I'm sitting on the beach with Locke, Desmond, and Sayid as Locke tells us his plan.
"I think I know how to find Jack, Kate and Sawyer," he tells us.
"Can I ask why he's being included in the conversation?" Sayid asks, motioning towards Desmond with his head.
"Is that supposed to hurt my feelings?" Desmond jokes.
"Tell him what you told me," Locke says to Desmond.
"The computer in the hatch wasn't only for pushing the button. I'm pretty sure it could be used to communicate with other stations."
"This is fascinating," Sayid says. "But you told us last night that the hatch exploded."
"One of them did," Locke says.
"You want to try and communicate with the Others?"
"Yup."
Charlie and Hurley walk up to us. "No luck, dudes. We looked everywhere. Eko's gone."
"There's no trail," Charlie says.
"Not that we, like, know what a trail looks like."
Locke turns to me. "When you pulled him out of the tent, did he say anything?"
"Not really," I answer. "He was just mumbling 'My brother, my brother.' Then 'Yemi', maybe."
"Tia, Sayid, pack your gear. We're going to that computer."
"Wait! What about Eko?" Charlie asks.
"We'll catch up to him. We're all going to the same place." Locke tells him.
I leave the group and pack my bag. Luckily I had it with me and didn't leave it on the boat when the Others took it. I move to the kitchen and grab some DHARMA Nutri-bars. A few other people hang around and Locke walks by. "Hey everybody. We're heading out to the Pearl station. There's a computer there that might help us find our people. Anybody want to come along?"
"What do you mean 'Anybody want to come along?'" Hurley asks.
"I mean, if you'd like to join us, it's a free island."
"Yeah, see, Jack would go and do stuff alone. Or he'd take Tia or Sayid or Kate."
"Yeah, well. I'm not Jack. The more the merrier."
"I'll go," a woman says. I can't remember her name.
"What?" a man asks her. I can't remember is name either, but I know they're a couple. Maybe Locke has a point. I really don't know too much about a lot of the survivors around camp.
"Anybody else want to come, meet us at the tree line in ten minutes. Bring water," Locke instructs.
I follow Locke to the water bucket to fill up my bottles with Desmond not far behind me. "Would you mind if I asked you a question, Brother?" Desmond says to Locke.
"Shoot."
"Are we off to poke at a computer, or are we going after your man Eko?"
"Two birds, one stone. Eko's heading for the plane that crashed on top of the entrance to the Pearl station."
"Well, that's quite a coincidence."
"Don't mistake coincidence for fate."
"You didn't say we were going to the Beechcraft," I say to Locke.
"Sorry I didn't mention it. Eko and I found the entrance to The Pearl under where the plane fell." He pauses and looks at me carefully. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. I just haven't been there since…"
"I know. Don't worry, you'll be fine." He caps his bottle and walks away.
Desmond sinks his bottle into the water. "What happened at the plane?"
"None of your business," I say, pulling my bottle out of the tarp.
"My, aren't you a wee bit secretive."
"It's not a secret. I just don't feel like telling you." I grab the talisman of Boone's necklace around my neck, something I've started to do whenever I get nervous.
"Fine, you don't have to tell me. But there is one other thing I'm curious about. What makes you so special?"
"Excuse me?"
"You and your mate, Sayid. Locke wouldn't do anything until you two came back to camp."
"I'm not special," I say, putting my bottle in my pack. "Locke just feels like he needs to include me in everything he does, I guess."
"And why is that, sister?"
I smile. "I told you it was none of your business." I spot Locke and Sayid over by the tree line and head over to them.
Our trek to the Beechcraft is mostly silent. The couple that came with us stays mostly in the back. "I'm Tia," I say to the woman.
"Um, yeah, I know who you are. We've met, like four times."
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, I'm Nikki, this is my boyfriend, Paulo." I continue to give her a blank stare. "Yeah, guess I was just kidding myself. The courageous A-Team member Tia can't remember us little folk back at the beach."
"A-Team member?" I ask confused.
"It's what she calls you and Jack and Kate, all of the rest of you who do your important missions and things," Paulo answers.
"I don't follow."
"Oh, you know, your merry little band of adventurers that never includes us," Nikki says tersely.
"She gets jealous when she's left out of the loop," Paulo says.
"Um, I'm sorry," I say, still slightly confused. I guess she has a point, but she makes me feel insanely uncomfortable.
"Did you hear that?" Locke asks from the front of the group. He starts to jog forward and I follow behind Sayid and Desmond.
I hear Locke footsteps stop at the edge of the tree line. We break it and across a wide stream, our missing friend stands at a distance.
"Hello, Eko," Locke calls to him.
