XXXIX: Poisonous Lookalike
First light, and they're up and moving again. Sayid does not look forward to another day of trekking through the jungle, of hacking aside plants and trying to find tracks in the leaves. The past two days have brought them nothing, and he is starting to wonder how long they will have to keep walking before they come across something useful, something that tells them where they are. Despite himself, he pulls out a compass, glancing at it, but the needle to the north points to the east, where the sun hangs low in the sky.
That solves things to some degree, though. It has pointed to the south for the past while, and before then, it pointed to the west. They're circling around whatever it is that is attracting the magnet, and that at least clues him in a little. Whatever it is, it must be massive. If they can make two miles an hour in the heavy foliage, and they have walked for thirty hours, then whatever it is surrounds them for twenty miles on each of its sides. It must be massive.
It would need to be big, too, he knows. The walls underneath the hatch were thick enough to contain a blast the size of Chernobyl, but whatever they're slowly tracing around is bigger and, worryingly enough, uncontained. Whatever it is must be monitored by someone, and he's willing to take the chance that the monitors are the same people that took Sawyer. There would not be two groups on this island with the power and resources that this one seems to have. There is an economy in it that he remembers from Tikrit. The al-Husseins had the power in the city, so they had the power in the rest of the land, too. They controlled the city, the fanatics, the resources. It all worked out for them, and this island is working in the same way for people, whomever they are, whatever they are here for.
He stows the compass away, continuing to walk, and takes a glance back at the rest of them. They're starting to straggle some. There's some irony there. From what he had heard from Michael and the newcomers, Ana-Lucia had not wanted people to slow down or sidetrack them, but she is not doing the best at keeping pace now. None of them are. They will have to rest again. The last time they made a decided choice to rest, they brought back an Other. Sayid wonders if they'll get the same opportunity now.
They break onto a ridge, which gives them a vantage point and a moment's high ground. His army instincts tell him this is a good place, the best that they have come across in a while. His scientific instincts tell him that if they are on the ridge and if it looks safe, they are unlikely to be lucky enough to come across such an outcropping again.
"We will break for a few moments," he announces, and the others fall out.
He suspects he knows what they are thinking. They are thinking about what they will do once they get out of this place, what they have done before, R&R on the rescue ship or plane or whatever it is, the food that they'll eat, the first thing they'll order at the restaurants they'll go to, soda and television and the internet and even little things like microwaves, car openers, cellular phones, radios that he won't break instead of let them listen to. They are wondering how much more time they have left on the island.
They think about these things to avoid thinking about what matters, he knows. They are trying not to think about what could happen if they are attacked again, and if their attackers don't shoot to miss. They are trying not to think about what has happened to their friends, because they all have lost someone, and who is he to say they did not feel the loss as keenly as he? They are especially trying not to think about how isolated they are, and how they have not yet been rescued. Thoughts like that hurt far more. They cannot fathom what it will be like tomorrow. They cannot plan for those things. They think about yesterday instead, and they delete all of the bad things from their yesterdays so they at least have a little to go on. They lock their minds onto the past, lock themselves down, stay there for as long as they can.
He leans up against the back of a tropical tree and shuts his eyes, falling into dreams without falling asleep. The visions come fast and monochrome. There is too much color around him in the jungle, and the starkness he envisions is a relief.
–––
The Tigris was a silver sliver, and the moonlight made it shine hard and white like a diamond against the black-draped night. He could hear the laughter of two boys that had made their way down to the river to skip stones in the surface, could see the stones hit, cracking the surface like a mallet on that same diamond. The town had been burned, and the people had been smoked out, but these boys had remained, apparently thinking they were on some sort of great adventure amidst the ruins. On the other side of the river, he could see the charred hulk of the Republican Guard barracks, looking skeletal despite its solidity. He felt some satisfaction at that, the structure that had haunted his past and defined his future now gone. He was his own again. He had regained himself, and he would burn the uniform like the Americans had burned the city.
The boys were too young to remember. They had not been born when the Americans had last been in Tikrit. They did not feel any sort of remembrance, or any real hatred towards the Americans. They were too young for that hatred. He watched them for a moment, ghostly figures in the darkness, their laughter ringing like bells in his ears, their chattering warm and welcoming. He hoped they would have a better future than he'd had, but when he was eleven like they, he never would have expected he would turn into what he did.
The boys greeted him, saluted him. He wondered why, and when he looked down at himself, he saw that he was in a Republican Guardsman's uniform. For a moment, the crazy idea came to him – if he wanted to burn the uniform, he could burn it now, light up the wrecked city like a signal fire. A martyr's death. The imams that had taught him as a child would be proud of such an end. He had heard of it before, too; when the Americans last went into a country, across Asia in Vietnam, the Buddhist monks had lit themselves on fire as a means of protest – but he could not remember now, were they protesting the Americans, or their own people, or the Northern Vietnamese? He was not sure which he would be protesting either – the Americans, or his own people, or the aristocrats down in Baghdad?
