Meat Suit

By Brennan Barrett

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2015 Brennan Barrett

ISBN: (Electronic print) 978-0-9918332-7-6

This book is a work of fiction. Characters in this book are completely fictional, except certain gamers that have given their permission to be included in this work. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, is completely coincidental. Actual gamers appearing in this work have been fictionalized to protect their identities and/or privacy. All game characters have submitted written permission for the use their gamer tags as well as limited personal information and have agreed to be part of the story.

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be sold or given to other people without purchase or permission by the author or publisher. If you would like to share this book with someone, please visit the publisher and purchase additional copies. If you are reading this book and have not received it as a gift or purchased it from a licensed reseller, please visit a reseller that offers my book and purchase a legal copy. Thank you for respecting my hard work as a writer.

Author’s Note:

More and more people are joining the gaming community on a daily basis and though the general consensus held by many is that gaming is a pastime enjoyed only by the socially inept, that simply isn't true. Today's online video games are frequented by doctors, lawyers, soldiers, bricklayers and cooks. Basically any kind of person that you may think of might be a gamer. Why? You might ask. Well, it really isn't anything new. The online experience usually means conversation with other players. These can be players from various locations around the globe all gathered together into small groups called chat parties or in-game chat parties. The chat parties help to aid in communication during game sequences and active play but more often than not they are used for social purposes. Not surprisingly, more discussion will occur than actual game play.

The online experience has replaced the 'Speakeasy', 'Gentleman's club' and pub for a great many people. Human beings like to interact with other human beings. Just because it's 2AM, it doesn't mean that you can't turn on your Xbox or your Playstation, log into your favourite game and chat with some of the friends you've made.

Strangely, some very strong friendships can be built out of these experiences. Just like those times where work or other events keep you apart from your friends for any length of time, you will find yourself missing those colourful characters that you've spent so much online time with. In my case, there were times where work, moving, writing books, training as a firefighter and writing more books kept me from spending any time with the online friends I had made, some of whom I had spoken with regularly for years. It was missing those crazy buggers that inspired me to write this book and it was all the time they spent teaching an old dog new tricks and helping me recharge when taking breaks from work or writing that helped me finish it. You will notice that the names of the people I list in this thank you section are the same as those you're about to read about. They are real people that you will find online and they have all given me permission to use their gamer tags and names. The details of their lives and work have been fictionalized for their privacy, except for Gnome who really did drive truck and often does think with his stomach.

Dedication:

I dedicate this book to my readers, and the colourful people that I have met during online game play on Xbox. You have all been far more entertaining that you know.

I would also like to dedicate this book to Rita DiNicolo for going out of her way to make sure I eat properly during writing binges.

This book is also dedicated to those special individuals who, like myself, suffer from dyslexia yet continue to read. We love the written word so much, that even though it makes us seasick to read some days, we stick with it.

Cover Art by Brennan Barrett ©2015

Model: Kaitlin Chapple ©2009 Brennan Barrett

Table of contents:

Title

Author’s note

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Thanks

Contact

Other Books by Brennan Barrett

About The Author

Back to Top

Prologue

It had been ten years since the avatars had first become available to the armed forces. Avatars were bio-engineered remote controlled human replicants. For all intents and purposes, they looked human, and they had mostly the same internal and all the same external physical make up of human beings, but they were devoid of thought, feeling, or instinct without a pilot. Television was said to have inspired many advances in technology. The series Star Trek was credited with inspiring the flip phone, voice interface, and the tablet - to name just a few of the advances. A film maker by the name of James Cameron decided to make a movie called Avatar without realizing that he would inspire one of the greatest bio-tech advancements in human history. Cameron's film - not the movie Surrogate, as many others suspected - was credited with inspiring the creation of living avatars. The body of the standard avatar was a mixture of cloned human organs and semi-cybernetic neural pathways that allowed a human being to control or pilot an avatar for use in the field. Originally, the avatars were intended to replace human beings in monotonous roles where a pre-set list of programs could be loaded into their simple neural nets - like toy robots that only know a short list of tricks. Investors could visualize the huge sums of money they would make, selling their product to theme parks and bordellos. But that left an uncomfortable moral dilemma just waiting to be agonized over.

