Nathan, a journalist, stumbles upon a web site for incredibly realistic female body suits while researching fetish wear. Convinced that they are fake, he goes along to a product launch to find out.
This story is intended to be the pilot to a series. It was mostly written before the movie Avatar came out, and has no connection to the movie.
Avatar Me!
by Alice Jane
Internet journalism was the perfect job for Nat. He had built up several different online blogs, each with their own area of interest and all with enough followers that the advertising space on the pages paid enough to live on. Okay, he was single and he lived in a flat on his own, but he could pay the rent and he owned his battered old car outright. A few of his columns were tragically simple, consisting of a computer program that pulled media releases from selected companies, filtered them for specific types of products, reformatted the articles to fit the required layout and dropped them into a blog. That worked for some subjects, and generated reasonable amounts of traffic, but for some of the better paying blogs, he needed to really work at finding new subjects to write about to keep the readers interested and coming back. His blog on subcultures in modern society was the biggest headache he had now. He'd covered all sorts of people from small close knit farming towns to goths to people who would travel across the country to take photographs of trains. That's what had led him to start a series of articles on fetishes and fetish wear.
Nat had never heard of Avatar Me! until he came across their site while googling for female masks and skin suits. He'd heard of some sites that were completely fake, and used photos of real women instead of their products. He was certain that this site was fake. The photos were just too good.
The company was Australian, and appeared to be somewhere near Sydney, within a few hours drive from his flat. To top it off, the site mentioned that they were going to have a media launch of their new "Avatar Me! v1.2". Debunking this site would be a great piece for the current series of articles. He clicked the "enquiries" link and sent a message with his contact details and a link to the articles published so far in the series.
An hour later, he received an email back. His series on fetishes "wasn't what the product was designed for, but it could certainly be used for those purposes." He'd be welcome to come along to the presentation.
The email explained that there would be a media launch for a small selected group, and that photographs and a promotional video made using footage from cameras throughout the complex would be provided. Guests would not be permitted to photograph or record during the presentation for security reasons. The launch would be preceded by a tour of the history of their products leading up to v2.0, and was to start at 1pm the following Friday. It was expected to run until around 5pm, after which they'd be invited out for the evening. If he signed a confidentiality agreement and a release allowing him to being filmed during his visit, he would be contacted shortly with the details of the venue. The confidentiality agreement and release form were attached to the email.
The confidentiality agreement indicated that some things that he might see at the presentation were commercially sensitive, and that he agreed to only release the information that was listed on a release approval form, after the embargo date specified on the form. Now his interest was really piqued. "I've got to be there!" He completed and returned the forms.
He laughed and mumbled to himself, "they can't even work out what version they're releasing! 1.2 on the web site, 2.0 in the email. In spite of that, they seem confident in their product! This looks like it'll be fun."
Two days later, he received an envelope in the mail. It contained a card, printed with a corporate letterhead, confirming the date and time and giving an address about an hour's drive from his flat. Included with the letter was a plastic covered visitor pass attached to a lanyard, which the letter said was required for security reasons, including entering the building.
---
The following Friday, he drove to the address on the card, arriving 20 minutes early. He found a neat, modern two storey building nestled tightly between taller buildings, set back to provide visitor parking at the front. The facade was of light sandstone, with ornate Japanese style pebble gardens either side of the stairs leading to the door. The place looked like someone had really made an effort. He slung the visitor pass around his neck and walked up the stairs to the doors. A sign on the doors directed him to scan the pass alongside the right hand door. A light on the scanner changed from red to green and the doors slid open.
There was a reception desk in line with the front doors, with the Avatar Me! logo set into the wall behind it. The place had a nice feel to it, and he noticed that there was music playing softly in the background.
As Nat approached the reception desk, he saw two attractive young women behind the desk, wearing matching dark green short sleeved wrap dresses and AM! logo earrings. Name badges were pinned on their left lapels, with a photo ID hanging in a pocket underneath. One was Kylie, the other was Anisha, who smiled at him and said "Hi, I'm Anisha. Please take a seat while we wait for the others to arrive. Feel free to indulge in the nibblies and drinks."
Nat was taken with the sound of her voice. It sounded as beautiful as she looked. Anisha was slim, in her early 20s with an ivory complexion and slightly wavy shoulder length brown hair. The hem of the dress came to just above her knees. She was wearing black pantihose and a pair of 2" heeled black court shoes. Her name was printed on a badge pinned neatly to her dress. He realised that he was staring at her, and turned away slightly embarrassed.
By 1pm, three other visitors had arrived, all men. They chatted briefly, and it turned out that they were all single and were all unemployed aspiring journalists looking for a story that would give them their big break. All four of them had abandoned other "desk job" careers out of boredom. A few minutes after the last one arrived, Anisha came out from behind the desk and told them "I'm going to start you on a tour to show the history of our product development. You will change guides as you progress through the tour. For security reasons, we ask that you stay together as a group and move between exhibit rooms with your guide. Each exhibit room has a toilet off to one side. At the end of the exhibits, you'll move through to the auditorium for the unveiling. I'm sure you'll enjoy your afternoon!"
---
Anisha led them from one end of the reception area along a short, curved corridor into the first exhibit room, holding a curtain aside as they entered. She stopped at the centre of the room.
"This is the first of our pre-Avatar-Me! displays. These are some of the products that inspired our first protoypes. Before "Avatar Me", there were various products available for crossdressers, including fabric covered foam padding for the hips and buttocks, elastic body shapers and breast forms popular with those who wanted to present a realistic public image, through to corsets, latex and silicon masks and moulded body parts appealing to the fetish market."
As he entered the room, Nat saw that the items were arranged on clear mannequin body parts, displayed so that you can see the garments inside and out.
The group spent several minutes looking at the objects, while inundating Anisha with questions.
By the time they had finished looking at the display, another woman was standing at the doorway at the other end of the room. She was dressed in the same uniform, but had a long mane of very wavy blonde hair, a deep tan and had a noticeably more athletic build that suggested that she was an avid surfer. She looked about 18 and Nat noticed that she had a small tattoo of a butterfly on her left breast. She said "Hi, I'm Bree. We'll now move on to some of the technology that others before Avatar Me! hadn't thought to use in making this type of product."
As they walked out of the room, down a very short corridor and into the next room, Nat noticed that the corridors were curved and the doorways offset, so they were following a curve. He wondered how many rooms there were and whether they would come full circle.
"In here, we have some of the existing technologies that we applied to make the version 1.0 series Avatar Me! products. These include materials used in the garments, including professional 'amputee prosthesis' grade silicon skin, adhesive gel backings as used on reusable gel bras and breast forms, as well as manufacturing technologies such as 3D wax deposit printing for making moulds directly from computer models and adaptations of existing robotic technology for hair insertion and pore punching. The Avatar Me! version 1.0 series were a combination of perfectly fitted, ultra-realistic, breathable skin with realistic hair, which adhered to the body and to itself so that edges vanished even on transitions between real skin and the prosthetic. This display shows that it was achieved using technology that existed by 2004, literally years before our company began."
As before, the men spent several minutes looking at the various exhibits and inundating their guide with questions.
This pattern continued, with a different woman collecting them from one room, guiding them to the next and answering their questions. They ranged in age from late teens to one he thought was probably in her early 50s. One was noticeably pregnant and another had disproportionately large artificial looking breasts. A couple had tattoos in various places, but the only variation in uniform seemed to be the their shoes. He thought it odd that every name seemed to be the next letter of the alphabet after the one before.
They worked their way through v0.9 prototypes, then on to the production v1.0 garments, which used a 2-layer approach of a zip-fronted pull-on shape garment that had shoulder straps, breasts, an elastic waist cincher, hip, buttock and thigh padding and pockets to hide male genitals, covered by a set of thin separate skin pieces that overlapped to achieve an incredibly realistic appearance.
The result looked great but it was complicated to apply and remove, as the adhesive used needed to be saturated with water containing skin cleanser to make it release and rinsed with clean water to flush away the cleanser to make it stick. To apply, the pieces needed to be soaked in water and cleanser, the undergarment put on and rinsed under a shower, the arms and legs put on and rinsed, the torso put on and rinsed and finally the head put on and rinsed. The wearer ended up stepping out of a shower soaking wet, hair and all. Removal was similarly complicated, requiring the pieces to be soaked off in the opposite order, usually by lying in a bath.
Version 1.2 garments were much like the v1.0 series, but used slightly different materials, and somehow managed to look even more natural and realistic.
Nat was experiencing information overload. He had been looking at web sites just last week where the products shown on the very first display were still the current products. Ill fitting masks, stretch silicon suits that had a massive edge around the neck and all without the realistic finish of these products.
Then the displays finished with the v1.2 series and moved onto technology that went into v2.0.
---
Nat was utterly lost.
An electricity generator powered from the heat of a person's body? A computer made from conductive plastics so that it wouldn't trigger metal detectors or show up in an x-ray? Flexible, mouldable liquid crystal? A process that could disassemble and reassemble human hair including altering the pigmentation, thickness and texture? A process that could disassemble and reassemble nails to different lengths? Variable colour and focus contact lenses?
A flexible inflatable material that could be inflated by different amounts in different places, and which could have water distributed into it to give it weight and movement? A corset material that can expand and contract under computer control? Variable texture artificial skin surface?
A bi-directional direct brain interface? Software to adjust mannerisms, body language and vocal characteristics without requiring conscious change? Nerve networks in artificial skin?
The genital simulation display really surprised him. Something that fits both males and females, can hide male genitals, creating an artificial vagina so realistic that it could fool a gynecologist, but can also disappear when the male organs are let down for male appearance, and when worn by a female, can create fully functional artificial male genitals that can disappear to reveal the wearer's female genitals covered in the artificial skin.
This stuff had to be science fiction, but they had working models! He even tried on the cap for the direct brain interface and saw a heads-up display in his mind that was still there when he closed his eyes. He was sure that it was a trick, but couldn't see how it was done. He was able to use his mind to play with an avatar creator on the computer. The only limitation was that the avatar had to "fit him". He created an avatar of his "ideal woman", including dressing her "to go out and party" from wardrobe selections that the computer suggested. When he finished, he could see her rotating on the display in his mind. The guide at that display, Hanna, encouraged them all to try it. All of the men had a go at creating their avatars, and they had a laugh as all of their avatars were shown animated on a computer screen, waving, smiling and dancing around in a circle.
---
At the end of the tour, Ivy guided then into the auditorium, which was dominated by a large projection screen. Once they were seated, the presentation of 'Avatar Me! v2.0' began by introducing the various research components that they'd just seen, one by one. As each component was introduced, it morphed from the shape of the prototype device that they'd seen earlier into the form that it took in the finished suit, changed to a bright colour and moved across to join an assembled view that was slowly revolving in 3 dimensions. As the components were added, the suit became more and more solid and complicated.
The final object added was the skin colour and texture variation, which grew from a small rectangular research plate that slowly varied in skin tone (including gaining and losing freckles and broken capilleries) and changed from wrinkly to smooth, transformed into a slowly rotating ball with colour and texture moving around on its face. As it spun, a nipple and areola rolled across, then a tattoo of a butterfly. It slowly moved across the screen to the suit. As the ball touched the suit, it poured out sideways, enveloping it and leaving a smooth, white, naked shape that was so smooth that it looked like a coat of paint was applied to a mostly featureless mannequin, slit down the back from the top of the head down to the buttocks and peeled off. The skin had ears and a fairly generic shape of a human face, complete with holes for the eyes, nose and mouth. The mouth showed curves in the shape of lips with something like teeth in the mouth. The back slit was open, and the lining was visible.
The body rotated so that the audience were seeing the back then stopped. The image rippled several times as the projection screen moved sideways to reveal a real body standing in the same place, on a turntable, with skin visible in the slit. The arms reached around to the back. One index finger touched the top of the slit on the head while the other touched the bottom of the slit. A computer display simulating the heads-up display they'd seen earlier appeared on the other side of the screen.
Avatar Me v 2.0.9 (c) Avatar Me 2011
Closing enabled.
The fingers slowly traced their way along the slit, and the slit joined and vanished behind them. As the fingers met between the shoulder blades, the slit vanished. The suit shivered slightly then shrank onto the person inside as the turntable again began to rotate slowly.
Suit closed
Scanning body - Done
Internal clean - Done
Attachment - Done
Hair recovery - Started
Water acquisition - Started
Inserting optic lenses - Done
Nerve link - Done
The wearer selected a menu option
Demonstration mode
Then another menu was selected
Description of avatar
Gender - Female
Age - 21
Race - Celtic/Irish
Build - medium
BMI - 23.5
Hair - Auburn, collar, light wave, fringe
Skin - fair, light freckles
Eyes - Hazel/Green
Installing avatar
The body began to transform. As it rotated to face them, a bulge of male genitals came into view before disappearing up into the body.
Testicles up - Done
Penis up - Done
The body changed shape. Over a few seconds, the waist shrank, the hips and buttocks expanded noticeably, then the breasts expanded to size.
Setting coarse shape
Waist cinching enabled - Done
Hips/buttocks - Done
Bust - Done
Fine details began to change. Starting at the toes, the shape transformed from vague smoothness to the shape of a real person. At the neck, the upward progress paused as the arms and hands took shape, then the shape of the face transformed to the shape of an attractive young woman.
Setting fine shape
Feet/Legs - Done
Genitals - Done
Torso - Done
Hands/Arms - Done
Head - Done
Hair began to appear. A patch of fine, pale auburn, almost blonde hair appeared on the crotch. The whole body, arms and legs gained a subtle blonde shimmer of short, sparse, almost invisible hair. Long, dark auburn eyelashes and paler perfectly arched brows formed. Bright auburn hair began to sprout from the head, extending within a few seconds to collar length.
Hair
Body - Done
Face - Done
Head - Done
The skin began to change from its initial white, again starting at the toes, where the nails took on a golden shimmer. The skin coloured, complete with freckles, and swept up the legs, up the body, paused as the areolas and nipples took on a soft peachy pink colour, then continued up to the neck, down the arms to the hands, where the nails took the same golden shimmer as the toenails. The colour then proceeded up the neck and face. Finally, the eyes took their colour.