"Al salaam a'alaykum, ya Bek." They greeted him like a soldier, too. "You're looking for Nadia."
They knew her. He felt his pulse race, his eyes widen, but could not think on how to respond for a moment, struck dumb by their sudden inquiry. At length he nodded, though, smiling. "Yes. Nadia. You know where she is?"
One of the boys instantly grinned; the other elbowed his friend, shaking his head. The second boy fought hard to keep a straight face, but it was not convincing. His voice trembled with laughter. "If we knew where she was, what would we get from it?"
"Bribery?" Sayid felt himself grin. "I'd heard of people scavenging after an attack, but never this." He pulled out a twenty-five dinar note, caught sight of Saddam Hussein's portrait on it, thrust it towards them anyway. Then he thought: What will they buy with the money? The town has been bombed. They cannot spend it on anything, for there is nowhere that they can spend it. Even as the boys seized upon the note, the one that was quicker to grin flashing him a brilliant smile, he took off his cap and put it on the other boy's head. That had cost him twenty dinars back before the currency had started to devalue. He wondered how much it would cost now. For once, he felt no need to calculate it. "There. Now you are even," he said, and believed it was true. "Where is Nadia?"
The boys grinned, and started to walk. From his right, a rocket hit; a building went up in flames. The boys did not flinch. Neither did he. He followed their wavering forms through the smoke, following what had recently been his guardsman's cap through the gloom. Amidst all the black and white, it was very intensely green, as high as his shoulder atop the boy's head.
The boy with the money turned back towards him. He was still grinning, wider still, and it was an infectious, engaging smile. "Nadia says she has been waiting to see you. She says that she has been waiting for you, ya Bek. She left, but she could not bear to go very far. It's good you stayed in Iraq for so long, even when the Americans came. How did you manage it?"
Dream logic failed there. He could provide them no answer, and so he started to wake again.
–––
He awakens with a start. Had he dozed off? He had not intended that. He had meant only to drift off into visions, for a few moments, until they were ready to eat. He had not meant to fall asleep, and he chides himself now for letting himself go like that. You are lucky you are amongst friends, he tells himself, and he knows that he is.
They have cooked something that someone caught, probably Locke, and he is suddenly aware of how hungry he is. He does not question what sort of meat it is, because he is not in a position to wonder. It tastes good, and he devours it hungrily, as do the rest of them. Meals are becoming a luxury on this search.
"You were dreaming," Eko's deep voice breaks the silence at a comfortable break in the meal. "Your eyes were moving. What were you seeing?"
He sets down the meat – bird of some sort, for he has what looks like a wing – down and looks towards Eko. "I was seeing the future, I hope," he replies, surprised at the ease with which this comes out from him. He does not want to see Tikrit burned, does he? He knows he wants to see Nadia, certainly, so he hopes that at least is in his future. He reaches out for a bottled water, taking a long, long sip., long enough that he can hear the instructor at basic army training telling him not to drink so much, because he will make himself sick. Orders like that are meant to be broken in drastic situations, however, and if being stranded on a desert island and trying to lead a rescue mission is not a drastic situation, he does not know what is. "I was merely thinking how nice it would be if I had found what I needed to find in Iraq instead of going to Australia to find it."
Her, not it, a voice says. But he moves past that, smiling at them. They are quiet for a moment, beyond sips of water and bites of food, and he picks up his own food again, taking a bite of it. The meat has been cooked well. He makes a note to ask Locke to cook some more things once they get back to their settlement. From glancing at how quickly the others have consumed their food, he suspects that he might not be the only one thinking this.
"The future – on the island or off of it?" Eko continues.
Sayid blinks. He is curious about this, for some reason. His instincts tell him to conceal the matter, so he smiles, simply responds, "Off of the island, of course. I had not planned to stay here. I doubt anyone plans that." As he says that, he sees Locke flinch, winces, and then adds, "But, of course, I could be quite wrong, and if someone wanted to stay, provided the island was made safe, there would be nothing wrong with that." He had not thought that before, but with what he knows about Locke's sudden recovery, he cannot blame the man. He is still suspicious of him, but it nags at him a lot less. "We will make it off the island," he adds, feeling foolish for speech-making but thinking it necessary nonetheless. "We need only use our good sense, and that will give us a means to leave, or end this however else we might see fit."
