IV: Gridlock
The sky is always cloudless before it rains, Sayid remembers. That is unnatural, and it bothers him each time the rains come. Every time, he is reminded of the unreality of the place, the strange weather a constant admonishment that he is at least half a step outside the boundaries of reality, and that whatever force put them in this all but unreal place also has the ability to turn the weather strange. They continue to strive against it, but each drop of rainwater does more damage to their efforts than any fusillade of bullets could hope to do.
After the afternoon's storm wears off and the winds stop whipping, settling to nothing whatsoever again like they always do, he goes out to check on the truck and make sure that it has not rusted. Nobody has remembered to throw a tarp over it, of course, which means that he worries that it has rusted beneath the torrential downpour of water. Logically, he knows it won't have rusted from a single storm, but that still fails to stave off the concerns. They need this truck. They cannot afford to let it go to waste. Must he take personal care of it as he does the alarms?
The very least he can do is to find a tarp to throw over it. There are tarps everywhere. The truck should have one, and he resolves to go in search of it at the earliest possible opportunity. First, though, he needs to check the engine of the truck. He's known the basics about it from merely driving it: Thirteen-speed manual transmission, five-ton four-wheel-drive, diesel engine, a Mack truck from the logo, and RW from the model information emblazoned on its side.
He opens the hood, propping it up, and takes a look inside, the metals glinting in the late afternoon sun. If they want to get anywhere, he'll have to take the engine out. That will take some time. Some doing. Plenty of materials. He had told Jack it would be easy to get done, but what else could he have told the man? "We'll need plenty of effort to finish the job, as well as more spare parts lying around the hatch than you probably want to give me?" Jack would have never agreed to get the truck out of the jungle then.
He will not be able to spend much time on it tonight, anyway. As wet and muddy as the ground is and as unreliable as the storms are, he's liable to get rained on again, and he wants to locate that spare tarp first. He shuts the hood of the truck, having filed away a few crucial details about it for the job to come. He'll need to eke out a lot of resources to fix it, and he'll need to do it while Jack's not looking, so as to avoid the good doctor's fit of rage should he find out he's being swindled of things he likely wouldn't need anyway, but would nonetheless be reluctant to give.
That's certainly a conflict which Sayid has no wish to precipitate.
" 'S a hell of a find, Mohammed."
Oh, no, Sayid thinks. The jahsh has decided I will make for good conversation. I must be cursed. He looks away from the truck and has to stare directly into the sun to spot Sawyer approaching from the west. Of all the people he wanted to discuss his plans with, the Southerner is certainly the last person on the list. Second-to-last, at any rate. He must be careful not to let on that he plans to appropriate anything from the hatch.
"Mack truck. Old, too. Looks sturdy. Probably your daddy drove one against the Ayatollah." There is something distinctly weird about Sawyer at the moment; the blond looks almost gleeful. The sight of it is not something that allays Sayid's worries. At least Sawyer seems in a mood to talk, for whatever reason. "Your dad fight in that thing, back in the Eighties?"
Sayid keeps his words short, his voice clipped. "My father did not. He was too old by that point. He fought earlier, under ad-Da'ud." Every time he says that to someone who knows the history, he must add the corollary, 'Although he did not support ad-Da'ud against the Ba'athists, as everyone knows.' But he does not mention this now. Nobody on this island would know or understand. It is enough that they know that his father was a war hero. Anything more would be pointless.
"He in the Republican Guard, like you?"
Sayid nods only slightly. Why such curiosity? It warns him to be on alert, and he turns back towards the truck, attempting to provide a deliberate signal that he is no longer interested in conversation. He scarcely expects it to work. Sawyer is oblivious to such things when he wants to be. "Ad-Da'ud led the Guard in the late Sixties," he adds, conclusion to his words along with a sense of offhanded explanation.
His tactic does not work. Sawyer nods, that same strange look still on his face. It's something beyond the normal arrogance that Sayid has come to expect, something important and noticeably different, but he can't quite put a label on it. Whatever it is, it's made the con man all too congenial. "Your daddy ever kill anyone?" The words come out in short bursts, like they require some effort to say now.
"I am sure that he did. Where is this inquiry leading us?" Sayid can hear the impatience in his own voice, and he faces Sawyer again. "You need no history of the Iraqi military, Sawyer. You were angry at me before. Now, you want to chat with me. What has happened to change that? Did you find something here?"
