Chapter 13
Jack wanted to be as careful as possible in regard to anything that might linked them back to Charles Widmore. So he decided that, just to be safe, they should all leave Hurley's in five minute increments. It wouldn't make much difference if the church was being watched by any remnant of Widmore's or Ben's people, but frankly they were all less concerned about that possibility than the media.
Helen had dropped John off, so he had asked if he could ride with Jack and Kate. Neither of them had a problem with that.
"I take it you heard the name Eloise Hawking before," Jack asked as they drove out there.
"Richard mentioned it to me in connection with Widmore," Locke paused. "Actually, I was going to get around to telling you this before. She and Widmore had an affair for several years."
"We actually knew that already," Kate said. "She told Sayid and Sawyer as much."
"Did she mention that she was the leader of the Others for more than fifteen years?" Locke told them.
Jack was surprised, but not for the reason John thought. "How long was she on the island?"
"According to Richard, nearly a quarter of a century," Locke told them. "He didn't go into details about how she ended up on the island, but he did give some details that were surprising."
"Considering most of what we know about the woman comes from Desmond, I think you could tell us just about anything and it would come as a shock," Kate told them.
"She was always a bit more trigger happy than some of the Others," Locke said. "Richard told me she wanted to kill the Dharma Initiative even after the truce was signed. She might've gone through with had she not left the island in the fall of 1977."
"Did Richard tell you why she left?" Jack asked.
Locke shook his head. "Never went into detail. He said that something happened a few weeks before then that severely shook her. But he refused to give any detail."
"Did she ever have any conversations with Jacob?" Jack asked.
"That wasn't something leaders did back then. And as impatient as she was, Hawking was willing to go along with the routine."
"You don't remember seeing her name on the wheel?" Kate asked gently.
Locke thought for a second. "There were 360 names on that list. I basically only remembered the ones that were either familiar or hadn't been crossed out. So I'm not sure, honestly."
"Its okay, John," Jack said calmly. "If there's one thing that list told us is that you didn't necessarily have to be on it to earn a place on the island."
"And if Jacob allowed her to leave the island in the first place," Locke pointed out, "there's an excellent chance she didn't matter much to him to begin with."
"You can hold off telling us until we're all together if you want," Kate asked. "But how is it that people managed to get off the island in the first place?"
"Richard could be maddeningly vague about giving away the island's secrets," Locke told them. "I know that after the Dharma Initiative was purged, they took over all of their technology. The sub, which was called the Galagga by the way, was the main way that the Others had to leave the island for the fifteen years between the Purge and our arrival."
"Til you didn't blow it up," Jack pointed out.
"'Til I didn't blow it up," Locke said with a trace of humor. "But in a larger sense I had done just as much damage to the sub when Desmond blew the hatch."
Kate nodded. "When the sky turned purple, it basically killed the satellites."
"And essentially killed the instruments on the sub," Locke told them. "Ben essentially told me as much when he was trying to persuade me not to blow up the sub. After you and Juliet left the island, there would've been no way for you to ever find it again using it."
"Then why would Ben make the same promise to Juliet?" Kate asked. "Based on everything he told us, there's no way in hell he would've just let her leave."
"There were people on the island who knew how to fix the communications," Locke told them. "A few of them were killed in your personal war with the Others, but there were still a couple who would've been able to make the technology functional again. Ben intended to get around to it after he finished his raid on our camp. Understandably, that plan got blown up the same way the camp did."
Jack considered this. "Did you ever get the technology repaired after you were in charge?"
"I might've gotten around to it. But I wasn't in charge of the Others that long," Locke gave a small smile. "And you're going to have to wait for the rest of that story."
"You're right," Jack pointed out. "Because now it's time for us to show you one of ours. We're here."
Indeed, they had just arrived at the church. As they got out of the car, Locke did a quick look around. "Desmond and Penny, I assume they had this entire area swept for cameras?" he asked.
"When Penny took possession, yes." Jack said. "And given how paranoid she has to be about any place remotely handled by her father, I assume she's been doing it ever since."