"And what does your future contain?" Eko asks, and the tone is clearly humoring Sayid, like he is asking a fortune teller to divine the future. "Your past was one of war, if I am not mistaken. You seemed content enough to dream, so I take it that your future does not contain the same?"
He shakes his head at Eko. "No, my future is not war. My future is – searching. Searching, and hopefully finding."
"It would appear that is your present as well," Eko notes in a surprisingly dry voice.
Sayid has to grin at that, and he nods at Eko. "Apparently so. I have as little doubt about our search as I have about my own. What about you?"
Eko considers for a moment, staring at the ground. "It is not my place to doubt, and it does not befit a man of faith to do so."
That is as good an answer as he will get, Sayid suspects. He does not mind it as much as he might, either. He rises, moving to the ridge to take a look down into the seas of greenery, the leaves bubbling like foam. He tries to find a path. There is no path. There is, however, a landmark, a clearing off in the distance, and he figures they should head that way. If nothing else, at the very least they can bunk there for the night if they need to do so. "Yalla," he tells them, and then realizes that they don't speak Arabic. A flash of embarrassment crosses over his face; he catches a smirk from Ana-Lucia, and he corrects himself. "That is – let's go."
And they do.
–––
The old government building was made of finely worked bricks and looked more like a resort villa than anything else. On the side was a small courtyard, and when he was growing up, he was told that was where the British colonials used to sit and tell jokes and drink what his people brought to them.
Tonight, the courtyard, and the government building, were whole, the only fully standing building amidst the ruins. Sayid wondered at that, but as the children led him on, he soon forgot about the strange chance of the building's survival. The courtyard was clean, free of any rubble having been thrown on it, and Sayid saw it as the proverbial oasis. It offered him no water, but it offered him far more. It offered him her, and she was worth more than any drink of water could ever be. He quickened his pace, almost trod on the boys' heels. He could hear her now, saying his name in surprise, joy, glee. He could see her face contort, sharply and severely at first, with the intensity of her excitement to see him, before it settled once more to be beautiful again.
"Little Sayid!" she exclaimed, and he clasped hands with her, and then gave her a hug, the contact startling him, not just because she was a woman and he had allowed himself that liberty, but because of the strength of his own enthusiasm upon seeing her. She gasped a little at it, but she was grinning, and she was hugging him back just as tightly, so he didn't feel bad at the intensity. "You appear to have lost your hat to two thieves."
She indicated the boys, who stood there, looking embarrassed at the embrace between the two. He noticed that one of them had a familiar face, the taller one with the hat. It was Fahd's face, but he was Nadia's age now; he could not be so young. He must be dreaming. But he did not want to wake up.
"A poor soldier you make, Sayid," she joked at his expense, "to give up so easily. What did they threaten you with? Annoyance? Rocks? Pushing you down in the mud?"
He grinned at that last part, shook his head. "They bribed me," he told her, doing his best to make his voice sound aggrieved. "They told me you were here, and you are. You are well. The building is well." He motioned around him, indicating the bricks. There was an explosion and another flash fire, somewhere in the distance, but it did not touch them. He felt that it could not touch them. "I have found you," he pointed out.
She smiled back at him. Her smile was broad; her voice teased him."I told you that you would. You should listen to me, Little Sayid." She extended her hand to him, and he saw a glimpse of her arm slipping free of the black drapes of her clothing. "Let's walk," she suggested, "and leave these children alone. You've been enough trouble to them already."
He had caused more trouble for more children than he knew, and the grief of that hit him, but he did not tell her that. He put his hand in hers and they started to walk. They walked through the bricks and kept going, moving into Tikrit and through the streets, down into the moonlit river, and he did not feel the water at all. Perhaps he was floating. He could not be certain. He felt Nadia let go of his hand, and for a moment, she had never looked so beautiful.
Then her face turned to ice, and her bones protruded through the translucent, cold sheen, and she started to sink beneath the water, dragging him down into it. The water had started out comfortable, but now it was ice cold, and he fought back, splashed at the water, strained to get free, but he could not fight back enough. He saw her arm again, her shirtsleeve, and felt the black cloth wrap around him like a shroud, felt the Tigris swallow them both in her clothing, now a shared funeral garb. He welcomed death, since it was with her.
–––
They break out of the ridge, and he is still dreaming of Nadia. His vision of a destroyed Iraq shocks him, startles him. He does not think that of his country – only of his past. Nadia and the boys, the only things that were real. Fahd, the class spy, transformed into a child who signified hope for Iraq. He could only hope that was true.
