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Mint Sauce
Author of 19 Stories |
Author’s Note: Well, here it is… my second Lost fanfiction. This is very, very different from Anagram. It’s more of a satire than a parody, but alas, satire is not a genre choice, so what can you do. It’s part random fun and part speculation, really.I cannot yet say whether the story will be remotely canon, entirely AU, or some blend. I am still working out where it’s headed. It’s really just for fun, an experiment with the characters of Lost and a couple of my own. Please be warned that I will make fun of everyone and everything, so don’t take it too seriously. Enjoy yourself! And all suggestions are welcome, though I cannot promise they will be used. Let’s see what we can do with this thing. ;-) –Minty
Disclaimer: All characters belong to J.J. Abrams except for the two obvious exceptions.
Stupid Perfect Jack
Jack woke up and immediately wished he hadn’t. Very bright lights were being focused directly down on him and it hurt. He winced and moved to shield his eyes, but found he was strapped down on a bed. He was bewildered, and he made a noise indicating this.
Dimly he became aware of two… maybe three figures moving about him. One of them spoke: “Hazel, very bright. A bit green, I think.” The voice was female, probably young.
“Sweet,” replied another, similar voice. Jack turned his head out of the lights and blinked, trying to see the speakers clearly. Gradually he saw a petite, dark-haired creature with a clipboard, marking something. His vision cleared further and he saw her look up and smile from behind thin-rimmed glasses.
“Welcome, Doctor Sheppard,” she said cryptically, “to the Twilight Zone.”
Jack was very unnerved. He’d seen the old Twilight Zone show once or twice, but it had been nothing like this. More unnerving was that moments ago, or as far as he could remember, he’d been trudging through the jungle with Kate and Michael. Now he was in some sort of room, and it seemed he was at the mercy of three… or was it only two? He looked around briefly. Two adolescent girls. And the only child on the plane had been Walt.
Full shock hit him quite suddenly, and he sat up with a jerk—or tried to. The straps somewhat hindered this intent.
“Where am I?” he asked wildly, wincing into the lights. “Who are you?”
“Get the lights out of his eyes,” said the other girl, a tall and slender thing with long blond hair. Hastily and mercifully she swept the lights away. Jack blinked some more, highly confused, which annoyed him greatly. He was usually on top of things. Except Kate, which annoyed him even more.
“Who are you people?” he asked in frustration.
The blond looked at the dark-haired girl, who grinned mysteriously. “I’m Joanna,” said the blond, “and this is Marie.”
“We’re spies,” said Marie eagerly. She adjusted her glasses and looked critically at him. “You seem awfully hunky to be a doctor.”
“Marie!” scolded Joanna in a maternal way. She turned to the increasingly bewildered Jack. “We’re here on behalf of an underground society known as the Frequently Arbitrary Network Division Of Meddling,” she explained, explaining nothing.
“FANDOM for short,” said Marie, nodding wisely.
Jack was overwhelmed with questions. “But… what are you… how did… where…” He struggled to determine which question was most pressing. Being a natural egotist (as most humans seem to be), he decided eventually to ask what it was they wanted with him.
“Some small details will do for now,” answered Joanna idly. “We’ve already got a few. Your eye color, your secret… and your brush with The Secret.”
Jack was already terribly confused, and it took him a moment to realize that there were two different ‘secrets’ being talked about, one which worried him and one which only confused him further. “Bzuh?” he said, or something like it.
Joanna shrugged and sat down beside him. “Now,” she said purposefully, setting her own clipboard on her lap, pencil poised, “I’m going to ask you a series of questions. We know the answers to most of them and we can very easily find the answers to the rest, so it’ll do you no good to lie, trust me. We just need your actual responses for psychological analysis.” She smiled somewhat creepily at him while Marie busied herself with something ambiguous in the background. Jack was far too flustered about the whole situation (not to mention flustered about being flustered) to care.
“Okay?” he said nervously. Joanna nodded in a business-like manner and jotted something down. “Name.”
