Chapter 5: Sayid's Radio
POV: Sayid
Sayid Jarrah had spent three days staring at the scattered remains of the transceiver they'd salvaged from the cockpit, and he was beginning to consider violence against inanimate objects. The delicate circuitry lay spread across an airline blanket like the organs of some electronic corpse—power couplings cracked, circuit boards bent, wiring harnesses twisted into useless tangles by the violence of the crash.
He'd been a communications officer in the Republican Guard, trained on Soviet-era equipment that could survive artillery bombardment and still pick up Radio Moscow. But this civilian electronics were fragile, designed for clean environments and steady power, not for surviving plane crashes and beach salt spray.
His improvised tools—a bent fork from the galley, a nail file from someone's purse, reading glasses repurposed as magnifying lenses—felt inadequate for the precision work required. Every connection he attempted to repair seemed to create two new problems, and the growing pile of broken components mocked his expertise with silent accusation.
"Need some help?"
Sayid looked up to find Mac Kerby approaching, his expression carefully neutral. The young American had been making himself useful around camp—building shelters, treating wounded, somehow managing to be exactly where he was needed when crises arose. But there was something about Mac that set Sayid's interrogator instincts on edge, a sense that the man was performing a role rather than simply being himself.
"I'm afraid this requires specialized knowledge," Sayid said diplomatically. "Electronics repair is quite technical."
Mac settled beside him on the sand, examining the scattered components with what looked like casual interest. But Sayid caught the way Mac's eyes moved across the circuitry—not random observation but systematic analysis, cataloging connections and identifying problems with unsettling speed.
"The power coupling's fried," Mac said before Sayid could explain the situation.
Sayid's hackles rose immediately. This was his area of expertise, his professional domain. The last thing he needed was an amateur offering uninformed opinions about work that could mean the difference between rescue and permanent isolation.
But Mac was already sketching something in the sand beside them, using a broken piece of shell as a stylus. Lines appeared in the wet sand—circuit diagrams, surprisingly detailed and accurate. The design showed a bypass configuration that would route power around the damaged coupling, using components Sayid hadn't considered.
It was clever. Brilliant, actually.
"How do you know this?" Sayid demanded.
Mac's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Had an electronics hobby. Built radios as a kid."
The explanation tasted like copper on Sayid's tongue—metallic and bitter with the aftertaste of deception. Mac's knowledge wasn't the casual familiarity of a hobbyist; it was the systematic understanding of someone with formal training. The circuit bypass he'd sketched would require precision work and deep understanding of electromagnetic principles.
But the design was sound. More than sound—it was elegant.
"This could work," Sayid admitted grudgingly.
Mac nodded toward a pile of salvaged electronics nearby—portable radios, laptop computers, cell phones that their owners had clung to despite their uselessness. "We can cannibalize parts from the luggage. Power supplies, capacitors, maybe some clean wiring."
They worked together in surprisingly comfortable silence, Mac's hands moving with the steady confidence of someone who'd done this kind of precision work before. He selected components with unerring accuracy, seeming to know exactly which pieces would be compatible without consulting manuals or running calculations.
Sayid found himself watching Mac's technique—the way he stripped wire without damaging the conductors inside, how he tested connections with improvised instruments, the natural efficiency of his movements. This wasn't hobbyist work. This was professional-grade electronics repair performed with military precision.
"Where did you serve?" Sayid asked suddenly.
Mac's hands stilled for just a moment. "Afghanistan. Long time ago."
"What unit?"
"Engineers. Mostly communications repair in forward positions."
The answers came smoothly, but Sayid caught micro-expressions that suggested discomfort. Mac was lying—not about everything, perhaps, but certainly about details. His cover story had the feel of something rehearsed, practiced in anticipation of exactly these kinds of questions.
Still, his technical skills were undeniable. Within two hours, they had the transceiver reassembled with Mac's bypass modification in place. The device looked different now—additional components wired in parallel, new connections that rerouted power through salvaged circuits—but it looked functional.
"Moment of truth," Mac said, reaching for the power switch.
The transceiver hummed to life, its display flickering before stabilizing into readable patterns. Static filled the air—not the dead silence of broken electronics, but the living hiss of functional radio equipment seeking signals in empty spectrum.
Sayid felt a surge of professional satisfaction mixed with grudging respect for his partner. Whatever Mac's secrets, his technical knowledge was genuine and valuable.
POV: Mac
The radio crackled with static, and Mac's head exploded.
Memory fragments hit him like shards of glass—French accent, sixteen years, warning about Others, numbers that meant everything and nothing. He grabbed his temples as the information tried to surface, but pain forced it back down like a tide of molten metal flowing through his skull.
Through the static came a voice—distant, distorted, but unmistakably human. A woman speaking in rapid French, her words cycling in an endless loop that felt both familiar and terrifying.
"Il y a quelqu'un d'autre?"
Sayid leaned forward, adjusting the frequency with practiced precision. The voice became clearer, more distinct, and Mac's fragmentary memories screamed recognition even as his conscious mind struggled to process what he was hearing.
"Je suis seule maintenant... sur l'île seule... quelqu'un d'autre est venu sur l'île... ils m'ont pris ma fille... ma fille... Ils viennent. Ils viennent et ils mentent. Ne faites pas confiance à... Ne faites pas confiance à..."
"What is she saying?" Mac managed, his voice weak and shaky.
Sayid's expression was grim. "She's asking if anyone else is there. Says she's alone on the island now... someone else came to the island. They took her daughter." He paused, listening intently. "And she's warning about people coming, saying they lie, not to trust them."
