Oasis

by Eilís Barrett

  For him to get us killed.

  We walk up to the entrance of the Justice Tower, and there is so much security here I think I can actually feel them watching us, waiting for some kind of slip-up.

  But with Aaron at our side no one blinks as we walk through the sliding doors and into the lobby, a huge high-ceilinged room filled with people walking back and forth in front of the doors, all of them with something to do and somewhere to be and there’s this stifling, buzzing sound of voices and machines moving and phones ringing and I already feel the panic rising in my chest.

  Kole places his hand on my shoulder for just a second, silently reminding me to breathe.

  Aaron walks up to reception, flashing a smile.

  ‘I’d like to see my father, please.’

  The woman behind the desk looks up, a little dazed.

  ‘The OP is in a meeting at the moment, but I can—’

  ‘It’s really quite urgent.’ He smiles wider. ‘I’m sure you understand.’

  She swallows, smiling back at him.

  ‘Take the elevator to the eighty-fifth floor. He’s in room B13.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Aaron says, smiling again.

  We follow him to the bank of elevators and wait for an empty one before getting in. I’ve never been in an elevator before, and when it starts moving I jerk forward, my arms flying out to catch myself on the smooth steel siding. I steady myself, placing a hand to my chest as I wait. There’s a dial above the door, counting down the floors until we get to the top, and we all stare up at it, Kole’s hand wrapped tightly around Aaron’s left arm as we rise slowly.

  My heart is loud in my ears as we finally come to a stop, the door sliding open in front of us to reveal Oasis laid out before us, stretching out to the very ends of the Wall, and from here, from the sky, it does look like a paradise, with the Outer Sector clutching to its edges like a desperate parasite.

  And it’s then, as we stare out at the world with wide eyes, that they appear in the sides of our vision like shadows, poised to attack.

  25

  The walls of the containment room are steel grey, and light pours in on top of me, disorienting me.

  When the Officers launched at us, we had only one-tenth of a second to think, and it wasn’t long enough. There were so many of them, dozens and dozens of blue uniforms and the glint of their guns all around us as they pulled us apart. As they dragged me away I only had long enough to see Jay’s head hit the floor, blood pouring from his leg as Kole was pulled backwards, blur of rage and desperation as he screamed after us, Aaron standing above it all, a grin on his face.

  ‘YOU DIDN’T THINK I’D ACTUALLY LET YOU WIN, DID YOU?’ he roars, both frantic and enraged and maniacally joyful, and it made my skin crawl.

  As I stand in the containment room, I do the only thing I can think of and start screaming. My voice echoes off the walls and comes crashing back to me, and I scream. My throat is raw and painful, and I scream. I keep screaming, my fists banging against the steel door until they’re numb, but it never opens.

  Panic starts warping me from the inside out, and my brain concocts a million different images of a bullet through Kole’s brain until I can’t take it anymore.

  ‘Aaron!’ I try to roar, but my voice is hoarse from the screaming, and it comes out as what it is: a plea. At this moment in time I’d do anything to get out of this room, to find Kole and Jay and save them.

  I wonder how this happens. How one day you wake up and suddenly there are people who mean more to you than your own life.

  I slump to the floor, and desperation fades into bone-deep exhaustion as I realise that this is it. That the accumulation of all the bloodshed and lives lost to keep us safe is just a broken girl in an empty room, with no way to escape.

  No way to escape? There’s always a way to escape. Aaron’s own words sound inside my head, and I look around and up.

  I look up and I see that the light pouring into the room is from panels in the ceiling, and every second panel is made of some kind of tile. I stand up, my heart leaping in my chest, and jump. The tips of my fingers hit against the tile, which turns out not to be a tile at all but some kind of painted wooden panel. It shifts beneath my hand, just the tiniest fraction, up and down for a second. And then it hits me: this isn’t an actual containment chamber, it’s just some left-over meeting room too small for the OP and his senators.

  I leap again, this time pushing all of my force into the jump, and the panel moves over an inch. I jump again and again and again and again, until the panel is halfway over. I shake out my hands, my heartbeat sounding in my ears like a drum, and I leap, high enough that the tips of my fingers catch the rim before I fall back down.

