Chapter 25
Sayid listened intently to Michael's story and then asked him where Jack had lain the bodies. Both were in the vault, wrapped in blankets and awaiting burial. Sayid's emotions, when he uncovered Ana, were difficult to define. There was a fierce stab of memory as he recalled holding a dead love in his arms; there was the guilty, only half-suppressed sense of poetic justice; there was pity for a life cut off before it could achieve the same peace he still restlessness sought; and there was the cold certainty that war and further death was now inevitable.
He carefully removed Ana's hands from the spot where Jack had folded them and examined the entry wound. He then uncovered Libby and made the same examination, and he thought with sympathy of Hurley, still sitting on the couch, hands still buried in his face. Sayid was no doctor and no detective, but he had learned one thing, at least, from looking at the bodies: Henry Gale had shot to kill and not to wound.
Sayid returned to Michael, sat in the chair across from him, and said, "You do not know this, but the man we had imprisoned there—who called himself Henry Gale--had an opportunity to escape some days ago when he was alone in the hatch with Locke. Yet he did not. Why do you suppose that is?"
"How could I know?" answered Michael, and it did not require Sayid's advanced skills as interrogator to perceive that the man was nervous.
"He shot Ana and Libby both in the chest. Yet he only shot you in the arm. Why do you suppose that is?"
"I…" Michael stuttered. "Ana must have been closer to him, and Libby…I don't know. I didn't see him shoot them."
Sayid leaned forward in his chair and caught Michael's eye, forcing the man to either look at him or look away. Michael looked away. "I know you are desperate to rescue your son. And I want to help you to do that, Michael. I will help you to do that. But how can I help if you withhold the truth from me?"
"Look," said Michael, "I don't know what you think, but I am telling you the truth about how many of them I saw and how…"
"Michael." To the father, Sayid's tone was unexpectedly sympathetic. "Michael, I will help you."
Michael sighed heavily. He knew he could not convince Sayid of his story now. And if Sayid told the rest of the survivors, what might they decided to do to him? The father found a partial truth bursting out from somewhere inside like a great, cleansing wave of relief. "They said…they said you had a prisoner here, and if I freed him, they would return Walt."
Sayid was so satisfied to have broken Michael so easily that he was not watching the man's eyes as he continued, "So I let him out of the vault. I had no idea he was going to shoot anybody. I'm so sorry." And Michael was sorry. He had not intended to kill anyone, but there had been no other way to free Gale without discovery, no other way to spare his son. And yet he had been discovered nonetheless. However guilty he felt, Michael could not let his fellow survivors know the extent of his crime. If he did, they would never help him rescue Walt.
Sayid was now rubbing his temple and considering what must be done with Michael for his role in the plot. The man had only been trying to save his son; he had only been attempting the same prisoner exchange Jack had attempted. But two had died in the process. And there were those who might desire retribution.
Michael persisted, "But what I am telling you about the Others is true. They are not heavily armed. There are not many of them."
"If they are going to return Walt anyway, why do you want us to attack?"
Michael looked away. It was a very good question. And suddenly he realized that he was never going to get the survivors to attack until that question was answered. And he could not answer it. He lowered his hands into his head and then raised it angrily again. Now hopeless, he let yet more truth role off his tongue. "They don't have Walt," he admitted. "The scientists in charge have Walt. And they want to observe whether you can be convinced to attack the Others and what will happen if you do."
"But we believe the Others are Dharma. Kate discovered a hatch that contained costumes and theatrical paint--"
"The Others were Dharma," Michael explained. "They were scientists. But the initiative took its toll on them, and they…went native so to speak. The scientists who still continue to believe in the project, who still carry it out--they have Walt, and they were the ones who made the deal with me. I was captured, knocked out, and taken somewhere. I was put in a closed off room. They brought me Walt and showed him to me through a window. I don't where I was. They proposed the deal with me, and then…then they injected me with something, and I was unconscious again. I lost a lot of time. But while I was wandering along the beach, I did find the camp of the Others, and they were just like I said, except their clothes are really no more tattered than our own. But they are less heavily armed than us, and their camp is much less developed, much more crude than ours. They are new at this…surviving."
"Then the Dharma scientists are our true enemy," insisted Sayid. "They are the ones who keep us here, who manipulate us like lab rats. The Others are deserters. They took Walt in the beginning for the initiative, but then they deserted. That's why Kate found that other hatch abandoned. And now they live here on this island as if it were their home."
