Walking down the street I glance from side to side, searching for the small office I needed to visit today. The sun beats down on me as I walk along the sidewalk, the only shade giving me relief being the occasional tree or awning from the large building lining the road.
Pulling my phone from the front pocket of my dark blue jeans I check the email again, reading down the instructions. I had been offered a new job, a truly dream position for a part-time lecturer like myself. However, they had asked for a weird stipulation in accepting the offer, I needed to 'adopt' a 'Suit'.
'Suits' had been around for almost a decade now thanks to the advances in technology made by two distinct companies, New Beginnings and E-Z Suits.
It was New Beginnings that made the first person into Suit, using morphic fields to reduce the individual into a hollow latex-like costume facsimile of themselves. Through their patented mass shifting technology any person who wore this Suit would become identical in appearance to the person who had become the Suit. While this made the Suits quick and easy to use and remove the cost was prohibitively expensive, mostly due to the safety measures required in preserving the wear's shape once the Suit was removed.
Due to this pricing problem a new contender stepped into the field. E-Z Suits entered into New Beginnings' monopoly with a simple business model and promise, "We are cheaper". While this allowed for almost anybody and everybody to undergo the procedure to become a Suit, it also had a steep personal price. Due to lacking the technology of New Beginnings to preserve the wearer's bodily integrity, and out of an effort to keep costs low, E-Z Suit utilized a more damaging process. The Suit's morphic field would activate once worn much like with those from New Beginnings', creating a perfect facsimile of who the Suit had once been. However, with none of the expensive safety precautions being used the wearer would slowly be ground down and reshaped into the insides of the Suit permanently, with the Suit becoming their new skin.
While this may have been a problem if dropped on purchases as a surprise E-Z Suit lauded it as a feature, making it front and center of their marketing strategy. It particularly resonated with older individuals, hearing that they could get a drastic extension on their life expectancy if worn by someone younger, and those who simply wanted for the process to be irreversible for one reason or another.
Over the years thousands of people had become suits, most of which already having plans once the process was done. Couples wanting to be closer, poor college students wanting to save on rent, people with no job prospects hoping that someone else will carry them through life, and many more.
However, many of these people failed to have any plans on the other side. Becoming a Suit as a drunken mistake, a poorly thought out dare, or maybe just having their original plan fall through when their wearer never showed up. These poor people, unable to take care of themselves, needed a place to go and so the Suit Rescue was created.
This non-profit was built mostly as a storage facility for homeless Suit's. With small nondescript offices dotting in many major cities, it was not uncommon to see these mixes between clothing stores and warehouses. The process of adopting a Suit varied from place to place, though the most common system I had heard of was simply "picking one off the rack and crossing your fingers it's a good one".
I sigh to myself as I realize what was likely going to happen once I got to the office, though I still didn't know exactly what to expect. My long legs quickly carry me down the street, my pace quickening as I redouble my efforts to find the Suit Rescue before I have a chance to change my mind.
I couldn't back down now, not when I was so close to my dream job...
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