  I hit the ground and curse in frustration, but the next time I leap, I get a grip on the edge and begin pulling upwards. My muscles scream at me, and my arms shake and shake until I think I’m going to fall again, just before I get my elbows over the side, hoisting the rest of my body up after me.

  My breath comes in huge heaving gasps, and my arms feel weak, but I’m up. I glance around, trying to see in the low light. Wires from the lights coat the floor beneath me, and there are steel shafts running between panels, I assume holding up the ceiling.

  I begin moving along the rafters, balancing precariously as my eyes snap down to the flimsy wooden panels below me. If I lose my balance and fall onto one of those, I’ll go straight through them.

  The rafters continue on, then take a sharp turn to the left, facing directly into a grate. I pause, my hands gripping a wooden shaft as I squat, staring in through what looks like an air-vent.

  I pull experimentally at the grate, which comes away with an upwards tug. I place it gently on top of one of the panels, praying they won’t give way under its weight, and wriggle inside the vent. It’s tight, but not too tight for me to crawl through on my stomach, using my arms to pull me along. I feel as if it’s getting tighter the deeper I go, but I know it’s not.

  Eventually I come to another grate, the vent coming to an abrupt dead-end. I pull on it, but it’s fastened from the outside, not from in here. With a growl of frustration I push at it, but it doesn’t budge.

  I stop for a second, trying to gather my thoughts, then sit up as far as I can, shoving me legs underneath me. For a second I don’t know if I’ll be able to turn completely, but eventually I manoeuvre myself around, my feet towards the grate and my head at the opposite side.

  I place my hands on either side of the metal vent, take a deep, steadying breath, and kick. The grate comes loose, clattering to whatever floor exists on the other side, and I jump feet first after it.

  I land in a crouch, straightening as I look around, my breath frozen in my lungs as I try to understand what I’m seeing.

  26

  I don’t understand. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be seeing. The walls are lined with computers, not like the ones at the power station, old and half falling apart, but sleek silver things, information flowing across screens so quickly I can’t read it.

  But my eyes won’t pull away from a line of vials, hundreds of them, lined in carts, the label burned into my mind forever.

  Gene X51 Suppression Serum.

  I feel myself slipping, the room swimming around me as I stumble forward.

  The Cure.

  My shaking hands pull at the vials, and I’m trembling so badly I can barely hold it in my hand, the perfect glass container, holding everything.

  Everything.

  This is everything. This is freedom. This tiny thing, clear serum in a glass vial, is what I have spent my entire life waiting for.

  The door behind me flies open, and the vial is dropped, smashing against the floor as I search the room for a weapon before I realise who he is.

  And then I realise who he is.

  ‘Johnson.’ My voice comes like a growl, like a hiss, like a self-indulgent exhalation of pure hatred.

  ‘Quincy Emerson,’ he says, an old name from a bygone time, when I w
as Pure – when I had a right to my identity.

  If he looks shocked to see me, he doesn’t show it. My first thought is he looks like Aaron; my second thought is a reluctant admission: he looks like Kole. He has their height, their military posture, and their sharp jaw. But his eyes are all Aaron, pale blue flashes of light, like lightning, but colder. And his hair is Kole’s dark brown to the point of black, but his is greying at the temples. He’s wearing an expensive blue suit, fitted perfectly to his body, made for him.

  ‘I was coming to visit you,’ he says, each word slow and warm, reminding me of Aaron’s honey-sweet timbre. ‘And when I didn’t find you where you were supposed to be, well, I had a suspicion you’d find yourself somewhere you don’t belong.’

  ‘What’s this?’ I ask, gesturing my head towards the vials, towards the computers.

  ‘The Cure,’ he says. He doesn’t blink.

  I can feel my breathing speed up, my blood burning in my veins as I try to fight the urge to kill him right now, right this second.

  I hear Kole’s voice in my head. ‘Your emotions won’t help you. Not now. And not when there’s an Officer in front of you. You need to let it go. Everything, every single thought inside of your head. Let it fall away from you.’

