XIX: Jungle Work
"What are we standing around waiting for? What are you guys, slow or something? Let's go."
There is little to be said for the young woman's politeness, but Sayid has to nod approvingly at her enthusiasm for the trek. He wishes he can share it himself, but he is beginning to doubt his resources. Whatever, whomever they're tracking has a head start of at least half a day. Even if there have been neither vehicles nor aircraft used to expedite the getaway, there exists a gap of at least thirty miles and probably more.
I'd wanted to put that map together more properly, and I suppose I'll get the chance to now, if only by accident, Sayid thinks as he checks his gear, ensures that it is fastened tightly upon him. He has taped most of it down, the better to store it. It is far easier to just grab a knife and pull and come up with it that way than if he has to search for it in a holster or pocket. As he's unsure what to expect, he's decided to err on the side of caution and give full faith to military training.
"A few hours to get ready!" Ana-Lucia continues, her tone dismissive. "I would've only given ten minutes, you know that?"
"I am sure you would have," Sayid murmurs distractedly as he finishes checking his supplies. "And you would have forgotten something, or forgotten to tell them something, or have left before someone had to tell you something important. What would you have done then?"
A burst of scoffing laughter comes from the policewoman, and she shakes her head, turning to face him. Every muscle in her face and body seems to be contorted in a show of defiance. "That wouldn't have happened. I've had lots of experience doing this. I know when something important's gone undone."
"Indeed." He turns to face her, knowing he looks like he's humoring her at best, smirking at her, brows raised. "Then you know not to leave before you are certain you can leave."
She opens her mouth to reply, looking somewhere between taken aback and irritated at him, but fortunately – for both of them, Sayid realizes – she does not get the opportunity. The arrival of the others disrupt the conversation, and he is pleased to see that all four of the others appear well-suited to travel. This bodes well for their journey, the fact that they are serious about what they're doing.
Sayid turns and starts to walk. No further explanation is needed. They're headed to the hatch first, and then out from there wherever the trackers take them, and it's as simple as that. If only more things could be so uncomplicated that I've had to deal with, he thinks, before he forces that from his mind. He need not think about the past right now, or about getting off the island. There are things that must be done first.
–––
The hatch appears the same on the outside as he left it; he's pleased to see that the ensuing few hours haven't caused much traffic from those assigned to punch numbers inside the building. The door has been left open, and the ground appears the same as it did before. What's more, Locke and Kate have bent down to investigate and are studying the ground intently. The others do little more than hang around at the moment; Eko leans on his stick and watches, while Ana-Lucia lets out a brief sigh before thinking better of it and checking the sound.
Sayid gazes down from the hatch, towards the woods. He searches for broken branches, more trampled grass, more bent ferns, anything to provide them with some sort of evidence – but with all the traffic that the hatch has received in the past few days, it's impossible for him to tell what was from earlier today and what was from before that from simple observation alone.
He glances down towards the patch of grass to spot Locke and Kate having a brief, half-whispered conference. Locke rises first, dusting himself off carefully, before his eyes alight on Sayid. "Shoes. Two pairs. Both boots, from the treads, and they're both walking. Uh, they're heading… that way." He indicates a direction leading into the least sunlit part of the forest, a direction that must have been a hassle to travel for lack of starlight, if they indeed set out before dawn.
"Are we certain about that?" Sayid offers the question as levelly as he can, with an apologetic look for Locke. "If you two agree on it, then we're set. Kate?"
Kate nods, likewise pointing a finger directly into the thickets before them. "Yeah. You can see those broken tree branches there. They're new. The wood's still green. And the footsteps – " she walks beside a particular set, pacing her way to the leaves, her eyes on the ground, " – head that way. Who else would head off that way?" She turns back to the others for confirmation.
Sayid nods, ushering them forward. Going through the trees feels strange; it's no desert, and he's painfully aware of how unprepared he is for forest tracking. Having had the training in the military over fifteen years ago is a different thing than actually dealing with it now, a decade and a half after he learned the fundamentals, and he's glad to have people along to pick up the slack.