Locke nodded. "Lead the way," he asked.
Jack and the rest had been the next to last group to leave Hurley's. Understandably, he wanted to be sure that everybody else was safe. Claire had wanted to make sure Ji Yeon was okay, so she'd agreed to ride out with him. The rest of the group had all arrived, and were standing somewhat awkwardly in the aisles.
Sayid was talking with Desmond and Penny. James was showing Juliet and Michael the area around the nave. Jin and Sun were sitting with Walt. Standing somewhat off to himself was a face that looked vaguely familiar to Jack, but he couldn't quite place him.
Penny saw what was going on, and walked over to Jack's group. "I realize coming to this place in the middle of the night isn't ideal, but I don't think we had a choice."
Kate was confused. "It's not even 7 o'clock."
Penny nodded. "I must still be on London time. Not to mention everything we've found."
Locke in the meantime was looking at the man with a beard in a blue suit. "I'm sorry, but how is he connected to this?"
"He's connected to me, John." Penny said slowly. "This is Daniel Faraday."
Jack made the connection. "So you're the man who was playing at Charlie's memorial," he said quietly. "I'm guessing you didn't know about everything else before then."
"I still don't understand," Locke said.
Dan took a deep breath. "Eloise Hawking was my mother. And the test results on the DNA came in two days ago. My father was Charles Widmore."
Locke's face cleared. "Then I apologize," he offered his hand. "My name is John Locke, and I'm sorry we had to meet under these circumstances. I'm guessing your sister told you about what's going on."
Dan nodded. "My fiancée and I have spent the last month learning the darker secrets of my family tree. My mother was a cold, unfeeling woman, but I had no idea she was involved in these kinds of actions."
"You're not responsible for what she did. Your father either." Kate said sincerely.
By now James and Juliet had walked over to them. Michael had gone back to talk with his son and the Kwons. "Guess you were never expecting to learn about the family business this way," James said slowly. Juliet dug him in the ribs. "Sorry. I ain't very good with the social niceties. And I gotta be honest. I ain't wild about being here again."
"I know you've probably told your family this, but do you have any memory of this place?" Jack asked.
"Well, as I told" Dan actually looked a little more cheerful at this, "my family a couple of months ago, I remembered my mother spending a lot of time in church the last few months we lived in LA. Now I can't say it with certainty, but I'm pretty sure this it is. And based on what I've been told, it seems she didn't come here to pray."
"I gotta say, Sayid and I were in a few months ago, and we didn't see anything that looked remotely suspicious," James told him.
"You weren't here long enough, and you didn't look in the right place." Desmond had crossed the distance. "How long do you think it'll me till Hurley and
Claire get here?"
"Five minutes at the most," Jin said. "Maybe at least you can get started on why we're here in the first place."
Desmond and Penny exchanged a glance. "When our people searched this place three months ago, they didn't find anything that gave us a hint as to why Hawking would have been operating out of a church," Penny began. "Then about two weeks ago, my company sent over the blueprint of the place, and we were just going to file it away and try to move on. "
"You can put this under my fault," Desmond admitted. "I wanted to find Dan's mother. I wish I could say that it was to get explanations for me new brother-in-law, but honestly, I wanted to know how the hell this woman had gotten into my head, known what I was goin' to do before I did it, and cost me the better part of four years of my life."
"It's not like any of us are in a position to call the kettle black, Scotty," James said slowly. "Hard as we've been trying to put that damn rock behind us, we still wanted to get some answers as to what the hell was going on." He pointed at John. "Locke's been giving us some from the inside. Maybe there were some from the outside."
"There are," Desmond said. "Can't necessarily say you'll like them."
"We don't like the ones John's been giving us either," Sayid said quietly. "It doesn't mean we still don't want them."
Desmond looked at his wife and then at his brother-in-law. "This is as much your story as it ours, Dan," he said. "Tell them what you saw."
Dan clearly wasn't used to being the center of attention in this fashion, but he gathered himself, and straightened his tie. "Desmond showed me the blueprints to see if there was anything here that I might have recognized from any of the times I visited the church. I didn't expect to find anything. Then I noticed that near the back there was a much larger source of electrical wiring that had any business being there."