The question causes a flinch from Sawyer, the giveaway all too obvious. Sayid had not expected it to be that noticeable. He gives the other man a questioning look, but does not press the issue. If Sawyer is feeling talkative, there is no need to say anything that would make him suspicious again.
"I didn't find a damn thing," Sawyer lies, and pretty transparently for once. "I was just wonderin' if you were the only killer in your family." His face shifts, and the smile that he gives Sayid is unpleasant – broad, certainly, and on anyone else's face, with a little more laxness to the grin, it might even be likeable. There is too much tension to it for the expression to look at all calming, though, and Sayid does not like the look of it one bit. "You gonna drive us around in the Scooby-Doo Mystery Machine? You won't get a lot of mileage out of it."
"I know that. That is why I am retooling the engine." Sayid thinks, He was trying to get me to react, with the remark about killers. I will not react. His words do not deserve a reaction.
"Well, hell, not only are you a hired damn killer and radio man, you're a goddamn mechanic, too. Lucky you. You know, then, that this thing'll take a hell of a lot of work to fix up. Tools which you ain't got. I can tell you that right now, Edison." Sawyer notes something then on Sayid's face, and his grin tightens further. "That is, unless you were plannin' to steal stuff to fix it."
Sayid ignores the other man's needling. Let him continue thinking what he wants, even if it is right. "I was going to steal nothing." He decides to share at least a little of his plan with Sawyer. The less curious the other man is, the less likely he is to ask dozens of questions. "I was going to acquire some instruments and mechanical necessities from the hatch." He pauses, considering the situation. He needs to get the information without Jack noticing. Sawyer does not like Jack. That presents a good opportunity, and if he wants to learn what Sawyer knows, he must first earn his trust. He knows from experience the opposite approach does not work. He makes his request simple, gives Sawyer a choice rather than asking him outright. "Do you want to help?"
A scoffing sound that might have been laughter, if it were accompanied by anything remotely kind. Sawyer stares for a long moment, shaking his head as if his instinctive response is to say no to the offer. "You're askin' me to filch stuff from Jack for your truck, Sayid?" Since Sawyer uses his actual name, Sayid knows at that point the Southerner's not as dead-set against the idea as it had initially seemed. "If Jack finds out about it, this is on you, got it? I ain't gonna be the scapegoat if it isn't my idea. But I'll help. For now. I want out, I'm out. Got it?"
"Understood," Sayid confirms. "They will not let you in the hatch alone, though. You know that. In fact, I probably should not ask you, considering that."
Sawyer's grin turns cagey, a certain slyness in it. Sayid knows he should worry about that, but he doesn't. The fact that Sawyer can probably get into the hatch alone pleases him. They just might stand a chance of acquiring material for the truck without Jack finding out until it is too late. Who better to ask to con things out of people than a confidence artist? Sawyer seems convinced of his own ability, too: "That's what you think. I can get into the hatch anytime I want. But I want something in return, Mohammed." Back to those wonderful nicknames. "You and I are gonna have a talk sometime, got that? And you're gonna be straight with me about what happened."
The determination in Sawyer's voice is obvious, but it confuses Sayid. Does he think I had something to do with what happened to him on the island? Then why would he inquire about my father's military service? The whole thing makes no sense in its illogic, not even the particular, oddly judicious type of illogic that he has come to attribute to Sawyer. Sayid shrugs and responds, "I am honest, Sawyer. Whatever happened, I will tell you what I know of it."
That causes a very sharp reaction in Sawyer. Sayid observes it as he might the result of a punch, because it has much the same result – a sharp recoil by the person struck, flinching away and crumpling a little, before the rebound begins and the assailed individual, having rocked back on his heels to the furthest extent, propels himself forward and unknowingly opens himself up to be struck again. He had seen much the same reaction in people he had beaten during the war, men who lacked the military training and common sense to avoid bringing further hurt upon themselves. He knows Sawyer has no military training, but he had always figured the man had been in enough fights to know how to protect himself if he needed. What had he said just then to shatter that defense?
He does not expect Sawyer to tell him, and Sawyer certainly isn't about to do so. From the way Sawyer's face shifts into a smirk, something less than humored, he can almost see proverbial ranks being closed against him. "You know all about it, Jafar. Don't lie. You're a bad liar – 'specially about murder."