They're moving pretty quickly, and the wet mud holds the tracks well, but the sun is high in the sky, and it's hot, and tracking becomes difficult very early in for the sake of fatigue, if nothing else. Although they have the advantage of the torrential rains not having fallen, he begins to suspect that disorientation has set in within a few hours. In between encouragements to keep drinking fluids and keep looking their hardest, he begins to wonder if they're actually getting anywhere. There's no path, and he is relying on the advice of two people who very well may be crazy. Then again, perhaps they're all crazy for not having gotten off the island yet. Neither of them have any advantage to misleading him on this in particular, that he can figure, but he makes a note to keep his eyes open. Still, it's hard not to trust what they say, when he's in a position of ignorance.
And then the clay-rich mud underfoot gets lost. He's alerted to this by a sigh from Kate, who turns around to face the rest of them, shaking her head. She gestures to the ground, on which the tracks have pretty obviously disappeared beneath leaf cover. "We need tracking sticks. There's no way we'll be able to find out what's going on beneath all these leaves."
The change in cover is sudden, unnaturally sharp. Sayid turns to study the trees behind them; they're as leafy as the ones before them. However, the leaves have only fallen before them, and from the violent scattering, it seems they've fallen from a strong gust of wind. "Storms are not naturally that localized," he informs them, gesturing to the ground as he takes a look around for a usable tree branch for a tracking stick. "And they cut off far more gradually."
"So what do you think this is?" Eko asks. "If it's no storm, what is it?"
Sayid shrugs, replying, "We'll find out, I would imagine. We seem to be heading directly into it." He stares down the path, trying to isolate where the wind stopped blowing. As far as he can see ahead, though, the leaves are piled two or three high along the ground. "Whatever it is, though, it's something that doesn't occur from simple meteorology, that's for certain."
He remembers the manuals for army training, full of things they never had the chance to do in the rolling desert-land of southern Iraq. A lot of the soldiers used to be resentful of that lack of opportunity, and he suspects he probably was too, but he's thankful now that he can recall some of the manuals' instructions:
To make a tracking stick, find a thin branch, less than two centimeters wide and around a meter long. Measure the stride from heel to heel and mark it. Measure the footprint and mark it. Let the first mark, the stride, serve as your starting point on the heel of a track and cast your stick out from there. The second footprint should be at the end of the stick. This stick should only be used in wet sand, as dry sand will fill in the footprint and render the tracking stick unusable. For different cover, see further pages…
The process is laborious, though, and it only spells further exasperation from Ana-Lucia. "Look, if we know the direction they're traveling, can't we just head that way? I mean, it's pretty clear they're heading off in a straight line to somewhere." She glances overhead, and then back to them. "Besides, we've got only a few hours. It's mid-afternoon already. We can't afford to lose time."
"We can't afford to lose the trail, either," Kate responds, squaring off against Ana-Lucia as she pushes herself up from the trail, her stick in her hand and swung around in a defensive posture smoothly. "If we take your suggestion, we will lose the trail. If you want to be responsible for that…" She trails off, making an expansive gesture. "Be my guest."
"You don't seem to be doing a very good job of finding the trail."
"None of us are," Sayid interjects, feeling his voice strain with the effort. "We'll continue for a while with these tracks. Ana-Lucia, if you want to go ahead of us, feel free. We bear no responsibility if you get in trouble, though."
"I wouldn't have expected otherwise," Ana-Lucia snaps, and starts off, whacking at a lone fern in frustration with her makeshift tracking stick.
–––
Despite Ana-Lucia's efforts to go ahead, she returns to their path a few hours later bedraggled and frustrated. Twilight is starting to settle on the land, and already Locke and Eko have put together a makeshift camp, gotten out some of the supplies they've brought along, and started to prepare a meal when the Hispanic woman finds her way back to them. They all look up towards her, and she shakes her head. "Nothing. Not a damn thing."
Sayid glances towards Kate, and catches a small, satisfied smirk flitting across the brunette's face. He ignores it, though, and turns his attention back to Ana-Lucia. "Stay with us, then," he advises her. "It's better that way. If we get into combat, who will shoot it out besides me?"
She snorts at that, but moves for some of the food alongside the other men. "I don't see why we have to do all this anyway. I mean, nobody likes the guy." There's no disagreement from the others, which only encourages her. "So why we're going out to find him, I don't know. He wanted to be left behind anyway. So we should leave him behind now. Whatever we're going after is more trouble than we should be getting into, I know that much. This island – I don't like messing with it."
"The island doesn't want to be messed with," Locke agrees, passing a bottled water to the girl. "It's a force in and of itself. Besides, we don't need to find anyone. The island's already found us. So I think…" he licks his lips, hesitating, "… that searching won't solve anything. I agree."