It doesn't take long and we've made it to the Beechcraft. A lot has changes since the last time I was here, the day after Boone died, almost delirious with exhaustion and grief. I grip his necklace in my hand. The once yellow place has been burnt to a crisp. Most of the Virgin Mary statues that littered the ground are gone, but a few pieces of their broken plaster still linger. I remember that Charlie said he and Eko burned the plane.
"This is what you didn't want to tell me about?" Desmond says. "A fallen plane?"
"How many times do I have to ask you to quit bugging me?" I ask.
"Does it have something to do with that necklace you're holding?"
I ignore him and follow Locke, who's standing in the center of the field. "Here's the entrance to the station. You go ahead and head down, I'll be right behind you." He walks over to Eko, who's pulling rocks off of the entrance to the plane.
Sayid grabs one side of the metal doors in the ground, Desmond grabs the other and they pull. Inside is a tunnel, very deep and dark like the original door to the Swan hatch, the one we blew up, except this one has an unbroken ladder leading all the way down. "After you, miss," Desmond says to me, motioning.
I head down the ladder and drop into a cramped, circular room. Television screens line the walls and electric equipment beeps and lights up next to them. Nikki drops down beside me, followed by Paulo, then Desmond and Sayid. Locke comes down not long after, leaving Eko above us.
"What is this hatch for?" I ask Locke.
He grabs his pack off his back and starts rummaging through it, eventually producing a VHS tape. "See for yourself," he says, putting it in a player.
One of the screens lights up and Nikki and I sit in the office chairs to watch the video. The DHARMA Initiative Station 5—The Pearl is written on the screen with the familiar logo, except, instead of a Swan, there's a giant white circle, which I'm sure is meant to represent a pearl.
The same Asian man from the Swan Orientation video appears, except, this time he's not wearing a white lab coat. He's wearing a turtleneck sweater and a tweed sports coat.
"Hello, I'm Dr. Mark Wickman, and this is the orientation film for Station 5 of DHARMA Initiative. Station 5, or the Pearl, is a monitoring station where the activities of participants in DHARMA Initiative projects can be observed and recorded; not only for posterity, but for the ongoing refinement of the Initiative as a whole. As Karen DeGroot herself has written, 'Careful observation in the only key to true and complete awareness.' Your tour of duty will last three weeks and during this time you and your partner will observe a psychological experiment in progress. Your duty is to observe team members at another station on the Island. These team members are not aware that they are under surveillance, or that they are the subjects of an experiment. Working in eight hour shifts, you and your partner will record everything you observe in the notebooks we provided. What is the nature of the experiment, you might ask? What do these subjects believe they are accomplishing as they struggle to fulfill their tasks? You, as the observer, don't need to know. All you need to know is the subjects believe their job is of the utmost importance. Remember, everything that occurs, no matter how minute or seemingly unimportant, must be recorded. Each time a notebook is filled with the fruits of your diligent observation, roll it up into containers provided. Then, simply place the container in the pneumatic tube, and presto, it will be transported directly to us. At the end of your eight hour shift, proceed to the Pala ferry which will take you back to the barracks to prepare for your next shift. On behalf of the DeGroots, Alvar Hanso, and all of us here at the DHARMA Initiative, thank you. Namaste and good luck."
"John?" I say. Locke, Desmond, and Sayid have started shuffling through the electrical equipment, trying to get the other TVs to work. Paulo is in the bathroom off to the side of the room. "He introduces himself as Mark Whitman, but in the Swan video he calls himself Marvin Candle."
Locke looks at me, surprised. "You saw that video once, over a month ago. How do you remember something like that?"
"I don't know. I guess it stuck with me."
"The wiring is only one-way," Sayid informs us from under the equipment. "It's a closed system. A dead end."
"Hey, guys?" Nikki asks. "What are these other TVs for?"
"Sorry?" Locke says.
"All these TVs... This guy says that there's six stations. Uh, here, check it out." She stands up and rewinds the video, then presses play.
" ...is a monitoring station where the activities of participants in DHARMA Initiative projects can be observed and recorded."
"Projects," she emphasizes. "More than one. So, maybe some of these TVs are connected to the other hatches."
"Well, I'm suddenly feeling very stupid," Locke says.
"Perhaps I could patch in one of the other feeds," Sayid suggests. "See if we can get another picture."
The sound of a flushing toilet echoes throughout the small room. Paulo comes out of the bathroom. "Ahhhh. The uh, toilet still works," he informs us. Nikki grabs her temple in embarrassment.
"Anything yet?" Sayid asks.
I look at the TVs, but there's nothing but static.
"Nothing," I inform him.
I hear him make an adjustment. "What about now?"
One of the pictures on a T becomes less fuzzy, showing a chair and table in front of electrical equipment, similar to the stuff around me. "Yeah, you got something," I say to Sayid, who comes out from the panel.
"What is it?" Nikki asks.
"That's a good question," Locke answers.
"Hmmm. Those are computers!" Paulo says. "Great! That's what you're looking for. Now we can get out of here."