The technology was in peril of being mostly scrapped and retooled in favour of a lucrative trade in cloned human organs when one of the company's founders decided to take a night off and enjoy a movie. Suddenly the avatar program was as hot as ever, and soon gaming console companies were clambering over each other for contracts to build pilot pods to control the new avatars. Avatars piloted by seasoned professionals became the new soldiers and first responders, providing a measure of safety never before known by mankind in those dangerous fields of employment. Highly trained soldiers were no longer lost on dangerous missions abroad. Firefighters that had trained for years to perform dangerous tasks were no longer forced into retirement or administrative positions when their bodies aged and wore to the point of being unsuitable for active service. Police became a more welcome presence and shed a generation of poor public relations in a matter of months. People without fear are generally people without anger.

Because of the fact that the avatars were genetically engineered, they were immune to human disease. Within five years of their release, avatars were also being used by professionals in the sex trade industry, then by EMTs and disease control personnel. Seven years after the use of avatars became common place amongst the high risk professions, the professions most easily affected by infectious disease were staffed almost exclusively by avatars, and prostitution laws became a moot point. There were no more prostitutes - only certified equipment operators. Nine years, nine months, and nine days after the avatars had replaced the soldiers and the high risk personnel of Canada, the United States, and Europe, the disabled began piloting avatars to reduce the financial burden they placed on the governments of those countries, and rejoined the workforce in droves.

Now anyone who was disabled or in a high risk profession piloted an avatar to work. Avatars could be purchased or rented for socializing and for recreation. The physically impaired could now have relationships that weren't limited by their disabilities. Avatars were easy to use. Anyone could physically jack into a neural interface and suddenly, they were the avatar. A lifetime's skills lost to an athlete because of an accident were suddenly regained. Physical limitations placed upon an individual because of a genetic abnormality like asthma or Parkinson's disease were suddenly meaningless. If you were elderly or infirm but didn't have a marketable skill, you could be retrained in a shapely new body that subsisted quite easily on the patented bio-gel that had been created solely for the purpose of maintaining avatars.

Avatars were stronger, faster, and generally more durable than human beings if properly maintained, but they were mostly living tissue and not indestructible, and they had to be treated with respect to that fact. Kept clean and allowed to rest, an avatar should outlive its host by at least a generation. People that owned an avatar, were assigned a specific avatar by the state, or who often used the same avatar for work, tended to take good care of the living body at their disposal, simply because the neural feedback was quite flawless. In point of fact, you felt what the avatar felt. If you ran your avatar into the ground, you felt it. That fact, and the fact that the senses of the avatar could be amplified, were the driving forces behind a drop in sexually transmitted disease. Why bother with sex in your own body when you could have sex in an avatar body with the senses and tactile feedback of an avatar amplified as much as three times that of a true human body?

It wasn't much of a surprise that the sub-culture of humanity known as gamers - because of their affinity for video games - became the premier avatar pilots. Though, strangely enough, it was the average housewife that piloted the avatars in the sex trade. It was also the housewives that first noticed a problem with the avatars. Shortly after the sex trade pilots noticed response problems with the avatars, gamers started reporting problems, then the military. The bio-engineered human replicants that were intended as the salvation of all mankind were getting sick. They were suffering from some sort of viral infection that had been traced back to often overworked sex models. Those sex models, in fact, that were frequented by human customers and not piloted avatars. Though originally thought to be immune to all disease, nature and Murphy's Law had conspired to visit a new plague upon the world. A day foreseen by none other than the gamers that interfaced so flawlessly with their avatars had come. A zombie apocalypse was sweeping across the globe, and the undead were walking the streets.

The apocalypse hadn't occurred exactly as foreseen by science fiction fans and gamers; it only affected avatars. The virus did not reanimate the human dead. It would also not reanimate an avatar too damaged to function normally. People still went to work. Baseball games took place as planned but the sex trade was severely hampered just when it had finally become safe and legal. Simply put, in the vernacular of the gaming community, with the looming threat of losing all that legal sex, people lost their shit.

Curfews were instated, and stores closed around or soon after dark. That was when infected avatars seemed most active.

The strangest fact was that the avatars shouldn't have been active at all, not without a pilot. It was considered common knowledge that the avatar brain was primarily designed for feedback and sensory functions. Without a pilot, there just simply wasn't enough of the necessary brain tissue within an avatar for it to become conscious on its own, to say nothing of movement or the desire to hunt and kill.

