The Island
Inside The Flame
Ben closed his eyes and sighed in relief at the only good news he'd get for the day: The three recruits guarding him were loyal Others, not any of the sixteen DI spies wandering the island. He flipped through the files Frank had sent from the registration point in Guam one more time to confirm, then called them inside.
He sent them out with copies, instructions to bring as many of the infiltrators as they could catch to the Weather Vane and wait there for Richard.
Richard, as in Richard who wasn't answering his cell phone. Ben called him twice, tried the Orchid directly, phoned the cell again, pacing the whole time. And as he paced, it hit him: Hurley had never shown up. He had been ten minutes out nearly an hour ago.
"Sorry," He finally heard Richard's voice. "The gates leading in were overgrown with weeds and vines, no one's been down here for awhile. We were busy breaking in…"
Ben cut him off.
"You need to leave Bernard there to keep in touch with us. You and Miles get to the Weather Vane immediately."
"Why?" Richard picked up on his tone, kept it short.
"It's starting. I just confirmed that half the new recruits Eloise sent you were hired through a security company we've used for decades—one the DI quietly bought out last summer. Look at your email, I'm sending you names and faces right now. And I'm pretty sure they've taken Hurley."
He heard Richard swear under his breath as it sunk in.
"We've got to convince him to carry a gun," Richard said.
"Good luck with that," Ben said with a grim laugh.
"Wait," Richard started a new thought, paused. "I'm looking at this- some of these guys are security, but some are engineers. Why would they spend money and energy infiltrating the team wiring us for power and utilities?"
This time it was Richard who heard Ben reacting, just the smallest exhalation.
"They've been crawling through the barracks, the hatches for weeks," Ben said. "They're not just wiring for power," he scanned the walls and ceiling then dropped down, started looking and feeling along the walls and under the desks.
"There it is," Ben felt them before he saw them, ducked his head to watch his fingers trace along the set of long, thin wires all the way to the device they were attached to under the computer bank.
"They've been wiring explosives, too."
"What? Why would they bomb resources they could use?"
"Oh, I don't know. To create chaos," Ben said, grabbing his pack. "Cut off our communications. Divide and conquer. Richard, we've got to catch them all today or this will get messy very fast." Ben took a gun from his bag, tucked it in his belt and reached over to hang up the landline. "I'll meet you at the Weather Vane."
Island Iteration 4 of 5
Via the Weather Vane
Kate barely felt her twenty-minute walk back to the hatch to rejoin her friends. One second she'd been parting ways with John at the beach, the next her eyes focused again and she saw Claire and Walt outside the hatch, playing with Joop and Vincent.
They were throwing a Frisbee which Vincent would catch and bring, usually, to Joop. Sometimes Joop would try to throw it, other times he'd just take off with it, running in figure eights and making Vincent chase him. Kate couldn't tell who was having more fun, the two of them or Claire and Walt. Her breath caught for a second at Claire's trilling laugh. She hadn't heard it in years.
"Talk about me being too daring," Kate skirted the game of tag, walked straight over to Rose and Carmen who were in lawn chairs next to the hatch doorway. "What are you all doing out here? There are Others on this island, you know, and they're not our friends at the moment."
"They'll go crazy without some outdoor time," Rose nodded toward the playgroup. "And David's walking a circle around us, keeping watch."
"Did you get any good news, dear?" Carmen asked, and Kate gave a shrug and a smile that curved down as much as up. It said more than she even felt like putting into words at the moment.
"Remember," Carmen said, giving Kate's wrist a quick squeeze. "Things are never as bad as they seem or as good as they seem."
Kate nodded, broadened her smile for Carmen's sake and looked back at Claire and Walt.
"She's been awake for hours," Rose said. "No more attacks of the sleepies. She's almost like herself, except that she's living in this fifteen minutes. Every time she asks about Charlie and Aaron we just tell her they're on the way and it does the trick. What if that never gets better?"
"There are options," Kate said simply, and Rose and Carmen exchanged a questioning glance. Only Hurley, Richard and Kate knew all the details about the hatch and the other worlds they'd been studying. "It'll have to wait until we go home, and we can all talk, do what's right for her. By then we'll know how much more she's going to recover of her memory."
"The note in her pocket did say that where she is, that's where she'll stay," Rose said. "And Kate, she is so very stuck in three years ago."
"I hate to break up recess," Kate said, more than one thing clearly on her mind. "But we should get inside. It's not safe here. I hope we see Richard soon. I hope this is almost over." Her hand went to her stomach unconsciously, and Carmen and Rose exchanged a glance of concern again.
"It's time to go home," Kate said.
The Island
En Route to the Weather Vane
The path Ben was taking from the Flame station was narrow, surrounded by trees and tall grass. The foliage is what saved him when he heard four of the DI spies coming his way. It gave him time and a place to hide and listen in on their conversation as they walked slowly past him.