Sayid glances towards Eko and Kate, but no further opinions on the search are leveled. Instead, their attention seems to be consumed with dinner. The way that Locke and Ana-Lucia are looking at him, though, he has to offer something to counter them.
"I will assume," Sayid begins, watching the disagreeing pair closely, "that the American police follow the same creed as the American military in how they treat their compatriots, and that the American military follows the same creed as the Republican Guard where this is concerned. We may not like him. We may not succeed in finding him. The island may have already found him. But," he continues, raising a finger to emphasize the point, "the Republican Guard, and your police, Officer Cortez, follow this logic: Leave no one behind. So that is what we must do. Leave no one behind. If we can find him, we must find him, no matter what else we find along the way."
Satisfied, he falls silent, gauging the others' reactions. This takes back Ana-Lucia; she nods in agreement, busying herself in her food. Locke, however, still does not look convinced, eyeing him with a certain distrust. He recognizes that distrust: "I can't believe you, until you prove me wrong." He'll leave Locke to his distrust, though. As long as the man is cooperating, let him think what he likes.
Sayid wouldn't deign to say otherwise. Instead, he rises to his feet, leaving the others to eat. He has more things to do before he can relax enough to dine on C-rations, and he must do them while Locke is moderately distracted with dinner.
Slipping into a copse of trees, he pulls out the radio, unbinding it from a wrist where he's secured it. He's managed to snag an earphone, and he plugs that into the radio, placing it carefully into his ear. The last thing he wants is for Locke to hear the radio static. The two of us have a bad history when it comes to radios, Sayid thinks as he thumbs through the dial – back to where he'd had it before the meeting at the caves, if he can do that. The static gives way, eventually, to a station. His retooling of the radio has proven surprisingly effective. From the level of static that's still present, though, the signal can't be coming from the tower. A signal from the tower would be far stronger than that which he's getting, but he's surprised he's even getting something.
A flat accent, American of some ilk, plays havoc with the Arabic. "Al salaam a'alaykum, ya Sidi Jarrah. Sukran for listening to island radio. We told you we'd speak to you again, and we are. You've done a good job with the radio, but we figured you would. You know your way around electronics."
He figures it's best to keep his own questions simple. "Who are you? What is your plan?"
"That would be telling. We know you know your way around getting people to answer things, too, but we can't provide you with those answers without you and your friends coming to some conclusions of your own."
"Conclusions? Like what?"
"Conclusions of what we've seen on the island," Locke's voice breaks through the foliage, and his form follows soon afterwards. He gestures to the radio, smiling vaguely. "I would have thought you were talking to God, Sayid."
A fake smile twists Sayid's face, and he raises a wait-one-minute hand to Locke. At the same time, the voice continues: "Tell your bald friend hello, if you want. We won't keep you longer. You seem to be occupied." The radio disappears into static.
"You know, most people have telephones," Locke tells him obligingly, seeming happy enough to make the observation. He leans on his tracking stick, his face inquisitive. "You use a radio to do the work of a telephone. Interesting concept. And, as I said, I thought you were talking to God."
"I was," Sayid replies as he pulls the earphone out of his ear. "Or close enough. These people are certainly omniscient, anyway – and perhaps omnipotent as well."
That is the wrong thing to say, and Sayid knows it in an instant. Locke's face lights up, and he stares, fascinated, as if Sayid's just revealed some great philosophical truth. We're not going to be playing tag after Sawyer, Sayid suddenly realizes. We'll wind up heading after the people on the radio, if John gets his hands on the technology. We don't know who they are, where they are, or what resources they have. If this search is foolish, that one would be suicidal. He has only one choice, and as he presses down, hearing the plastic of the radio's casing snap in between his fingers, the filaments and wires springing out to parts unknown, he shakes his head firmly at Locke. "We are not getting distracted, John. They want us to be distracted. That's why they're doing this."
However, despite Sayid's words, Locke looks anything but convinced. As Sayid lets the last bits of plastic and metal drop beneath him to the forest floor, Locke even looks like he might make a dive for them. "Who's to say that this search isn't a distraction?" the bald man replies.
Sayid stops in his tracks and turns, staring. He can feel his mouth hanging open, and snaps it shut promptly. "It may be," he admits, "but it is a necessary one. Let's finish eating. We'll start moving again in the morning." He turns for the camp, hoping Locke will follow but half-expecting nothing of the sort.