The Island

The Flame Station

"Hello, Eloise," Ben had her on speaker and was firing up several programs on two computers as she picked up. "I just got your message to call. What's going on?"

"Hopefully nothing," Eloise's voice had an unconfident air to it, not like her. Ben's fingers paused and he stared at the phone, pushing his glasses up his nose a bit. "But while filling Evan in on various matters, we stumbled on something."

"And what's that?" Ben drew out the four words, unable to hide that he was distracted. The lack of anything ominous in her first sentence had sent his attention back to the data as he scanned reports from the various patrols.

"When you sent Frank back to Guam and you told him to keep in touch with me – I thought one of his first emails said you'd decided to cut the number of new recruits by ten. I wrote back and told him that was fine, I imagined you all had your reasons. But I misread it: He actually wrote that the last ten people who agreed to sign on… they never showed up for processing. Like they simply knew not to bother."

Ben's fingers stopped dead on the keyboard in front of him and he felt a chill of fear down his back and a hot little shot of anger in his stomach at the same time.

"Eloise," Ben said, "How many recruits came to the island? Where did you get them?"

"Thirty total," Eloise said, "Fourteen are full members of our group or children of Others, they're well known to us. The other sixteen I found via a firm we've used for decades to hire security people, engineers. They're called Afforest & Nights. "

Ben had the name Googled before she finished the sentence.

"Afforest & Nights was bought, six months ago," his voice sounded like he was in a dream he'd really like to wake up from. "Bought by a company out of Ann Arbor, owned by the Goodspeed family."

Eloise gave a gasp. Ben would've have appreciated the horror in it if he had time to.

"Put Evan on the phone," he said, barely waited for a 'hello'. "Evan, I need names and faces of every recruit signed up through 'Afforest & Nights' as fast as you can get them from Frank. Richard will have taken their photos for their ID badges – all of it is on their computers in Guam. It should be here," he was keying frantically, looking, but no. "It's not. Get it to me… now."

"On it," he heard Evan say. Ben set the phone down, his eyes glued out the window at the three recruits guarding him here at the Flame. They were pacing along the side of the building, chatting, their rifles pointed at the ground. The muffled edges of their conversation and the occasional laugh were just audible through the glass. Ben silently hoped against hoped that when the names and faces came back, they'd be among the recruits who really had his back.

And then he wondered when the sixteen, the DI recruits, would get it: The signal to take Hurley's team out. All those thoughts were doing a dance in his brain when the phone rang again. He looked at the caller ID and he hit speaker.

"Desmond?"

"Someone's hacking into our systems," Desmond's voice was controlled, but Ben could hear a hubbub building in the background. "We're getting what we need off of our computers to find our way back, and then we're shutting them down. We'll be coming in blind from here."

"Do that if you have to," Ben wasn't going to waste his time with a lot of words. "But get online occasionally if you dare. Any updates are better than none."

"Aye," he heard Desmond say, and then he hung up too.

"Hurley," Ben picked up the two-way by his right hand, "How far out are you from the Flame?"

"Ten minutes," he heard Hurley's voice, upbeat. "Tops."

Ben looked out the window again, decided to keep it simple in case anyone was listening in. "Great. Thanks. See you then."

Island Iteration 4 of 5

Via the Weather Vane

"We won't go hungry," Rose was standing with one arm on the open refrigerator door, organizing the items inside. "They stocked this place as if we'll be staying a couple of weeks. How about we make this taco night?"

"Yes!" Walt flew over to her from where he'd been sitting with Joop, watching videos on a laptop. Vincent was curled up with them. The combination of an open refrigerator and Walt leaving his side was enough to make Vincent stretch and follow. "That sounds great."

"How about you shred the lettuce and the cheese," Rose handed him both, pointed to the counter. "I'll get the rest started."

"Let me help, Mijo," Carmen left Kate and David to finish setting up the Aero beds without her, and went to Walt, who was washing his hands. She searched in the kitchen island for bowls and a grater. "We're cooking for five here. Many hands will make light work."

"Six," Walt said, pulling the plastic wrapper off of the cheese. He dug off a little piece and tossed it to Vincent. "We should cook for six, Claire could get here anytime. Why didn't she come with us anyway?"

"Walt," Rose's voice was a warning. She hadn't seemed to turn her head but she saw it. "The last thing we need is a dog with an upset stomach the next few days. He's got his food bowl, let him eat that, okay? And Claire is still not feeling well enough to walk as far as we did. Hurley's having the recruits drive her to the station in a Dharma van once we've had some time to set up. All the fussing might upset her, too."