"For a church?" Juliet asked.
"For a hydroelectric power plant," Daniel said plainly. "When I mentioned this to Desmond, he turned pale. I still didn't understand why."
"There's an area in the back of the church that when our people did a cursory look, they saw signs that read HIGH VOLTAGE. " Penny said. "When they got the door open, all the could find was what looked like a storage closet. They searched but couldn't find anything suspicious."
"I'm guessing these men weren't your best employees," Sayid said.
"In their defense, they didn't know what to look for," Desmond shook his head. "When we got here yesterday, the first thing I had them do was tear down one of the walls."
"Oh boy," They all looked up to see that Hurley and Claire were standing in the hall. "Let me guess. You found another hatch."
"Give the man a cigar," Desmond said. "But it sure as hell isn't like anything we saw on that island."
"What does it do?" Jack asked.
Desmond looked at Penny and then at Daniel. "I think you'd better have a look for yourselves."
"Can we all fit down there?" Sun asked.
"There's a lot of room. You will have to watch your step, though." Penny said.
They started to gathered in a crowd before Hurley spoke up. "You know, if this is island related, I think Jack and John should go first. You know, out of respect."
James considered this. "Right. And before you go, tell Freckles not to come, and three minutes later, she'll head down anyway."
This got the huge laugh that James had no doubt intended. Even Jack smiled a little. "Okay. In all seriousness, Des, you and Penny come with us. If there's anything down here that you can explain, believe me, we want to know about it."
"How long before the rest of us can take a look?" Jin asked.
"Come down in about five minutes," Locke said quietly. "The time for withholding information about the island has long since passed. And the more heads down there, maybe one of us can figure out what's going on."
"Just watch your step," Dan said.
Locke and Jack looked at Desmond. "You'll see in a couple of minutes."
LLLLLL
"I'm letting you know up front," Jack said as they began their walk. "If there's anything there that resembles another button, ignore anything I say about it and just keep pushing it."
Locke gave a bigger smile. "I have a feeling I should say the same thing to Desmond."
Desmond gave a harried smile. "Shot in the dark, but you didn't hear anything about any off-island Dharma stations, did you?"
"I'm not even certain I ever knew about all the stations that were on the island," Locke admitted. "I saw a fair share of Dharma film strips, but I think they were taking a page out of everyone else on the island's playbook, and never giving a straight answer to a question."
"Interesting you should say that," Desmond said. "I'm not sure if there's any direct evidence, but from what I can tell, this station looks like it what designed even before the Dharma Initiative."
That actually stopped Jack and Locke in their tracks. "How do you know?" Jack asked.
"You'll see in a minute, but I can tell you this much. If I'm reading this right, it may be how they found the island in the first place."
"I wouldn't be too sure of that," John muttered under his breath. Penny was about to ask a question, but by then they reached the room in the back, and it was pretty clear that even though they were no longer on the island, they were still in a place most of them had hoped they'd never visit again.
There was a wall, and behind it was the familiar icon that they had come to recognize that was from the Dharma Initiative. This time, it looked like something resembling an old fashioned lamp. Locke was reminded of the lighthouse.
"That look familiar?" Desmond asked John.
"Nope," Locke said, shaking his head. "Lead on."
Desmond pushed the door aside, and they descended down a flight of stairs. "My father spent years trying to track down anything tied to the Hanso family," Penny said, speaking mainly to John. "Most of it had to do with items involving the Black Rock, but it's clear he was chasing anything Alvar did to."
"You have any idea what happened to him?"
"He disappeared from sight in the mid-1970s. What I do know is that even though he'd be well over a hundred years old, there are still rumors he's still alive trying to maintain the illusion that the Dharma dream is still alive," Penny told them.
"Our own Jimmy Hoffa," Jack muttered.
"And probably with far more skeletons in his closet," Locke said.
"If he is, this may be his biggest one," Penny said.
