so sorry for the wait. family issues lol./
"Charlie!"
Sayid dove over the mound of dirt and into the small hole they'd dug. He got down on his knees and looked in but there was nothing in the hole.
"Charlie?" he repeated.
"I'm in!" Charlie's head popped into view, obstructing the light. "The hallway is intact!"
"Good! Be careful, the foundation may not be stable!" Sayid called.
Charlie stood from his stooping position and looked around. Most of this hallway was okay except for where he'd crawled through, which seemed like the wall had buckled in, spilling earth as high as the ceiling. Beyond it was one half of the door to the outside, which lay on the ground. Where it had been was a large mound of rock and sedimentary, as though it had been ready to fall into place, blocking the gap where the doors should have been. This whole end of the hallway seemed as though it were a weakness and had simply collapsed in.
Turning around, Charlie faced the end of the hallway where the main living room was. He walked down it carefully. It was very dark but a strange glow was coming from inside the living room. He stepped into the doorway where there were many yellow lights, not visible when they weren't on, lighting in the room in an eerie glow.
But this main room was trashed. Everything that had been on the counter had flown to the wall beside Charlie. Forks stood straight out of the wall, piercing it almost to their hilts. Pots, pans, and all kinds of utensils seemed to have flown out of their drawers. The ping pong table had slid halfway and then broken, and lay cracked on the floor. The couches were the same, but the kitchen cabinets were hanging off and whatever wasn't attached firmly to the wall was lying on the floor.
"Locke?" Charlie called. "Eko?"
There was no answer.
Jack was pushed into a room that was almost identical to some of the operating rooms he had operated in back at home. It had a long clean silver table, a large lamp above with many different lights on it, and many trays with different instruments. The floor was glistening as though it had just been cleaned.
"Is this a sterile room?" Jack asked.
"No," said Tom. "Go in there."
He pointed at a door and Jack went through it into a smaller room with many shelves stacked with different types of clothing and many different accessories. It was almost like a theater's stock room, with fake bears, fake chest hair, pencils for makeup, face paint, racks of clothes, and all kinds of different props.
"What am I going to be doing?" Jack asked, looking around.
"A liver transplant," whispered Tom, looking over his shoulder into the operating room and shutting the door.
"What?" Jack turned sharply. "I can't, I'd need more than one…"
"You'll have help. You just tell them what to do," said Tom, grinning evilly. "Put these on."
He handed Jack a pair of cheaply made scrubs that looked more like a Halloween costume. He slid them on and left his clothes in a pile, feeling very unsure. All he could think of was Kate and how if he didn't do this, she'd die.
"You will not ask questions. You will do this," Tom said fiercely, standing in front of the door with his club. "Understood?"
"What happened to all the other doctors?" Jack asked, his eyes narrowing.
"They weren't good enough," snapped Tom. "Consider yourself promoted. Put your mask on."
Jack put the fake surgical mask over his face, wondering just how badly infected this patient would get once this botched surgery was done. Jack had never done this surgery before, because it wasn't his specialty. He'd seen it done, knew the steps, but could easily cut the wrong vein and end it all in a huge bloody mess.
"If this patient dies it wont be my fault," Jack hissed to Tom, who jutted him hard in the ribs as he opened the door.
They entered the operating room, which was now filled with people including someone lying asleep on the table. It was a middle-aged man, no older than Locke. Jack had a small pinprick of desperation, remembering John Locke being on the other side of the island, not knowing what was happening.
This man had no intubation, no anesthesia, and the people standing around were in the same scrubs as Jack. There were three female nurses with masks over their face and three larger men behind them, there to make sure everything went smoothly.
Jack walked nervously over to the table. He looked down at the sheet-covered man just as the man's eyes popped open.
"He's awake!" Jack shouted, looking back at Tom.
"Nurse," Tom said brusquely, the only man in the room without scrubs on. "Will you fix that?"