That, at least, is the truth. I am not a born liar. Sayid watches as Sawyer stalks off, apparently choosing to expend his energy in at least a slightly more constructive manner than taking it out on the truck, and shakes his head bemusedly. Twilight has settled, and already a few people have started campfires on the beach. Let them be plagued by Sawyer's presence. He need only deal with the man to get what he needs from the hatch, and to have that conversation Sawyer wants to have, the subject of which Sayid cannot yet place.
Especially about murder, he thinks as he takes a few more steps along the truck, pacing its length. Sawyer knows I murdered someone. He thinks I murdered someone he knows. There is only that journalist, though, and even if Sawyer knew the fellow, he did not seem to like him, from what little information I got from our previous conversation. The puzzle presented him has a solution, he knows, and he will find it.
He has too many things to solve, now, and so perhaps it is fitting that Sawyer just called the truck the 'Mystery Machine.' Perhaps it is, Sayid thinks, unable to restrain a chuckle at the thought. There is the mystery of just what Sawyer thinks he knows, the mystery of why Hurley thought he could go after them in the jungle, the mystery of John Locke's connection to the facility at which they found Sawyer, the mystery of Kate's vision of the horse, the mystery of the radio contact, and of the tail passengers' friend Goodwin, whom Ana-Lucia claims to have seen in or near the burning hatch. He is sure all these things are connected. They must be. The only thing he can do is figure them out as best he can. That is to say nothing, of course, of the mystery of the island itself, of Danielle Rousseau and the Others and the place he's just seen. He is sure he has the clues for all of these. He just needs to put them together in a way that makes coherent sense.
He must leave the truck there, however. He abandons it reluctantly, knowing people will likely come over and fool with it, or try to drive it. He has to see if he can get people to stay away from it, but his shift at the hatch beckons, and he would not begrudge the effort for his own possession, as nice as it admittedly is. He will find a tarp for it tomorrow, too. The rain came already, and he hopes it will not return tonight.
He finds Hurley in the hatch. Apparently the young man wants nothing better than to be relieved of shift duty, and Sayid is happy to relieve him of that. "Long day?" he asks the large youth, who is slumped behind the chair staring dully at the computer.
Hurley leans forward to see who's talking to him, the chair creaking under his weight. He lets out a laugh which is too infectious to be sarcastic, but too sarcastic to be really amused by the question that has been posed. "Dude, you don't know the half of it."
Sayid is struck by those words. He cannot say why, but he knows that they resonate with him. You really don't know the half of it, he tells himself, but manages to force a smile out in Hurley's direction. It is fake, and he dislikes it. "You can relax now, though. I am here until midnight. So you can go outside and," he thinks quickly, "hang out."
That brings a real smile to Hurley's face as he rises from the computer, moves further towards the exit. "Hang out. Right. That's all I do when I'm not pushing the button. I'll go do it again, though. Listen, man, you… uh, you gonna be all right in here by yourself?"
Sayid has already settled behind the computer by the time the question concludes, and he looks up over it at Hurley. "Of course, Hurley. Why wouldn't I be?"
"Because it sucks down here, man. It's boring. There's nothing but these weird books and records."
"I am sure you could find something entertaining if you just looked." Sayid checks the computer screen quickly, and feels a mixture of relief and disappointment at the absence of words. Apparently nobody wants to speak to him over the computer today, at least not while Hurley is around. "However, Hurley, hold on a moment. I want to make sure you are free to talk with me tomorrow."
That does more than make Hurley really smile. The young man laughs aloud now, shaking his head. "Free of what? Gathering coconuts? Wandering around and trying to strike up conversations with people? Doing the laundry? Trust me, I'm as free of that as I can be, and thanks."
His own voice is an order, but it is as pleasant of one as he can make it. He has no wish to scare Hurley into refusing to talk to him. "We will talk tomorrow, then, Hurley, regarding what you were doing out there in the jungle. Find me when it is convenient." As Hurley's footsteps recede, Sayid settles further behind the computer and stares at it for a few more moments, until he hears the footsteps die completely. There is no one else in the hatch. He is sure of that. There is no one on the other end of the line at the computer, either, and a few more minutes of nothingness confirm that.
He watches to make sure, checks the timer to ensure that he has a few hours. Then he starts to search for a screwdriver. He will dismantle the tower and see if there is a wireless internet connection therein, because he strongly suspects there is. He moves around the room, knowing it looks suspicious but scarcely caring. They should have expected that the computer would be investigated long before now.