They all stopped in their tracks. It was understandable because they well away from the island, this was a memory they could've lived without. "Déjà vu all over again," Jack mumbled.
For their were the ancient computers that they had seen in the Swan, complete with an ugly brown model that might have been used by grade-schoolers in the eighties – the one that they all recognized from various place, but Jack and the rest would remember it for being the one with the numbers on it.
There was, however, one literally giant difference from this one. There was what appeared to be a giant globe on the floor of the room. There were some kind of electric conductors at what were almost certainly compass point in the cylindrical structure. And overshadowing everything was a giant pendulum, constantly undulating with what appeared to be a compass needle at the end of it.
"Desmond?" Jack found himself asking. "Do your fillings still hurt?"
"Aye." Desmond paused. "But somehow, it's not the same way."
Locke was watching the pendulum carefully, and when it undulated away from him, he moved with the quickness that he had demonstrated so many times across the island. It was easy to see what had attracted his attention – there was a giant board with numbers that kept flicking back and forth, much like on an old-fashioned timetable at a train station or an airport.
"Any idea what that's for, brutha?" Desmond asked.
"Those seem to be coordinates for latitude and longitude," John said grimly. "And considering what that pendulum seems to be doing, I think you're right about wanting to follow your first impulse about burning the place down."
"I did some checking. If there was a fail-safe key, that blasted woman took it with her."
Jack shook his head. "Our friends aren't going to be happy when they see this," he said, stating the obvious.
"That's not a reason to keep them from it," Penny said.
LLLLL
Within ten minutes, the rest of the group had assembled around the room, trying to figure out what the hell they were seeing.
Walt was understandably trying to play catch-up. "Mr. Locke, were all the stations on the island like this?"
Kate, surprisingly, answered the question. "I'd say close to all of them were. And all of them seemed to be hiding what their real purpose was."
Juliet nodded. "Mikhail must have used this to communicate with the outside world. There was an access to sonar on the computer in the Flame."
"And it must somehow have been linked to the Looking Glass," Sayid said. "It's the only way the submarine would've known how to find the island in the first place."
"Um, doesn't an island have to stay in the same place all the time?" Hurley said as logically as he could. "Land can't move."
Locke, who'd been lost in his own thoughts, came out of them for a moment. ""When did anything on the island do what was logical?"
This was a bombshell on top of another one. "John, are you saying the island moved?"
"I am saying that even after Widmore's crew had been exterminated and all of you had gotten to safety, I overheard a couple of conversations I wasn't supposed to." Locke said slowly. "Richard brought up the idea to Dogen that in order to stop Widmore from finding this place, it might be necessary to move the island."
There was a very long silence and it was clear, despite everything that Locke had told them over the past few weeks, most of them thought he was crazy. There were, however, some notable exceptions.
Daniel, perhaps leaning on whatever scientific training he still had, turned to his sister. "You found Desmond – and by extension, everybody else – because your people saw some kind of electromagnetic event. "
"What's that got to do with anything?" James asked.
"In my studies of relativistic theories, they said massive amount of electronic energy might make it possible to 'unstick' people in time," Dan said calmly. "Desmond said something like that happened to him when he blew the hatch, as you put it."
None of them were quite sure what to think about that. Claire and Hurley knew the most about the flashes of the future Desmond had had about Charlie immediately following the implosion of the Swan, and even they'd had a harder time accepting what they were hearing. They had mostly been concerned about the fate that the man they had both cared for just hadn't been unable to outrun.
Desmond, not surprisingly, was willing to listen. "I'm still not sure what happened. I don't think I ever will be. But I don't know whether I traveled back at time and left the island, or my life flashed before my eyes, only it seemed like I could control it."
"It may have been a bit of both," Dan said. "I can't begin to hypothesize based on the little information I have, but what it sounds like is that your consciousness left the island and traveled through time, but you stayed right there. How my mother fits into it, I still can't figure it out."
Locke didn't know this part of the story. "Your mother was in Desmond's vision?"