"I don't care what they say about taking them peacefully, or how much they're paying us: If I think one of those Others is anywhere close to a threat I'm firing."
"Even the kid?" another asked.
"No, idiot, not the kid. Murdering a fourteen year old pretty much buys you a first class ticket on the train to hell, right? But those two that have been running this place forever? That woman whose managed to get more than a few people killed, the dentist who shoots rifles for a hobby? Sorry, I'll ask forgiveness later, not permission first."
They were past him now, probably on the way to try to capture him, Ben thought. He didn't have time to feel fear, though: He was too angry at the realization that Hurley's team was just one moving target now.
He started back on the path when his cell phone rang and then he did panic. He glanced at the screen, looking back to see if they'd heard it. They hadn't.
"Annie?" Ben whispered, hoped against hope it was really her on the other end.
"No, not Annie. Someone who is trying to help her."
Ben heard the thick English accent and squinted, walking fast still, trying to place it. She sounded like someone he'd talked with before and his brain was going in two directions, trying to worry about the present and to connect the dots.
"Are you on the ship with her? With Sawyer?" Ben asked.
"Yes. She's locked in her room, there's a guard posted. I told her I'd keep in touch with you and relay what's going on here. They're sending in half a dozen men on zodiac rafts right now to try to try to take over the Searcher. From what I'm overhearing, they're going to try to capture them, bring them back here, take what they can get for information from the ship and then they're going to destroy it."
"Do you really believe," Ben asked, "That they're going to bring my friends back to your ship first?"
"No," she said, after a pause. "Or maybe. I don't know what I believe anymore. I thought I was signing up with the good guys. My family's been DI for so long."
"Sorry," Ben said. "You made the wrong call, but there's still time. What's your plan?"
"I got the guard away from her door once, I can do it again," he heard her say. "There are two small lifeboats left, we can take one and follow behind. We'll try to defend your friends or get them free if they're taken."
"Can you arm yourself, and Annie?" Ben asked, heard her say yes. "It'll be two on six, potentially," he said. "Stay calm, and when your moment comes don't hesitate, okay?" His voice dropped down to its most insistent, urgent tone. "You cannot let them get to the island."
"I know," she said, and before she could hang up Ben cut back in.
"What's your name?" he blurted it out.
"Elian," she said, "Elian Staples."
"Elian, do you have a sister named Charlotte?"
There was silence for a moment and Ben was afraid he'd lost her until he heard a faint 'yes'.
"And she went missing some time ago, didn't she?" Ben asked, as the Weather Vane coming into his sight a few dozen yards away.
"That's part of the reason I signed on," Elian said. "To find the island, and find her. I know that's where she was trying to go. I'm sure of it."
"Well if you save my friends and get them home," Ben said, "I can tell you what happened to her. I'm sorry, it's not going to be a happy story, but we can tell you about the last days of her life. And then you won't have to wonder anymore."
There was silence, a murmured sound that felt like grief and then a click. Ben tucked the phone in his pocket as he walked up to Richard.
"What was that about?" Richard asked. Ben looked less happy with himself than Richard had seen him look in a long time.
"The Searcher's about to be under attack," Ben said. "But we have a mole on the Valenzetti and she's now very highly motivated to help us."
Richard nodded slowly. Ben saw a flicker of both hope and disapproval in his eyes.
"Good," Richard said, turning back to business. "The guards you sent already caught two of them. I've shuttled them off to Frank in Guam."
"Excellent," Ben said. "Two down, fourteen to go. Now we need to figure out where they've taken Hurley."
On Board the Valenzetti
"I'm going with, and that's all there is to it," Sawyer towered over Dori Goodpeed, who avoided him by turning and walking toward the other end of the control room.
"There's no reason for you to go to the Searcher," Dori said. "That would only complicate things. Don't you believe us, that we won't hurt your friends if they surrender peacefully?"
"Don't take it too personally," Sawyer snarled, stayed put for the moment and Dori stopped. "I don't trust anybody, chief."
Elian had ended her call with Ben seconds before, walked back up the steps to the control room to find them arguing over who was going to the Searcher and who was staying. She divided her attention between them, the security team in the room, and Sawyer's computer bag on the chair to her right. He'd been holding it to him a little too closely the whole time he'd been on board and Elian suspected whatever was in it, she and Annie would need it.
"Look," Sawyer tried a calm tone and reason one more time, "I know it'll be easier to convince them if I'm there or I wouldn't be fighting with you about this."
"Did we not pay you eight million dollars," Dori asked, didn't wait for an answer to the rhetorical question. "And did we not agree to pay the other half when this is over? Not to mention you approached us. If you were so worried about your friends, you never would have brokered such a hugely profitable deal in the first place,"
He took a couple of steps back toward him.
"Really, Sawyer, what's it to you in the long con? Sorry, I meant long run."
