EXTRACTION POINT

Chapter 1

The people here were from the same mold. They were all used-to-be's who had crashed and had survived. Their eyes were surreptitious and fiery, darting quickly from person to object, from sky to horizon. Their senses were well oiled, engineered from years of constant running. Among them was a stranger, a quiet girl who smelt of youth but was a wizened presence. Alex was out of her predicament but still suffering from her condition. The condition of them all: Fear and Uncertainty.

The Doctor wrung his smooth hands and strode uneasily around the room.
"...a plan. Who's got one?" someone uttered.
"How 'bout not dyin' in the next twenty-four—sounds like a good one to me," said the Southerner, his eyes alit with dissent.
"But we have to have a way of going about that, James," Locke replied thickly. He set his eyes on the swaggering cowboy.
"Don't call me that," snarled Sawyer.
"Hey." Ana Lucia's eyes lanced towards the group. She and Sayid were hunched over The Device, engrossed in its technology.
"Give us the call," ordered Jack, swiftly meandering over to the table.
"No call," Said Sayid. "Just numbers. A lot of numbers."
The Device regurgitated nonsense. The blocky digits kept xeroxing from the warm, vibrating machine endlessly. Jack's brow scrunched.
"What's it say?" asked Sawyer, looking perplexed.
"Nothing," Ana Lucia turned away from The Device irately. "It's all a bunch of goddamned nothing. They're not coming."
"Thanks Dr. Gloom'n'Doom, but I'd rather like the techie's opinion—"
"Look!"
The young Alex jutted her index finger towards the window.

The impeccable glass of the big window lay transparently between the certain doom of the five-hundred story drop of The Junction, and the disconcerting beauty of an afternoon sky over the empty city. Eight black imperfections marred the cloudless horizon. The people stared, startled.

"It's Them. They're coming for us!" said someone hopefully. The Doctor shook his head. "It's not them."
"It's not them," Sayid echoed. "It's the Operatives," his eyes lanced with alarm. "They gained a lock on our position."
"Well how the hell did that happen?!" Sawyer exploded.
"I don't know—!" Sayid desperately pounded keys on The Device. The machinery had suddenly gone cold. The numbers stopped coming. Paper ceased to spill out. The room filled with an eerie silence.

The helicopter noise grew as a gradual, distant buzz.

Locke stood staring in the window.

"They've been chasing us since fifteen days ago when we started from the island. We lost them two days back, found a secured area, this doesn't make any sense—they shouldn't be here." "How did they find The Junction??" someone drove the question home.
"Maybe it ain't as secure as we thought." Said Sawyer.
"You've been quiet, Kate." Ana looked towards the recumbent fugitive, who stolidly glimpsed at the window where the dark buzzing specks grew in size every ten seconds.
"Kate?" asked Jack, looking interested. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine, Jack. Exactly what are you saying, Ana?"
"I'm just noticing your vocal capacity's diminished since our last program, frankly I'm worried."
Kate grinned wryly.
Suddenly the machine came to life, spitting out paper.
The helicopter's whizzing blades became distinguished in the distance.
Sayid knelt, struggling to contain the writhing parchments. Alex crouched nearby, peering over his shoulder curiously.
"What's wrong with it? Is it Them?" Alex asked, her dark brows knitting together. Sayid stopping trying to gather the paper, and instead sat rigidly, staring at the sheets.

They all bore one word: AMONG

"Among?" Alex's dark eyes set on the back of the Iraqi's head. "What does that mean?" "Among...among...something among..." The Iraqi looked over his shoulder.
"Time to go," murmured Desmond. The ones who listened turned their faces towards the brooding Scotsman.
"Where, Desmond?" asked Jack, too worried about The Device and the choppers to think about leaving the safe zone. "The Junction's five-hundred stories high, where do you suggest we go, up?"
"—and we're already on the hundred-and-second – "added Sawyer.
"We stay here—we die, moving targets are hard to catch," said Desmond coolly. "We separate into groups of four—makes for about four teams for all twenty of us—push forward for the roof."
"The roof!" exclaimed Boone, rising incredulously from the mahogany settee. "Where do you think those damn copters are gonna land...!"
Jack was shaking his head, "We can't get separated. We've lost too many already, need to stay—to stay together—"
"Why Jack?" said Desmond, "You're still gonna die alone."
Jack's eyes drifted towards the window.
The choppers were large now and loud. Their little red lights pulsed, casting a peculiar crimson sheen on the glimmering black hulls.
"We have to stay together," murmured Jack.
The Device started up again, as though it existed as a living entity, controlled by no man and thinking sentiently...perhaps reading minds?
Kate's eyes lanced towards the machine.
"Tell me it's Them." Whispered someone, their voice shaking.
Sayid read the new message aloud: WRONG JUNCTION.
The room grew still. What did it mean? What the hell did "Wrong Junction" mean?
Sayid looked up, astounded.
The Device's steady clicking and whirring subsided.
The chopper noise grew.
"Wrong Junction..." Sayid said softly. "Wrong Junction...among. Among."
"Among the Wrong Junction." Locke murmured.
"Speak English!" Sawyer's face pulsed red.
"Wrong way. This isn't the safe zone." Jack lifted his head. "Oh god..."
"Whaddaya mean this isn't the—"
"The machine is right here, it HAS to be—"
"It's not OUR machine."
"It's a tracer. A beacon." Sayid stood. "This is a decoy room. Wrong Junction."
"Well how the hell'd we get to the wrong zone, Ali Baba?"
"Stop talking!" Jack ordered. "Get the guns, Kate."
Kate stared.
"Kate, I said get the guns!"
"Sorry Jack...guns won't help."
Everyone stared at the fugitive.
"Kate?" Jack took a step towards her. Kate hysterically sprang to her feet.
"Kate, Kate Kate, can't you ever say anything else, Jack?! Are you enamoured with 'Kate' Jack?? Who the hell is 'Kate' anyway, Jack?! I don't know any 'Kate'! 'Kate' isn't me! I'm not 'Kate', so stop calling me 'Kate!"
Tears streamed down her face, but no sound came from her red lips. Jack reached for her arm but she recoiled in disgust.
"Go, Jack. Take them and get out of here."
"I'm not leaving you here."
"Don't you get it, Jack?" Kate leaned towards the Doctor, her wet cheek brushing against his. "It was me. It's what the message meant. That's how the Operatives found us..."

