Evolution - The Oasis Project Book 3

Forty-One - Ira

Celestia was in the middle of a left hook coming for my face when gunshots rang through the dry afternoon air. Her fist faltered, and I easily blocked her with my forearm. Locking her in a snare against my body, I swivelled my hair around, a lock of sweaty dark hair bouncing off my cheek. The best scenario was that Yulian got too bored and started a little evening target practice, the worst that we'd been found and attacked.

"Can't do that in real battle, Celestia." Four was walking down the dirt path, the rifle across her body making her stature appear even smaller. "Good job, Ira, for not getting distracted."

I let go of Celestia and looked around for Yulian, finding him with a sniper rifle set up behind some bales of hay, pointed towards faraway targets. I grimaced at the loud shots that followed and returned my focus to Four.

"Getting your ten minutes of fresh air?" I teased, stretching my shoulders back. Ever since Linkin took Doctor Nita to Russia, Four practically lived out of the office. Even Alessia started to look worriedly at the closed office door every time she walked past it. None of us questioned Four's dedication, even though we all exchanged looks with one another, wondering just when it was that the woman got any shuteye.

Four rubbed her dark eyes and actually smiled. "Hopefully more than ten minutes. Your man has banned me from the computer until at least midnight." She gave me a sharp raise of her eyebrows.

"Who's got the honour of watching the feed?"

"Thierry." This earned a roll of my eyes; Thierry shouldn't be let near that computer at all. He'd been led by his heart too many times already and was using less and less of his brain. Four seemed to understand my frustration and pulled her mouth tight. "So, I've got to find other things to do."

"Any of those go by the name of sleep?" I pried.

"Ira whatever your last name is," Four began, "who goes to sleep at 5:30pm?"

I gave up. Yulian took another few shots at his target. He caught me watching and gave me a thumbs-up, shaking his shoulders loose.

A few minutes later, we were sitting in the shade of the hay bales. Yulian's sunburn had gotten worse – he was looking like a feverish baby with glistening, bright red cheeks. Celestia began braiding her black hair over her shoulder, freakishly similar to Nita's signature hairstyle. I picked at my bootlace, anticipating Four's long update on how Linkin's doing.

"Petya stuck a knife in Linkin," Four said, gritting her teeth. I recalled when we'd first met, she was full of rage against the Oasis Project. It would have only grown in the past year. "Let her bleed while he electrocuted her. Not sure why."

"Have they patched her up?" Celestia looked understandably horrified as Four delivered the news without a flinch.

"I bloody well hope so." A trace of an Australian accent surfaced in Four's reply before it melted back into Chinese. "He seems satisfied to just let her die. Linkin looked at her arm quickly. I didn't get much time to analyze it, but it looked like they took off a big piece of her skin."

"What the fuck?" Yulian spat. Celestia looked as if she was about to vomit.

"How are you feeling, Celestia?" Four quickly diverted the topic, but I could tell that she wasn't asking for Celestia's current state. She wanted to know how quickly we could feasibly get Celestia to Russia to retrieve Linkin.

"Good," Celestia replied. After a hesitant pause, she added, "Sore."

"That's what I thought." Four brought up a scarred hand to comb through her straight raven hair. "You've been making good progress. Good job. You need water?"

Celestia bobbed her head eagerly, before looking embarrassed about her condition.

"Come on, Four," I said. "You could have brought us refills instead of guns, you know?"

"Sorry." She got up, and we did too.

♟♙♟♙

Four didn't bother holding the door open for the rest of us. Instead, she picked up her pace and ran across the back room to the front of the house. "Oi!" she called out as I opened the door again, but she was talking to someone else. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

By the time Yulian, Celestia, and I stepped foot in the living room, Thierry was already cowering in the blue armchair with Four standing over him. He looked so panicked, so defeated, so worried.

"What is going on?" I frowned at the both of them.

"Who the fuck knows?" Four snapped, glaring at Thierry. "This one was about to fly himself to Russia or something. Real smart."

"Thierry..." Yulian said behind me.

"Is no one watching the feed right now?" Four continued to interrogate the big man, who shook his head.

"I let Stuart head to bed—"

Before Four can reprimand him more, I took that as my cue to take two stairs at a time to man the computer. Linkin's eyes were closed and I switched the text colour to a glowing white.

Ira reporting.......... I started typing, then I realized that I didn't know what to say. She would have thought that she was getting out in a day, that Thierry was coming for her.

Thierry was an idiot. I decided to be brutally honest. Sorry. Oasis threw a curveball, got the world looking for us. None of us can leave.

I sat with my elbows on the desk, chewing my lip, debating if our weak new plan with Celestia would make her feel better or worse. The video was still dark, and I wondered if Linkin was even conscious, or if she'd bled out already and it was too late. If they left her wound open for too long, she'd start feeling like death was the better alternative. I still remembered my near-death experience in Mexico clearly.

Thinking wasn't doing me any good. My fingers took to the keyboard again and had a mind of their own. I know it's hard out there. We are with you. Please help us. I sucked in a deep breath and the idea came without thinking. So far they've only put targets on Yulian and me, but the rest of the team is on their database. If you can, detour to their servers and erase us. We can't attack if Oasis has info about us.

Shaking my head, I left her my last message. Thought you might find it ironic that we were on the news as terrorists.