Rapid action had been taken to wipe out the infestation and at first, it seemed to be working. Troops of armed forces avatars had been sent into areas most overrun by the shambling pilotless avatars that hunted down their own kind with an appalling cannibalistic greed. Avatars piloted by professional soldiers took great pains to eliminate the infected, but one by one their avatars were becoming infected and adding numbers to the ranks of the enemy.

Some felt that because night was when avatars were rested or parked for regeneration, the infected avatars were also most active at that time. Night and, in the case of many sex trade models, very late at night, an avatar would be parked, tube fed its bio-gel and allowed to rest. The infected avatars were no longer satisfied by bio-gel, they preferred to hunt for their sustenance. Now and then a hapless human being might be mistaken for an avatar and consumed, but those deaths were rare.

It had been the gamers that had banded together with a plan that had turned the tide. Working in groups sponsored at first by local businesses, they had built reinforced shelters they called safe-rooms that often consisted of nothing more than barricaded storefronts or basement rooms strong enough to keep the infected out and provide a resting and rearming place for their avatars. The gamers piloted the avatars they referred to as 'Meat Suits' with a care that bordered on paranoia. They rested their avatars at every safe-room they came across, traveling in short rapid runs from safe point to safe point. Doing so, they were able to perform tasks that kept the cities functioning. Sometimes those duties were as simple as repairs to the cities infrastructures that had to be performed after dark. Other times the duties and missions were of a more dangerous nature. Eventually, the government took over maintaining the safe-rooms and the more experienced gamers were hired on a mission by mission basis.

That was how a group of people, often looked down upon by the rest of humanity, saved the world. This is their story.

Chapter 1

June 3rd, 2023. 487 days post infection.

Four members of an avatar squad that had come together ten years previously while playing together online were making a run. This time, there was no enemy team, and they paid no monthly fee to play together. The members of this group had been tapped by the government via special agreement with Microsoft. The computer and software giant had been keeping records on top tier players and of winning teams for years. In a very uncharacteristic effort, the electronics giant had shared a list of prime candidates with the government in hopes of averting a global catastrophe. Their reasoning for disclosing information that had always been so closely guarded was that if you wanted to fight a zombie horde, you should hire people that did it for fun. They hadn't been wrong.

The great minds at the CDC were privately worried beyond belief that the new virus infecting the avatars might jump the species barrier and begin to infect humans. So far, any human that had been mistaken by the zombies for an avatar had been killed and partially eaten but, thankfully, had not risen to become one of the undead like an avatar body would. Human beings were often carriers though, and because of that, sex between avatars and humans was expressly forbidden. The public outcry from that decision had been unexpectedly intense, but after becoming used to the safety of operating from behind and avatar body, soldiers weren't willing to go toe to toe with flesh eating zombies, and sex workers weren't about to put themselves at risk for a host of reasons.

This night, the squad was tasked to gather another tissue sample for the CDC. An effort to find the oldest strain of the virus was underway. There was always the possibility that patient zero could be located and sampled. The oldest of the infected were easy to spot because of their mutation, but it was those few early infected who were unaffected by mutation that the team was always looking for. The standing order was that any infected sex model avatar should be sampled, if at all possible. The movie star looks of the sex models could throw some players off their game. It was always worth taking down these infected and gathering a sample, though such instances could be dangerous and time consuming. Runs were also taxing on the nervous system of the gamer. You wanted your senses jacked up or amplified to provide you with the best chance of success. Unfortunately, that meant getting jumped by a zombie or a mutant, would be a living hell. Hopefully one of your teammates put a bullet in your head, or you managed to fight your way through the convulsions and log out before you lost consciousness from the pain.

This group had originally come together playing war sim games but had honed their currently used skills by playing a game called Left 4 Dead. Many hours had been spent online bonding over that game and sharpening skills that would become necessary in the real world. LameBrainZombie had obviously been a fan of zombie and horror games before anyone else; his user name reflected the fact. Big Native Marine had been a Marine in real life, so his username could hardly be considered creative. He was a good friend and a solid player though, despite his tendency to log off at inappropriate times. That was when the group had to call in Canis Lupus who was a great player but had a truly warped sense of humor. The other two main members of the squad were Morbid Bunny who was a fan of horror/adventure games but held a strong aversion to being eaten alive, and TheKillerGnome, who drove truck for a living. Avatar pilots weren't allowed to fly or operate heavy machinery because of the risk they would incur to the general public by losing connection with their avatar. That meant Gnome was often out in the world with the undead. He drove when he wasn't jacked in, and that often meant driving during the wee hours of the morning.