The growing thunder in the background began to shake the building. The choppers had arrived. The fleet ascended and with a deafening roar, disappeared over the top of the building, temporarily darkening The Junction. Automatically, everyone looked upward, as if feeling the weight of the landing copters.
"I'm sorry Jack." Kate said tearfully. "Listen to me...they're not good people –"
Disdainfully, Jack smiled.
"Not good people – alright Kate –"
"They said that they knew the way out – that they had planned everything all along. They told me if I led you to the wrong junction they would protect me and you, Jack. All of us would be safe from the next pulse. They didn't plan anything, Jack. The project's out of their control, they have no choice but to shut it down. That means shutting us down. They lied..."
Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing. Austen was the mole...?
Faintly, the tear-streaked contours of Kate's cheeks began to pixellate. Her voice grew hollow, and echoed metallically. Her eyes were turning white.
"They lied..." the fugitive put her hands before her. A milky pearlescent substance crawled up the surface of her skin, writhing and swirling like cold lava, encompassing her arms and gradually turning transparent.
"Get them to the roof, Jack." She said as the substance devoured her visage. "They'll be safe on the roof..."

Jack stared, horrified, as the fugitive called Kate extinguished.

The room was speechless. Nobody wanted to ask 'what happened to her?' and consequentially 'will that happen to me?' Kate had misled them back at the tarmac. She had said she knew where The Junction was, and she did—because The Others had told her. Kate was a liar, and evidentially, she had been lied to. The true horror was in the question: WHEN??
"We push for the roof." Said Jack finally.
Ana Lucia strode towards the three silver Zero Halliburton gun cases and flipped the latches, pushing the lids back. Deftly she slipped a clip in the Beretta.
The others filtered forward to arm themselves. Knives were handed out, and pistols, even cans of pepper spray, whatever was left.
Set with a shoulder sling, Desmond shrugged his guns into place.
"How many troopers can one chopper carry?" asked Jack.
"Two squads of four." The Scottie replied quickly. "Typical loadout's a P90, Glock 19 or better, stun baton, smoke grenades and flash-bangs—"
"How do you know all this?"
"I just do, brotha."

Locke consulted the screen set upon the wall. It was a map. The swirling liquid crystal cells contorted and fused into a layout of the Junction building. Locke pressed his finger on the screen, causing the crystals to bleed RGB. "We go here."
"Where's that?" Ana stepped up beside him.
"An elevator. There are four of them in the lobby," Tracing the lift's route, he pressed a path up the graphic, bleeding a yellow and blue trail on the soft surface. "Straight to the top's where we're going."
Ana appeared uncertain. Then she nodded slowly and murmured: "Straight to the top."
"Everyone..." Jack grouped the castaways together in an orbit around him. He rotated, observing everyone, quietly doing a head-count and bobbing his index finger.
"...sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, where's Walt? Walt? Ok, twenty..."
He double checked.
Alright, I need three people to lead three teams."
Sayid quickly volunteered.
After a moment, so did Ana Lucia.
John Locke nodded towards Jack.
"And I make four." Jack said, nodding approvingly.
Jack proceeded to split them up into groups.
The groups prepared to leave.

"I want to you to know," Jack told everyone as they stood gathered at the nondescript white door, "that no matter what happens, everyone on your team is your responsibility. It is up to each and every one of you to make sure none of your companions fall behind. It is up to you, team leaders," His stern eyes lanced towards Locke, Sayid and Ana Lucia, "to keep your team together and get them as quickly and efficiently as possible, to the roof. When we leave this room, we will have no way of communicating with each other." His gaze drifted to each person, holding on them for a stern moment, and then drifting on to the next. "I expect to see all of you on the roof."

NOTES: Review please??? Sucky, OK, awesome, weird, good?? I'd love to know. :) Next chapter coming soon!