That was easy. “Jack Sheppard.”
“Ethnicity and occupation.”
Also easy. “American and doctor.”
“Capital of Assyria.”
Not so much. He blinked. “Uh…”
“Nineveh,” said both Joanna and Marie at the same time, and they smiled. Jack stared at them.
“Don’t sweat it,” said Joanna. “It was a trick question.” She marked something. “And why were you in Aussie-land, Mr. Sheppard?”
Jack hesitated. “I was hounding my dad.”
“Mm-hmm. Good.” Joanna scribbled several notes down. “What is your opinion of the Edgar Winter Group?”
Now Jack was deeply confused. “I… don’t… know?”
Again she wrote something. “Of the works of Faust?”
Frantically, Jack tried to get a handle on everything. It was difficult. He kept getting distracted by again realizing he was strapped to a bed in some room supposedly on a deserted island being interrogated about random things by two adolescents who also apparently knew ‘his secret.’ Whatever that meant. It was all very distressing.
“Writings about Satan,” he stammered. “I don’t remember… it’s been a long time since college.” He shrugged, which was very difficult when strapped down. “Why does that matter?”
Joanna did not answer him. She marked something and looked back at him, flicking a strand of hair aside. “How about the philosophy of John Locke?”
Jack blinked in misunderstanding for a moment or two, but Joanna kept a perfectly straight face. He hesitated. “Which one…?” he inquired tentatively.
Joanna gave him a very condescending smile, indicating this was obvious (which, really, it was). “The philosopher.”
Jack nodded a little. “Um… he was the one who talked about natural law and said all humans are good by design… and stuff. Right?”
Joanna shrugged vaguely. “You tell me.”
Jack nodded again. “Yeah, I think so. I’d have to agree, I guess. I mean, that’s kind of what doctors are all about.”
This time Joanna did not write anything down, but instead crossed her legs and leaned forward. “That’s strange coming from you, who never wanted to be a doctor,” she said shrewdly.
Jack stared uneasily at her. “What do you mean?”
She smiled mysteriously.
He swallowed, irked that these mere teenagers had so much power over him. How undignified. He was supposed to save people, dammit!
“But that’s what I do,” he said slowly. “I’m a doctor. I look for the good in people.”
“Do you indeed!” Joanna said with nasty delight. She paused to write something down. “What about Ethan?” she asked suddenly, not looking up from her writing.
Jack stared at her again. “Ethan?” he said, amazed. He reeled. They knew about Ethan? What did that mean? Where they Sayid’s ‘others’…?
Joanna nodded calmly. “If you found Ethan injured in the jungle, would you save him?”
Forgetting his amazement, Jack began to get very frustrated indeed. He didn’t like being bested in conversations. “I… have to obey the Hippocratic Oath…” he said falteringly.
“So is that why you threatened Sawyer with his meds?”
Jack opened his mouth and closed it again. “How the hell do you know about that?”
Joanna waved dismissively. “Not important. Answer the question, Jack.”
Jack tried to keep his composure. “It was a bluff,” he said weakly.
“Oh, right.” She smirked and wrote something else down, and he tried to lean up and see what it was, but like clockwork she shifted the clipboard up out of his line of vision.
She looked back up and smiled again. “What,” she said, sounding very strangely like James Lipton, “is your favorite swear word?”
Jack blinked. “What?”
She maintained her smile and said nothing.
The preposterous nature of this question was like a wake-up call for Jack, and suddenly he started struggling a little. “What is going on here?” he demanded. “Why are you asking me all this?”
“What,” she persisted, “is your favorite—”
“Dammit!” he practically shrieked. “All right? When are you going to answer one of my questions?”
“Your questions aren’t important,” squicked Marie pleasantly from behind Joanna. “They don’t help to maintain suspense.”
Jack was confused about two things: why the maintenance of ‘suspense’ was so significant, and what exactly constituted a ‘squick.’
