Different people in the world of salmon and choosers were born with different abilities. Some could teleport, others could jump through time. Some could only see the future, or skip time. No one with any given time power was the only one of their kind, but some powers were rarer than others. One of the most coveted of these was anti-aging capabilities. Immortality on its own was possible to obtain, but a difficult series of tasks lie ahead for anyone willing to try for it. The next best thing to this was playfully called reyoungification, and one of the few people capable of this was named Merton Casey. He could alter anyone’s appearance back to how they were at any desired time of their lives. He also necessarily rejuvenated and healed them of whatever age-related diseases they might have contracted. He could make people young and healthy, but it came at great cost to him. Once people discovered what he could do, they started lining up for his services, and most were completely willing to accept the nature of the procedure. The awkwardness was only temporary, and to them, the benefits were too amazing to pass up. Merton couldn’t just wave his hands in front of his patients, and make them young again. He had to physically manipulate their bodies, all over. He had to smooth out wrinkles, and wipe away hair, and in some cases, shorten body parts. Doing this for anyone made him feel uncomfortable, but it was especially problematic when it was for a woman, which, let’s be honest, they made up the majority of his clients. So every case made his life that much more difficult to continue. Somehow being at least a little attracted to the patient made the whole thing worse; like he was violating them, even though they consented to this. A few didn’t consent, and then nothing happened. The worst of it came when he met a young woman named Paige Turner. She was fourteen years old when an antagonist aged her up to her twenties. Her reasons for doing this were her own, but the bottom line was that this woman never returned to reverse what she had done. After a year in this state, Paige decided she wanted to go back to being fifteen, and Merton was the only one they found who could help her. Unfortunately, he had never been asked to do anything like this before. His other patients wanted to be made young again, but never that young, and they were never meant to be that age in the first place. Paige was really just a child in an adult body, so touching her at all was even more offensive than normal. Fortunately, he was rescued from this job, by a woman who ran a special place that was designed to be a haven for people who had been negatively impacted by time travelers. She made an exception for Merton, and let him live in Sanctuary as well, despite having abilities of his own. He was protected from would-be clients here, and finally free of his trauma, so that he could heal, and move on.
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The Advancement of Mateo Matic
Now that the lineup has been irreversibly established, and their reliance upon the direction of any external force removed from the equation, Team Matic must decide for themselves what missions to take. As they approach the year that changes everything, they may find themselves on a long detour.
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Daily installments of The Advancement of Mateo Matic have temporarily replaced all Saturday stories.
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My name is Nick Fisherman III. It's not my real name, but that's not because I'm trying to hide from my former agency, or something. I named myself after someone I've known for most of my life, and he chose it in honor of his late best friend. I took up writing when I found myself failing 8th grade science, and realized I might never reach my dream of becoming a biochemist, a meteorologist, and a quantum physicist. I started developing my canon after a scouting trip to an island inspired what I thought would be my first novel. I founded this website upon the advice of many people, who told me I needed to get my work out there, and not wait for an agent to accept my manuscript. You can expect one new story every day. Weekdays are for microstories, which are one or two paragraphs long. They're usually only thematically linked, so you won't have to read one to understand another, but they do sometimes tell a combined story. Sundays are for my continuous longer story, The Advancement of Mateo Matic, which I started in the beginning, and won't end until 2066. Saturdays are for long series, most of which take place in the same universe as Mateo, and add to the larger mythology.
Friday, November 29, 2019
Microstory 1245: Merton Casey
Labels:
ability
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aging
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consent
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immortal
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microfiction
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microstory
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patient
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power
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procedure
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rescue
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salmonverse
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sanctuary
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service
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teleportation
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time travel
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women
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youth
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