"We're not going to have much room to walk once we're done," David Reyes was crouched down over the next to the last of the air mattresses, disconnecting the electric air pump. "We'll be a tight knit little community."

They all knew they were keeping the conversation light, and keeping it going, to push away thoughts of Hurley and the rest. Kate's mind was too busy to participate; it was being pulled in two directions. She walked over to where the blankets were stacked, started picking them up to drop one on each mattress. She stopped with a start when she got to the bunk beds and saw a piece of paper lying on the pillow of the bottom one. It was folded into a small square with her name written across it in Jack's scrawl. She picked it up, tucked it into her pocket.

"Do you mind if I run upstairs for a second?" She asked David. "I think I just need a little air."

"No problem," he nodded, face straight, but she knew he'd seen her pick up the note.

"We should make sure she doesn't go far," Rose waited until Kate was around the corner and up the stairs to say it, "don't you think?"

"Give her a minute," David said, went on with the last of the setting up. "It's dark out, no matter how much she might want to go to the beach she'll stay here. Plus she knows Claire will need her. I'll go check on her in a few."

Kate stood just outside the side door of the hatch, leaning against it to keep it open and to use the light coming up to her. She opened the note, angled it, just able to make out the words.

Dec. 30, '04 was at the top.

"Our first attempt on the Looking Glass post failed," she read. "The second succeeded. Penny's boat is on the way to us as of two days ago. We should see them by tomorrow night."

One of Kate's hands was holding the note, the other had unconsciously gone to her heart. She wished he'd written more about the first attempt, or nothing at all.

"Several people are staying: Locke, Cindy, Steve, Scott, Michael and Walt, a few more. Walt didn't want to leave, and Michael agreed, for now at least."

There was a thin, jagged line of pen trailing down below that, like he'd struggled for what to write next, and then, lower on the page…

"If you came back and got this tell yourself it worked and go home. That might be smarter than coming to look for me, and maybe finding out it went to hell."

There was another space, and then three more lines.

"Sayid says hello, and shukran," one of them read. The next two had Jack's street address in L.A., and his cell phone number with "(just in case)" next to it.

Kate folded the note up, laughing and crying at the same time, tucked it back in her pocket and wiped her eyes, rested the palm of her hand against her mouth to keep from crying harder. She heard feet on the stairs behind her, turned to see David a few yards away.

"Is there anything worse than uncertainty?" He asked, stepped out a few yards from the hatch door and looked up at the perfectly black sky full of stars. "Those three and a half months after the crash when we thought we'd lost Hurley forever," he shook his head, looked back at her. "It was the worst. I wish we'd known he was alive, just somewhere we couldn't get to him – and that he had friends like you all with him. It would have helped."

"Are you telling me you'd rather I stay?" Kate asked. "When this is over?"

David shrugged.

"I can't lie, I'd rather my son had more of his friends around him than fewer. But I guess I'm saying you have to put your uncertainties to rest, too, Kate. You shouldn't live that way forever, not if you don't have to. It's too awful. I know you're hesitating to tell Hurley what you're thinking, but I'm guessing he already knows- and he'll agree."

Kate nodded, wiping her eyes once more, looking down.

Then they both heard the noisy clatter of Walt's feet half tripping over each other on the way to them, heard him yell up the stairs.

"Claire's here," he shouted. "And Rose wants help with dinner."

David started down, squeezed her hand on the way by. "Don't go to the beach alone tomorrow. I'll go with you, or Walt can go along. Okay?"

"Okay," Kate followed him in, got mentally prepared to turn her focus to Claire.

On Board The Searcher

Penny and Desmond, their crew and their guests were all busy making barricades along the middle deck of the boat. They pulled down tables, removed doors from their hinges and leaned them on the rail. They made enough shelters to allow everyone to sit on the deck and watch the water from all sides, and still have room to reach around and shoot if needed. Everyone was armed but Charlie, who was asleep in his room.

"Can I share some advice?" Armin asked Penny as they worked, and she was so shocked to actually hear his voice she jumped a little.

"Of course," she said.

"You must remember all that matters to the people on the other boat is the information on this ship," he said, "You and your husband, you're kind people. I'm concerned if they make it here, you may see familiar faces and feel bad for them," he paused. "You have to shut that off, don't let it in for a second or you risk not making it home. Can you do that?"

"Yes," Penny nodded, started to say something more when a strobe light hit their eyes, a bright white light flicking across the surface of the water right along the rail where they were all standing.

Everyone dropped down where they'd been standing, and Penny looked to her right, saw Desmond fifty feet away staring back at her, nodding.

"They're here," Armin said, checked the rifle on his shoulder. "If you see anything moving our way, start shooting- and don't stop until it stops."