“Just relax, babe,” said Joanna with further condescension. “It’ll all be over soon.” She scribbled something down while Jack chewed his lip irritably.
She looked back up and brushed her hair aside again. “Who on the island is your fancy?” she asked very matter-of-factly.
He felt some expression of pained confusion pass across his face. “What do you mean?”
“Oh, come on, Jack. You’re not that stupid.” Joanna cocked her head at him while Marie tried—very inadequately—to stifle a laugh.
“But I don’t understand,” protested Jack.
Joanna sighed impatiently. “Look, if you had to be stuck in a cave with any of the women…” She raised an eyebrow. “Or the men… be that your thing… on the island, which would you pick for, say, a sex buddy.”
Marie cracked up. Jack looked horrified.
“What kind of question is that?” he yelped.
“The best and most important kind!” said Joanna with enthusiasm. “It stimulates your psychologically rendered libido, which would otherwise be in severe danger of atrophying.”
Jack was not entirely sure why this would be such a problem, and he continued to stare suspiciously at the girl. “Why do you want to know?” he asked warily.
“Oh, no worries,” said Joanna. “Your answers are being kept in the strictest confidence.”
“Besides, there’s only one more question after this,” said Marie. “You may as well just get it over with.”
Jack had no inclination to trust them, and he glanced skeptically back and forth between them for a moment.
Joanna tapped her pencil incessantly against the clipboard. “Tick tock, Jacky-boy,” she said. “Let’s go. I’ve probably got it already anyway… I’d have money on it if Marie would take the bet.”
“Well, it’s obvious,” said Marie with mild distaste. “Not that I care.”
Jack furrowed his brow at her, then sighed in resignation. “Fine.” He considered it for a moment. “Well… Kate, I guess,” he mumbled, attempting to shrug again.
Marie rolled her eyes. Joanna smiled in satisfaction and wrote quite a few notes down which Jack found himself maddeningly curious about. Then she flipped to a new page and smiled cheerfully. “All right, we’re almost done,” she said. “Let’s do a word association real quick. You just say the first thing that comes to mind. Ready?”
Slowly, Jack nodded.
Joanna checked her clipboard, then said, with a perfectly deadpan expression, “Constipation.”
Jack looked at her with disgust. She maintained her expression while Marie snickered terribly.
“Well?” prodded Joanna.
Jack searched for a logical term. “I don’t know…” he said, “…dehydration?”
“Ooh, sorry, the one we were looking for was ‘emotional,’” she said, and she marked something. Jack was confused, but he had a vague sense that he had just been insulted.
“All right!” said Joanna brightly, stowing the clipboard away in a drawer, which she then locked so Jack couldn’t get at it. “You’re done. Good boy. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” She wandered over to him and undid the straps. He sat up slowly, rubbing his wrists and looking around cautiously. They appeared to be in an underground compound of some kind. The lighting was dim except for the lamps that had been shone into his eyes, and windows revealed nothing but dense earth outside. The room was small and seemed made of steel, and it was fairly empty aside from his bed and a very messy desk which Marie was hunched over. The door was probably locked, but he eyed it anyway.
Joanna seemed to notice his focal point. “Oh, it’s locked,” she confirmed. “But don’t get tweaked. We’ll let you out soon enough.”
Jack turned to them. “Why am I here?” he asked, able to think a little clearer now that he was sitting up.
Joanna sighed. “Do you think you are particularly special, Jack?”
This question surprised him. “Uh… no?” he said quizzically.
Marie snorted. This annoyed him.
“Well,” said Joanna, “you aren’t exactly the only object of our mission here, you know.” She gave him an analytical once-over. “I mean, we’ve certainly taken interest in your fellow castaways. All of you, really. So chill, man, just get off your high-protagonist-horse for a while.” She nodded resolutely and turned away.
Jack stared at her. “I beg your pardon?” he said dubiously.
