He was waging a war, one that had been ongoing for years. It was a war against his body, which wanted to degrade, decay, defragment like a badly maintained computer hub. He would not let it. He had the money for nootropic supplements, exercise, nutrition, meditation and education to stop the rot. But that was the thing, as the years had gone by, he realized he didn’t want to merely stop the rot anymore … he wanted to transform it.

Aspire had been born.

‘Sir?’

He had been about to begin his first micro-nap. The staff knew that. He would not get irritated by this interruption, however, as irritation led to a spike in cortisol, which was napalm for the nervous system.

He nodded.

‘Sir?’ The man was poorly dressed for the heat, dark blooms of sweat flowering the armpits of his shirt with its too-tight, buttoned-up collar. ‘I have had an update from St Dunstan’s.’

The barefoot man found the little red dot on the map. The island. It was one of his favourite trials. He’d met Moses once, many years ago, when he’d just been starting out with his shiny new sleep idea. An over-caffeinated man with bloodshot eyes and poor skin but he’d had an idea for sleep technology that made the barefoot man’s heart beat faster, cortisol be damned. It started with fixing sleep issues, but the end result? Well, the end result was altogether something more interesting.

It was a technology that, eventually, became part of his arsenal.

Increasingly, as Aspire grew to take in other technology, gene therapy and medication, the barefoot man had found himself waging war not just against the body, but also against the old world, the old way of doing things, the old order. Disappointingly he discovered that governments were hardly worthy adversaries because they couldn’t keep up with the pace of this change and didn’t understand its scope. Even when they did, legislation then worked so slowly they were destined to lose the battle before they’d even realized they were in it.

There were plenty of others who understood the potential.

Sweat Stain edged into the room. ‘St Dunstan’s has been compromised, sir.’

‘How?’

‘The problems with the trial proved insurmountable. The full evacuation policy has been activated.’

Full evacuation policy. He knew what that meant, and he sighed. Regrettable.

As if on cue, one of the red lights on his map began to blink.

The jarring dissonance of that blinking light against all the other steady, unwavering ones was perturbing. He didn’t like it.

Sweat Stain was nearly at his elbow. Too close. The barefoot man could smell his cologne, just about, under the stench of meaty perspiration. Perfumes were beautifully scented poisons. He reminded himself to issue a memo about them.

‘Ms Maxwell? Mr Ing?’

‘I regret to inform you of their passing, sir.’