Sawyer pounced, had Dori knocked down in half a second and his hand around his neck. The security guards were right behind, though, pulling him away and Elian saw her chance. She was gone and so was Sawyer's bag before anyone noticed.
"Keep him in here," Dori said to the guards as he left. They did, but all the way down he could hear the banging and thumping of Sawyer taking his anger out on the walls, the furniture. Dori smiled, thinking better the walls than his head.
Ten minutes later three zodiac rafts were bouncing over the waves, headed for the Searcher.
One deck down, Annie was lying on her bed when she heard a shrill screech, a huge, dull bang and the sound of a body crumpling to the ground. She had no idea the shriek had come from the person who would spring her from her prison, or that the bang was a fire extinguisher barrel slamming into her guard's head. She did see, a moment later, Elian's face in the doorway. Her hand was stretched out with a handgun pointing at the floor.
"Can you handle a gun?" Elian asked.
"If I have to," Annie said.
"You do," she said and Annie took it, checked the safety.
"Are you afraid of heights, ladders, or small boats?" Elian asked, got a shake of the head back.
"Good," she said, "Let's go see if we can save your friends and blow mine out of the water."
Island Iteration 4 of 5
Via the Weather Vane
Kate found sleep hard to come by that night. She had no idea what time it was in the darkness of the hatch, but she guessed it was about 2:00 a.m. when she gave up and tiptoed to the refrigerator.
She tried to grab the big pitcher of water without letting too much light spill out, then turned to shove the door shut with her shoulder and jumped almost off the floor, seeing Walt right next to her.
"I didn't hear you walking over," Kate whispered it for the sake of those sleeping, held the pitcher to her heart, a touch shaken.
"I didn't walk over," Walt whispered back, looking sleepy still. "I didn't want to step on Vincent or Joop."
It was going to take awhile to get used to his skills.
Kate handed him the pitcher, gesturing for him to take it to the kitchen island.
"Want anything?"
Walt thought about it for a second.
"Any apples in there?"
"Yes," Kate reached in, rummaged around, joined him at the counter. "You're in luck." She handed him his snack and poured herself a glass of water.
"I know why I can't sleep, Walt," she said. "But why can't you?"
He'd taken a bite already, and Kate had to wait a bit for her answer.
"I just know that this will be over soon and we'll have to go home. I don't want to."
Kate looked around the room, at them all bunked in like the most unlikely camping trip in the history of the world and she laughed.
"Walt, c'mon, really? Is this about what you told me the other day that you're not good with all the new recruits on the island? It's not always going to be just us, you know, you'll have to get used to new people…"
"I know," he said, took another bite and chewed so long Kate wondered if he was going to go on. "But you know how you guys are always asking each other, 'you got my back?'"
The way he said the last four words with a mock grown-up inflection cracked Kate up so much she had to swallow a laugh as she nodded, afraid to hurt his feelings.
"Well, some of these new people," Walt said, took another small bite, "I don't think they have our backs."
There was a long pause while Walt finished his apple and Kate drank her glass of water with her eyes going dark, heavier with the realization of what was happening and what they'd all missed.
"Walt, did you tell Hurley what you've been thinking?"
"I tried," he shrugged. "But Richard and I have been busy logging all those other islands, and when we got back everything was so busy," he flipped open the door under the kitchen island, tossed the apple core in the garbage. "Everyone listens to me about this," he said, looking around the room, "But not about anything else."
Kate was leaning with her chin in her hand, shaking her head.
"Walt, I am so sorry," she said, "You've done so much for us in just a couple of months, and you're going to be so important to this place. I promise, from now on I'll be listening harder, okay?"
"Thanks," Walt said, smiling but looking concerned at the same time. "You're going back there, aren't you?"
Kate just nodded.
"You should let Hurley's dad go," Walt said, "Or I can go."
He said it so enthusiastically, so ready to protect that it broke her heart but he stopped, giving up as Kate just shook her head.
"You warned us, Walt," she said, "It's on me now. But I need you to send me home."
"Okay," he stayed where he was as Kate went to her bunk, grabbed her rifle and headed for the launch pad. "But Rose is going to be mad at me."
"No," Kate said, "Tell her to save it up and be mad at me later, okay?"
She expected to have a moment more to talk with him, but Walt wasn't wasting time. Kate felt the floor falling out from under her, the familiar spinning queasiness that made morning sickness seem like a bargain.
Then she was lying flat on her back in her own island's Weather Vane, working hard to focus her eyes on anything that would make the room stop spinning.
She heard Richard react, run over to grab her hand and pull her to her feet, saw Ben sitting at the bank of computers, pulling information.
"Are you okay?" Richard asked. She could see in his eyes that he was thoroughly confused at the angry, pained expression on her face as she stood glaring at him.
"I'm fine," she said, shaking his hand off.
"Just can't stay put," Ben said, "Can you Kate?"