"I thought she was some part of my subconscious until I saw her picture," Desmond said. "If you're looking for logic…"
"You were on the same rock we were, Scotty," James pointed out. "Hell, you were on it nearly ten times longer the rest of us. You know we weren't anywhere near Kansas when it came to logic." He turned back to Daniel. "But say we accept that the sky turning purple blew Desmond back in time. That's a person. How the hell would an island be able to move?"
"I dropped out of Oxford before I could finish my degree," Dan admitted. "And I seriously doubt a quantum physicist could explain half of what happened on that island. I'm just trying to fill in the puzzle."
Juliet was still looking at the board. James walked over to her. "When you went to Mittelos with the Other recruitment team, what exactly happened?"
"They asked me to drink some orange juice that they said they had put a sedative in," Juliet said. "I didn't understand the reasoning, but I'd come this far, so I drank the whole thing in one gulp. I had just enough time for Ethan to tell me I should have sipped it down before I blacked out. The next thing I knew, they were shaking me awake on the sub."
"You have any idea how long you were out?" Jack asked. "Hours, days?"
Juliet shook her head. "The one thing I learned is that before you got on the sub you had to take an extremely strong sedative and often be strapped into a bunk. All Ben would say was it was for 'our own good"
"Hard as it may be to believe, Ben might've been telling the truth," Locke said quietly.
"You're right. I don't believe it," Sayid said flatly.
"Remember Richard's story. On the Black Rock, the crew all suffered serious health issues just by coming near the island. A lot of things may have changed since then, but I seriously doubt that might be one of them."
"Frank did insist that we follow a very strict bearing when we were flying to and from the freighter," Jack pointed out. "They were credible."
Sayid considered all this. "Even if we ignore that, the island was hard enough to find as it was. They might need this station just to find a safe bearing to make sure everyone got back in one piece. Unless things have changed since I left the military, someone would have to pilot the sub there even if everyone else was asleep."
"All right," Hurley was still trying to process all this. "We think we know what this place does, even if we don't know how it does it. Big question is, what are we going to do with it now?"
"That is the question of the day," Desmond said.
It was clear yet again that everybody was waiting for Jack to say something. "I think I'm going to give the floor to the man who was actually more interested in protecting the island," he said slowly.
John gave an appreciative smile. "Nobody's found any self-destruct buttons anywhere," he asked Desmond. "No suspicious keys? No C4?"
"We did a sweep of the place before you came here," Desmond reminded him. "Unless any of you have spotted something we could've missed?"
"Even if we had, I don't think blowing this place is in our best interest," Sayid said. "This isn't a deserted island. There's no way we could do anything remotely like it without attraction some kind of attention."
"Don't be too sure. This is LA," James said, with a touch of his old humor. "But it sure as hell would attract attention from whatever remnants of the Others are still hanging around in civilization."
"I was never suggesting we blow the dam", Locke said calmly. "Whatever's left of Widmore's organization clearly knew of the place." He looked at Penny. "I understand you've spent the past few months doing your best to dismantle it?"
Penny nodded. "The operative term is 'doing my best'. My father spent decades building it up. It took me years just to find out about the island in the first place. I'm going to have to turn over a lot of rocks before we're even close."
Locke thought for a second. "I don't know if Ben or anyone else on the island knew about this place," he said quietly. "I know that he came and went from the island pretty freely bef0re we got there. He was in Dharma for a long time, remember, so its possible he heard about it somehow."
"So we can't destroy it, and we can't just leave it open," Kate said slowly. "Is there a door number three?"
"I think we all know what it is." Locke said.
There was a collective moan. "You're not gonna say we have to set up shifts watching the place, are you?" Hurley said.
"Shifts yes, us no," Locke said. He turned to Penny again. "There a way you can make sure this is under Widmore Industries banner?"\
"I am one, much as I sometimes regret it," Penny said.
"Find people you trust in your company," Locke told Penny. "Tell them to guard this place, say its connected with a very old scientific organization that's mostly out of work. Tell them every few hours to go inside and to check the computers."
"Especially if that board lights up," Desmond said calmly.
