Destruction - The Oasis Project Book 2 (Complete)

Thirty-Six - Ira

"So they found nothing in your ears?" I asked Yulian, who was trying his best to make sure that food went to my mouth instead of my cheeks. This was becoming the longest meal ever. I never knew that being forced to cover my eyes for a few days would be so difficult. But total darkness wasn't so bad when there was company.

"No, just you." Yulian pressed a hard plastic cup into my hand when I motioned for water. "It was the first time they've seen something like that. They were not expecting it. I think Four is convinced that you are some unpredictable monster."

I finished the water, finally an attempt that didn't end up with spillage to my nostrils. "You told her nothing?"

"I'm not going to give her inaccurate reports," Yulian said with a chuckle. "Who knows, maybe in the fourteen-year gap you would've... No, I won't continue that."

"You seem to be doing alright," I told him while trying to line up another piece of beef with my teeth. It was better not to question what was going in my stomach. "Have you eaten yet?"

"I am eating right now, just not as loud and focused as you," he replied, and I tried to hide the surprise on my face. "And it depends on where the bar is set for being alright."

"You remember things, for one," I said sourly.

Yulian shifted loudly, the material of his clothes scraping against the table. "You don't? What happened?"

This was another thing that Oasis only did to me, then. The pit of my stomach was growing bitter with these realizations. "I escaped their testing grounds, again, in the USA. I think they put me in China and tried to erase my memories because they didn't want me near anywhere familiar." I put down my plastic fork and sighed. I was suddenly not hungry. I wiped my mouth with a saucy serviette, and it took a few tries to find a clean corner. "Were they rough with you? Did they ever find out... After I left..."

"No, they didn't know that we were a team. You killed Vitaly, so the only person who knew us well was gone. And... As long as I played along and pretended to agree with them, I was fine." As Yulian spoke, his voice grew softer and softer. "After you went, nobody ever talked about running away again. We were terrified; even after us who had survived were given some freedom as Oasis soldiers, that was part of us. You escaped Russia, and then America?" He laughed, and I wasn't sure if it was out of bitterness or pride. "You really are something, Irina."

I leaned the side of my face on my hand. My blood pressure was spiking and my eyes were starting to throb. "I'm glad you're fine, Yulian. You probably wouldn't have been with me around," was all I could manage.

His chair scraped against the floor. Fast but soft footsteps came towards me, and not long after a hand was massaging my temples. "It's alright now, Ira. We'll be safe here."

I leaned back into him, the anxiety ebbing away a little. "You sounds so sure."

"Well, Four refuses to answer most of my questions, and my English is terrible, but she definitely doesn't like Oasis."

"Does Four have a name?" The truth was, I didn't feel comfortable calling anyone by their numbers, not even during the crucial rescue mission. An invasive thought came into my head, making me realize that Stuart would hate the numbers, too. I smiled.

"I don't know," Yulian said. "She didn't say. You should ask her when you're better."

I nodded. "So tired." I was getting too exhausted for full sentences.

"I'll help you get back to your room," Yulian said, helping me stand before I was even ready.

"I have a room?" I was astonished.

"Yes," he replied. "Bad news, it's next to Four's I think."

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" I swore in English, and we both laughed.

󐁌♟♙♟♙

"Beiya," Four said, "if you must."

I remembered it now. Liana Atteberry had mentioned Four's name the night before the team left on the mission. I picked strands of hair off my tickled cheeks. "We are more than numbers."

"We are more than names," Beiya countered. "But really, you know, I don't care. I am only here to check on your healing progress."

Without warning, she took the dark mask from my eyes. The back of my eyelids lit up bright orange and I grimaced for a moment, but my pupils adjusted and I forced one eye open, then gingerly the next. The face that I'd committed to memory from Oasis files was right in front of me in the flesh, except instead of smooth tanned skin, patches of scar tissue covered the side of her cheek and ran down her neck until the uneven skin disappeared under the fabric of her white t-shirt.

"Hurts? Doesn't hurt?" Beiya asked impatiently.

"I-It doesn't. Stings a little." I blinked and looked down, trying not to notice the similar scarring that she also had on her slender hands.

"Fuck Oasis," she said, the words too harsh for her delicate face. "Come on, say it with me. For therapy."

"Fuck Oasis," I croaked with her. It didn't make me feel as good as she had advertised. I looked over her once again. Four of China, once One of China, who was able to have knives pass through her and regenerate at a rapid speed, had burn scars all over her body. "I thought you were held against your will. What happened?"

Beiya laughed as if I fell for child's play. She pointed at her scars, which looked as angry as her. "This happened. You might have heard of my 'accident', the one that made me Four instead of One? Up until then, I was just serving my jail sentence by committing to the Oasis Project. After that, I became a chemical factory."

She told me in a rush of words that I struggled to keep up with. Beiya was the only survivor of her family in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, which wiped out her town and made a beggar on the streets. She scrimped together some money and went to internet cafes where she quickly learnt how to code and make a living online. Complex coding led to complex hacking, and Beiya tested the government's limits when she hacked into the stock exchange one day and made too much money disappear. Agents came to arrest her the next day but were stumped by her youth.

"It was jail for life or some freedom with the Oasis Project," Beiya said. "They say jail, but who knows what they really mean, or how long you will live. Oasis was my safe bet."

When her mutations developed, Beiya quickly became the star of the program. She could do whatever she wanted in exchange for gruelling training and further testing. The fire obstacle course was part of both training and testing - the doctors wanted to see how far her regeneration abilities would go. It ended with Beiya being bedridden for months, and while she was recovering, the doctors would take swabs of her wounds and open them back up.

"I could not believe they let me fully recover in the end," she said. "They were harvesting from me. They found what helped my regeneration."

The sooner we get Four back, the sooner we can get back to producing the compound, Liana had said, before my bullet wound miraculously healed the next morning. I couldn't believe that I had even for a moment trusted in the Oasis Project.

"And now it is your turn." Beiya caught me by surprise. "Who are you, what can you do, and why is the Russian recruit with you and not Keshav?"

"You blew him up," I tried to say as nonchalantly as possible, "with a grenade."