Microstory 377: Life Extension

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Calm

I’ve told you that I am what we in the business call a transhumanist. I’m also a futurist, which means that I study future events in the same way that historians study the past. You can actually go to school to study this, which I would do if I had the money. For now, I just do research on my own. My macrofiction series The Advancement of Mateo Matic is basically a sensationalistic textbook from the future. On subject, most people don’t really understand what aging is. Don’t feel bad, I know slightly more than you, and scientists know less than you would think. It’s a big mystery, but what we do know is that there are these things called telomeres. Every time our cells divide, our telomeres get shorter. The diminishing returns from this process ultimately leads to the death of the organism. It’s like a tiny hourglass counting down to our demise. And if this exists, then it can be stopped. The hourglass can be turned over, almost literally. Science marches on, and while we’re working to cure disease, restore vitality, and protect people from danger, we’re also working on repairing genetic flaws. You’ve all been operating on the assumption that death is inevitable. You drink, smoke, and take unnecessary risks. You think you might as well do whatever you want, because you won’t have much time on this world anyway. At most, any death is stealing eighty or ninety years from an individual. I’m here to tell you that this is no longer true. Anyone born 1960 or later is estimated to be young enough to reach the longevity escape velocity. Of course, this only works if you’re also a healthy individual. If you’re sedentary, if you have a preexisting medical condition, or if your job puts you in a level of physical danger, then I can’t guarantee you’ll last. I suppose I can’t guarantee it either way, because of unexpected dangers, but you get what I mean. The reason I keep bringing this up is because I think it’s important that people understand their options, and this is my only medium. Now is the time to change your life if you’re not happy with it, because there’s a chance it goes on forever.

Imagination

Microstory 11: Immortal Danger

I came to this planet when I was 271 years old. The first person I met was a child named Ilarion Simeonov. What I discovered upon learning the custom of "shaking hands" was that I could turn any human immortal by nothing more than a touch. Ilarion immediately stopped aging, and is unable to be killed. It's not that he heals, or that he is impervious to injury. It's more that he is invisible to death. He has never been in danger.

Over the course of several centuries, I have incidentally immortalized fourteen more people. Occasionally, they can use their ability to protect others. There was actually a domestic terrorist plot against the TCL Chinese Theatre back in 1994. The instigators were caught trying to lift the duffle bags containing the bombs. An unseen force was weighing them down, simply because two of my immortals were spending the entire day seeing the same film over and over again. A suicidal immortal jumped out of an airplane over the Atlantic Ocean in 1974. He's been hovering about 20 feet over the water ever since. He refuses to let us retrieve him.

Today, I am dying. You see, where I'm from, our scientists have mastered genetic aging. Due to overpopulation concerns, they decided to cap everyone's lifespan to a certain number of years. Despite advances that rendered resources limitless, the richer still live longer. Some of the more impoverished live the equivalent of 22 Earthan years. And we always know when it's coming. I was born into one of the wealthiest families in our solar system. I am not due for death for another few centuries. It is my guess that I expedited my time limit each time I immortalized another person.

I am writing these, my final words, not so that you will know my story. But so that you will know yours. Before coming to Earth, I encountered many fallen civilizations. They had one thing in common. An inevitable and unstoppable disease spread throughout every population that mastered genetic aging, destroying it completely in a matter of months. And Earth is on the brink of the very same discovery. But I have also discovered that the disease can be avoided, by altering the method of genetic engineering. All you have to do is