“Pardon is effectively begged,” said Marie, bounding over to him at random. She grabbed his hand and dropped a small pouch into it, which he looked down to stare out in a very similar way to the stare he’d been paying them quite often so far.
“What’s this?” he asked.
“We found it in your pocket,” said Marie. “It’s your brush with The Secret.” She raised an eyebrow surreptitiously.
He regarded her suspiciously. “My what?” He overturned the pouch and was quite startled to see two stones spill out. They were small, about the size of marbles, and about the same texture as well. One was pure white, the other jet black.
Marie looked at him expectantly. “Well?” she prompted. “Thoughts?”
It took Jack a moment to realize where the stones had come from. Then he remembered several days ago when he and Kate had made their half-nude discovery of the decayed bodies in the caves… he had found the stones on one of the bodies. He’d thought nothing of it at the time, and Charlie had returned yelling about something to do with the serial killer bees, so he’d pocketed and forgotten all about them.
“Wow,” he said, feeling slightly sheepish. He wondered why, then realized and looked at her. “What do you mean by ‘The Secret?’” he inquired.
Marie shrugged enigmatically. “I’m still working that out,” she said, her voice distant. “But I’m almost sure it has something to do with chiaroscuro.”
Jack was perplexed. “Chiara… what?”
“Chiaroscuro,” she said matter-of-factly. “Yin and yang. The balance between the light and the dark.” She indicated the stones. “Something really profound like that.”
Jack looked at her and wondered if she was maybe a little loony. She grinned brightly at him.
Joanna looked at her watch. “Time for him to go,” she said.
“Righto,” said Marie. “This way, please.” She unlocked the door with a very complicated key and ushered him down the drab, melancholy, gently-upward-sloped hall. “Listen closely,” she said. “You are not to tell anyone about us. We’ll get to them all eventually. In fact, for all you know, we’ve already gotten to some of them. If that’s the case, they’d have received the same orders. Under no circumstances are you to discuss us.”
“Or what?” challenged Jack suspiciously.
“Pfft!” said Marie, snickering again. “Don’t be stupid. With all we know, do you really think you can get by us?” She smirked over her shoulder at him. “You’d be punished, of course. But you really don’t want to find out how.”
Jack eyed her uncertainly. “All… right…” he said nervously.
“Trust me, our intent will become clear,” she said. “Slowly but surely. Just be patient.” They came to the end of the hall, and she turned to look at him. “I have one last thing to tell you.”
Jack hesitated. “Am I going to like this?” he asked.
She smiled. “Probably not.” She paused, considering him. “Keep a close eye on your mates,” she said, “and report back to us when you find something interesting.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “Why?”
“Too many questions,” she said, shaking her head. “I told you, we’re trying to preserve suspense here.”
“Who’s we?”
“The FANDOM, of course.” She smiled a mysterious smile. “Don’t worry about it, Jack. The Twilight Zone has you. Just enjoy it.” She winked.
Jack edged away from her a little. “Right, whatever,” he said.
“Remember what I said,” she said seriously, “or bad things will happen.” She moved to open the door.
“What kind of bad things?”
“Really bad things,” she said reverently. “Trust me, the FANDOM has a lot more power than you can even imagine.” She waved him off. “Take it easy, Doctor.”
He wandered out above ground, blinking in the sunlight.
“Oh, by the way, Jack,” called Marie.
He turned, really beginning to wish she would just leave him alone. She was freaking him out. “…Yeah?”
She smiled in a very oddly knowing way. “If this were all a book, or maybe a TV show,” she said, “instead of reality, I mean…” She chuckled a little for a reason he didn’t really want to imagine. “You’d make a very good main character.”
Jack wasn’t sure if this were a compliment or not. He didn’t want to find out.
“Why that analogy?” he asked.
She shrugged. “No reason.” She slid back into the mysterious compound and vanished underground.
Jack stared after her, trying ineffectively to recover from this somewhat traumatic experience. Then, somewhat more unevenly than usual, he walked back to the valley.
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