly how this continuity comes about. They still do not even know the precise function of perhaps a third of the cortical centers that are uploaded during transfer. They still have very little understanding of the ontological substrate of subjective qualia, or of how this substrate arises from the physical processes of the brain. Yet, by their audacious, pragmatic tinkering, they have managed to commoditize the capture, storage, and transfer of the conscious human soul.

-----

Consuelo opened her eyes. A hospital room. A nurse fussing about. The steady beep, beep, beep of a machine. She closed them again and felt a heartfelt sigh of relief. Her hopes had been well founded. She'd come back.

She was herself again. She could feel her body. She could remember her life. She could remember so clearly the day of the uploading, the lonely walk from the bus stop, the pigeons, the IV, as if it had been only yesterday. That must be the way it worked when your psyche is restored from magnetic tape, even after so many years. How many years had it been? What was the world like now? Of course she had no memories of those years, those would have all been overwritten. Her body, though, would no doubt show the signs.