Rewired: Project Insula

Chapter 5

Mark Hewis took a long crackling drag of his joint, and watched the paper burn down towards his mouth, etching temporary bright lights into his eyesight. He blinked a few times, exhaled a cloud of greyed smoke and rested his head back onto his headrest.

He turned his head slowly to his left and caught the eye of his best friend, Ben Wilson.

“Reckon we could open a window a bit Mark?” Ben asked, coughing.

Mark let out a spacey smile, blinking his red eyes almost in slow motion.

“Come on man, can’t you take it?” He replied croakily.

Ben pulled the door handle and opened the door slightly, he then shot a frustrated look at Mark.

“No cough cough, I can't bloody take it cough.”

Mark sat up facing forwards, widening his eyes, almost as though he was trying to stop being stoned. He looked back over at Ben who was now sat with half his body out of the car, looking out into the dark street.

“Sorry Ben… Hey! Sorry Ben…” He said still with a deep croak in his voice.

He took a quick sharp drag of the joint before putting his window down and chucking the butt out of the window. He exhaled out of the car, away from Ben and put his window back up. Although he may not show it much, Mark cared deeply about what Ben thought of him. He was sensible, smart, funny and Mark often wondered why he had stuck around. He was a “good friend to have” as his Dad would often tell him.

The two boys had been sat in Mark's 12-year-old Vauxhall Astra for around 20 minutes now, parked neatly on the side of Cooks Road outside the towering block of flats where Mark lived with his Dad. The time was 12:42am on a freezing Saturday night in February.

…

Elsewhere on this chilly night, at a very similar time, Robert Harris was climbing into his van after a long night of delivering goods from the wholesale bakery that he had worked at for 6 years.

He sank into his pit of leather, perfectly broken in to accommodate his buttocks, and rubbed his eyes. The nights were longer this time of year, darkness would engulf the day from 4:30pm all the way until 6am the following morning.

Robert let out a large yawn, granting a few tired tears that proceeded to trickle gently down his hands which had been politely covering his mouth. He wiped his hands on his black cargo trousers and started the van with a groggy press of a button.

As the van started moving, Robert noticed an irritating rattling sound whenever he would accelerate. His tired eyes attempted to scan the inside of the vehicle, whilst frantically darting back to the road.

It didn't take him long to reveal the culprit of the noise, perhaps longer than it would have for somebody who wasn't completely deprived of sleep, but still, he did a decent job considering.

“Ah ha ha!” He said out loud suddenly, in a delayed, but excited manner.

The rattling was coming from the can of energy drink that he had purchased from the off license before making his final drop of the night.

“Got these in today!” He remembered the middle-eastern chap exclaiming. “The man said these are very good for brain. Keep you awake. Yes?”

Robert always found it hard to say no to any kind of upselling, but even so, he was going to buy some sort of sugar filled death drink to help him get through the night anyway, so why the hell not?

Whilst one hand guided the vehicle down the narrow streets of Peckham, the other cracked the can of drink open with a satisfying kshhh. He lifted the can to his mouth and took 3 huge gulps, nearly clearing the whole can in one attempt. The drink was still freezing cold thanks to the bitter winter night, but the taste was delicious and crisp. Robert let out a huge satisfied sigh, followed by a belch. He then proceeded to finish the can, before lowering his window and chucking it out onto the street.

…

Mark Hewis and Ben Wilson were still sat in the car, their conversation had now moved on to the topic of girls. Both being 17-year-old college students, girls often took up the majority of their late-night talks in Mark's car, it was a private place, free of judgement and the easily triggered girls of their age.

“What about Rebecca?” Mark asked with a genuine sense of intrigue.

“hmm” Ben pondered. “Show me her again?”

Mark gestured with his hand and displayed an image of Rebecca Treadwell, known quite offensively as the ‘hottest ugly girl in the college’ by most of the first years.

Ben adjusted his smart glasses and up popped the image taken straight from her f*******: profile. She was posing next to a statue of Elon Musk at an event celebrating the 4th anniversary of the world's first manned mission to Mars.

Ben had not forgotten what Rebecca looked like, quite the contrary. They both attended the same astrology club, and Ben really did believe he was in love with her. Astrology was a huge and genuine interest for both of them and Ben had recently decided that he was going to ask her out next week when he saw her next.

…

“What is that stripe on my box?” Robert said to himself for the sixth time.

His pupils were exceptionally small at this point. Infact if you were to see Robert, out and about, delivering some bread rolls to your favourite restaurant or café, you would most likely never forget those eyes. Pure green sat in the middle of his healthily white eyeballs, with just a spec of black where his once typical pupil sat.

It would be extremely difficult for one to grasp what Robert was actually seeing, it would be like trying to explain an acid trip, but without a smidge of human thought.