Skin and nail colours - Done
Eye colour - Done
Vocal settings - Done
Mannerism settings - Done
Ready
The turntable finished a complete revolution as the model stood still.
She smiled, looked down and blushed slightly. With a light Irish lilt, she said "Could I have some clothes please?"
Ivy rolled a small trolley across the stage from behind the remaining section of the screen. On the trolley, there was a complete set of clothing including underwear, a short orange satin dress on a hanger on a post at one end, matching 4" stiletto heeled shoes, a handbag and jewelry. The other end of the trolley was a padded seat.
"Most guys prefer to watch women taking off clothes than putting them on," the naked woman quipped as she put a g-string on. She then slipped her arms into a bra and leaned forwards to settle her breasts into the cups as she did up the hooks. She sat on the seat and pulled on her sheer skintone pantihose. Next came the dress, which she slipped over her head and zipped up.
Finally, she sat back down, hooked her earrings into her ears, popped the necklace and a couple of bracelets on and slipped on her shoes.
As she sad "one final thing", the computer screen showed
Makeup - [subtle] [day] [evening] [party] [custom]
The party button was pressed and she was instantly wearing slightly overdone makeup, perfectly matched to her outfit and just right for a party.
---
Crossing her legs seductively and smiling, she said "Hi, I'm Jane. Are you guys ready to put on your Avatars and go out for dinner?"
The stunned silence lasted for about 10 seconds. Nat and the other men were looking at each other, at Jane and at Ivy.
Ivy smiled widely. "We're not going to force you to put on an Avatar Me! v2.0, or to go out for dinner with us while wearing it, but we are offering you the opportunity, and now that you've seen what it can do, we hope that you'll take it."
"If you try on your avatar, including the clothes that you selected to go with it, and don't believe that you are as convincingly female as all of your guides have been today, you will have the option of taking it off and going as yourself, but we were hoping for a girls night out," added Jane with a smirk.
Nat, picking up on the comment about the guides, asked "Do you mean that all of the women we've seen today were wearing these Avatars?"
Ivy smiled, nodded and added "and not one real female."
Until that point, Nat had never even considered crossdressing himself, but he was so intrigued at the transformation that he'd seen, he said "I'll try it on but I won't commit to going out until I see how it looks." The others all agreed.
Jane said "I hope that you guys are okay with changing together. It'll be much easier if we help you to put the Avatars on. We'll give each of you a dressing gown. You can take your shirt off, pop the gown on, take off your pants and underwear and put the bottom half of the suit on. Once you have it on up to the waist, you can pop off the dressing gown and we can help you get the arms and head on. The top half is a little tricky on your own the first time."
"Oh, and don't worry about hygiene. The suits are not only completely self-sterilising, but will sanitise the wearer as well."
The men all agreed to this arrangement. The projector screen went blank and rolled completely aside, revealing five more little trolleys like the one that had carried Jane's clothes. Ivy and Jane spread four of them out across the middle of the room. The men could tell which was whose by the dresses hanging on the ends. On each trolley, there was a dressing gown, an Avatar Me v2.0 and a set of clothes. Ivy pointed out that the seat end folded open, providing somewhere for them to put their male clothes and belongings.
Nat took off his shoes and socks and put them in the trolley. He then took off his shirt, put on the dressing gown and stripped from the waist down, as suggested. Ivy showed him how to gather up the legs of the suit and helped him get it on up to his knees. She had him stand and told him how to work the suit up to his groin. She said "If you aren't circumcised, you'll need to pull your foreskin back, push the end of the cover up to push the internal cup over the head, then pull the foreskin back down over the cup. If you're circumcised, simply push the end of the cover up and push the internal cup over the head. Make sure that the testicles and penis hang correctly into their separate pockets as you pull the suit up firmly into the creases on either side of your crotch."
Once he had the suit in place up to his waist, he took the dressing gown off and Ivy told him to gather up the arms like he'd done for the legs, put both hands in and stretch his arms out sideways to pull them into place. She then helped him to put the mouthguard-like cover over his teeth, align his nose and eyes, then fit the ears of the suit onto his ears. Finally, she said "You're ready. Put your index fingers on the ends of the seam as you saw Jane do earlier. Once the display shows 'closing enabled', run your fingers together to close and activate."
As he touched his fingers into place, the display turned on in his head, just like it had with the cap when he created his avatar. When the slit closed, he felt a lot of odd things including what felt like a half second full body sponge bath followed by a half second all over blow dry. The suit then seemed to suck itself onto his skin and glue itself there. Every hair on his body prickled for an instant then something crept into his eyes.
The status messages were the same as when Jane put her suit on until it got to where Jane had selected demonstration mode. His suit simply said
Express mode
Installing avatar
Done
She could feel the air moving around on her naked skin, she could sense the shape of her body, her hair brushed on her shoulders and she felt a little pressure on her bladder but knew that that could wait until she was dressed. "Wow. I'm female. I don't just look female, I'm even thinking of myself as female!" she exclaimed in a voice that matched her body perfectly. Without really thinking about it, she put her g-string and bra on the same way as Jane had, then sat to put her pantyhose on. She was fully dressed by the time that she realised that everything just came naturally. She'd put on her engagement ring on, and was admiring the solitaire diamond when she realised what the ring meant. "Hey, what?" she began, holding up her hand. Ivy laughed and said "We'll be six girls going out together. A hen's night is the ideal excuse. Someone has to be the bride-to-be. If you don't want to be it, I'm sure someone else will. Do you want to be it, Natalia?
The name just seemed to come naturally. He had been Nathan, shortened to Nat. She was Nat, short for Natalia.
She smiled and said "Sure. I'll be it," then headed to the toilet. The programming was quite amazing. She used the toilet, then went to check her hair and makeup in the mirror as she washed her hands. She realised that she wasn't wearing any makeup and used the menu to install her party makeup. Everything happened as if that's who she had always been. After washing her hands, the heads-up display briefly popped up a message about "Water 100%". She realised that her breasts and bottom felt heavier than they had a few minutes earlier. Now, she felt right.
By the time Natalia returned from the toilet, Ivy had changed into her party dress and all the others were wearing their avatars, dressed and wearing tacky hen's night accessories. They had been named Lee-anne, Matilda and Olivia. Natalia donned a "bride to be" badge and a veil while the other new girls took turns to go to the toilet, then they headed out for dinner.
Jane led them down a short corridor through the reception area and out the front door. They piled into a waiting "maxi-taxi" and headed off to a restaurant.
---
They had a great time. They all forgot that they were actually males under their avatars and just enjoyed the whole experience. The restaurant had a middle eastern theme complete with belly dancer. As the bride-to-be, Natalia was invited up to dance with the dancer. She didn't think that she knew anything about belly dancing, but she was able to shimmy just like the dancer was doing. She marvelled at how flexible the dancer was and wondered how hard it would be to get to be like that. She also wondered where she could get a costume like that. It was to die for!
After the restaurant, they walked along the road to a nightclub, where they danced for a couple of hours. She was propositioned by several men, using lines like "While you're still free" and "I'm better then him. I'll change your mind. You'll want to marry me instead."
Eventually, the whole group decided that they were ready to head back. Surprisingly, even though she hadn't been taking any notice of her alcohol intake, Natalia realised that she was nowhere as drunk as she should have been after partying this hard. She commented about this to Ivy, who confirmed that they had a "sensible drinking" rule in the programmed behaviour rules so that the guests would be able to drive home after the night out without being drunk.
Jane had rung the taxi company and the maxi-taxi arrived as they stepped out the door of the nightclub. They piled in and returned to Avatar Me! The clock in the taxi was showing 11:30pm when they got out.
---
Jane walked up to the security scanner on the door and opened it by simply waving her hand across the sensor, then held her hand there until the group had all entered. They returned to the auditorium and began stripping out of their clothes. Natalia suddenly realised that she'd spent over 6 hours wearing 4" stilettos and her feet felt fine.
Stripping out of the clothes was a bit of an anti-climax, but removing the avatar was something that Natalia just didn't want to do. She knew that she really didn't have a choice, though.
Shutdown was fairly simple. Stand near something that could catch the water that had been distributed into the suit while it was inflated, place the index fingers at the top and bottom of where the slit had been and hold them there for 5 seconds to bring up a shutdown menu on the heads-up display. Select [shutdown], move your hands to where you were going to drop the water and select [ok]. All the hair retracted into the skin, the suit unstuck and did another clean cycle then paused for several seconds to rebuild you own hair before opening the slit.
Nat felt odd being able to again feel the suit as something outside his body. It came off easily in the reverse order of how it went on. Once off, it did a couple of seconds of self-cleaning then went limp as it powered down. Just as the programming had made it all feel natural while it was on, it disappeared when the suit shut down, and he was back to being an ordinary male. He dressed in his own clothes and sadly prepared to leave.
When the 4 men were ready to leave, Jane handed each of them a promotional DVD covering part of the day, and told them that they would receive more material within a few days.
By the time Nat got into his car, it was midnight. He drove home, and went straight to bed, where he dreamt about being Natalia.
---
The following day started late. He just couldn't get the previous day out of his head, and decided to go back to Avatar Me! and see if they'd sell him the suit he'd worn. It was Saturday, but he'd just have to gamble on them being there.
After again driving the hour to Avatar Me!, he arrived to find that they weren't there. Not that the place was closed but that the entire building was gone!
There was a fairly busy carpark between two tall buildings. The first few spaces at the front looked exactly how the carpark in front of the Avatar Me! building had, but there was no building. Not only that, but the other end of the carpark opened onto another street. The block was too small for the building that they had been in last night.
He knew he hadn't dreamt it, but the building wasn't there and didn't look as it it ever had been.
He asked a factory worker who was getting into his car in the carpark if he had been there the previous day, and was told "No, yesterday was the company picnic day."
He walked along the carpark from end to end a few times and couldn't find the slightest hint that there had been a building there. It was a plain concrete carpark, and the concrete was not recent.
He drove to the restaraunt and asked if anybody had seen the group there the night before. The waiter remembered the group and said that they were the hottest chicks he'd ever seen in the place. Did he know who made the booking? One of the women had, by email. The waiter gave him the email address that was used for the booking. It was the same email address as he already had for them.
There didn't seem to be any point in going to the nightclub. Nobody there really knew the group.
---
Dejected and very confused, he drove home to find that he had an email from Avatar Me!, with a link to an account-only encrypted web site. The email told him to use the username and password on his visitor pass to enter the site.
He logged into the site.
First, the bad news. Under the confidentiality agreement, you will be able to report on the products up to v1.2, but not v2.0.
Click here to download the release form for the v1.2 products.
He downloaded the release form and read it. It clearly defined that everything in the displays up to and including the v1.2 garments could be released, with the embargo date being the following Friday. That would give him time to put the article together, and the v1.2 stuff was still far ahead of anything else on the market.
Note that the presentation that you saw is not the same as other groups saw.
"I guess that makes sense. The web site did say that they were releasing version 1.2. I don't know why they showed us version 2.0, if we aren't going to be allowed to write about it, though."
You have already signed a confidentiality agreement that prevents you from publishing anything about the v2.0 products. As you are already aware, you have a government security clearance.
"How do they know that?"
If you agree to join the field testing team, you will be employed by a contractor to the federal government, and will be subject to all of the corresponding secrecy laws.
"Government? What?"
Field testing may require the use of products for extended periods, including occasionally requiring testing of new software or hardware in unusual circumstances. While the products are not considered dangerous and you will not generally be placed in dangerous situations as part of the field trials, it is impossible to guarantee safety.
Do you wish to join the field testing team for Avatar Me! products? [Yes] [No]
Nat sat back in his chair with his mouth hanging open. He was in shock. He was being recruited by a secret government organisation that had put on a convincing demonstration, from a building that vanished overnight. He could be Natalia again, and get paid for it?
He obviously had to click yes!
A courier will come to you shortly. You will need sign the forms brought by the courier, which they will witness.
Your main identity for long-term testing, Natalia, will have a complete background including her own car, flat, clothing and identity documents. The documents will all be legitimate and officially issued. It will take approximately 24 hours for all of the arrangements to be put in place.
In the meantime, you might enjoy watching a few of the videos that explain our company's relationship to the government, functionality that is built into the product, and why you found a carpark where our building was yesterday.
Three video titles and previews came up on screen. He decided that he really wanted to know about the disappearing building first, so he clicked on it.
---
The video was taken from a camera mounted about 3 storeys up, directly across the road from the carpark. It was a kind of time-lapse that changed speed as it went, with a little graphic in one corner showing how many times real time it was moving and a clock showing the time. It started at midnight Thursday, as the night shift workers drove out of the carpark. At 6am, two semi trailers drove in and stopped side by side, paused then drove forwards again, except that when they drove forwards this time, the backs of the trailers stayed still while the fronts went forward, stretching them in the middle. The trailers both lowered stabiliser legs like cranes have, then moved around a little on the legs. Once they were in place, they began unfolding. First, the roofs rose upwards to about double their original height, then folded out like umbrella frames, dragging two large canopies out. The material joined along the middle to form one large roof, which filled the space between the buildings on each side. The sides swung out to form a floor that extended all the way across between the other buildings. The front steps and gardens came out of the trailers, closely followed by the facade. The clock showed 6:20 and the building looked just how it had when he'd arrived.
The picture changed to a different camera. This one was inside the building, right up in one front corner. It looked like a construction site. It had carpet on some parts of the floor, but grooves and holes in other places. Two sets of tall upright cylinders moved into the ceiling above two larger diameter cylinders, which appeared to be mounted one on each trailer. Sections of metal tracking spread out as if to support a ceiling. Two bald men in overalls and joggers were pushing furniture around on wheels. They rolled the reception desk into place and stepped on something under it that seemed to retract the wheels and set it in place. The table and chairs that they'd had drinks and nibblies were wheeled in on a trolley and lifted into place. A set of wall panels were wheeled up into place behind the reception desk to form that wall. More wall panels were rolled into place. On one side, there was a short corridor from the reception area towards the back of the building that he realised was the one between the auditorium and the reception area. The next pieces were more confusing. Two sections of curved wall were wheeled into place to form a curved corridor between the large cylinders. Another few sections were rolled into place to form the corridor that they had used to move from the reception area to the first display. Some sort of material ceiling lining rolled out from near the front wall, covering the reception area and the corridors to the middle of the large cylinders. The clock showed 7:00.