  I steady myself, slowing my breathing back to normal, and I take one short, measured step towards him.

  ‘How long has this been here?’

  ‘Since before I took over,’ he says slowly, closing the button on the front of his blue suit calmly.

  I try to process this information, form a new question, but I can’t think straight.

  ‘But they’re looking for it. Oasis is looking for the Cure.’ It sounds ridiculous even as it exits my mouth.

  He chuckles slowly, taking a step towards me, his smile mocking. Off camera he looks older, more human.

  More mortal.

  ‘You are more naive than I thought, Miss Emerson. We’ve had the Cure for decades. Did you really think it would take us this long to find it?’

  I take a stumbling step backwards as he continues to advance on me, quietly threatening.

  ‘Why is it here then?’ I ask, trying to keep the doubt from my voice.

  I can’t show him weakness. Kole said earlier that’s what he wants, to see how he can play with you, make you feel what he wants you to feel.

  ‘Of course it is here, why wouldn’t it be? We need the Cure. To keep us safe. Oasis’ motto is peace for all; the Cure is peace.’ His tone almost self-deprecating as he repeats another Oasis slogan, one that’s printed on almost every broadcast about the Cure.

  ‘But …’ My mind is muffled, dealing with too many things at once, and I pull back, pressing my fists to my temples as a headache bursts through my skull.

  Johnson takes another step towards me, and I drop my hands from my face and look at him.

  ‘No,’ I growl. ‘Stop. Don’t you dare come any closer.’ My breathing is ragged. ‘If you have the Cure and you say you need it, then what are you using it for?’

  ‘You,’ he says, cocking his head to the side. ‘You and everyone like you.’

  My heart drops as realisation hits me, knocking the breath from my lungs.

  ‘You already used it,’ I whisper, and he smiles, like a proud parent watching their child walk for the first time. ‘You’ve been using it all along. We’re already Cured.’ My voice rises, the computers beeping around us like a round of sarcastic applause.

  ‘It seems to me,’ he says, taking another slow step towards me, ‘that none of your kind are really that bright.’

  My lip rises in a snarl, but he just smiles.

  ‘First, you think you can escape Oasis merely by leaving the confines of the Wall. Then you let us plant a mole within your ranks, as easy as the press of a button. It really is pathetic, how easily you believe people. It seems a bullet in the shoulder is all you people need to trust a complete stranger.’

  I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach, and he can tell. I know he can tell because as I feel the blood drain from my face, another perfect smile spreads across his.

  ‘Lauren?’ My voice sounds high and wavering to me in this echoey chamber.

  ‘Miss Tate, yes. She really is very devoted to Oasis, don’t you think?’

  I can’t speak. Can’t breathe. I imagine Sophia at the base with Lauren. I left her with Lauren.

  ‘And now this,’ he says, gesturing to the Cure. ‘All this time, and you never figured it out. Of course we have the Cure. We couldn’t have an actual threat hanging over our heads.’

  ‘But why? Why would you hide it? They would have worshipped you for finding it.’

  He opens his hands out in front of himself, as if in presentation. ‘They already worship me.’ He smiles, his blue eyes flashing in the overhead lights.

  Jay said anger felt cold, like losing all the feeling in your entire body at once, but if that’s true, this is not anger. I lunge at him, my vision blurring red as I go for his throat. Every other thought is gone, evaporating into thin air the moment he opened his mouth and said those four words, words I should have known were coming all along.

  And then I am staring down the barrel of a gun.

  ‘Ah ah ah,’ he tuts, the same vacant smile on his face now that I’ve seen every single day of my life, on billboards and posters and in Oasis video-casts.

  My eyes drill into his, and I wonder for a brief moment how I never realised who Aaron really was.

  Those are Aaron’s eyes staring back at me.

  ‘You coward,’ I spit, and I cannot pour one-tenth of the venom I feel into those two words.

  ‘Not a coward, Miss Emerson. Merely a strategist.’

