CHAPTER 3

When Ana Lucia woke up, it was with the vague recollection of a great passing of time. She felt older somehow. More sure of herself and more cynical.

Ana Lucia looked down at her feet. They were bare. She was wearing jeans, a white "Conspiracy Red" T-shirt and a plaid long sleeved work shirt. She was lying on a grey carpeted floor in front of a wall bearing a large, abstract mural painted in many different vibrant colors.

A panting yellow lab jogged up to her and greeted her with its warm, wet tongue.
It occurred to her slowly that she was in a house,. The living room of a very nice house with very nice furniture. There was a warm smell of coffee brewing from the direction of the kitchen, and sitting on a nearby blue couch, a little dark haired boy was reading from a small orange book, flopping his slender legs contentedly.

The little boy looked away from his book towards the puzzled woman looking up at him from the floor. He grinned suddenly, and gesturing to the book, he said approvingly, "This is a good book!"

Ana stared.

Presently, Sawyer, Jack and (holy sh-t!) Kate squeezed through a back door, engaged in a conversation that had sent Kate into a spurt of laughter.

"So what was I supposed to say, he seemed like a sweet guy, she definitely liked him, sure, I wouldn't have picked a guy that was like a thousand years older than me, but whatever!"

Jack laughed. Sawyer slumped down on the couch and grabbed the little boy, tickling him until the boy squirmed away in a giggling fit.

Jack stepped over Ana on his way to the entertainment centre. He pulled open the doors, revealing a sparkling 40 inch television. He turned it on.

"Hey Ana." said Kate, joining Sawyer on the couch. "Why are you on the floor?"
Ana didn't respond at first. Still bewildered from the complete change of surrounding and mood, she looked up at Jack questioningly.
Jack smiled good-naturedly.

"Oh wow, you guys have to take a look at this!" Kate exclaimed, enthralled in the television set.
Jack pulled Ana up and over to the couch. The four (five, counting the boy) stared at the television.

A newscaster stood in the middle of a vast desert, her blonde hair blowing dustily in the gust of several black helicopters landing behind her.

"In the wake of several disturbing reports coming out of the Zone Five area, " the reporter dictated importantly, "an explosion has rocked The Junction, the Zone's newest telecommunications centre. The reason for the explosion is still under debate and officials at the scene still have not yet issued a statement. Witnesses, however, tell a more alarming story."

Kate nudged Jack and Ana excitedly. "They're gonna show us, oh my god!"
Sure enough, onscreen, a soot covered, hysterical looking Kate was telling the camera what had happened, and gesturing disbelievingly towards the still flaming remains of the once magnificent Junction building.

"I—I don't know what happened—there was just this massive SMASH on the left side of the hundred and second level—my partner -- uh -- Dr. Sheppard issued a building-wide and pulled the alarm—we barely made it out alive..."

Squealing happily, Kate hopped off the couch and ran into the kitchen. She emerged with a six pack of Coors Light and squeezed back into her place on the couch.

Sawyer turned up his mouth. "Are you kidding, Freckles? Light beer?"

"Can you believe it?" Kate turned up the volume on the television. "We're on TV!"

"Shhhh!" Ana shushed her up angrily.

Now Sawyer was on the television, tossing his blonde mane and telling his story with much motion and sound effects:

"It was like goddamned Black Hawk Down—this HUGE motherfuckin' chopper comes wheelin' outta nowhere—SMASHES (he smacked his fist into his palm) right into the goddamned side of the building...! I swear, I thought goddamned NEO was gonna fly down from there—it was like a MOVIE...!"

"You watch too much tv, man." Jack grinned. Everyone on the couch, except Ana, broke into chuckles. Sawyer smirked.

"My anti-drug, Jackson."

The reporter continued.
"...new sources inside the rubble confirm that parts of a helicopter were found..."
Several in-depth shots of the substantial damage and bewildered onlookers (including a familiar looking African American and two stunned Koreans) cut sequentially to the reporter's voice on the screen. Sawyer sank back into the couch, cracking open a beer.

"Now ain't that a bitch! Whaddaya you think it was? The driver just missed seein' the zillion story-high sky scraper?"

"Maybe it was one of those terrorist attacks." said Kate, sipping her beer.

"I'm sorry," said Ana suddenly, glaring at Kate and Sawyer, "is anyone still aware of the fact that we were just inside that building??"

Sawyer, his beer halfway to his mouth, stared. "Well sure we are, sweetie, important thing's that now we're not. Ain't no use thinkin' about it now. Have a beer."

"Thank god no one was hurt," said Jack, reaching for the remote. He changed the channel. "I wonder what those choppers were doing up there, anyway."

Ana stared at her couch companions disbelievingly. "What the hell are you talking about—we were ambushed! This bitch turned us over—they were coming for us!"

Kate's eyes lanced towards Ana, confused and hurt.

"Hey, what's your problem, chica??" Sawyer exclaimed. "Ain't no call for that kinda language with kids in the room—"

"What are you on about, Ana Lucia?" Jack said, frowning. Ana rose from the couch.

"Kate told us she knew where The Junction was at the tarmac—how to get to the extraction point! What she told us was a lie to get us to the wrong building because the Others bribed her with escape or whatever—tell them, Kate, you know what you did!"

Kate stared blankly. None of this seemed to be registering with her.

"Kate, tell them!!"

"Ana..." Jack spoke carefully, "you need to calm down, alright? Nobody betrayed anybody, nobody lied about anything, okay? Are you feeling alright? You don't look so good."

"Jack—I can't believe this—where's Sayid? Where's Locke? God—we were in an elevator..." Ana's head was spinning, "we were gonna get to the roof, get a chopper—the Others were in the building—goddammit, what did you DO Kate?!"

"Lay offa Kate, Ana." Sawyer said in a low voice. "Get in the bathroom and cool off."

"Doesn't anybody remember...?? What happened...what the hell happened...?" Ana's vision blurred. The little boy jumped off the couch, squealing and pointing,

"She's gonna faint! She's gonna faint!"

"Somebody catch her—"

"Oh hell—Ana! Ana?? Hey!"

The last sound to meet her ears was that of blood thundering against her eardrums, and then a great, encompassing blackness.

TO BE CONTINUED