A nurse came over who was wearing a baseball cap low over her eyes. She reached out and injected the man with something that made him squirm for a moment then go still. For a brief moment Jack froze, recognizing those hands, knowing the smell of her. His eyes went to hers and he knew it was Kate.
But he kept his mouth shut as she drew her eyes away and was pulled back by the large man behind her. She held the empty syringe carefully and dropped it on a nearby table.
"Okay, proceed," Tom said quietly.
"May the Lord help you," Jack whispered to the man as he reached for a scalpel.
Sawyer sat up painfully. He had been sitting on this hard floor now for five hours. Alex had not returned and he grew more and more envious of the fact that she had access to ice. His sides ached terribly and even though he knew he was no doctor, he was hurt bad.
After what felt like an eternity, the door was opened and Kate was shoved in. She was wearing her regular clothes again and was sobbing hysterically as she hit the floor and the door was shut again.
"Freckles?" Sawyer strained to get up but couldn't move. "Freckles, you okay?"
"Yeah," she gasped, wiping her face quickly. "I'm okay."
"And the doc?" Sawyer suddenly was terrified. If Jack died and left them, he wasn't sure what he'd do. He hated to admit it but that dumb surgeon was their only hope.
"He's okay," she got to her feet and was able to compose herself. "He just had to…Oh my god! Are you alright?"
She had seen the state of him and rushed over. His face was cut and bruised, his eye purple and swollen almost to shut. His face was a pasty white and he held his sides painfully.
"Yeah," Sawyer waved her away as she examined his face. "I'm great. But what happened?"
"They made Jack operate," she said solemnly, her eyes looking distant. "It went okay until the end and the blood was everywhere…it…"
Kate looked very sick all of a sudden and sat back closing her eyes. She tried to stop her head from spinning, tried to get the image of the blood, practically flowing out over Jack's arms as he tried desperately to stop it. She had been pulled from the room just as Jack was about getting it under control.
"Why do they want us?" Kate asked quietly, her tears ceasing but her voice shaking. "I don't understand."
"I'd answer it if I could, freckles," he said weakly, sighing.
"Jack should look at you when he gets back. You don't look good," she said, looking closely at his pale face.
"I'm fine…"
Sawyer was cut off when the doors opened and Jack came stumbling in, looking lost. The door slammed and Jack looked at them. He was still in his scrubs and had blood all over his arms and hands. His face was emotionless as he moved over towards Kate and Sawyer and simply sat down beside Sawyer against the wall, his scarlet hands glistening in the small bit of light coming from the cracks in the door.
"Jack?" Kate whispered tentatively.
"We have to get out of here," Jack said, his eyes staring far off.
(off the island. A busy office in London)
"What do we have?"
Penny came bustling into the large office where three men sat around a computer screen, all looking confused. They all wore business suits but their ties had been loosened and they looked more relaxed.
"The coordinates don't make much sense," said the man in the middle who was known as Robert. He had thinning brown hair that was obviously died and barely covered his large shiny bald spot on the top of his head with a badly done comb over. He was heavy set and seemed to be busting out of his shirt. "There's nothing there."
"Maybe it can't be seen easily," she came around the desk and all the men stepped back as she went to look at the screen. She smelled heavily of airplane and perfume, and all the men took in her slim appearance in a business skirt and top. "Is this satellite?"
"The best we have," said a thinner, red headed man with more hair than seemed necessary for a man of his age. Obvious signs of sleep deprivation aged his face and he appeared ten years older than he was. "If it's not on there it doesn't exist."
"It does if they picked up a signal!" she snapped, her anger surprising them all into backing up more. "What else could it be?"
"A solar flare?" suggested the last man, who was younger than the other two but sporting a particularly large mole on his face that would effect his love life for many years. "Or even a mistake in calculations."
