Rewired: Project Insula

Chapter 1 (Prologue)

If you were to be passing through Camden Town in this very particular excerpt of time, you probably wouldn't have noticed anything out of the ordinary. Even if you were walking past The Southern Fence Steakhouse, where something not so ordinary did in fact occur.

Sat against the wall of the restaurant was a man named Thomas Jack. He managed to scrape through every day on the off chance that a kind passer-by would stop and give him some money or food. There were lots of passers-by in Camden Town, although not so many kind ones.

Outside the steakhouse had become a new favourite place for Thomas, knocking the Virtual Sensations mixed reality porn stall, off the number one spot. There was something disturbing, but equally interesting to see the kind of people who would wander up to the stall and enquire about weirdly specific videos, almost always featuring robotic p*****s or v*****s.

The customers would often grease his palm on their way out, to make up for their personal discomfort of somebody knowing their disgusting secret pleasures. He would make sure to shoot a shocked and disappointed expression their way, once they had completed their transaction, just to create the maximum amount of embarrassment possible.

The steakhouse brought a different kind of experience to Thomas, nothing but pleasant memories of a life that once was, but is no longer.

The old tunes from the early 2010s brought him back to his teenage days before he had become addicted to painkillers, and even longer before he had violently mugged his own Father for drug money. It was a life he sorely missed, and seemed to be seeping from his memory every passing day.

Thomas had been sat cross legged under his blanket, listening to the sound of his childhood hum through the open window of the kitchen for about 2 hours before somebody approached him.

It wasn't peculiar or even uncommon for somebody to approach Thomas. He would probably converse with around 30-40 people a day, which he often put down to the insane and infinitely growing culture of social media and political correctness. Everybody liked to feel like a good person, but everybody liked to be seen as a good person even more. There probably wasn't a better way to flaunt yourself than to give something to a homeless man in front of hundreds or thousands of Camden Town bystanders and commuters. And that was when they weren't recording you with their glasses so that the masses across the globe could see their great sacrifice and even greater deed.

The man who Thomas had noticed was straying from the two-way traffic of congested London pedestrians, was tall and seemed out of place. Not because of his height but because of the way he walked and clung onto his shoulder bag tightly.

He walked with purpose certainly, however he also seemed slightly on edge about the way he was holding his bag, like whatever was in there was going to eat him and everyone around him if it was dropped.

Thomas smirked at the thought of that. He had become good at creating stories around people's body language, an easy feat when your entire day consists of seeing hundreds of thousands of people walk past you every day.

The man was just about approaching Thomas when he stopped about 7 feet away. He checked his watch, pressed the screen a few times, turned his head to the left, and felt the outside of his bag. With that he then looked up from under his fedora

and smiled. "Good afternoon sir".

Thomas looked up at the man with a strange look. The man had an American accent and seemed to be well spoken.

"Alright?" Thomas replied.

The man seemed slightly taken aback by this response, but smiled again. "I'm perfectly all right, sir. It's you that I'm

concerned about."

Thomas chuckled and looked at the ground. "Not lookin' for your concern mate."

The man wandered over towards Thomas and knelt on one knee, carefully holding his bag as he did so. "You may not be looking for my concern, but you have certainly stumbled across it." He said peering into Thomas's bloodshot eyes, as if he was about to ask him to say ahh.

"Can I help you, cos it sounds like you want summin" said Thomas with sudden irritation in his voice. Although he had all

the time in the world, he didn't have time for pompous yank arseholes, it interrupted his new-found love for nostalgia and

the smell of beef and oil.

"No, no, no I don't want anything from you. I actually have something for you!" The man replied, patting his bag with care. His smile had in a way become more apparent, but with less intensity.“It may not seem like much when you see what it is,

but I think it may change your life.”

Here we go, Thomas thought to himself along with what he thought was an internal eye roll, but ended up being a very

much external one.

The man pulled out a small metallic can from his bag, and held it up for Thomas to see. It had VITA Energy branded across

the front.

"This is a new energy drink that my company are looking to bring into the United Kingdom, and hopefully Scotland and

Ireland too. It will make you feel stronger, faster and give your brain that kick it needs." He paused to allow Thomas to

react. There was no reaction, other than disbelief forging his eyes into a scowl.

"It's called VITA energy, Vita being the Latin word for life." The man continued. His smile becoming more and more forced.

"I don't understand what you want, I haven't got any money." Thomas said, removing the blanket from his legs.

"See these shoes?" Thomas spat out with further agitation. "I have been wearing these for 7 years straight, the trousers for about 2 years and the tshirt I managed to steal from a stall couple weeks ago. I don't even own a f*****g jacket, or a jumper, and its f*****g February, and you are tryin to sell me an energy drink? What is wrong with you fuckin yanks."

Thomas finished, barely being able to contain his rage induced spit flying from his dry lips. He pulled the blanket back up, nearly covering his chin.

The man placed the drink on the floor in front of Thomas, almost with no reaction to his sudden outburst.

"I understand… I understand that you must go through an unfathomable amount of pain in your day to day life, and you have for far too long. This world has been rotting for decades, if not centuries... And now..."

The man got up from kneeling, and looked down at Thomas pitifully.

"Well now it is rotten." He said, grimacing at the words.

With this said, the man looked down at the drink and then back at Thomas, almost like you would look at a dog to let it know it was okay to eat the Sunday Roast leftovers that you had put in its bowl.

"The drink will help. What have you got to lose?" The man nodded towards Thomas and smiled.

Moments after, the man would leave. Back into the ocean of bustling London pedestrians, where the two would never cross eyes again.

"What a prick" Thomas muttered to himself.

Thomas found the part where the man mentioned that the drink will make him faster and stronger particularly hilarious. Especially the give your brain that kick it needs part.

He laughed to himself about it, and then laughed a little more. His laughter soon turned to shivering, and shivering soon turned to more shivering, but with thirst attached to it. He looked down at the drink and laughed again at the reminder of the man's sales pitch.

"I am thirsty." Thomas thought to himself aloud.

Being on his own for so long had caused him to often voice his thoughts to himself. Otherwise he was worried he would forget how to talk. He would often laugh at this, as he knew it was probably just the beginning stage to becoming a psycho, the kind that he used to make fun of in his youth, but he didn't mind. The funny side to things came naturally to Thomas's mind, which was probably why he hadn't killed himself yet.

Thomas was hesitant to pick up the drink, but he couldn't figure out why. The satisfaction that he received from finding the man's speech so pathetic and funny, overpowered any thought of a possibility that this man was telling the truth. However, he still had a small sense of unease over this drink. After all, the situation in which the drink arrived to him was very strange and had happened very quickly.

In a sort of stubborn way, Thomas buried the sensation of worry that he couldn't quite comprehend, and reached for the drink. He opened the tab with one of his overly long fingernails and had a sip.

"Just as I thought" spoke Thomas confidently after the first sip. The drink was ice cold and refreshing even when being bitten by the familiar harsh breeze that had engulfed him for most of his life.

"Taste just like a Red Bull" he said.

He laughed to himself and put the drink down. "Bloody yank conman." He snorted to himself.

"I don't feel a thing"