In today's fast-paced world, and with finite vacationing time, SUBs are a popular tool for many holiday-goers. By using a secondary body and resynching your memories at the end of the vacation, you can effectively double your experience of a destination. In more dangerous locales, some opt to remain in the safety of their hotel suite while their disposable vessel explores in their stead. Most of all, they are faithful travelling companions in strange lands.

But SUBs aren't cheap, especially not for a backpacker on a budget. Store-bought, they can cost five or ten times the price of an airline ticket. Fortunately, there is a ready solution for opportunistic travellers. In parts of the world, such as SE Asia, South America, or the Washington Exclusion Zone, SUBs have been allowed to run wild, forming feral populations. Most are descended from SUBs discarded by departing tourists unwilling to pay the airfare to bring them home. Failing to die from their genetic protocols, they have instead survived and thrived, interbreeding with local wildlife and sexpats to produce a self-sustaining population with an eclectic gene pool, which can range anywhere from borderline human to unrecognizably animal.

Their ragged appearance can be intimidating at first. These are not the preened, plastic-packaged clones you're used to. They live hard lives, scavenging for scraps on the edges of society. But make no mistake, they are healthy, robust bodies. Only the fittest have endured, perfectly adapted to their environment and climate. While you may be sweating through your shirt upon arrival at your holiday destination, they will be perfectly comfortable. Inhabiting these mutts can be a raw experience due to the sharpness of their senses but you'll soon feel more at home than in the over-genegineered store pedigrees.

Finding them is easy. Airport peripheries are common breeding grounds. Check behind any 7-Eleven in Bangkok and you'll likely find a pack of three or four canid or feline models rummaging through dumpsters. Take your pick of the healthiest specimen. Females tend to be less aggressive and less trouble. Bring meat. Toss it gently. Once they begin eating, approach slowly and check the back of the neck for the bioneural port: a slightly raised patch of nerve-dense tissue at the skull base. If their genes have drifted too far, they may no longer have one, rendering them useless for upload. But if the port’s intact, you’re free to attempt a jack-in. I highly recommend the BX47 port by MindChar Manufacturing. It has a very rapid burn rate and a detachable cable, so that the animal is less likely to rip out your brainstem if it bolts mid-write.

You will know immediately if it is likely to be successful. Sapience isn't for everyone, and most animal minds react with hostility to the imposition of human concepts of existentialism or 'paying taxes'. If they resist, there's no need to force the issue. Let them go and try another. It will take trial and error to find the one amenable and curious enough for you to install yourself. Congratulations! You've snagged your first fully organic SUB.

How you progress from there will obviously depend on which end of the cable you find yourself on but for now, I will suppose that you won this coin toss. Now that other-you has hopefully gotten their new body under control, you can more thoroughly examine the animal and determine its condition. It will of course need bathing and most likely de-fleaing before it is ready to send out into polite company, as well as branding to display its human-occupancy. Continue reading to learn how to care for your new SUB.