"And what happens if it does?" Claire asked. "Hawking wasn't guarding this place all these years just to protect it. She obviously thought that someday it was going to work, and someone was going to need to find the island. We may be done with it, but someday, someone else may need to go there."
They all considered this for a long minute. That was probably the reason Desmond had told them about it the first place. But Jack was pretty sure the rest of them were thinking about what John had told them about the lighthouse and all those names that had been written down for years. They had all left the island thinking it was behind them. It now seemed to have followed them back to Los Angeles.
"You can understand why I might've hoped there was some kind of key here," Locke muttered.
"You and me both, brutha," Desmond said.
"I've seen this movie before," Hurley said quietly.
"Seen it? Hell, we all lived through it," James said sourly.
Locke steadied himself. "Much as I don't want to say it, I'm afraid we're going to have to deal with it like we did everything else connected with the island."
"You mean ignore the supernatural stuff and just try to get rescued?" Hurley joked.
Jack actually smiled at this. "That was my approach, and it didn't exactly work wonders for us," he reminded them.
"Well, the approach of just accepting it as our collective destiny wasn't exactly a winner either," Locke pointed out. "Clearly we need to meet somewhere in the middle. And I think it has to be to wait and watch."
"He has a point," Sayid said. "I don't want anything more to do with that island, but I realize there are consequences for trying to just ignore it. We'll have to play it by ear."
Penny agreed. "I'll place a call to Henrik and Mathias. They're used to this kind of work, they're discreet, and they know about the island already. Plus they'll probably be elated at being able to work somewhere warm this time."
Dan spoke up for the first time in awhile. "Is it alright if I tell Charlotte about this?"
Locke looked confused. "His fiancée," Sayid informed him.
"Does she already know about the island?" Locke asked Dan. He nodded. "Then tell her what you found."
"She might be able to give us more answers than you think," Dan told them. "She's an anthropologist, and she's as curious about this as I am."
Locke frowned at this. "Tread carefully, Daniel," he said slowly. "However much your family has told you about the island, the deeper your involvement becomes, the more likely it is will ensnare you. And this isn't a place you want to volunteer your involvement."
"My parents were involved in this. Neck deep, from the looks of it," Dan reminded them. "There is a very real possibility that they were pushing me to this island before I defied them."
Juliet looked at Dan. "Speaking strictly for myself, you got very lucky when you chose to not get involved in that route. Don't try to tempt fate. It rarely gives you a second chance."
"I think that may be something we all can agree on," Desmond said sincerely.
Dan considered this for a moment. "I want answers," he finally said. "But I don't want to lose everything to get them. I'll be careful with what I tell Charlotte."
"Then can we, like, get out of here," Hurley asked. "This place is seriously giving me the creeps."
"Me too," Sun said.
As they began to walk out, Locke gently pulled Jack aside. "I'm going to tell everybody else this eventually," he whispered, " but because we've had our problems with withholding information in the past, I figured I'd better tell you first."
Jack was genuinely touched by this.
"I remembered something from the names I saw in the wheel," Locke told him. "Widmore wasn't there, and I don't think Hawking was there either. But there was a name that wasn't crossed off."
Jack suddenly filled in the blank. "Daniel's."
Locke nodded. "Number 101."
Jack considered this. "That explains a lot." He looked at Dan, who was talking to his sister. "Should we tell him?"
"The man's been burdened with a lot already in the last few months," Locke said slowly. "And be honest, Jack. Part of you is really wishing I hadn't told you about the lighthouse."
"Actually, it's a very large part," Jack admitted. "Don't you think its better to warn him before he gets in to deep?"
"I don't know if it would make a difference," Locke argued. "I changed things when I was on the island. Mostly for the better. What I don't know for certain is whether I did enough to stop destiny. The island got us without any warning. And it gets people who know about it. I'm really not sure if anything can stop it no matter whose in charge."
"Who is in charge?" Jack asked.
"Someone wiser than Jacob. Beyond that, I'm still not ready to say," Locke told him. "Just tell Desmond to take care of his family."
And with that, Jack was willing to be content.