But Mac heard something else beneath the words—desperation that had curdled into madness, isolation that had lasted beyond human endurance, and underneath it all, numbers. Always the numbers, threading through the transmission like a mathematical virus.
4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.
The sequence hit him with physical force, each digit driving spikes of pain through his skull. He knew those numbers, had dreamed about them, carried them like a curse through borrowed memories that belonged to someone else. They were important—critically important—but reaching for the specifics felt like grabbing live electrical cables.
"Are you alright?" Sayid's voice seemed to come from very far away. "You're pale and shaking."
Mac forced himself to focus on the present, on Sayid's concerned face and the radio crackling between them. "Headache. Bad one. What else is she saying?"
Sayid listened to another cycle of the transmission. "She says it's been sixteen years since her ship crashed. Sixteen years alone. She keeps warning about others who lie, who take people. And then..." He frowned, adjusting the frequency again. "Then she repeats the same thing over and over. Like a recording stuck in a loop."
Sixteen years. Mac's stomach dropped as the implications hit him. This wasn't a recent castaway sending distress calls. This was someone who'd been stranded here since before some of the survivors were born, driven to madness by isolation and whatever else this island had inflicted on her.
They weren't getting rescued. Mac had known that from his fragmentary memories, but hearing proof through the radio made it real in a way that twisted his guts into knots.
"We need to triangulate the signal," Sayid said, his voice carrying new urgency. "Find out where she is, see if we can help her."
Mac nodded, though part of him recoiled from the idea. His inherited memories whispered warnings about the French woman—danger, traps, death in the jungle—but the specifics remained locked behind walls of pain.
They spent the next hour fine-tuning the radio, preparing to take directional readings that would let them locate the transmission source. The woman's voice continued its endless loop, each cycle wearing away at Mac's nerves like water dripping on stone.
Then, without warning, the signal died.
Not faded—died, cut off as if someone had yanked the power cord from the transmitter. Mac felt it happen, a sudden wrongness in the electromagnetic spectrum that made his teeth ache and his vision blur.
"What happened?" Sayid frantically checked connections, tested circuits, verified power levels. Everything read normal, but the radio produced only dead silence.
Mac's enhanced senses detected something Sayid couldn't—interference in the electromagnetic field, like invisible fingers crushing their signal from outside. The island itself was blocking their transmission, cutting them off from contact with the outside world and even with other castaways.
"Something's interfering," Mac said, his hands moving automatically to check connections he knew were fine. "Something big."
Sayid's eyes narrowed, his interrogator instincts picking up on Mac's certainty. "You felt that? The interference?"
Mac's blood went cold. He'd said too much, revealed knowledge he shouldn't possess. "The radio acted weird right before it died. Like feedback through the circuits."
It was a weak save, but Sayid seemed to accept the explanation. For now.
"This is not random equipment failure," Sayid said, his voice carrying the weight of professional assessment. "Someone or something is actively jamming our transmissions."
Before Mac could respond, footsteps approached from behind. He turned to find Kate and Hurley walking toward them, their faces bright with hope and curiosity.
"Hey, we heard you got the radio working," Kate said. "Any luck reaching the outside world?"
Mac and Sayid exchanged glances. How much should they tell the others? That there was someone else on the island, someone who'd been here for sixteen years warning about liars and kidnappers? That their communications were being actively blocked by unknown forces?
"We got a signal," Mac said carefully. "A transmission from somewhere on the island. But we lost it before we could triangulate the source."
Hurley's face fell. "Dude, that sucks. What kind of transmission?"
"French," Sayid said. "A distress call, by the sound of it. Someone asking if anyone else is there."
"Maybe another crash survivor!" Kate's voice carried desperate hope. "We should look for them."
Mac wanted to warn them about the danger, about the madness in the French woman's voice, about the traps and paranoia that sixteen years of isolation could breed. But his fragmentary memories provided warnings without context, fears without explanation.
"Yeah," Mac said instead. "Maybe we should."
Hurley looked spooked. "I don't know, man. Something about this place gives me the creeps. Maybe we shouldn't go looking for trouble."
His words carried more wisdom than he knew. But Mac could see the determination building in Kate's expression, the hope that they might not be alone after all. The decision was already made, even if they hadn't acknowledged it yet.
As Kate and Hurley walked away, discussing plans for search parties and signal tracking, Mac caught Sayid studying him with renewed intensity.
"You know more than you're saying," Sayid said quietly.
It wasn't a question.
"Everyone knows more than they're saying," Mac replied. "That's how survival works."
Sayid's smile was thin and sharp. "Indeed. But some secrets are more dangerous than others."
That night, Mac lay in Fort Probably-Won't-Collapse listening to phantom French words echo in his skull. Sixteen years. The Others. The numbers that burned through his borrowed memories like acid through flesh.
His hands moved without conscious direction, assembling a small radio from electronic scraps—a nervous habit that channeled his anxiety into construction. The device was crude but functional, picking up fragments of electromagnetic noise that danced through the island's mysterious interference patterns.
Tomorrow, they would search for the transmission source. Tomorrow, he would meet Danielle Rousseau face to face, though that name sent ice through his veins for reasons he couldn't quite remember.
The island had secrets, and some of those secrets had been broadcasting warnings into empty air for sixteen years. Mac was beginning to understand that their survival might depend on learning those secrets before the secrets learned them.
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
Can't wait for the next chapter of [ Lost: The Ultimate Survivor ]?
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them (20+ chapters ahead!). No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1