"It isn't a mistake!" Penny snapped, turning around and marching to where she'd put down her briefcase. She ripped out a folder and brought it to the table, pushing aside the laptop and spreading out many forms with a lot of numbers and coordinates. "A large amount of electromagnetic energy was reported a little while ago in the same location but died too fast. They didn't get it in time. This is the same spot. What are the chances a solar flare or a mistake happened in the same place?"
None of the men answered her and she could feel the anger and desperation rising in her chest. She had invested a lot of money into this, money that she had to lie about. She lied about forming a new charity for children effected by radiation in nuclear armed countries, and had to tell her husband she was putting more into it than expected. They weren't going broke but this was a large portion of her income to be pouring into monitoring and watching for this specific event just to have it brushed off as a mistake.
"You haven't acted on any of them yet," she said, putting her hands on her slim hips. The red headed man looked very intimidated. "Act on it."
"But surely you can't be serious," said Robert, shaking his head as he closed the laptop. "That's triple what this assignment costs now."
"Do it," she snapped. "And any information I want brought to me."
"The only way we could check it out would be to go there," said the younger man, whose face had become flushed. He avoided her eyes carefully. "We'd send an expedition to check the surrounding waters for any source of the energy…"
"Good, I'm on board," she began putting her papers back in a folder.
"But ma'am, this is a dangerous mission. It's going to take many days to establish and get a crew together. We possibly may need a permit to do any radar testing…"
"Can you have a ship by Thursday?" Penny snapped, her eyes flashing at the three men in business suits, who all believed she was crazy.
"Yes ma'am," said Robert, glancing at his calendar to see it was only Tuesday.
"Okay. I'm going home until I get your call and I'll fly to wherever we launch from," she put her briefcase under her arm, feeling the lump form in her throat. She turned away from them and kept her voice as steady as she could as she reached the door. "Good day, gentlemen."
As she reached the elevator the tears were spilling over her eyes. She was thankful that she had the elevator to herself as the doors closed. Looking in the reflection of the doors, she wiped her eyes, her makeup smearing. This was it, she would find Desmond. She thought of her daughter and husband, of this life she had been forced into. In her mind she imagined a beautiful reunion as she rescued Desmond from some desolate island no bigger than a boat, where he had survived heartily on coconuts and fish. She would rescue him, take him home, and then they could start their life together.
The elevator doors opened and she stepped out, letting the rush of air cool the tears and refresh her. She went to the street to hail a cab and in her heart she had hope.
(end)
"Charlie!"
"I'm okay!" Charlie shouted back to Sayid, slightly annoyed.
He went a few feet forward. Ahead he could see the computer room. All the walls in the hall to it were buckling, water seeping through the cracks. Burst pipes lay dripping, hanging from the ceiling. Dirt and mud had gathered on the floor and was ankle deep as he sloshed through it.
The computer room was a disaster area. The computer was smashed, the timer above him crunched into nothing. The magnet had seemed especially strong in here because even the rolling chair had glued itself to the wall, bending in half. The desk was swept clean and only because it was bolted to the floor did it remain although the ground around each leg was bent upward from the pull. The computer all around was demolished, smashed with bits of glass and fragments of computer parts littering the ground.
"Locke! Eko?" Charlie shouted again. Looking around he could see no sign of anyone. Over to the left there was a square hole in the ground, with a twisted and bent floor tile that was partially raised. Charlie went over and lifted it but could only see blackness and dust below.
There was movement to his left and he jumped. Rising to his feet he peered into the bathroom. Slowly he approached, his soaked shoes squeaking on the ground. The door to the bathroom sat partially opened. He pushed it all the way and saw nothing. But the shower door was closed.
Walking across the bathroom, Charlie's heart pumped in his chest. He could hear Sayid calling for more reassurance and wasn't going to answer, unsure he could with the knot in his chest. He was sure he'd open the door and find John and Eko's bodys twisted and destroyed. He was sure he'd find something horrible and gruesome there.
Reaching out, he put a hand on the handle and slid the door open.