I shoot him a dirty look, but Nikki gasps when my eyes leave the screen. I look back and see a man standing there, a giant black eye patch covering the left side of his face. He's also wearing a jumpsuit with the DHARMA logo on it. He peers into the camera for a few seconds, then his hand covers the lens and the video goes back to being just static.
"I guess he'll be expecting us," Locke says.
Everyone starts to gather their things. But soon enough a weird noise sounds from above us, through the open hatch doors. Lock bolts up the ladder and the rest of us follow as fast as we can. I make it up third, behind Locke and Sayid and draw my gun, heading towards the noise.
There's no mistaking it. It's the monster. The giant pillar of black smoke. The last time I spoke about it, I told Sayid what I'd seen, and he said it was my imagination. Now that he's with me I have a chance to prove him wrong. I don't hesitate this time, like I did the first. I bolt towards the sound following Locke and Sayid with Desmond not far behind me. I have no idea where Nikki and Paulo are.
We run for what seems to be about half a mile. Ahead of me I hear Locke call out Eko's name. I see Locke fall to the ground and cradle Eko's body, which is covered in blood. The sounds of the monster are gone again and I can't see any smoke.
Eko's eyes are bloodshot and stare into Locke's intently. He whispers something, but I cannot hear. Locke puts his ear up to Eko's mouth and listens. Eko's body goes limp and his eyes unfocus. Locke pulls his head back and closes Mr. Eko's eyes.
"What did he say, John?" Sayid asks.
Locke looks up at us. "He said, 'We're next.'" He sets Eko on the ground as Desmond grabs a blanket from his pack and covers Eko's body.
"What do you mean, 'we're next?'" I ask Locke.
"Don't ask me. He's the one who said it.
"What happened to him?" Nikki asks.
"Must have been an animal," Locke says and my head jerks up to face him with confusion. "Maybe one of the bears." Interesting that Locke would lie about this. Maybe it's just so he doesn't frighten Nikki and Paulo.
"Are we gonna carry him back?" Nikki asks.
"No. We're gonna bury him here."
"Are we?" asks Desmond.
"The people back in camp…there's just been a few too many funerals lately. Nobody needs to see him like this. I'll slip back to the beach and get a couple of shovels."
"I'll come with you," Sayid volunteers.
"No I'll be back in an hour."
"It's not safe to go alone, John."
"I appreciate your concern," Locke says, taking off, but Sayid follows him anyway, leaving me alone with Nikki, Paulo, and Desmond.
"His name was Boone," I say, looking at Eko's body.
"Pardon?" Desmond asks. Nikki and Paulo went looking for some food a few minutes ago.
"The guy who owned this necklace. His name was Boone."
"And what happened to him?"
"He fell from that cliff back there. The plane was perched in the canopy and he climbed up to it. But it fell while he was still inside. Locke was the only on with him, so for a while that's who I blamed."
"And you and Boone. You two were…?"
"We weren't really anything," I say. "I guess at the time, I thought we were a big something, but now I try to look back on it, and it doesn't feel like much."
Desmond reaches into his pack and pulls out a piece of paper. No, a photograph. He hands it to me. The edges of the paper are burned. Desmond's face smiles from the photo, his arm around a pretty woman. "That's Penny," Desmond says. "She's the reason I'm here. I told you I was on a solo sailing race around the world. Her father was the sponsor of the race. I wanted to win it because I thought I had something to prove. Instead I crashed on this bloody Island."
"Where is she now?"
"I don't know. But I'm gonna find her," he says, a look of determination on his face.
"So you still love her."
"I haven't seen her in over three years, but, yeah, I do love her. She's my One."
I hand the photograph back to him. "That's really sweet, Desmond. And here I thought you were just some Scottish pervert."
He chuckles. "Sorry about that. I haven't had much human contact in a while."
Locke and Sayid return with the shovels, but they only brought two. They dig and Nikki and Paulo show up with a small load of papayas. Sayid trades places with Desmond and Locke trades with Paulo and they keep digging the grave.
It doesn't take long and we've buried Eko's body. We all stand and surround the grave. Locke starts to speak. "When the hatch exploded, your prayer stick fell out of a tree right on top of me. So, Sayid and I came out to get it, because it didn't seem right to bury you without it. I'd like to think you died for a reason, Mr. Eko. I just hope that it's not too long before we find out what the heck it might be."
Locke bends down and starts hitting Eko's Jesus Stick into the ground as a grave marker. "Rest in peace, Mr. Eko. Thank you for helping me find my..."
Hi voice trails off as he looks at the Jesus Stick. I peer over his shoulder. Eko inscribed different bible verses to the handle of the stick. "Lift up your eyes and look North" is carved into the side.
"John?" I ask. "Is everything okay?"
He stands up, holding the stick. "We need to get back to camp."