Their progress reveals some signs, ones which Locke and Kate quickly point out: Boot tracks, large and deep in the mud. People have been walking heavily here, and he suspects from the stride that these are Americans, not the Others' light footsteps or the tracks his own people would make, quicker and shorter. A tin can rests nearby, which Locke kneels down and picked up. A can of C-rations, half-eaten, for a journey of only a few hours. They are nearer now. They must be nearer. The people would have eaten all of their food if they had planned to be out for the day, did not expect another meal for a while. He can see renewed energy for the journey on the faces of his friends, and this encourages him.
And then they happen upon a particular stroke of luck. He can see it here, a truck, its cab open. It looks military-issue, but it looks still serviceable. There are no cobwebs or stress fractures in the body. It has been driven recently, within the past few days, and he sees tracks leading off into the distance, towards the clearing to which they are headed. He stares at that, blinking, and he can feel the others stop short, too.
"It's a trap," Ana-Lucia speaks up. "They're trying to make us take it. I say we keep walking."
Kate lets out a disgusted sigh at that, rounds on Ana-Lucia. "We've been walking for ages, Ana. What do you expect us to do? How much further can we go?"
"I can go further than you can."
Kate bristles. Sayid sighs, and he can see impatience flickering over Locke's and Eko's faces as well. They are not going to go through this again, are they? He can see things going wrong even now, even when they were given such a stroke of luck, and there is only one way to ensure that everything is safe. He licks his lips, hesitates for a moment, and then speaks up.
"I will check for traps. Ana-Lucia, since I know you want something to do, take your rifle and stand guard. If anyone starts shooting, shoot back. The rest of you wait. Eat something or drink something, while you have the chance." He advances on the truck, flexing his fingers. They need to be dextrous, to feel for any sorts of trip-wires or explosives, and they are. It takes him a good twenty minutes to check the truck, but it is devoid of any threat, as he reports to them at the end, turning to face them and unable to restrain the happiness from his voice. "We are safe in the truck," he announces, and from the looks on their faces, he knows that they trust him where that is concerned. He is not sure if he is more pleased at the truck, or at the way he defused the argument about to explode. He suspects it was about even.
"Wow. Do we, uh…" Kate can't find the words for what she wants to say, clearly. She waves a hand towards the truck vaguely. "Are we taking that?"
"What do you think, Princess?" Ana-Lucia tells her, but the surprise is too pleasant for her to sound as sharp to Kate as she otherwise might.
Kate's eyes turn cold for a moment, but she seems to think better of it. She shrugs at Ana-Lucia. "I say we take it. How do we know if it runs, though?" Sayid knows that's his cue anyway, but from the significant glance that she gives him, he would have been a fool to expect otherwise. "Sayid, if you don't mind…"
Of course he doesn't mind. He shakes his head in the negative and lets out a little laugh. He's too shocked to make it sound any firmer. He stares at the car, trying to take stock of it. It looks old, but he suspects that it's drivable. He swings himself into the driver's seat and familiarizes himself with the controls. Even before he takes hold of the gears, he knows he can work it, and as the engine roars to life, he feels a thrill run through him. They will go, and they will follow the tracks, and they are so close, now, that he has to fight hard to keep a straight face and is entirely unsuccessful. He does not look at the gas gauges, because they do not matter. He will drive as far as it will go, and then will leave it when it runs out of fuel. They will be closer now than they ever have been, and this will help them get here. If it was drivable in here, surely it must be drivable out of here.
He hits the brake as he shifts the truck into drive. The gears are loose – everything is loose; the truck is surprisingly old – but it will work. The engine sounds fine, not knocking or pinging, and the hum is music to his ears. The road ahead will be rough, but they will be driving, and the few centimeters of play in the clutch and brake do not disturb him. He is not in a position to be choosy about what he is driving. Still braked, he waves an arm through the open window, motioning them to join. "Check the truck while you're riding," he tells them. "Search it for anything we can use."
Ana-Lucia's voice comes to him, and for once, it does not sound angry. "Use for what?"
"I am uncertain," Sayid calls back through the open cab window towards her. "But whatever we can prepare, we must. We will be there sooner than expected." Sooner than who expects us, precisely? His hands tighten on the steering wheel for a moment before deciding that that question will be answered when they get to where they are going.
He feels the truck bed settle, everyone on, and then his hands turn on the wheel, hand-over-hand to ease the truck onto the tracks that it has recently created. There can be no road mines ahead. They would not have left the truck here only to see them die. They want them wherever they are supposed to go, wherever the track leads, and they have gone too far down that road to turn back. He is sure of that.
For a moment, as he glances in the rearview mirror, he is almost certain he sees Nadia's face in the back, amongst the others, and he knows that he is doing the right thing. He has dreamed her out of existence for at least a little while, and now he has only focus for the task ahead.