“The stripe on my box…” Robert continued. “What is it?”

Robert was getting agitated now, often pulling at his seatbelt, grinding his teeth in what seemed like frustration and pain. Bright blue veins began poking at his skin, all the way from his forehead down to his neck.

“I don't want the stripe! Its my box!” He screamed, like a child having a night terror.

Sub consciously channelling all of his bodily frustration, Robert stretched his legs and arms out as far as he could, flooring the accelerator pedal to the ground. His teeth sunk into his bottom lip like a blue steak and blood trickled from the new wound, as he clenched his fists and pushed them directly into his eyes.

“ITS... MY… BOX!!” Robert bellowed as he continued down Lorrimore road.

…

The two boys sat looking at the picture for a few seconds. She had short red hair that fell slightly down her face, complimenting her sporadically placed freckles. Her lovely straight teeth shone through her cheeky and eccentric smile, and her large round glasses sat high up on her button nose.

Ben could sense Mark staring at him from the corner of his eye, he could tell he was smiling, eagerly awaiting Ben's response.

“Yeah… She's nice.” Ben said timidly.

“Ha!” Mark exclaimed looking back at the photo in front of them, before laughing out loud.

“What?” Ben asked, trying to hold off the infection of Mark's giggle.

“Oooh yeah she's nice” Mark said, mimicking Ben. He continued to laugh, this time what came out was a proper belly laugh.

“Yeah she is!” Ben reiterated. “What's wrong with that?”

Mark had begun to calm down now, only letting out the odd hysterical wheeze between words.

“Oh come on Ben, I know you like her!” Mark said loudly.

Ben hushed Mark quickly as if they were surrounded by judging ears.

“Ahh so it is true?” Mark began laughing again. “I thought as much when you pretended to not know who she is.”

“Yeah so what? She's really cool.” Ben retorted, this time sternness aired through his words. “And what is so funny anyway? I'm allowed to like a girl.”

Mark made an obvious effort to stop his laughing, swallowing hard to rid himself of the giggles.

“No it's not funny man! I'm just laughing because… well I'm stoned… and well…” Mark said before trailing off.

“Well what?” Ben asked.

“Well I'm happy for you. You two are similar, and you deserve someone like that. There are too many bitches out there these days, and Rebecca seems nice.”

“And that's why you were laughing?” Scoffed Ben.

“I don't know man, the mixture of excitement and happiness combined itself with my stoned mind and made me get the giggles I spose.”

“Whatever Mark” Ben said light heartedly.

What Ben didn't know, was that none of this mattered. The way he was going to ask Rebecca out didn't matter. Whether or not Mark was being genuine when he said he was happy for him, didn't matter. Absolutely nothing mattered. All the worries and issues that plagued Ben's young mind, would be no more. Ben would be making his grand return to nothingness after a 17-year break, all thanks to the bakery van that smashed into the passenger side of the car at roughly 90mph, absolutely obliterating the young bodies of Mark Hewis and Ben Wilson.

…

Mrs Pennicott had heard a large ‘explosion’ in the middle of the night and had frantically explained to the gentleman on the other side of the 999 call, that her apartment building was under attack by Russians. Moments after a squad of armed officers arrived at the scene, they were surprised to see no Russian in sight, but instead a wreckage consisting of a Bakery Van, which had come to an abrupt stop inside the passenger side of an old Vauxhall Astra.

The bright British morning that followed, was a good contender for the night before in terms of freezing temperature. Investigators and police officers had been strolling around the site, seemingly uninterested, focusing more on keeping their hands buried in their pockets or wiping away the condensation from their glasses.

Inspector George Triller had marked out the main points of interest using his smartglasses, but had touched nothing. Specific instructions from Daniel Green, a man who Triller had seen far too much of recently.

“…I will be at the site shortly, don't let anybody touch anything. Mark out anything else of interest…” Is what Daniel had last told Triller, after an unsatisfactory livefeed from Triller's glasses.

Reluctantly, Triller had done as such. A mixed reality reconstruction of the crash, showed that the Van travelled down Lorrimore Road at an estimated speed of 93mph, due to the adjacency of the road in comparison to the victim car, there was a clear lack of consciousness, that caused the driver to be unresponsive to his actions, meaning the Van would only stop once it collided with the first thing that stood in its way. Unfortunately for the two lads, the Astra was the first thing.

This was a fairly routine reconstruction, albeit rather strange that the van was travelling at such a high speed with clearly no awareness from the driver. It wasn't until Triller took an even closer look into the mess of metal, ash and bone; that he began to understand why Daniel Green, from the “mystical” Barrier agency, wanted to take over the case.

What was strange, was the complete absence of van driver, and paired with the wonderful torrential rain that started 10 minutes before this realisation, there was no trace of the man at all.