The view changed to another camera mounted at the other end of the building. Another pair of curved wall sections were rolled into place to form another corridor between the large cylinders. A large cabinet was rolled into a space that ended up being alongside the screen end of the auditorium. A toilet cubicle was rolled into place at the side of the auditorium. More panels were placed to form the corridors in and out of the auditorium and the wall on that side of the room. The screen frame and chairs were being placed in the auditorium as another ceiling rolled into place over the rest of the scene. The clock had advanced to 7:20.
Nat was amazed. There had appeared to be nine display rooms, but they were actually only two. The cylinders in the roof contained the displays, which were swapped in and out of the rooms and the rooms rotated, so they transferred back and forth in those curved corridors, giving the impression of a much larger building.
The display changed again. This time, it was a camera in one corner of the auditorium. Once they'd put the chairs in place, the two bald men unfolded a pair of camp stretchers, threw a quilt over each, rolled two clothes trolleys out of the store room, discarded their overalls and shoes into the spaces under the seats, put on nightshirts and went to bed. A uniform dress hung on the clothes hanger on the end of each trolley. As they got into bed, the lights went down as if by remote control. The video sped up, showing several hours in a few seconds. The speed went back to normal as the clock showed noon. Both men woke, and transformed into Anisha and Kylie, the two women who had been in reception when they arrived. They casually dressed in their uniforms, folded their stretchers and stuffed their quilts into bags, put them on the trolleys and wheeled them into the store room. Anisha then drew the screen into place and walked into the corridor leading to the displays, while Kylie stayed in the store room.
The display split in half. The left side followed Anisha while the right side followed Kylie. Anisha went into the first display, and a status overlay came up, saying "Room 1. Rotation started, reverse to room 2. Display A in place." Kylie packed away the overalls, underwear and work shoes, re-loaded the two trolleys with Ivy and Jane's party clothes and rolled them out behind the screen. "Room 1 rotation complete." As Anisha moved from room 1 to room 2 to check that everything was working properly, Kylie pulled the other four trolleys out of the cabiet and placed them in a row. "Room 2. Rotation started, reverse to room 1. Display B in place." Anisha went into the toilet while the camera stayed on room 2. Kylie put the Avater Me! suits and dressing gowns on the trolleys. "Room 2 rotation complete." Anisha walked along the corridor to room 1. "Room 1. Rotation started, reverse to entrance." Kylie opened a door onto the corridor between reception and room 1, took their lunches, the nibblies and drinks from a portable fridge in the large cabinet and carried them out to reception. "Room 1 rotation complete." Anisha walked out to reception, sat and started eating lunch while Kylie went to the toilet in room 1, closing the door to the store room on the way past.
The screen changed from split vertically to split horizontally, with the top showing the camera in the corner of the reception area and the bottom showing the street outside from high on one side of the facade. The video sped up a little, showing his arrival followed by the other 3 journalists, and their movement to the first display. As soon as they entered room 1, the top of the screen split into two, with one showing room 1, the other following Kylie from reception through a door, through a hidden area into the exit door of room 2, where she morphed into Bree and swapped shoes for a pair taken from a hidden space under the display. The bottom half of the screen showed a view of the 2 rooms and the display changers, showing the room that they were in slowly rotating so that the exit door aligned with the corridor leading to room 2. The status overlay messages came and went. The video sped up again. The group moved to room 2, display A rose up into the ceiling, Anisha adjusted her dress and changed her shoes as she morphed into the noticably pregnant Cate, room 1 rotated, display C moved into place and Cate collected them. It wasn't obvious, but there were curved sliding doors hidden by the curtains at both ends of both rooms, and when the group were in a room, the doors were closed until the corridor was ready for them. The video sped up further, showing the group in one room while the other room and woman changed. Kylie became Bree, Diane, Fiona then Hanna, while Anisha became Cate, Ellen, Grace and finally Ivy. Some changes included a change of dress size as well as shoes. Nat realised that the shoes varied in heel height, making the women appear different heights.
While Ivy was showing them the final display, Hanna had gone out through reception to the store room, done something to each suit, loaded the selected clothes for the avatars onto the trolleys then rolled those four trolleys out behind the screen, stripped naked in the store room, dropped water into a hole in the side of the storage cabinet and morphed to the power down hairless white look of the Avatar Me!, put on a dressing gown and sat on her clothes trolley. As the group left room 1, the view from above shrank off the bottom of the screen, leaving the group watching the presentation on one side and the former Hanna on the right. As the time approached, she stashed the dressing gown under the seat of her trolley, walked across to the turntable position and opened the back seam. The video went to high speed as they skimmed through the process of changing, dressing, going out, coming back, changing back to males and leaving. It stayed in high speed as Ivy and Jane transformed back into the two bald men, took an hour nap, put their overalls back on and packed the whole building back up in the reverse order of how they'd put it up. The trucks drove out the other end of the block at 2:30am.
---
Nat was in awe at the capabilities of the Avatar Me! suits. He'd just watched 2 people successfully appear to be thirteen (including the men who set up and packed up) over the space of a few hours. If he hadn't seen the video, he would never have believed it. No wonder there was government involvement. What a spy could do with one of these!
The doorbell rang before he started another video. "Good timing", he thought. The courier was a spotty faced young man. "Hi, I've got some forms you've got to sign and I've got to witness." He also carried a small parcel.
Nat asked "is the parcel for me?", to which the youth replied "There's a woman moving into the flat next door. I've got to deliver this to her after you've signed your forms."
"Oh right."
He read quickly through the forms. It all looked fairly consistent with government and corporate secrecy agreements, in triplicate, with each copy having to be signed separately. The youth watched him sign all of the pages, then witnessed all of them, pulled the 3rd copy off and handed it to him.
Nat watched as the young man went to talk to two men who were just starting to move furniture into the place next door. One of the men nodded, signed for it and took it into the flat then came out and went back to moving furniture in. So far, he'd only seen the removalists. He wondered how this new neighbour would complicate his new job. With that, he closed his door, returned to his computer and selected the video on "Government involvement"
---
The video started with Ivy smiling at the camera. "Hi. This is a brief overview of government use of our products to date and plans for the future."
A sequence of fitting sessions showing people being fitted with v1.0 garments followed. Ivy explained that some of the disguises were designed to allow an agent to impersonate another person, while others were simply used to change an agent's appearance. Some of the disguises involved the full padded gender change outfit, while others were parts, such as a head and pair of arms that changed a man from looking like an office worker to a very different looking man with quite distinct short sleeved tan lines. There was even a short haired young woman who put on a lightly padded version of the undergarment and full set of outer skin pieces to become a slightly plump middle aged woman.
Ivy explained that each disguise was made for a specific person, for a specific job. Often, parts of a disguise could be re-used by the same person for another job, but the most complex and expensive parts, the heads, were rarely re-used because of the risk of recognition. She continued, explaining that the fitted moulded nature of the v1.0 and v1.2 garments meant that changes in body weight could be compensated for in the pull-on undergarment, but changes in weight could cause arm, leg and face fitting problems.
"Several government agencies, including military and non-military, want to use the version 2.0 suits. A couple of suits have been used successfully in low risk exercises but there are inevitably questions about the ability of the suits to withstand high-stress situations and long-term continuous usage, and that's why independant field trial contractors are required."
Originally a part-time one-man business run from a converted garage, the company grew fairly quickly to full time for 2 people. When a pair of v1.0 avatars were used in a bank robbery, the police took an active interest in the company, initially threatening charges of collusion for creating the disguises used in the robbery. Because the company provided all of the evidence needed to expose the criminals and get them imprisoned, the police instead insisted that every person that was going to have a garment made would require a criminal check and that a database of avatars containing photos and details of each owner be made available to them. This was workable but became very complicated, very quickly. After a wanted criminal was arrested following the criminal check carried out using his full body scan, it became impossible to continue to operate from their original location. As the company was already doing an increasing amount of government work, they relocated into a civilian contractor area of a military base, while setting up a full body scanner and shopfront in a van for private customers.
The portable building came about to replace the van with a more professional look for selling the Avatar Me! v1.0. The original layout, which is also used for v1.2 presentations, has the displays up to v1.2 in an open layout instead of the rotating rooms. It had been used that way over 40 times. When they needed to present v2.0 to high ranking security personnel at various locations around the country, they wanted to outdo the 'spooks' so they designed the v2.0 layout to present 'as much of an illusion as our products'. The presentation that Nat had attended was the 5th time that they'd done the v2.0 presentation, but the first time that it was a field testing recruitment exercise. Because it could download memories, the spooks wouldn't allow the brain interface to be used on them, but on each occasion a low-security 'candidate' had created their avatar and then put it on. The groups would then go out for dinner as a mix of spooks and avatars.
The ability of the inexperienced operatives wearing avatars to behave exactly as they appeared thoroughly impressed the spooks, and they approved funding for field trials, provided that some additional features (mostly software) that they specified would be added to the suits. If successful, over 1,000 v2.0 suits would be deployed to various government departments and agencies.
---
That was a lot to take in. He was one of only a few field testers. He wondered if the other 3 men that had been to the presentation with him were all in the field testing now.
There was a knock at the door. A builder was standing at the door, while his apprentice carried some tools into the flat next door.
"G'day mate. We've got a bit of work to do in the flat next door and it could be a bit noisy. We should only be about two or three hours. You might want to go out for a while."
Nat replied "Oh, okay. I'll be fine here but thanks for letting me know."
There was a bit of noise in the background over a period of about 2 hours. Some of it sounded like it was just the other side of the wall of his living room, while some was further away. Nat did his best to ignore it, and went back to his computer to watch the final video, about the features built into the suits.
---
Jane appeared on the screen, smiling. "You've already seen and experienced the basic functionality of the Avatar Me! version 2.0 suit. I'm now going to run through a few of the more complex and obscure features that you're probably not aware of yet or might have missed during the presentation."
"The suit provides enhanced senses. The integrated contact lenses provide night vision functionality"
As she spoke, the view changed to show the view from inside a suit, changing to monochrome night vision as the lights went off. As the view moved into partial light, it stayed in night vision mode but the bright part was filtered down to be only slightly brighter than the dark part. A menu overlay flashed briefly
Night vision auto mode off threshold set
and the vision returned to normal, making the dark area too dark to see.
"Microphones built into the ears provide enhanced hearing, complete with tuneable full spectrum noise cancellation. The inner ears contain integral ear plugs, so that you can protect your ears from loud noises or mute sounds from your own ears while using enhanced hearing. We're yet to test it on a deaf person, but we believe that the enhanced hearing will work perfectly for them, as it feeds directly into the brain."
The picture and sound changed to a motor mechanic's workshop, with a running engine drowning out all other sounds.
A graphic equaliser style screen appeared, superimposed over a spectrum analyser showing the background noises. A [voice optimise] button was clicked and the engine noise dropped into the background, while a male voice could be clearly heard saying "that chick is hot. I'd do her!"
Jane was blushing when she returned to the screen. "The skin can blush, as I just did, can simulate bruising that progresses through the correct sequence of colours and patterns over time, and believe it or not, is able to stop bullets up to about 9mm. If you're aware that a bullet is coming, the area will swell to absorb the impact but you will bruise. Even if a bullet is stopped, the impact can cause internal injuries including broken bones, and will almost certainly damage the suit at the impact site."
Slow motion footage was shown of a sample skin panel on the face of a ballistic gel body block. The sample swelled just before a bullet struck it, and the gel block shuddered at the impact, but the bullet didn't penetrate. "Don't try this at home", Jane quipped.
"Something that I'm not going to show you but you'll probably try at home is playing with your female bits. We're confident that every detail in that area is absolutely accurate, and you'll quite enjoy it. Oh, except at that time of the month. You won't get pregnant no matter how hard you try, but you will have menstrual cycles complete with mood swings if you wear a female avatar of child bearing age for any length of time. Unlike real women, you can adjust a few things about your cycles and suspend them if absolutely necessary. Wearing a menopausal avatar also has its challenges." She rolled her eyes then smirked. "You see, these are characteristics that real women have, and an avatar has to copy them to be truly realistic."
"One thing to note here is that in order to create a penetrable vagina, the penis must more flacid than should be possible, and in fact was considered medically unsafe before we developed the version 2.0 suit. To achieve a safe vaginal simulation, the penis is normally slighly erect and fills the vagina from inside its own pocket. When something is inserted beyond the labia minora, the penis is forced to shrink excessively and muscles that cannot be controlled consciously are placed in a special pattern that moves the penis to the back. Simulated vaginal muscle contractions, including during orgasm, are largely pulses of blood through the penis. These ripples remove the medical risk. For this reason, the standard programming of the suits is for a woman who orgasms and has multiple orgasms more easily than average and has stronger vaginal contractions than average. In short, she really goes off in bed. This can be turned down where a specific person is being simulated but there is a limit. It's simply not possible to safely simulate a penetrable but non-orgasmic woman without muscle contractions."
"There is also enhanced male function. Not only can we vary penis size and shape but, based on eastern religious teachings, we've found out that it's possible to experience multiple male orgasms with or without ejaculation on the final one. Use of this function will eventually train the wearer to be able to do this even without a suit.
"Women are famous for having a poor sense of direction. We can fake that in the personality software, but it will always be fake because the suit has an inbuilt GPS and inertial sensors, allowing your position to be accurate to within half a metre even where there's no GPS coverage. We currently have limited ability to import maps, but improvements will be in software updates over the next few weeks. As a bonus, GPS provides a very accurate clock."
"We're still calibrating the sensing system for this one. We have integrated a chemical analysis system similar to a mass spectrometer into the suit. Sensor pickups are integrated into he finger tips, balls of the feet, inside of nostrils and lips. A lot of drugs like Rohypnol can be detected quickly simply by touching the tip of a finger to the surface of the drink." She demonstrated sampling a drink, and the display overlay showed the alcohol content and flashed a red warning about the Rohypnol content. "How you deal with something like this depends on the situation."
