Chapter 57

The shreiking alarm went off and Locke jumped to his feet hurrying to the TV as it flickered on showing large tanker; the automated voice came on and gave its usual message then a few seconds later the alarm shut off. The scan was negative.

After seeing the fishing boat disappear John wasn't tempted to override the tesseract, what ever it was; as the television flicked off Jack came in, looking very calm and relaxed. Locke smiled to himself; maybe that was what Jack had needed all along. Too bad Kate hadn't been a little more accomodating; it could have saved them all a lot of trouble.

"What was it, Locke?" Jack was actually smiling for God's sake.

Chuckling to himself, Locke said, "An oil tanker, I think. The scan was negative, though I don't know what that means."

As he said it the button alarm went off and Jack's eyes went to the counter ticking above the bank of TVs; at 3:23 it went off and reset to 108. Jack glanced at Locke. "You sure it's our hatch doing that?"

Locke shrugged. "Not one hundred percent, but I would be willing to wager a pretty hefty amount on it. The last cycle it reset at 2:44, and the one before that, 3:14. That's not automated."

"I wasn't talking about automation, Locke."

Smiling, Locke said, "I know. Could there be another countdown computer somewhere else, with someone else entering numbers and hitting a button every one hundred and eight minutes? Sure, I suppose there could be, but what are the odds on that?"

Jack laughed humorlessly. "On this island, John?" He shook his head. "You're the expert on this place, you tell me the odds."

Locke smiled. "I'd say they're pretty damn long, Jack." He paused, then looked Jack in the eyes. "Why is it so hard for you to believe in the island?"

Jack's good mood was gone in a flash. Ana came into the doorway but he didn't see her; she watched the two of them silently. "Because it's crazy, John. It's just land and water; it can't fix me or make it all better."

Locke stared at him for a second. "How do you know that? How can you be sure?"

Jack flared. "Because it is impossible."

Sighing, Locke rubbed his eyes, then shifted his feet, moving closer to Jack and speaking low, but not so low that Ana-Lucia couldn't hear him; he wanted her to hear him and he thought maybe she really wanted to anyway. "I was named after two men, you know. John Calvin Locke. John Locke was a 17th Century English Philosopher, who believed that the mind is blank when we are born, we are a clean slate, a tabula rasa; through our five senses we fill that slate and reflection upon it allows us to develop such ideas as space and time. He was also a man of science." He smiled at Jack, who was looking pissed- but listening. "I was also named after John Calvin. A man of faith." Locke smiled. "He was a 16th Century French Protestant who was persecuted and driven from country to country because of his belief that faith alone was not enough; he also published the Doctrine of Predestination. Fate, Jack." Looking Jack in the eyes, holding them, he continued, "It's impossible, Jack? What do you know of what is possible on this Earth? You are not a God; you are not omnipotent. You don't know everything." He closed his eyes, and quoted, " 'There is no worse screen to block out the spirit than confidence in our own intelligence.'" Smiling into Jack's eyes, he said, "John Calvin. A man of faith."

His eyes flaring, Jack said, "What did the Island do for you, John? If you want me to believe so badly, then tell me why you have so much faith in it." His jaw working with fury he spat, "Tell me what was worth Boone's life."

Locke smiled sadly. "Nothing was worth that, Jack. It was an...accident."

"Yeah, so you've said. But what did you get, John?" He snarled. "And I want a real answer, not a riddle."

Staring at Locke with curiosity, Ana smiled; she knew the answer but she wasn't going to give up Locke's secret. She needed him. And, anyway, she was kind of on his side because she wanted to believe in the island; she wanted to be able to get back what she lost.

Still holding Jack's eyes, Locke decided it was time; the door to Jack's mind was open just a crack and if he could slip his foot in maybe he could open his mind to the possibilities of this place. He needed help to save the Island, and he thought he already had Ana on his side; it would be easier to keep her if he had Jack too. He smiled. "Okay, Jack. I'll tell you." He took a deep breath and glanced at Ana; Jack followed his gaze and saw her there, lounging against the doorframe. His heart skipped a beat and he smiled slightly at her before turning his attention back to Locke.

John took a deep breath. "Do you remember seeing me on the plane, as you were boarding?"

Jack shook his head. "No."

"I was sitting behind Rose; you smiled at me when you were putting your bag in the overhead compartment." He smiled and took a leap of faith. "If I had been in my wheelchair you probably would have remembered. That always drew a lot of attention."

Jack's jaw dropped. "What?"

"I was paralyzed from the waist down when we boarded. When we crashed I was...whole." Smiling, he patted his legs. "Good as new."

Jack was, for lack of a better word, freaked out. "I don't believe you."

Locke laughed, shaking his head. "Of course you don't, Jack. You never do. You never believe anything you can't fix." He jerked his head towards Ana. "Ask her. She saw me at the airport."

Jack turned his astonished eyes on Ana and she nodded, walking to him and touching his arm. "Yeah, Jack. I saw them carry him on board. That's his chair at the beach."

Glaring at her, Jack said, "You didn't ask the Island, John. If you woke up on the beach being able to walk then it wasn't this place that did it."

Ana spoke up, her hand still resting on Jack's arm. "Then what, Jack?"