What's the plan tonight? LameBrain asked.

The package just came in an hour ago, Morbid replied. I haven't had a chance to go over the whole thing yet, but we have to make our way into the old red light district past the hospital and chase down a sex model that might have been one of the first carriers. Morbid flashed the image of a gorgeous redhead up on the cyber screen of the virtual meeting room. I doubt she looks like that still. Not if she was one of the first carriers, Morbid said with a shiver. Morbid's wife was a sex pilot. Her business had been hit pretty hard by the plague. A quiet and unassuming woman in life, she was a respected sex pilot that specialized in group sex. Her avatar was parked at home currently and was being used for tutoring jobs.

Stop being such a pussy, Marine said with a chuckle. Daddy's here. I won't let you get eaten again.

Fuck you Marine, Morbid complained. That's what you said last time. Then you pointed and laughed while I got shredded. Everyone in the group had been eaten at least once. LameBrainZombie was the luckiest member of the squad. He had only been taken down once, and Morbid had put a bullet in his head almost instantly. A headshot often caused a loss of consciousness for the pilot that could last as long as two hours. In LameBrain's case, it had happened at the end of a long day, and no one had seen or heard from him until the following day. That had been the only time that Canis had been called in to replace LameBrain instead of Marine.

Are they going to let us boot up close-by this time? Gnome asked.

Fuck no, Morbid replied bluntly. There was always the chance of stumbling upon a highly mutated avatar, and samples had to be collected from those bodies at all costs. We have a fifteen block run this time, and that's just to the hospital.

Has the National Guard restocked all the safe-rooms along the route? Marine asked. Having been in the forces, Marine had a good mind for logistical details that were sometimes overlooked by the other players. He was also the best shot in the group.

There was no intel on that in the package so I suggest not letting your avatar get eaten, Morbid replied. Or were you thinking of leaving early again?

I'm good until midnight, Marine replied. My boy has a game tomorrow, so no late log time. Sorry.

I'll message Canis and Morning Totem and see if one of them can come online if we run late then, Morbid said with the grumble that usually came out whenever Marine insisted on his beauty sleep. Is everyone else good if this goes late?

I'm good until three or four, Gnome replied.

I'm here all night if you need me, LameBrain chimed in.

Okay, Morbid said with relief. It was seven PM now. That gave them five hours to complete the mission and hopefully collect something the CDC could use before Big Native Marine had to sign off. We've been through part of this route before, so we know the territory. Marine is lead, we move when he moves, and we stay together just like always. Gnome, you bring up the rear. I like having you at my back.

You got it, Gnome said cheerfully. TheKillerGnome was easily the most dependable member of the squad. Morbid Bunny was great for planning and tactics, but his temper got away from him on a regular basis. Gnome or LameBrain could usually calm him down, but Marine could just as easily make him worse. It wasn't a well-kept secret that Big Native Marine enjoyed taunting Morbid Bunny until he snapped at times. Despite their idiosyncrasies, this was one of the best squads on record. They tended to treat their missions as an extension of their gaming, but there was no arguing with their results. They had successfully escorted scientists to location after location, eliminated many of the larger and more dangerous avatar mutations, run rescue missions for custom avatars or stranded civilians caught out after dark, and collected more samples from the infected than any other squad. The claim to fame for squad 'Festering Pustule' was that they had been the squad to successfully barricade and retake the hospital that would be one of the stops along their route tonight. That building was now staffed almost exclusively by the CDC's leading people.

Okay, Morbid said again as he checked his private screen. I just heard back from Canis and Morning Totem. They're clearing an area for a Med-Evac pick up, and one or both of them will be available for midnight if the run goes overtime. I say we load in at the starting point and get this show on the road.

Do you need a hug first or anything? Marine asked.

Fuck you Marine, Morbid grumbled. LameBrainZombie cackled away as usual at Marine's antics, and Gnome tried to smother his snicker as Morbid flipped the ready switch on the virtual loading screen. The physical senses of each member of the group suddenly fused with the bodies of four avatars in a safe-room at the starting point of their run.

Oh my god Marine, you got a sex worker model! Gnome commented happily. In an effort