"If you have linked your suit to your mobile phone by bluetooth, you can make and receive phone calls while being completely silent. An internal synthesiser can generate any voice you want, including ones beyond your vocal range. If you can't devote the attention to doing that, you can send an emergency SMS to us. It will automatically include your GPS coordinates. By default, we have enabled automatic emergency SMS sending for a number of events, but you can turn it off when you're confident of being able to handle such situations."
"We'll move on to computer interfaces now." She picked up a micro-SD card, put it in her palm and closed her hand around it. The display overlay showed the card as being connected, and she started downloading the contents of it. While it continued, she dropped a USB memory stick into her cleavage. It also connected and began downloading, without affecting the micro-SD. She picked up a UTP ethernet lead and stuck it into an armpit. The overlay showed the gigabit link coming up, then using DHCP to get a connection. "You think that's good? Watch this." She smiled, picked up a telephone lead and inserted into her navel. The status showed it having both landline and ADSL2 on the line. She established an ADSL2 connection, opened a VPN connection and started copying files from the main fileserver of the ethernet network to a remote internet site via the ADSL2 line. "I did that to a high security network, separated from the internet by 4 layers of physical firewalling. The spook who claimed that I couldn't hack it wasn't happy!" She smiled.
"There are auto-configuring interfaces in both palms, both armpits, between the breasts, in the navel and on the surface of the breasts and buttocks. The little fingers can also operate as plugs or sockets for some types of connection. Virtually every type of memory card on the market is supported, along with every type of USB device supported by the linux kernel, both UTP and coaxial ethernet, firewire, fixed telephone including voice, fax, modem and ADSL and ADSL2. There's even auto-configuring RS232 and RS422 just in case. Some locations can't do some types of connector for physical reasons. There are openable slots in the crease under each breast where cards can be sealed in but may be detectable on x-ray, and will limit minimum breast size."
"Wifi is fully supported. Infra-red receive and transmit capability is also available, using transceivers in the middle fingers. This is mostly useful for remote control of radios, DVD players etc, but can be used for wireless connections to some old computers and printers."
"As part of the government's requested features list, we've made the hands of a suit able to achieve brain interface to another person sufficient to put them into a trance like state. The application of hands will provide up to 15 minutes of continued trance after removal. We're hoping to increase the functionality of this, but it's going to be difficult due to the limited head coverage from the fingers. We're also in the process of implementing a slave mode. This will allow a suit to be used to trap and disguise a hostile person. The person would be put into a suit by someone else in a suit that was pre-set to be master to that slave suit. We expect that the trance state will allow the person to assist in putting the suit on themselves. The master suit will have full control of the slave suit, including the ability to open and close it, select avatars and set personality controls. In full control mode, the masking personality will take over the slave completely and the wearer will not know about their own personality. We believe that a slave could be held in this manner for weeks without memory leaks."
"In an environment that is electrically noisy or where someone is detecting electromagnetic signals, it may not be possible to use RF communication interfaces. In this situation, IR or hand contact between the master and slave can provide the control connection."
---
As the video finished, Nat was reeling at the thought of this "slave" mode, and wondering if it was something that might be done to him as part of the field trials.
Log back onto this site at 8am Monday. It's already Saturday night. You'll need to spend all day Sunday on your article on the v1.2 garments and doing the housework in your flat. You will not have time to return to your flat or do any of your normal work between 8am Monday and 10am Tuesday.
"Oh." That was a bit of an anti-climax. They were right, though. He'd driven around for part of the day, then watched their videos for several hours. He shut the computer down and headed off to bed.
---
Sunday was a very unproductive day. He spent so much time daydreaming about being Natalia again that he took almost the whole day to write his article on the v1.2 garments. He got a bit of housework done in the evening, but not really as much as he should have.
He forced himself to go to bed around 10pm, but lay awake for several hours before sleep overtook adrenaline.
---
When he returned to his computer on Monday morning, he logged back onto the Avatar Me! secure site as instructed. A map of his flat came up on the screen, along with the one next door. There was a connecting pair of doors highlighted on the map.
When your building was originally built, it was designed to be used as upmarket holiday apartments, with interconnecting apartments available for larger groups. This was later disguised by bolting lightweight bookshelves to both doors of the joining corridor. You may need to rearrange the furniture to open the door on your side and search for the keyhole. Your front door key fits the door on your side.
"You're kidding!"
Rearrange the furniture in your room so that it doesn't look out of place, lock up your flat and close down your computer as if you've gone out. There is a light switch connected to the door of the concealed room. Don't forget your wallet and keys!
He'd lived in this flat for years and never realised that there was an interconnecting door. He knew which bookshelves it referred to, but had never noticed a keyhole. He looked closely and realised that there was a knot hole in just the right place for a keyhole. Moving a couple of chairs and a rug, he unlocked the door and swung it open. The corridor was about a metre long, and had a surprisingly large room on one side. He guessed that the builder had been in here on Saturday but it was obvious that someone had done more than just building work. The corridor and room were spotlessly clean. There was an Avatar Me! uniform dress hanging fairly high on Natalia's side of the closet in a dry cleaning cover, with underwear, accessories and shoes in boxes on her side of the shelves. There were empty hangers and shelf space on his side. The floor was vinyl, there was a small handbasin on his side and full length mirrors on the back of the bifold door of the room. A small hinged seat was bolted to the wall on Natalia's side.
He put his wallet and keys on a shelf in the closet and closed the door to his room. It was dark! He remembered the comment about a light switch on the door, and sure enough, when he closed it, the room lit up with soft, indirect lighting.
In his mind, this was "the changing room."
The Avatar Me! suit was in a box on the top shelf. He stripped off, stacking his clothes on the shelves. Folding down the seat, he sat and worked the suit up his legs as he'd done before. Having done it once with help, he found it quite easy to get his arms in, head in, align the holes and close the suit. After the startup sequence, instead of just loading the avatar, it stopped at
Normal mode
Select an Avatar to install
[Nat]
[Natalia]
[Create new]
[Import]
He could install himself as an avatar? Interesting. That means that he could wear the suit while being himself. He'd never considered that, but it could be very handy!
He selected Natalia.
Installing avatar
Masking set to 6
Done
Info: Your Natalia avatar is slightly different to the one you used for the hens' night, to avoid complications.
Guide: rinse your hands to acquire water
"Oh, right."
She rinsed her hands at the hand basin.
Water 100%
Guide: The door to Natalia's room is electronically secured. The suit is keyed so you can open the door as if there is no lock when you are Natalia.
The clothing supplied consisted of a matching bra and brief set, the dress, black pantihose, black 2" heeled court shoes, AM! logo earrings and her name badge, all of which she put on fairly quickly without even thinking about it.
Info: You can access video from cameras in your flat before entering
Picking up her handbag, she opened the closet door and opened the video stream that the suit had offered. It was fed across a wireless network connection that it had already established. There was nobody there, but the box left by the courier was on the living room table.
Exiting the video stream, she confirmed that the door to Nat's flat was locked, then opened the door to her flat and went straight to the parcel. The door closed itself behind her. Before she could open the parcel, the doorbell rang. She opened the door to find a different courier holding a small airfreight bag. "Sign here, please." That done, she closed the door and returned to the living room with the bag.
She went to a side table and picked up a knife to open the packages. Both contained identification documents, account statements, bills (all automatically direct debited, she noticed), last year's tax return, car registration, driver's license, security license, firearms license, government contractor security card on a lanyard, work ID, two credit cards, medicare card, private health care card, store loyalty cards and lease documents on the flat. At the bottom of the box, she found a mobile phone and a keyring with her flat key, car key, garage key, firearms safe keys and a few others that she knew belonged there even if she had no idea why right now. The spare key for the car was on a separate ring. Amongst the stuff from the bag, there was a safety deposit key, which she added to her keyring, and a spare key for the flat, which she she added to the ring with the spare car key. After putting the spare keys on a hook hidden inside the frame of her bed, she sorted the documents and cards, filing most of the documents in the filing cabinet in her study and packing the cards into her purse. When that was done, she put the work ID in the sleeve under her name tag, put the lanyard around her neck, dropped the keys and purse into her handbag and threw out the box and bag.
"Wow. I didn't have to think about any of that. I knew where to get the knife, where to file everything, how to pack my purse and handbag. Now what?"
Info: You have a meeting at 10am. First, adjust the masking level from the current 6 to 9, with an end time setting of 9:15am Tuesday.
Natalia wasn't sure that she wanted to know what this masking setting meant, but did as she was told.
Masking set to 9 until 9:15am Tuesday [OK]
---
It seemed as if she had woken from a daydream. She had flown in from Melbourne last night and taken a taxi to her new flat. The removalists had done a good job of putting everything in the same places as they'd been in her old place, but she'd spent an hour packing her hand luggage away and getting things organised just how she wanted them. Somehow it all didn't seem right.
She shook her head and headed back to her bedroom. A quick touch of mascara, eyeliner and lipstick and she was ready. Time to hop into her "wind up toy", as she called it, and head off to the office. With any luck, she'd get to see Anisha and Kylie again. It had been a while, and she loved those two jokers.
Slipping her notebook computer into its bag, she paused to check herself in the mirror just inside the door. Downstairs, she found that the garages were numbered to match the flats. The door rolled open smoothly, revealing her Suzuki Cappucino. "Some people just don't listen!" She specifically said that she wanted it reversed into the garage, not driven forwards. There didn't appear to be any damage from being transported interstate, which was a relief. She backed the car out and got out to close the garage door. "I'll have to ask about getting an electric opener installed."
She'd been based at the head office a couple of years ago, and been here a few times since. It was in the GPS in the car, anyway. She marked her new home before setting off.
The guard at the gate scanned the barcode on her security card with a handheld scanner, looked at her photo, smiled, said "welcome back" and let her in. She knew that she had been allocated her old parking space because her car was the only one that fitted there. Too short for most cars, and under a ventilation duct that made it too low for motorbikes. Nobody ever took her spot!
In spite of being inside a military base, the office for their company was private company property. She scanned her card to enter reception. Kylie! The two women hugged briefly, then Kylie said "It's great to have you back. I hear you've still got the wind up car, so you've reclaimed that claustrophobic parking spot", then laughed. Anisha came out of a meeting room and cried "Natalia, where have you been all of my life?", laughed, hugged Natalia, then tickled her. "Oi! Stop that", giggled Natalia.
"It's great to see you girls again, but I think I'm supposed to have a meeting at 10, so I'd better get ready."
Kylie smiled "Don't stress. It's just Doctor Harris."
"The shrink. She's no fun", said Natalia, pulling a mock pout then giggling.
"I heard that!" Doctor Harris had quietly followed Anisha out of the meeting room. She smiled. "Nice to see you, Natalia, come in."
It was a fairly routine meeting. How was she, had she been feeling odd or out of place, disoriented, etc. She mentioned the odd feeling that she'd had this morning between getting dressed and applying her makeup. She'd found herself in the living room in a daydream.
"I know how hard it is to jump from place to place like you've been doing for the past couple of years. I understand that you're to be based here and only travel for appointments now. Take it easy today and I'll meet with you again here at 9am tomorrow."
Her cubicle was just as she expected. Virtually everything was on her notebook, so she didn't need to lug around other gear. There were flowers in a vase with a "Welcome Back" card from Anisha and Kylie.
Unpacking her notebook, she plugged in the power and ethernet and logged in. First, she needed to sort through her emails. She tagged a few spams that had evaded the filter, then started prioritising the jobs. One internal email mentioned someone named Nat and something about a hens night, which made no sense to her so she responded to the sender to tell them that they must have sent it to the wrong person. There was some updated information on the latest preview night for the v1.2 suits, which had apparently generated several private orders. She would be required to assist with detail specifications for those. At around $8,000 each, the client had to be happy with every little detail, and everybody in the company knew that she was the best at getting the specs right.
The rest of the day was spent reviewing completed specs, making detail corrections where needed, and approving them for manufacture, roughing out specs for new orders and scheduling client appointments for the next few days. By 4:50pm, she only had some low priority jobs to complete. Anisha stuck her head over the side of the cubicle and asked if Natalia wanted to go out for dinner. Kylie's shout. We'll just grab something casual out of wardrobe. Natalia rolled her eyes at that. "You remember what happened last time we did that!" Anisha giggled and replied "We book them out on the computer when we borrow now, and make sure that they're clean before we put them back!"
"Where are we going?"
"There's a new Turkish place not far from here. I remember that you used to like Turkish before the old place closed down."
"I wonder if they have apple tea. I loved that stuff!"
After a quick trip to the wardrobe department, the three women left in casual outfits, carrying their uniforms in bags. Kylie took Anisha in her car, and Natalia followed them to the restaurant.
Being a Monday night, the place was fairly empty, and there was no dancer but the three women enjoyed their meal and each other's company. After dinner, they said goodbye and drove home. With her car safely locked in the garage, Natalia returned to her flat. After checking that she hadn't stained the borrowed dress, she put it in the wash with the dirty clothes that she'd unpacked from her luggage the night before, put on a dressing gown and slippers and ran a bath. While the bath was running, she had a quick look at the television guide but didn't find anything interesting. As she settled into her bath, she idly opened her box of toys that sat alongside the bath and took out her two favourites, a waterproof electric toothbrush and a realistically styled dildo. Ever since she'd seen a toothbrush used for clitoral stimulation on Big Brother a few years ago, she'd been hooked. Lying back in the bath, she brought herself to one orgasm with the toothbrush before sliding the dildo into herself and, using both, bringing herself to a series of very enjoyable orgasms. She'd needed that!
Relaxed, with a funny little smirk on her face, she dried herself off, moved the washing from the washing machine to the dryer and went to bed.
---
Morning came far too early for her liking, and she had to be on time for her 9am meeting with Doctor Harris.
She got ready, put the borrowed dress into a bag, grabbed her handbag and notebook and headed off to work.
Arriving with a few minutes to spare, she returned the dress to wardrobe and watched as Anisha booked it back into the inventory along wth the other two, which they had also returned.