He shrugged angrily, knocking her hand from him. "The impact of the crash could have jarred something, there are documented cases of people who suffer major traumas-"

"Jack!" Ana spat, cutting him off. "After everything that has happened on this island, are you really gonna tell me that Locke's paralysis is gone because he was in a plane crash?

Spinning on her irately Jack said, "Do you believe this stuff? He's crazy, Ana."

She shook her head. "No, Jack, he isn't. He had a miracle happen to him; he wants to share that with you. With us. He was fixed. Don't you want to be?" She leaned close. "Because I do." She looked into his eyes, begging him to think. "What have I got to lose? What have you?"

Jack sneered at her. "What about the sacrifice you have to make, huh? What will you be willing to do to get what you want?" Jerking his head at Locke, he snapped, "He killed one of us; he made a human sacrifice."

Fury blazed up as Ana retorted, "I killed one of you too, Jack. Maybe I already made mine."

He shook his head at her, eyes flashing crazily. "I thought better of you, Ana, than to put stock in some crazy asshle spouting a bunch of gibberish at you. Aren't cops supposed to have more sense than that?"

"Fck you, Jack." She spun on her heel and stalked to the door, pausing to look back at Locke. "I'll talk to you later, JC." She left without giving Jack a glance.

Jack watched her go, then turned his blazing eyes on John, who was smiling triumphantly. "You are nuts. There is no such thing as fate and miracles don't happen." He stalked to the door, then turned. "If you hurt Ana with this sht I will kill you."

He left and Locke stared after him shaking his head and smiling. One down and one to go.

------

Kate and Sawyer strolled arm in arm into the surveillance room, finding Locke flipping idly through the diagrams Michael had given him. There was a chamber labeled with tessering or something like it; he was looking over the picture, trying to make sense of it.

"Hey, Kojak, where is everyone?"

Locke looked up at them and smiled. "You two were gone a long time."

Kate grinned. "We checked out that room with the security lock."

Sawyer grinned too. "Yeah. It was that Hansolo's bedroom. Aquarius Suite."

Kate rolled her eyes at him, laughing. "Hanso, you idiot." She glanced over at Locke. You should check it out- it's really beautiful."

He grinned. "I'll do that." He looked back down at the diagrams. "To answer your question, Eko is above ground with Vincent. He thought he might be lonely, and since there is really no way to get him down here..." He shrugged, as Sawyer looked a little sad; he'd barely even thought about Vincent since coming to the hatch. Well, he thought wickedly, my mind was pretty much occupied. Vincent would forgive him. "I don't know where Jack and Ana are." Kate and Sawyer exchanged disgusted glances. They had a good idea. "They were arguing."

Kate looked around at the room, trying to block out the images. Ugh. "What is this place?"

"Surveillance room. Watches the ocean for incoming ships, scans them for something then one of three things happens: the 'tesseract' shuts down with an option to override, it activates, or, in the case of a military ship, it deactivates completely. No option."

Sawyer gazed at him. "A tesseract?" He laughed. "No way. No way."

Kate was eyeing him suspiciously. "What?"

Sawyer shook his head. "A tesseract is in that book you were reading on the beach the other day. A Wrinkle in Time?" Looking insulted at her skeptical gaze, he snapped, "I read the book, Freckles. More than once. I didn't have much else to do."

John remembered; he had read the book in grade school but he certainly didn't remember what it was about. Looking eagerly at Sawyer, he said, "So what is it?"

Sawyer shook his head. "In the book, these kids go lookin' for their dad, 'cause he's been gone a long time and the town is talkin' about him ditchin' their mom for some bimbo or somethin'." Pausing, he glanced at Kate, who was smiling at him with sweet amazement. "These things, I don't know what they were, come to help the kids because there is a dark force takin' over the universe and their dad is the one that can stop it. So these beings, they take the kids through a tesseract and it takes them to another planet."

John nodded. "Of course...Sawyer, do you have that book with you?"

Looking dubiously at Locke he nodded. "Yeah." He didn't elaborate.

Locke laughed. "Can I borrow it?"

Tigers don't change their stripes. He didn't want to give somethin' for nothin'. Grinning, he drawled, "Well, that depends, Hoss. Reading material is scarce on this rock and I gotta have something to occupy my time."

Locke sighed and grinned as Kate rolled her eyes. "Just give him the book, Sawyer."

Sighing, Sawyer pulled open his pack and rummaged around until he found the book; he held it out reluctantly and when Locke grabbed at it he pulled it back, holding it hostage with a sly look in his eye. "What were Ana and Jack fightin' about?"

Kate grabbed the book from him and handed it to Locke with disgust. "Jesus, Sawyer."

Saywer rolled his eyes. "Come on, Sweetheart, like you didn't wanna know."

"I didn't." Sighing with exasperation she glanced at Locke. "I guess we're gonna go see Eko and Vincent." She paused. "Where are we going from here?"

Locke shrigged. "I dunno, we found another map with a couple more hatches," Kate and Sawyer both groaned; Locke smiled and continued, "When everyone comes back in here we'll talk about it."

She nodded, and taking Sawyer's hand they headed for the door. "You did want to know, Freckles. You don't have to hide it."

"No, Sawyer, if I wanted to know I wouldn't have taken the book."

"I know, 'cause you don't want anyone to know that you want to know, you know?"

"Shut up, Sawyer!" Their laughter faded down the hall, leaving Locke alone again.