  27

  The sound of a gunshot echoes through the building, and the world stops. Everything is in slow motion, and my heart beats in time with his name.

  Kole.

  Kole.

  Kole.

  But I see Johnson’s head twist towards the door, and I see the weakness in his grip, and before I know what I’m doing I’m disarming him, flipping the gun over in my hand and aiming it at him, before he has a chance to look back at me.

  When he does, he smiles, a smile that sends a shudder down my spine, freezes my blood in my veins, but I keep my hands steady.

  Let it fall away from you. I hear Kole’s voice echo in my mind. It won’t help you now.

  I move backwards towards the door, the gun still aimed at his head.

  I reach behind me, pulling the door open with one hand, keeping the gun on Johnson as I slip through the door.

  But he just keeps staring at me, that perfect, blank smile plastered on his face.

  ‘You can’t win,’ he says, before I close the door, not raising his voice in the slightest. ‘This battle is nothing to us, do you understand? Nothing. You do not exist.’

  I slam the door, sliding the lock shut behind me.

  He’ll be out of that room in minutes, but all I can think of now is that gunshot, the sound still ringing in my ears as I take off down the hall. I don’t know if I’m even going in the right direction, but I can’t waste time trying to decide which route to take.

  My boots pound against the celian floors as I pump my arms at my sides, pushing myself to go faster, faster, faster, because I don’t know who shot that gun or who they shot it at, but Kole and Jay are in this building somewhere and I need to find them.

  I take a corner sharply, almost ploughing into the far wall, but when I see what’s at the end of the hall I stop dead.

  Aaron holds Kole against the wall on the left of the hall, a gun pressed to Kole’s temple, so close to him their faces are practically touching.

  ‘Aaron,’ my voice comes out shaky, because I cannot mask this fear. Not this time. Not when it is this. Not when it is Kole.

  Kole’s eyes lock with mine, a mix of terror and relief exploding across his face.

  ‘Quincy, run.’ His voice is a plea, as desperate as my need to get him away from Aaron.

&nbs
p; I see it unfolding inside my head: Aaron’s patience snapping, the sound of the trigger being pulled back, the next sound, the one that follows that, like everything beginning and ending in one heartbeat.

  ‘Aaron,’ I say slowly, taking another step towards them. Aaron doesn’t move a muscle, and I am intensely aware of the Officers who are no doubt on their way towards us right now.

  ‘Aaron, you don’t want to do this.’

  ‘Shut up,’ he hisses. He’s shaking almost as badly as I am, and his finger twitches across the trigger. ‘You don’t know what I want. No one cares what I want. It’s what Kole wants that matters. It’s what you want.’ He drives the gun into Kole’s temple, and Kole’s eyes widen. ‘He deserves this.’

  ‘Aaron, no, he doesn’t. He doesn’t deserve any of this. Johnson is the problem.’

  ‘Johnson is my father.’

  ‘Johnson is a monster, Aaron.’

  ‘Shut up, shut up!’ he screams, the gun shaking against Kole’s temple as his voice rises. Kole doesn’t move. ‘Johnson is the only family I have.’

  ‘I am your family,’ Kole says, and his voice is soft, but it only seems to enrage Aaron further.

  ‘You are nothing to me. You took everything. You took my house and my life and my father. You took everything.’

  ‘I didn’t want it, Aaron. I didn’t want any of it. I would have given it to you in a heartbeat, but I couldn’t.’ Panic is entering Kole’s voice, and my own fear is feeding off the sound.

  ‘You’re lying,’ Aaron says, but his voice is quiet, doubtful.

  ‘No, I’m not. I didn’t want it. I don’t know why Johnson chose me. I never asked for any of it.’

  ‘I just wanted him to see me. To see that I was the best. I was the best.’

  ‘But you don’t need him anymore,’ Kole whispers, lifting his hands to move the gun from his head. ‘You don’t need any of this.’

  ‘No,’ Aaron gasps, as if he’s coming back to life, pressing the gun closer to Kole’s temple. ‘No. You’re a liar. He said you would do this. You’re just trying to turn me against him. You won’t turn me against him.’