By the time she had put her handbag and notebook into her cubicle, Doctor Harris had arrived and summoned her to one of the workrooms at the back of the office area. The meeting started off fairly routine, the same as the day before.
At 9:15, she saw words in front of her vision
Temporary setting end time reached
Masking returned to 6
and almost fainted. Suddenly, she knew that she was Nat in an Avatar Me! v2.0 suit. For a little over 24 hours, she hadn't known that. She had been completely Natalia, a woman with dreams and ambitions and complete memories of her childhood and youth. A woman who didn't know anything about the v2.0 suits. A woman who had thoroughly enjoyed masturbating in her bath.
She blushed.
Doctor Harris said "Before we start, I need you remember that, as you have just experienced, none of the avatars know that they are avatars. Never assume that a person is an avatar or what masking level they're at. The suit automatically checks for suits within its immediate vicinity and, unless it's hidden, can tell you the suit number, wearer, avatar and masking level. If a suit is in slave mode, it will tell you if you have master rights to it."
"Start uploading the system logs, then we can walk through your day looking for memory leaks."
"I'm sorry?"
"Go to system, select upload logs."
Log files uploading
"Okay, right."
"We set up a whole day of potential memory leaks. You felt as if things weren't quite right for a moment as the masking moved to 9, and I believe that the software update that you'll get after the logs are uploaded should fix that. Did anything else through the day and night feel out of place or abnormally familiar?"
"Not that I can remember. I knew that car as if I'd owned it for years, but yesterday was the first time I'd ever seen it, wasn't it?"
"Correct."
Log files uploaded
Backing up avatars
"The trip to work was unfamiliar from my flat to the highway, then familiar from there all the way here, but it should have been the other way around!"
"That's good. You weren't supposed to be familiar with the backstreets between your new flat and the highway because it was new to you, but you could have found the place where you used to live and the motels you've stayed at in the past if you'd wanted to."
"Kylie and Anisha seemed like friends I've known for years. I didn't even think twice about the email about Nat and the hens' night, I didn't know about either. The work I was doing. Was it all just wasted time?"
Avatars uploaded
Downloading software update
"Actually, no. That part was lifted from Ivy's work experience. We dropped a slab of her knowledge into the Natalia avatar. We just had to filter the emails and change the name to Natalia on the incoming emails and to Ivy on the outgoing emails." Ivy checked the corrections and approvals for manufacture and every one was spot on. That was a separate test, which was quite successful."
"I stood in the wardrobe department, and all six of the outfits from the hens' night were hanging right in front of me. I didn't recognise them. Then we went to the restaurant. I didn't remember anything about it. I didn't even recognise the waiter, who was there both on Friday night and Saturday lunch time."
"Excellent. That's exactly how it should have been."
"Then I went home..." Her voice trailed off.
"Did anything that you did last night or this morning seem abnormal to you at the time that you did it?
"No, but I fantasised about sex with a man and err..." She blushed brightly.
"You did exactly what your body was telling you to do. You enjoyed it?"
"Absolutely!"
"Then that part was completely successful. How about this morning?"
Avatar Me v 2.0.10 downloaded, verified and installed
Info: Release notes available for software update
Downloading additional avatars
"Right up until the masking dropped down, absolutely everything was how it should have been. I almost fainted as it dropped down, but I think that was from the shock of regaining my memory and realising what had happened."
"The software update that should have installed by now changes the setting more slowly in both directions. Instead of jumping straight from one to the other, it will step through the levels in between, taking about 1 second per level on the way up and 5 seconds each on the way down. We're confident that will fix those problems."
"You'll be able to go home and change avatars to Nat for a while if you need to, but because one of the tests under way is continuous wear, you'll have to stay in the suit and use the Nat avatar rather than taking the suit off."
Additional avatars downloaded: [Anisha] [Bree] [Cate] [Diane] [Ellen] [Fiona] [Grace] [Hanna] [Ivy] [Jane] [Kylie] [Lee-anne] [Matilda] [Olivia]
Info: Additional avatars can only be loaded while you are connected or they are exclusively allocated to you.
Info: Avatars are only usable if the wearer is within correct size and face shape limits.
Info: None of the additional avatars are exclusively allocated to you at this time.
"I just got a status message telling me that I have imported all of the avatars from the presentation, which includes Anisha and Kylie and the ones used by the other 3 visitors. Is that supposed to happen?"
"Yes. We'll be testing some new functionality, and one part will be what we call a rapid swap. A hand to hand touch such as holding hands or shaking hands, or a direct peer-to-peer wifi link will allow an exchange of information from the last update to the instant of exchange. As you know, it takes up to half a minute to change avatar depending on extent of change plus hair length. We expect that a swap could be made in the time taken to swap clothes. We've run into a snag with hair ties, clips, pins etc, but there's good progress being made for a hardware update to the suits to allow the hairs at the skin to be linked by a net and released from one head like a wig, placed on another head and reattached, with the net being absorbed back into the suit. We're also confident that we can transfer water from suit to suit simply by holding hands."
"You mean that someone else could become me?"
"One of the others could become Natalia, yes. Right now, that's not possible because the avatar is exclusively allocated to you."
"You said that a slab of Ivy's knowledge was dropped into Natalia's avatar. Does that mean that you could take pieces of my knowledge as Nat and use them in someone else's avatar?"
"All of the memories of full synthesised avatars are constructed using fragments from memories acquired from tens of thousands of real people. We have a database of a few thousand full body scans and a larger database of brain captures. We need both in order to synthesise realistic new avatars. Where we have both for a person, we could simply load that real person as an avatar, but we haven't so far. Every scanned person goes into the database, including you and me. We might have used pieces of Nat's memory for synthesising avatars already, but the fragments would be so small as to be unrecognisable. If we wanted a particular skill from Nat, we could pick it up as a slab and graft it into another avatar, but we haven't done that yet. If we acquire a new skill from a new scan, or decide that a particular avatar needs an additional skill that is already in the database, we can add it into an existing avatar. Right now, upgrading an avatar's personality requires it to be unloaded, patched and reloaded but it can be done without altering the appearance. Soon, we should be able to download skill slabs to a wearer, and they'll stay with them when the suit comes off."
"But there's an option to create an avatar in a suit."
"If you create an avatar in a suit while it's off line, the personality will be generic and insufficient for use at above level 3 to 5 depending on how similar it is to other full avatars saved in the suit. The next time you go online, the incomplete avatar is uploaded, the system completes it and downloads it back to the suit. We're working on adding improvements to the generic templates to guarantee at least level 4."
"What about pretending to be somebody else? Putting them into a slave suit then swapping with their real identity?"
"You have to realise that to a suit, an acquired body and brain scan as a set are just another avatar. In theory, we could put a subject into an avatar at level 9, transfer their original avatar including all of their memories up to that time into another suit and anybody the right size could become them. We could then transfer the subject's avatar back into the original person's suit as an update before dropping them out of level 9. Depending on the results of memory tests that we're doing now, we hope to be able to prevent the memories of the avatar that they wore in the meantime from going into permanent memory in their brain and instead insert the copy of what their avatar did during that time. They wouldn't remember wearing the suit or that other avatar, or know that it wasn't actually them that did those things. I doubt that you'd like it if we did that to you, and we have no immediate plans to do it, but it might become necessary later in the testing process. If we do it, the other person would almost certainly go into Nat at level 9, meaning that they would be as completely him as you were Natalia while you were in level 9."
"I'm getting a headache trying to understand all of this. It almost sounds like immortality."
"I suppose you could say that every saved Avatar and scanned real person is immortal. Someone just has to put them on in level 9 and they're alive."
"It's hard to get my head around that idea! So what's next, anyway?"
"One of the jobs that we'll be starting on in the next few days is a systematic brain scan of military personnel, then voluntary scans of the public near a shopping centre. It'll be done under the guise of testing their ability to use a direct brain interface. I know it sounds a bit corny, but we've put space invaders in four direct brain interface caps and will basically let them play it while we capture their brain. The speed of the game increases with their skill level so that no matter how good they are, they'll each get a 2 minute game, but they get a printed ticket with a skill number on it at the end. We're configuring the relocatable building for the job. We'll have them coming in one side, splitting to the 4 test stations then filing out the other side. Nobody except us and a handful of spooks know what we're really up to, and the spooks don't realise how complete the brain scans are."
"Getting a little ticket that measures brain speed will create some competition. Because it's being presented as a primitive computer to brain interface and we're testing a large number of people to see how many people it works on and how fast the connection is, we're hoping to do tests using volunteers from the general public after the military tests are over. We're curious to see who shows up. We anticipate gaining a few worthwhile skill slabs."
"You said that I can go home and be Nat for a while. How long do I have, and what will I need to do next?"
"We want you to stay in your current suit for as long as possible to allow is to get the durability data, but when an upgraded suit is ready in a few weeks, we'll be swapping you into it. From now on, I want you to use level 7 or higher whenever you're wearing an avatar unless it's for a meeting like this one. When you switch to Nat, you'll be in level 1. You'll be online via the wifi router in Natalia's room, and there's a new "direct chat" mode that will connect you to someone in the office. Come in at 9am tomorrow unless we call you sooner. If you copy the files Nat needs to do his work onto the user space in the suit, then back it up to the main server, you should be able to do his work from the suit any time you're at level 8 or less, reducing the need to physically be him. We're likely to get quite busy over the next few weeks, and you might not have time to be Nat."
"I don't understand these levels. Can you explain them to me?"
"Haven't you looked them up in help yet? Info, masking levels."
"Oh."
Info: Masking levels
Info: 0 = wearer appearance and personality, no suit controls available, wearer doesn't know the suit is there. Master has influence over slave.
Info: 1 = wearer appearance and personality, suit controls available.
Info: 2 = avatar appearance, wearer personality, wearer will see suit as a high-tech rubber toy.
Info: 3 = avatar appearance with slight mannerism assistance.
Info: 4 = avatar appearance with sufficient mannerism and personality assistance for cursory interaction.
Info: 5 = avatar appearance with sufficient mannerism and personality assistance for moderate social interaction.
Info: 6 = avatar appearance, subconscious behaviour and reactions, but wearer has control.
Info: 7 = avatar personality in control, but can be consciously guided by wearer, wearer controls suit.
Info: 8 = avatar personality in control, wearer aware and able to adjust masking level but unable to affect actions.
Info: 9 = avatar personality, no suit controls available, avatar doesn't know the suit is there.
Info: 10= avatar personality, suit controls available. Avatar will see this as level 1 and believe that they are the wearer but will never think to attempt to remove the suit. Recursive loading of another avatar will be in a future update.
Info: Levels 0, 9 and 10 can only be set with a timer or in slave mode. Level 2 can only be set in slave mode.
"Level 10 sounds dangerous. You'd make an avatar believe that they were the real person wearing the suit and give them control?"
"I don't know if you realise it yet or not but you are the best of the field testers so far. Once we get recursion working, we could build a new field tester avatar based on Nat, install it in slave mode, and give it full control of the recursed layer. The only difference between it and you would be that you can take the suit off, which gives you a big advantage if you need to be pulled out of a suit to go to hospital. Once we implement recursion linked to a second suit layered over the first, we could make the first suit work in level 9 and the second work level 10 recursing to the avatar having full control. Using level 10 also taints the avatar, making it aware of the existence of the suits. It's locked out on the ones you've got in your suit right now."
"You can layer two suits one on top of the other?"
"It's part of the hardware upgrade in testing right now. Initially, the outer suit will operate in a relay mode that just copies the avatar underneath it. There are some physical limitations caused by double thickness, and we certainly don't intend to use it on a regular basis. We're working on allowing the outer suit to maintain the appearance of the avatar when removed, including taking all hair with it. It's about ways of capturing people into a slave suit."
"Imagine a beautiful girl comes up to you, peels off an apparently realistic skin suit, hair and all, and she's someone else underneath. She offers to let you put it on. You'd get a lot of guys and quite a few women prepared to try it. We're confident that if the suit goes on quickly enough, we'll be able to prevent the wearer from remembering the event. The suit could be set for either level 2 or level 9."
"I see what you mean. But you'd have given away all of the hair. You could end up without enough hair to reload the next avatar's hair."
"The second suit's reservoir would be emptied to the first suit during separation. The detach wig mode is in final testing, as is recovery of loose hair. The next hardware update will be a fairly significant one."
"It sounds like it."
"This has been a long session. I'd like you to set level 7 then give yourself until 1pm at level 9. Let Natalia run the show for a while. She'll head home, stopping off for lunch and perhaps some shopping on the way."
"I'm not sure about level 9."
"Did it hurt? No. Did you enjoy being completely her? Yes. Besides, we need to test the software update for the transitions."
"Okay, set level 7, then level 9 until 1pm today."
Masking set to 7
Masking set to 9 until 1:00pm Tuesday [OK]
"I'm not that tired, Doctor Harris!"
"Doctor's orders. Off you go."
Natalia pulled a fake pout and said "Oh, okay. I know when I'm not wanted", giggled and headed back to her cubicle to collect her gear.
---
After an hour and a half of shopping and a light lunch, Natalia took the wind up toy home and collapsed onto her lounge with her notebook. She decided that it was about time she created herself a facebook profile.
Temporary setting end time reached
Masking returned to 7
Nat realised that he was sort of behind Natalia, and was her at the same time. He knew her thoughts and could influence her, but that didn't mean that she was aware of him. She was casually creating a facebook profile, including searching for the other girls at work. She'd sent friend requests to Anisha and Kylie, and was filling out her personal details when he influenced her to shutdown her notebook, lie back and relax.
Masking set to 6
It was time to go back to being Nat for a while. She didn't know whether she'd be him for a couple of hours or until the morning, so she picked out some clothes and took them into the changing room, then fetched her notebook and handbag. After arranging everything onto the shelves, she stripped off her clothes and dropped them into a pile on one of the shelves.
Masking set to 1
Avatar Nat selected
Place hands ready to drop water [ok]
Avatar loading
Done
It was odd being himself yet knowing that he was still in the suit. Distracting, too.
