Mature Content

[GIF] Renewal Center - Age Regression [2/3] by Transviscera

Mature Content

Renewal - Age Regression [Part Three] by Transviscera

Jason pushed his grandfather along the long row of pods. The Renewal Center was like a boomer aquarium. A submerged geriatric floated in each glass tank, held in deep sedation by the medicated liquid, their twitching limbs tangled in plastic umbilical tubing. Their baggy, wrinkled skin and wispy hair billowed around them like seaweed. The whole facility stank of antiseptic.
"This is a bloody strange place you've brought me to," grandpa grumbled deliriously, squinting around through his cataracts.
"Shh, just look at the fishes, grandpa," Jason whispered, pointing at an old lady bobbing in the brine.
Grandpa squinted and wrinkled his nose. "Ugliest fish I ever saw."
His respirator had slipped down again. Jason helped him pull it back into position, muffling his voice before he said anything else incriminating like 'what's renewal?' or 'I don't remember agreeing to this!'. His mom's hand had been firm around grandpa's when signing the consent forms. Very firm. One might almost imagine that the unintelligible squiggle of a signature had been hers. Before his mental deterioration, grandpa would have grabbed renewal with both hands but these days he just needed a little help making choices.
Jason's parents walked ahead with the renewal doctor. His mom gestured to catch up, as though afraid grandpa might drop dead before they even got him in the tank.
Further down row of pods, the patients within become more regressed, looking almost fetal in appearance. Nurses stood by the tanks with their arms inserted through rubber gloves in the glass walls, kneading out the wrinkles in their patients' translucent, blobfish flesh.
Outwardly, the doctor was a gangly youth with a bad case of acne, though he had the brusque air of a man who'd been doing this for decades as he ran them through the process. He must have been through renewal himself. His pubescent voice kept breaking.
"-terribly short notice of course, but we didn't have high hopes for extracting viable sperm, nor for it to successfully take to the ovum. So far, things look adequate. The morula reached 32 cells as of this morning, allowing us to start cultivation for cell lines. It's still early days, you understand. We offer no guarantee that the stem cells represent a viable organism, or that they can confound your father's immune system long enough to gain a foothold, nor, most importantly, that defects won't become apparent later in development, especially given the age of your father's... donation. All our donor eggs are of the highest quality, of course, but they are only half the equation."
"But the treatment is ready to start, right?" says mom desperately.
The doctor furrowed his spotty brow. "Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. Given that we can't even test for the cells' sex at this time, you can imagine all that we do not know. We are creating an entirely new human and, as any birth, things can go wrong. Your father could emerge with physical or mental disabilities that he'll have to live with for fifty or sixty years. Or the process may kill him outright. Ideally we'd screen for such defects, given more time, but-"
"He doesn't have time," mom said fretfully.
"Indeed. Hence, the enhanced consent forms."
"What happens if it does go... wrong?" mom asked.
The doctor sucked air through his teeth. "We can attempt a second renewal, but there are costs, genetic degradation. Eventually the only option would be animal tra- Ah! Here we are! Pod #442."
They'd reached the part where the tanks were empty of people. The doctor smiled down at his patient. "YOUR HOME FOR THE NEXT NINE MONTHS, REGINALD," he bellowed. "WE'LL SOON HAVE YOU BACK ON YOUR FEET, EH? LOOKING FORWARD TO BEING A YOUNG MAN AGAIN, ARE YOU?"
Grandpa scowled. In colourful english, he mumbled something that sounded a lot like he wanted to go back in bed and left alone. The doctor arched an eyebrow.
"Err. He's very excited," Jason said, unhooking his grandfather's hearing aid the moment the doctor turned away.
The doctor tapped a button on a keypad. The pod descended until its lid was flush with the floor. Jason helped his grandfather out of the wheelchair while the doctor hooked up the oxygen tube. The old man leaned heavily against his shoulder, limping as he was led towards the pod opening. Jason guided his gouty feet one at a time into the warm viscous. As he slipped in up to his waist, he began to lash out with body fists.
"The bloody hell is going on?!" he squarked.
"You're just going for a swim, grandpa," Jason whispered, wishing now he'd left the hearing aid switched on.
"You bastards are trying to drown me!" he roared deliriously.
"So about payment!" mom exclaimed, grabbing the doctor's arm and yanking him away.
It was the distraction Jason needed. With a hand on his grandpa's shoulder and a parting whisper of "sorry, grandpa", he pushed the old man under the liquid. A stream of angry bubbles broke the surface.
"Err, yes, payment," the doctor said. He pulled out a sheaf of paperwork. "I'm afraid you'll find that it is significant." Jason's father pulled out his wallet, but the doctor shook his head and passed the papers to his mother. "I'm afraid these are for you, madam. Money is only part of the payment. You see, we are always in need of healthy ova."