"I guess." Michael shrugged. "That's all I know."
"Why do you believe Dharma will keep its end of the bargain?" Sayid asked.
"Because I have to believe."
-------------------------
When the twelve gathered at Sayid's war table that evening after the burials of Ana and Libby, the mood was more than somber. One had been added to the council, but two had been forever lost. Michael now publicly recounted the information he had delivered to Sayid, again apologizing and insisting it had been Gale who had fired the shots. He saw Hurley's nose and lips twitch and watched him clench his fists against the table. The big man raised his angry eyes toward Michael, but he made no threatening gesture. He only stared at the father for a moment and then turned away, toward Sayid, who shook his head.
Eko and Locke, who had by now returned, told of their discovery of the hatch beneath the plane. Locke spoke reluctantly and with a sense of disillusionment.
Jack proposed that they arm themselves and seek out the camp of the Others. Deserters or not, they were once Dharma scientists, and they might have the information the survivors needed to find those who were manipulating them and to free themselves from the island. "I say we go after the Others, and the sooner the better," he concluded.
Eko, however, shook his head. "I will not participate. We have a purpose here. I believe Michael—and perhaps all of us—have misjudged Dharma. We should remain here, continuing our important work at the hatch."
"One of Dharma killed Libby!" Hurley interjected. "How can you say we've misjudged them?"
"I cannot explain," said Eko in a deep tone coursing with both sympathy and confidence, "but I do not think Dharma did the killing."
At this pronouncement Michael looked abruptly down, but Sayid did not notice his reaction, because he himself was directing a baffled look at Eko.
"You believe in this initiative?" asked Charlie in disbelief. "You? You would bow down to these false idols and blindly follow their word? First you stop building the church, and now this?"
"This is my fate," Eko said. "God has lead me here. How else can all the coincidences be explained? No man could manufacture such coincidence. No man could send me visions. Yes, Dharma is no more than a human organization, but for whatever reason, God wants me to push that button."
Sawyer released a long whistle and rolled his eyes. The other survivors looked at Eko with varying degrees of wariness. Locke let out an exasperated breath of air. "As I said before, it ought to be obvious by now that the button is nothing but a psychological experiment, just as Libby originally suggested. Everything that has happened here has been guided. It's all been meaningless."
"Just because it is guided does not make it meaningless," Eko insisted. "Quite the contrary."
Locke shook his head. "I'm joining the army. I'm not wasting another second of my life in that hatch." Locke had felt pressed down by the great weight of a shattered faith, but now he was beginning to think that he had the chance to do something purposeful by tracking down the Others and eventually attacking Dharma, the way he had once been of use when he had provided boar for the survivors before he had abandoned the hunt for the hatch.
"Well, whether or not we're human guinea pigs," Sawyer drawled, "these people aren't exactly our friends." He shrugged. "If there's an army, I guess I'm ready to join it."
The discussion—and the arguments—continued for another hour. In the end, the majority agreed to seek out the camp of the Others. They would not attack as Dharma wished them to, but they would enter armed and they would exact what information they could. Then they would find the last hatch where the scientists of Dharma sat playing God. They would recapture the children, and they would find out how they had been brought here and how to escape.
Jack wanted to leave the next morning, as did Michael, but Sayid insisted that he first be given twenty-four hours to train the survivors in the use of firearms. Though their intention was not to war with the Others, misunderstanding might create the necessity of defense. Even if it did not, they would eventually go on to seek out Dharma, and the survivors must know how to use their weapons when that hour arrived. A day was not enough time to train, but it was the only compromise Sayid could secure.
In the end, nine members of the council decided to join the army, with Sayid leading it. Eko refused to join, preferring to remain to push the button. Claire would stay behind with Aaron, and Jin insisted that Sun likewise remain safe on the beach. But this time, Sun could not convince her husband to refrain from doing what he felt to be his duty. Even Hurley insisted on joining the army. His suggestion was greeted by a snicker from Sawyer, who quickly suppressed the instinctive sound when the warning eyes of his fellow survivors fell upon him.
"I am sure we will find a use for you, Hurley," Sayid assured the young man, knowing how important it must be to Hurley to feel a part of whatever vengeance was to be meted out on the tribe of Henry Gale. Sayid hoped to secure at least ten more for the army from among those survivors who had not attended the council meeting, and when the council members departed to their various shelters, he and Jack began the arduous process of recruitment.