It seemed like a long time since he'd worn those clothes. He casually put them back on, noticing that the pants were a little looser now than when he'd worn them yesterday morning. He'd have to ask about that. He picked up his keys and wallet, and picked his flat key out ready to open the door.
Guide: The door to Nat's room is electronically secured. The suit is keyed so you can open the door as if there is no lock when you are Nat in it. The key will still be required if you remove the suit.
"They've obviously done some work while I was out."
Info: You can access video from cameras in your flat before entering
Sure enough, cameras had been installed in his flat. He looked at the various views. It was as he'd left it. There was even a camera in his garage. He continued through the camera list and found that there was also one in Natalia's garage now.
Being Nat was remarkably boring now. He did as suggested and uploaded his work files to the suit, then backed it up to the server. He really needed new material for some of his blogs, including more for the fetish series. He brought up the live chat and Doctor Harris appeared in his mind. He asked if the company could do some of the research for him so he didn't need to spend so much time here, and she assured him that they could. He also mentioned wondering about getting an auto door closer for Natalia's flat. Doctor Harris thought that they should be able to do that and she'd put it in as a request. As he was about to disconnect, she said that Kylie had invited Natalia over to her place for a fun night in. Yes, Natalia would like that. It was agreed that Natalia would go to level 9 before going to Kylie's place at 7pm.
With a series of web links that Doctor Harris sent through to him, he was able to put together enough posts for his blogs to all run on automatic for about 3 weeks. Once all of the posts were uploaded and scheduled with release dates and times spread over those 3 weeks, he decided that he could return to being Natalia. He uploaded the updated information to the suit and backed it up onto the server and took a fresh change of clothes to the changing room.
A few minutes later, Natalia returned to her lounge in the same clothes as she'd worn to work that morning, put her notebook back where it had been, lay back, went to level 7, then set level 9 to expire at midnight.
---
After changing out of her uniform, Natalia drove to Kylie's place, stopping on the way to buy a bottle of wine. They had a nice dinner, then Kylie suggested that they get into her jacuzzi and watch a "chick flick" and finish off the wine. Natalia liked the idea but when she mentioned that she didn't have any swimmers with her, Kylie produced 2 matching company logo bikinis.
Part way through the movie, Kylie's glass slipped out of her hand and landed in the water, splashing Natalia with the wine. After retrieving her glass and putting it down safely out of the way, she started trying to lick the wine off Natalia, leading the pair of them into a mock wrestling match that ended in both crying in fits of laughter. Kylie rewound the DVD a bit and they watched from where they'd been up to.
---
Natalia knew that she was fine to drive home, as they'd only drunk the one bottle between them over a few hours. Kylie was sad to see her go, but they did have to go to work tomorrow.
After a good night's sleep, Kylie was up and ready by 8:00, as usual. Anisha picked her up right on time and they were in the office at 8:30. The day flew by, as most do when you're really busy. Tomorrow was to be the first day of the space invaders tests, and everything had to be ready. The portable building was put up in the afternoon, and she'd had to check that everything was set up and ready. She'd be in charge of the morning shift, with Anisha, Bree, Natalia and Jane handling the test stations. Diane, Ellen, Fiona, Lee-anne and Olivia would be looking after the afternoon shift. Pregnant Cate would be minding the office. Lucky Cate didn't have to be on base by 6am for the military test days!
The first round of space invaders tests ran for 2 weeks, doing 2 days at the local base, moving over the weekend, then 2 days at another base, move on the wednesday, 2 days at a third base, move over the weekend then finally 2 days near a railway station and shopping centre.
After those 2 weeks, even with the Wednesdays off, Kylie was completely exhausted! On the Wednesday afternoon at the end, she emailed Natalia to see if she wanted to come over for dinner again, and Natalia responded with an emphatic "YES!!!"
Dinner, wine, jacuzzi and a chick flick. What could be better? Well, what was better was when, after getting changed into their swimmers, Natalia remembered that there had been a bonus scratch-n-win ticket with the wine. She scratched it, and found that she'd won a dozen bottles of wine. The pair of them hugged each other and danced around in a circle celebrating the win.
---
Natalia drove the wind up toy home and got into bed just on midnight.
Temporary setting end time reached
Masking returned to 7
Nat could feel herself behind Natalia, but had to clear her head so that she could concentrate.
Masking set to 8
Lying in bed, she realised that she had been Kylie for over a fortnight. She'd been swapped in the jacuzzi the first time, and swapped back while they were dancing around in a circle the second time. It had all been mundane work, and Natalia had been there doing it too, but she'd been locked in level 9 as Kylie. She probably should have been angry but she wasn't. It was obviously one of the planned tests.
We had 2 shifts of 5 doing the space invaders tests, plus Cate in the office. That means that we've got at least 9 field testers now.
Info: One new email
She hadn't realised that the suits now provided email, but wasn't really surprised. The email was from Doctor Harris, and basically apologised for not warning her that she was going to get swapped, but explained that it had to be done that way to test for bugs or leaks. The test had been completely successful, and her upgraded suit was going to be ready in the morning. Come in at 9am, as normal, and upload the suit logs as soon as she arrived. Find Jane out in the workshop to make the change. Hers was only the third upgraded suit to go into service, with the first two having gone to the original staff.
A new suit. This would be the first time out in almost 3 weeks, and the extra functionality was going to interesting. There was an obvious way to relax and go to sleep.
Masking set to 7
Masking set to 9 until 9:00am Thursday [OK]
Sleep took less than 5 minutes to arrive.
---
Arriving at work in level 9, Natalia dropped to level 7 on the way to put her gear in her cubicle. After starting the logfile upload, she set out to find Jane out in the workshop. On the way, she realised that there were a dozen staff in the office today. A silent message to the suit told Nat to drop to level 6 before entering the workshop, which she did.
Jane greeted her with a puzzled look. "I thought that you would have configured security on your suit by now. You haven't read the suit manual and the release notes from the software updates, have you?
"Err. No."
"Most of the others haven't either. Strip out of your clothes and change suits over there", Jane said, pointing at a privacy screen.
Natalia walked around the screen and saw two suits that looked exactly the same as all of the ones she'd seen before.
"You can lock your suit to prevent it being put into slave mode by a peer, and if you'd done that, you wouldn't have spent a fortnight as Kylie. You also haven't used the suit status tool that Doctor Harris told you about weeks ago. In the new suits, you'll be able to have a floating suit status indicator on the heads up display."
"There's also the noticeboard, which you haven't been reading."
"I haven't seen a noticeboard around anywhere."
"It's online, in your suit. In case you're wondering about the number of field testers, there are now a total of 16, including 8 who were are recruited operators including you, and a more recent 8 homeless men from interstate who didn't know what they were signing up for and are locked in slave suits. There are now a total of 18 wearers, 20 female and 2 male created avatars in service with legal ID. All of the homeless men's avatars will also be available once we've given them mental and physical makeovers and a history of their recovery from life on the streets. By the time the trials are over, they'll all be much healthier and have usable job skills. It's a win-win for them."
Having stripped out of her clothes, Nat shut the suit down. As he pulled the suit off, he realised that he'd lost weight. He was guessing that he'd lost at least 5kg while he was in it.
"I look like I've lost about 5kg since I've been in the suit. Is that supposed to happen?"
"Yes, it is. Your body mass index put you in the mildly overweight range, and to wear some of the really shapely female avatars, you need to be close to the bottom of the healthy weight range. You've probably realised by now that you were selected for your intelligence, general health, height, build and facial structure. Being a little overweight is fairly easy to fix, and your avatar will lose weight to match so that you can step out of the suit at the end of the trial and go straight back to your life healthier than when you started. You've lost 6kg so far, and will lose another 12 to 15kg to get to target weight so that you can wear Anisha, Ellen, Ivy, Olivia, Qadesh or Sabine."
"Put the first suit on, activate it and load Natalia at level 6, then put the second suit on and activate it, then get dressed. You'll see that the head of the second suit is open where the hair should be. That's the new open head mode, which means that it takes longer to activate as it weaves a skin net between the wearer's hair during closing. Put yourself into level 8 as soon as you leave the workshop. You'll find that you can think separately behind the avatar quite well with the updated software. Read your emails immediately and the release notes when you get a chance. You'll be doing a live field trial of a capture on an unsuspecting target tonight. This time around, you'll be wearing Lee-anne, using the trance mode induced with your hands, popping the outer suit off you and onto him in level 0 in open head mode. You'll probably have to do the change in darkness in his bedroom before or after sex, as he is under surveillance. Open head can be selected before removing the suit."
Nat paused to lock her new suit into master mode and enable adjacent suit status indication before donning the second suit. The second suit settings showed up as an extended menu on the first suit. It was programmed to stay in standby (rapid close) mode, open head and acquire a new wearer in slave mode at level 0 when not in overlay mode.
After dressing, she went back to her cubicle, setting level 8 on the way. Natalia worked on emails on her notebook while Nat worked on the ones in the suit. She found that she could be separately conscious behind Natalia in level 8 and tune the avatar's thoughts in and out. She was surprised to find out that the company name badges and IDs were actually linked to the suit that they were worn with and would change to match the avatar worn on the suit.
---
Finishing work at 5:30, Natalia said goodbye to Kylie and headed out the back to a changing room. As she entered the room, she selected Lee-anne at level 6, stripped out of her uniform and into an outfit that was waiting in a locker. The outfit was all black, and included a low cut sheer lace bra, matching g-string and suspender belt, seamed stockings, 5 inch stilettos and an incredibly small dress that barely covered the bra at the top and just covered the stocking tops. After putting her hair up and admiring herself in a mirror on the wall, she took the shoes back off and put them in a cloth bag, put on a pair of ballet flats and slipped a lightweight coat over the dress. The coat was styled such that, with the row of front buttons done up, it might be either a dress or a coat. Now completely Lee-anne, she selected level 8, picked up the shoe bag and her handbag and walked out through the now deserted offices and the carpark to the security gate, where a taxi was waiting for her.
This was Nat's first time as Lee-anne, but she felt very comfortable albeit rather more sexually adventurous than anybody he had been before. She was going to have dinner, the go a nightclub to get drunk and pick up a guy and go back to his place for sex. Except that the alcohol part wasn't true. The suit would limit the alcohol intake, even though the avatar wouldn't know it and would behave as drunk as she thought she was. The avatar would also not know that Nat was controlling the selection of the guy, rather than it being random.
She met up with Sabine at a cafe, where they had dinner while flirting with a couple of waiters. Before leaving, she swapped shoes, putting on the stilettos and putting the flats in the bag. With the flat shoes instead of stilettos, the shoe bag was small enough to put in her handbag. The nightclub where they were going was just a few minutes walk away, and as they walked, she unbuttoned her coat and adjusted the lapels so that the top of the dress peeked out. Sabine was a little more moderately dressed, and was already wearing 4 inch heels. Lee-anne bought their first pair of drinks, and ordered herself a "safe sex on the beach" without realising that she'd said "safe", thus deleting the alcohol from her cocktail. After they finished their first drinks, Sabine went to the same bartender and asked for "the same again".
By the time Nat spotted the target, Lee-anne was onto her third drink, and was noticably less inhibited than she had been earlier. Dropping to level 7 allowed him to steer her towards the target with surprising ease. She simply danced her way to him, bumped gently into him and feigned stumbling, leaving him to catch her seemingly by accident. She smiled at him, and began dancing while still in his arms. As he slowly moved his arms away, she continued to dance close to him, smiling at him. In a slightly slurred but very sexy voice, she said "Hi, I'm Lee-anne", to which he replied "I'm Warwick." Once Nat could see that Lee-anne had chosen Warwick to be her target for the night, he put the level back up to 8 and went along for the ride.
And a fun ride it was, too. After about 20 minutes of dancing together, plus a fourth drink, Lee-anne said goodnight to Sabine and went with Warwick to his flat. They were all over each other in the taxi on the way there. Once inside, she did a strip-tease with her clothes, noticing his growing excitement as she went. Wearing just her bra and g-string, she helped him to strip out of his clothes, then undid the hooks of her bra and let him take it off her. Still wearing her g-string, she slipped into the bed, then raised a hand and dropped the g-string on the floor while Warwick retrieved a condom from his bedside table and put it on his very alert member. The sex was frantic and wild, but over in a rather short time. Warwick clearly didn't have as much stamina as Lee-anne would have liked, but stayed hugged to her for a couple of minutes afterwards.
Those few minutes were enough. Selecting level 6, Lee-anne put her hands on his head and put him into a trance. She sent him to the bathroom to clean himself up. While he was there, she pulled off the second suit in the bed and placed it on its side alongside her. When he came out of the bathroom, she asked him to come back to bed and hug her. As he got into bed, she whispered instructions for him to get into the suit and activate it. The suit took his form within a few seconds, and just a few minutes after getting back into bed, he was locked into the suit on level 0, completely alert and unaware of what had happened. As his suit finished transforming, Lee-anne changed to level 7.
Lee-anne kissed him deeply and said "I have to go. I've got a busy day tomorrow. I'd really like to see you again."
He replied "I have to fly to Canberra for a meeting on Saturday, leaving early afternoon tomorrow and returning Sunday. We can meet up on Sunday night if you'd like."
She smiled. "You're on."
They exchanged phone numbers, entering each other's number into their phones.
Seeing his excitement grow under the sheet as she re-dressed, she smiled wistfully and said "I'd love to stay for another round but I've really got to go." She pulled on her coat, leant over the bed to deliberately display her breasts to him as she kissed him goodbye, then left. She called a taxi as she walked down the stairs. Nat knew that if Warwick was being watched, she might be tailed, so she stayed in the stilettos and left the coat unbuttoned until she got into the taxi. The display in her suit revealed that the taxi driver was wearing a suit, and that it was set at level 6. After asking to go to the nearest railway station, she closed the door and began a silent conversation with the driver, who was wearing one of the created avatars, John. He confirmed that there were people watching the flat, and that the capture had gone undetected. The taxi was not being followed, so she could return to the base and go back to being Natalia. After such a late night, she should take tomorrow off.
