Bookshelf Battle

For the 3.5 readers paying attention, there was a big reveal in Chapter 20 of Undesiredverse: Wanted.

In earlier chapters, we saw Roman, our hero:

• Punch a dude in the face in a rave club
• Flirt with a space hooker
• Fight a duel with an old friend
• Take on 6 henchmen at once
• Kiss yet another space hooker (I’m worried he might have a thing for space hookers)
• Hang in the air from a hook attached to a ship piloted by Alien Jones
• Fight a robot controlled by a highly evolved and super evil artificial intelligence on top of a ship as Alien Jones flies it all over the place.
• Dive through the air without a parachute to save an alleged space hooker (though it kind of looks like she’s not a space hooker)

All the work of a young man, wouldn’t you say?  (I know.  There are too many space hookers in this story)

Ahh, but there’s the rub.  In Chapter 20, we learn that Roman is 65 years old.  In the future, humans start taking a drug called Rejuvatrix at age 25, which allows them to retain a healthy, 25-year old looking body for the next 275 years, a 300 year life span in total.

• Plot wise, it makes things interesting.  There are older, wiser humans but you might debate whether or not they are because they still look 25.

• But then again, perhaps “maturity” is a relative term.  In theory, most people don’t really want to slow down.  They just do because their bodies are telling them to.  In other words, your 65 year old grandpa would probably fist fight a robot on top of a space ship and kiss space hookers if he wasn’t sleepy all the time.

• An extended adolescence is created.  0-100 is considered youth.  100-200 is middle age.  200-300 means you’re elderly.  But again, to confuse things, from 25-300, you look like you’re 25.

• By the time we figure life out, we’re too old to do jack about it.  It amazes me that we expect people to choose their life’s path at 18, an age when they have no idea who they are, what they are capable of, what they’re good at and not good at, and most importantly, what would make them happy?  We need Rejuvatrix so we can all take a century to just go out and find ourselves.

• For the 3.5 people reading the story, did it change your view of Roman to learn that he’s 65?  He certainly doesn’t act like today’s 65 year old.  In fact, when Alien Jones showed him a picture of what I (Eduardo Ricardo aka BQB) will look like when I turn 65 (a future event for me, or a past event for future Jones, if you sit down to do the math)…Roman freaks out at an image of what a 65 year old looked like in the early part of the 21st century.