The change back was unremarkable. She changed her shoes and buttoned up the coat in the taxi, returning to the security gate at the base looking the same as she left. She walked through the office to the changing room and changed back into Natalia including changing clothes. As she entered the office, the wifi connection was established and she started the logfile upload. By the time she had finished changing, Warwick's entire memory and body scan had been uploaded and several "skill sets" and a software update had been downloaded.
---
Nat put the suit into level 8 to use Natalia as an auto-pilot, giving him a chance to read up on the skill sets that had been downloaded. Apparently, each skill set was either the abilities of an individual, or a hybrid of the abilities of several individuals on a particular subject from all of the brain scans that had been done. A skill set could be inserted into an avatar, but it would alter the memories of the avatar to include the learning of those skills unless it was installed as "natural ability". Either way, once inserted, the skill set would be a permanent part of the avatar and couldn't be taken back out unless the avatar was reverted to an older backup. The library included many skills including firearms; driving, piloting and operating a wide range of vehicles; scuba diving; science, engineering; economics, commerce; teaching; languages; singing, dancing and playing musical instruments. The one that really stood out was "computer hacking". Apparently a group of computer nerds had been scanned at the public sessions, and their skills at computer hacking were not only very extensive but potentially very useful in conjunction with the computer interface capabilities of the Avatar me! suits.
He started reading the release notes on the new suit, and found one that explained something that he'd noticed already.
A change in the firmware now allows the wearer to still think of themself as their real gender regardless of the gender of the avatar being worn. Concern was raised that wearers might end up having a gender identity problem after they left the suit. Avoiding that is important to the project, and we've found that the masking system is so successful that making the wearer think of themselves as the same gender as the avatar being worn is unnecessary. A version of this gender matching mode remains available as masking level 11, which is effectively the old level 6 used in the original demonstrations.
There has been a change to level 10 to allow short duration use to not taint the avatar, and there is another new masking level, 12, which is a camouflage mode. In masking level 12, the suit surface shape, texture and colour will be optimised to blend into the surroundings. This is more like a Chameleon than the character from Predator, and will be most useful when lying or standing still. It will not make you see through and cannot change fast enough to be effective while moving. To make it work effectively, you also have to be naked but can envelop clothing, etc between your arms and body.
An email was waiting.
Nat,
Install the computer hacking skill set into Natalia as soon as convenient. Note that masking must be at 6 or lower to do the installation.
As advised, you should take Friday off. The situation has changed regarding Warwick. Instead of body swapping him, you will be assisting with a remote takeover of him while he is in Canberra, and recovering the suit next week.
After installing the computer hacking skill set, relax and let Natalia take the day off. When you're ready, set level 9 to expire at 8am Saturday.
Dr Harris
Natalia parked the car in the garage and headed up to her flat. Nat waited until she was in the bath, then selected level 6, loaded the hacking skill set, selected level 8, then level 9 with an expiry of 8am Saturday.
---
Saturday came far too soon for Nat's liking. A few seconds after Nat became conscious behind Natalia as she ate breakfast, Dr Harris opened an instant message session with him.
DrH: Hi Nat. Warwick is in a meeting in Canberra. We may need you any moment.
Nat: Huh?
DrH: Sometime today, he'll get close enough to a computer connected to their network to be able to install a VPN tunnel to give us online access to their database. To install the software, he will stick a finger into a gigabit ethernet socket without even being aware of it. We expect the suit to be able to install the tunnel, in under a second. When it happens, at least 3 of the avatars who have the hacking skillset installed will need to go to level 10 with an expiry of "auto" and get the database changes done and cover their tracks before the tunnel is discovered or collapses.
Nat: Natalia is to go to level 10? Didn't you say that was locked out to prevent tainting?
DrH: Yes, it was. This is an emergency, and to achieve what we need to do, we've created a modification that allows Natalia's permanent memory to pause at the point of entering level 10, and resume when returning to level 9 or below. During the level 10, the whole event will go into your memory so you'll remember all of it but the avatar won't. You'll probably have a headache for a few minutes afterwards, and might want to take some ibuprofen.
Nat: An emergency?
DrH: We have a big problem. The spooks want to pull the plug on the whole project. They have finally realised that the fact that we capture every wearer's body and brain scan and back it up makes us a massive security leak and risk. The instant an experienced operative had their brain scanned, we had the entire history of every operation they'd ever been in, along with identities of other operatives, procedures, the lot. We got an undercover spook by accident in the military section of the space invaders program, and another one in the public section. We also got a CIA informant in the Australian military!
Nat: So what happens now?
DrH: They haven't actually realised what's happened yet. They have realised what could happen, but they still think that a complete brain scan takes over 2 minutes, so don't realise that we got complete scans. Before they find out, we have to edit all of the created identities for our avatars on their database so that they no longer show up as created, making them to all intents genuine people from birth. We're hoping to create about 200 spares while we're at it, and spread them through the database. We've already done some work on their data backup system to ensure that no data that would uncover what we're doing will be recoverable.
Nat: But the actual spooks know who the created identities are. How are you going to fix that?
DrH: The database changes will also alter financial transaction trails. All of our funds from the government for the whole v2.0 project have been funnelled via offshore accounts, and the changes will make it look like an embezzlement scam by those spooks. Oh, and Cate will be giving birth soon. She's due in 3 weeks, you know. It's hard to claim that a woman who has given birth is a man in disguise. :)
Nat: How can Cate give birth? Isn't she a created avatar worn by a male?
DrH: As you might recall, the suits can be worn by a male or female. We've taken in a homeless pregnant teenage girl who couldn't face having an abortion but doesn't want to keep the baby. She volunteered to do whatever it takes to give the baby away but didn't want to know. She's currently in a suit in slave mode as Cate at level 9.
Nat: But that's a child life you're playing with! Who is going to look after the child in the future?
DrH: Cate will, of course. Once the post-partum recovery is over, anybody in a suit will be able to be Cate and the young woman will be able to get on with her life. Mind you, she's quite likely to end up staying on as a junior in the company, helping to make and fit v1.2 suits.
Nat: I'm still trying to get my head around the idea of a created avatar being a parent. That child will be absolutely dependant upon her!
DrH: The child would be adopted out anyway, and as a fall-back, she can be raised by Cate's brother and his wife if necessary. Oh, we're in. Go to level 10 right now!
The IM connection dropped, and Nat thought "Oh shit. Here we go."
Masking set to 10 until auto expire [OK]
---
Natalia had a headache, and seemed to have blacked out for a few minutes. She was already taking 2 ibuprofen when Nat became aware. There had been about 30 seconds at level 9 between exiting level 10 and returning to the previously selected level 8. She downed a glass water, said "Bleh" and lay down on her bed.
Doctor Harris was back on IM.
DrH: I hope your headache isn't as bad as mine!
Nat: Natalia was already taking ibuprofen by the time I came out. It seems like it all went well.
DrH: It went better than well. We got everything done, and we closed the tunnel without it being detected. We had 4 of us working on it instead of 3, and all of us worked faster than we thought was possible. I don't know where you get that game and virus from, but that little masterstroke of yours will look like someone there put an infected game onto a restricted workstation. It's could take them days to work out that Warwick was the most likely source of it. If you put it on a USB drive at his place when you recover the suit he's in, he'll be directly implicated. Brilliant.
Nat: I don't know where the game and virus came from, but it's in a zip archive in my local storage, and it looks like I backed up as I exited level 10, so it's on the main server.
DrH: Do you realise that Natalia has rung me about blacking out? Select level 9 to expire at 5:30pm Sunday and have a rest.
Nat: Ok. See ya.
---
Natalia lounged around for most of the day Saturday, and, following Doctor Harris' instructions, drove to the office on Sunday evening. Nat became conscious as she drove into the carpark. As she walked into the office, he selected level 6 and walked straight through to the changing room. There was a partly different set of clothes this time. The same shoes, coat and bag but everything else was different. The dress and underwear were all black and bright pink, while the stockings were black with pink bows at the top of the back. In the flat shoes and coat, it looked essentially the same as last time. A note popped up to tell Nat that the bag was linked to the suit, and had camouflage capabilities. If the suit is put into camo mode and the bag is with it, it will also go camo. The clothes can't do it, but the suit can simulate stockings and tight fitting clothes. If anything goes wrong, put the clothes and, if necessary, the second suit, into the bag and zip it shut before going camo.
Nat selected level 8. Lee-anne knew what she was doing and who she was on her way to see, and it let him concentrate on what was to be done.
Lee-anne walked out to a waiting taxi, which was again driven by John. He informed Nat that he'd been out earlier checking for surveillance, and it appeared that it was still just the one guy in a car, but that he might have a camera looking into the flat through a window. After dropping Lee-anne off, he'd be parking around the corner this time, in range to maintain a network connection but out of sight of the other car. He'd also be searching for audio and video signal transmissions.
On the way, Lee-anne SMSed Warwick to tell him that she was on her way. He rang her. He was nervous, and telling her that it might not be such a good idea to come over.
"I'm already on my way. I'll make you feel better!"
"I'm really not sure. There are problems at work and they think I might have been involved somehow. I don't know how!"
"I'll be there in about 2 minutes. I want you. I need you!"
"Okay. I'll see you soon. But I'm really worried and I don't want you to get tangled up in my problems."
Both John and Lee-anne established links to Warwick's suit as they drove down the street towards his building. John started downloading and analysing the data to see if Warwick knew about being watched, and if so, how much he knew. As Lee-anne walked up the stairs to Warwick's flat, John told Nat that he'd found the video signal that was being watched by the guy in the car across the street, and patched it through. There was a fairly clear view of the living room, looking through into the bedroom. It appeared to be coming from just outside the window. With some careful adjustment of the curtains, Lee-anne might be able to at least obscure the view, but doing so might raise suspicion. Better to just work around it.
The big question now was, with the video camera covering what it did, how was Lee-anne going to find a USB stick, upload the virus and return it. It might not be possible to plant it now.
As soon as Warwick opened the door, Lee-anne was all over him, kissing him passionately. He responded just how she knew that he would, taking her in his arms and enveloping her. He turned her around so that he could close the door with his foot, and they continued to kiss and grope each other as they made their way towards the bedroom. Nat watched on the intercepted video signal, looking for blind spots in the vision. The only one he could find was the floor on the far side of the bed. It'd have to do.
Nat let Lee-anne do all the work while he formulated a plan of attack. Warwick had already had a bit to drink, and had a couple of vodka cruisers in an ice bucket near the bed. They sat on the end of the bed together and continued with their foreplay while drinking the cruisers straight from the bottles. As they drank and played, they gradually stripped each other until Lee-anne was down to just her tiny g-string and Warwick was down to boxer shorts. Lee-anne upended her bottle, skulled the last couple of mouthfuls then flipped it into the ice bucket. As before, she slipped into bed and dropped her g-string seductively on the floor. Warwick upended his cruiser, pulled off his boxers and dove into bed, sliding across, collecting Lee-anne, the top sheet and quilt and taking the whole lot crashing to the floor on the other side of the bed.
---
As the two bodies touched, the exchange began. Nat had dropped the masking level to 6 and set the suits to exchange when they were covered by the sheet and quilt and falling off the bed out of sight. As they fell off the bed, Lee-anne's hair detached from the suit and Warwick's retracted. Nat transferred the temporary wig from one head to the other and it reattached as they rolled across the floor. Warwick's hair grew out of Nat's suit as he became Warwick and Warwick became Lee-anne. The giggling and laughing didn't even miss a beat as the voices swapped bodies.
By the time they came to a stop, sprawled across the floor laughing hysterically, Nat had set his masking as Warwick to level 8. Warwick got up first, helping Lee-anne back up and onto the bed, still wrapped in the sheet and quilt. They resumed kissing as Warwick recovered another condom from his bedside table. The sex lasted longer this time, and while it was happening, John let Nat know that he had found in Warwick's memory that there was a USB drive on the table near his computer, just close enough to where Warwick would walk to the bathroom that with a stumble at just the right moment, it could be picked up on the way past without being seen.
And it worked just how they wanted. Nat dropped to level 6 as he walked towards the bathroom, stumbled, leant on the table for balance and took the USB stick with him without it being even visible on the video. As the bathroom door closed, he stuck the USB drive into his armpit to leave both hands free to remove the condom and wash himself. By the time he had cleaned himself up, the virus and game had been copied onto the USB drive. As he walked out of the bathroom, he paused by the table and called out to Lee-anne, asking if she wanted to have a shower with him.
"Great idea!"
She stumbled across to him, falling against him and kissing him frantically. As he leant back to steady himself, the USB drive went back where it came from.
---
The shower was hot and steamed up the shower screen. It was a fairly large shower, with easily enough space for both of them, but Lee-anne went in on her own while Warwick stopped to pee. Again in trance mode, the real Warwick opened the suit in the shower. The suit remained Lee-anne, including keeping her hair. The fake Warwick stepped into the shower, and as he worked his way into the second suit, the inner suit transformed to bald and retracted the male genitals to suit. After the second suit closed, Lee-anne and Warwick played in the shower for a few minutes until Warwick's trance wore off. Lee-anne stepped out and began drying herself off. After wrapping herself in a towel, she found Warwick's hair dryer and took it back to the bedroom to get a brush out of her bag. As she finished drying her hair, Warwick strutted back in with a towel wrapped around his waist and a big grin on his face.
"Fancy another round? I don't think I've ever felt ready again this soon!"
"I'd love to stay, but I've got to work in the morning. Can I take a rain check?"
She began dressing slowly and seductively, First the garter belt, then the stockings. She walked around the side of the bed and retrieved her g-string, smiled and tossed it to Warwick, who caught it with a huge smile on his face and a growing bulge in his pants. She put the bra straps over her shoulders and leant forward and wiggled to settle her breasts into the cups, leant back and did up the hooks. She slipped the dress over her head and wiggled her shoulders so that it fell just right. Slipping on her shoes, she kissed Warwick again, pulled on her coat, hugged him tightly, slung her bag over her shoulder and said goodbye.
Warwick followed her out the door in his towel, kissed her and hugged her again as she pulled her phone out to call the taxi.
---
When the taxi arrived, it wasn't John. He had informed Nat that in addition to a second surveillance car that was already there, a SWAT team were a couple of blocks away, and were going to raid Warwick's flat. With all of that attention, they would notice if the same taxi picked her up again, and that attention would not be healthy.
When the taxi arrived, Lee-anne walked from the front foyer of the building where she had been waiting, straight into the taxi. While she had been waiting, she had hidden in a corner and removed all of her clothes except the coat and shoes, stashed them in her bag, buttoned up her coat and set the suit to simulate the stockings. As she entered the taxi, she again asked to go to the nearest railway station before closing the door. As the taxi moved off, she changed back to her flat shoes.
Lee-anne didn't look around to see if there was a car following her. She didn't have to. As expected, the second surveillance car was following her. John was out of his taxi and watching in the shadow of a building, and transferred pictures of the car and the driver before going out of network range. The driver was a spook known as spike, and would be armed.
As they approached the railway station, Nat's suit connected to the network in a safe house they'd set up, not far from the other side of the station. This station was deliberately chosen for a number of reasons. Not only was the safe house nearby, complete with network and several external video cameras and a patch into the railway station security cameras, but the station had a stopping bay exclusively for taxis. Unless spike wanted to stop in the taxi bay and grab her in full view of several people, he was going to need to park his car then come to look for her. If she got a good enough lead on him, she might make it to the house without him seeing where she went. If he was too close, she was going to have to camouflage herself in the small park area between the station and the house and wait.
She had the money ready as the taxi arrived at the station, but the driver took a few precious seconds to count it before nodding and saying "thanks". By the time she left the taxi, spike had parked illegally behind the taxi and was getting out of his car. She unbuttoned her coat as she walked briskly towards the entrance to the station. For a few seconds, spike would lose sight of her. As she passed the entrance and continued across the bridge that led towards the safe house, she shrugged off her coat, revealing what appeared to be an exercise outfit of black tights and a red crop top. She hurridly stuffed the coat into her bag and zipped it mostly closed. Nat watched with some amusement as the railway security camera showed spike pause at the top of the steps, look at her, look down the stairs, then, after an agonising couple of seconds, follow her.
---
The path curved as it exited into the little park, and as she rounded the curve, Lee-anne slipped between a couple of shrubs on the inside of the curve, slipped her shoes into her bag, zipped it shut and lay down in the deep pile of leaves under a tree with her bag over her hair as the suit went into camouflage mode. The only camera covering this area was one from the safe house, and Nat watched the view from that camera. The transformation was incredible, with Lee-anne simply vanishing into the leaves in the low light from the various street lights and security lights. He lay there breathing gently, following spike on the various video cameras. He'd obviously heard a rustling sound from the leaves, as he paused to peer between the shrubs before continuing along the path.
John connected to Nat's suit and informed him that Warwick had been taken into custody. His flat was being searched, and the USB drive had been taken along with his computer. Spike had called his boss to say that he'd lost sight of her. It was only a matter of time until they'd find her mobile number in Warwick's phone. From John's knowledge of operating practices, they'd ring it as soon as one of the others arrived with a mobile phone tracker. Lee-anne's phone needed to be turned off before they arrived.
Underneath the bag, Lee-anne's hair had now retracted into the suit, so it was relatively safe for Nat to manoeuvre himself to get to the bag. Unfortunately, the camouflage mode made it quite difficult to find the zipper, so he had to roll over onto his chest with the bag just above his head and his arms either side of his head. He found the zipper and opened it enough to get his hand in. As he rummaged through the bag looking for the phone, John told him that spike was coming back and would be in sight in seconds. With no time to turn the phone off, Nat tried to pop the battery off but couldn't get it, so he pulled his hand out of the bag and threw the phone towards the shrubs at the edge of the path, zipped the bag shut and held as still as he could.
Lee-anne's phone rang. The pursuer pushed through the shrubs and, instead of picking it up, pushed it into a plastic bag with a twig, sealed the bag and put it in his pocket. John laughed and said "They're going to try to get Lee-anne's fingerprints. They don't know who she is, and they're trying to identify her."
After a brief walk around the park that took him to within a metre of the leaf pile that Nat was hiding in, spike realised that there was nowhere to hide there, and headed back up the path to the railway station. Another, identified by John as David, met him, paused for a few seconds then headed up the path past the safe house.
Spike returned to his car and drove off around the station to where David had walked. At John's suggestion, Nat loaded a new avatar named Zoe. Because he still had to carry the bag and had no change of clothes, it was another female, but she had short spikey black hair, tattoos on her neck, both arms and one ankle and wore a tightly fitting blue top and grey footless tights. Unlike the slightly overweight Lee-anne, Zoe was the slimmest that Nat could currently wear. The bag changed colour as Zoe retreived her flat shoes, stood, shook off the leaves and slipped quietly onto the path. She walked calmly to the safe house, closing the door seconds before David walked past on his way to the railway station carpark to collect his car.
---
Following John's instructions, Zoe entered a hidden room, took off the shoes and put them back in the bag. Leaving the bag containing everything of Lee-anne's in a cupboard, she turned off and removed the outer suit, hung it in a wardrobe and stepped through into a bathroom at the end of the room. The door closed behind her and disappeared into the wall. She stepped into the shower and, as she showered, she transformed into Diane and set level 9 until 9:15 the following morning. After her shower, she dried off, put on her pyjamas and went to bed.
---
The following morning, Diane walked to the railway station and caught her usual train, then a bus to the gate of the base, just as she did every work day. Arriving for a few minutes to spare, she put her handbag under her desk and went to the toilet, putting her hair brush next to one of the hand basins on the way past.
Nat realised later what had happened, but at the time, he was completely unaware. He went into one toilet cubicle as Diane, while someone else as Natalia was in the next cubicle. While they were both sitting on the toilet, they swapped avatars. Because their name badges and IDs were connected to their avatar and they were in matching uniforms, the change was imperceptible. The only way that it could have been noticed would be if someone had watched who went into which cubicle. After washing her hands and chatting briefly with Diane, Natalia went to her computer and began sorting through her inbox.
Temporary setting end time reached
Masking set to 8
Temporary slave mode to suit 2001 ended
A message popped up on her computer screen. It was from Doctor Harris, and requested that Bree, Grace, Matilda, Natalia and Olivia to go to the conference room immediately.
---
As she was walking towards the conference room, an instant message popped up telling Nat to drop the suit to level 6 as he entered the room, take a seat and wait until all of the others were in the room and the door closed before saying anything. He was puzzled, but followed the instructions.
Once they were all in the room, Doctor Harris began
"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that we have succeeded in covering our tracks in altering the database of identies such that every one our current avatars are now officially real people, as are about 200 spares. The bad news is that the spooks have realised that our technology is too dangerous to become commonly available. In fact, if we hadn't set up the apparent embezzlement scam to get them arrested, they'd be confiscating all of our equipment and records now. What we have achieved is far too powerful for them to handle. Even without the suits, the brain scanning technology would be far too dangerous for them to use in the real world. Not only does our central database end up with the entire knowledge of every operative who gets scanned, but the potential for a foreign country to use it against them is far too much of a risk."
Bree said "What, so they'd have taken it all away and buried it?"
"Probably. At best, they might have used a brain scanner in a top secret location somewhere very, very secure."
Nat asked "So what now?"
"Well, obviously the official government sanctioned program is over, and with it the testing program that they were asking us for. The v1.2 garments are unaffected, so we can continue to make them and supply them to both the general public and to the government, but the government's knowledge of the v2.0 suits has been virtually wiped out. We might have to do some mopping up to make it all watertight, but in effect, we are free to do what we want as long as we can avoid getting caught for anything criminal. Part of the mopping up will be integrating the captive test subjects back onto society, which will be done gradually over several weeks."
"We all need to spend a bit of time as our original selves. No matter what, we're all going to need those to fall back on if something happens. We've all been neglecting them a bit lately, so over the next few weeks, we'll try to make time for that. Aside from that, you're all welcome to let your avatars get out and have some fun. In theory, every one of these avatars is now a real person, and it's normal for attractive women to have boyfriends or husbands."
There was stunned silence for a few moments.
"There are currently too many avatars for the number of people we'll have left once we get rid of the captive subjects. Most of the avatars now have established backgrounds that include homes and posessions. Several of them will have to move out and vanish.
"Why do we have to kick out the captive subjects?" asked Nat. "They are better off with us than as homeless men. Why not keep them?"
"With government approval, taking subjects captive was condoned although not strictly legal. Without that coverage, we are kidnappers or worse, slavers. It's a pity, as the demand for v1.2 garments is going up and we could use the workers."
"What if we got them to sign a contract. Call it experimental rehab. Maybe some of the current subjects could go back to where they came from, show their friends how much better they are and sign up their friends. Could we use the suits in level 0 for rehab subjects? Keep them as themselves instead of putting them into avatars.
"That's not a bad idea. We might be able to establish a rehab clinic and even get government money to help run it. We have enough money left over from the government test program to cover the mopping up process and to establish new research directions to keep the staff gainfully employed. I'm looking for suggestions on new things that the suits might be good for. A couple of the subjects were drug addicts and the suits have not only been able to overcome the addiction without any withdrawal symptoms but we've also have been able to stimulate brain cell recovery that nobody realised was even possible. We may have accidently stumbled upon a medical miracle but have to keep it quiet!"
Grace smiled and said "If a suit can break drug addiction without withdrawal symptoms, we should be able to use them to break nicotine and alcohol addiction. If they can repair brain damage, we might be able to help stroke victims."
"They're all worth looking at."
"I know that I've lost weight while using the suit. Could we treat obesity?" asked Nat.
"The inside of the suit can expand to cover another suit that is expanded, so they would fit onto an obese person. Over time, we could take an obese person down to normal weight but it would take quite a while. The suits can also treat skin irritation from perspiration, which is common with obseity. Definitely worth looking into."
"You could put someone onto a starvation diet to get a large amount of weight off, then ease them back into a normal diet as they reach normal weight, and train the body to live on a normal diet."
"You're right. With the suit constantly monitoring the body, a person could safely lose several kilos every week. That would be an interesting project!"
Olivia stuttered excitedly "Wh. Wh. What about people with brain to body problems, such as Parkinsons? Would it be possible to compensate for the coordination problems using the suit."
"It might be. We'd have to look at that. We won't know until we try."
Doctor Harris's mobile phone rang.
"We'll have another meeting in a few days once we get a better handle on where we're going with it all."
---
As Natalia walked back to her desk, Nat returned the suit to level 8 and let her take control so that he could think.
He didn't know exactly what his future held, but he knew that it was going to be fun!
(c) Alice Jane 2010
Comments
this tech
is both wonderful and kinda scary at the same time. even without the spy modifications, it would be the ideal answer for a trans person, but the "slave" mode is frightening, with far too great a potential for abuse.
dorothycolleen
Avatar
You needn't apologise. The word is thousands of years old, and the movie (and the gaming community) stole it from a Hindu/Buddhist/Jain religious context:
Sanskrit avatÄra ‘descent,’ from ava ‘down’ + tar- ‘to cross.’
A physical manifestation of a deity or ascended soul (a reincarnated Boddhisatva, for example) on Earth. The term originally implied descending from Heaven (or wherever the Gods and Goddesses hang out when they're at home), but no longer has a physical referent in typical usage, since we're more sophisticated these days.
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
-
Cheers,
Puddin'
A tender heart is an asset to an editor: it helps us be ruthless in a tactful way.
--- The Chicago Manual of Style
Fun story.
Now I have to say this was fun! Handling all the twists and turns kept me breathless at times. I'd really like to see this as a series.
Jolly good, carry on.
Gwendolyn
I wasn't going to comment but...
I originally thought... there is too much background in here. More than half could be cut out!
Then I remembered your preamble about how this was the anchor for a new series or even a new world for writing.
So once I filtered out most of the exposition I began to realise there was a kernel of a story here, buried as it was.
I have to say while I don't think your story was 'good' due to excessive descriptions... I did enjoy parts of it where the action of the story continues without the background on the suits.
I'm looking forward to your efforts in future episodes which hopefully will come with a disclaimer to read this chapter first so the new episodes can be a lot less cluttered.
Nobody.
ps. you might want to add a comment at the bottom inviting other people to write in your universe.
pps. don't think I didn't notice that nobody seems to know where the game/virus came from.
Training wheels
Guess this could be used as training wheels for TS folks also though the idea of not having control of my own skin is kinda creepy. I still don't think the suits can do skeletal mods and stuff so a 6'8" trans will still look a bit freaky.
Still it might be fun to be blonde and young for a while.
Ah, the ultimate goal of crossdressers, being able to pass perfectly without any learning curve and being able to put it away when they don't want to be femme anymore, until next time of course.
Kim
Frankly I do not really care one way for the protagonist
one way or the other. I do not feel any motivation to root for him or hate him.
Nothing.
Kim
I like your writing, but...
I started your story and was drawn in. You have a very readable style and I felt comfortable with the characters. If you were a bad writer, I wouldn't have even bothered commenting. I really enjoyed it until you started going all techie on me.
As you became more and more and more descriptive about the suit and it's capabilities, I slowly lost interest in the story. I kept reading until I was a little more than half way through and scanned the rest of the story for plot.
In my opinion you could cut this story down to about half it's current size and have a much stronger story.
I understand that you're trying to lay the groundwork for future stories. I'd just recommend you try to share information through a drinking fountain instead of a fire hose.
Well...
A very interesting story with a lot of potential for the future. Yes, the slave mode is frightening, however what about this 'peers putting you in a slave mode'? It kinda implied having superior suits in hyerarchy...
Also, why is it needed to vanish the avatars? Why not find a few people who are already removed from society to take over? Like, runaways who want to have a fresh start, and along those lines...
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Faraway
Big Closet Top Shelf
Where you can fool around like you want to and most you get is some bemused good ribbing!
Very interesting as a German spy once said on tv.
Your style and ability to draw the reader into the story is very good, I hope you post again and again other stories.
"Avatar Me!" is a very good start, interesting in the storyline and expandable into a series if you like.
Enjoyable and well written.
Grace & Luck be unto ye!
Grace & Luck be unto ye!