In an office that looks familiar, a man walks in and searches through the room. He finds an old record player and turns it on. Music plays as he continues his search. He breaks open a wooden file cabinet and finds research papers with the Dharma logo and formulas on them. They spill out onto the floor, and he bends down to pick them up. Out of the corner of his eye he spots something under the desk -- it's a sawed-off shotgun. He stuffs it in his satchel when a woman enters. She calls him Caesar, and asks what he just put in his bag. He reaches in, takes out a flashlight and tosses it to her. He calls her Ilana and tells her if she wants it, it's hers. Ilana tells him they found a man standing in the water wearing a suit. Caesar is intrigued, and they head out.
It's night as they cross through a jungle area. Ilana says the man wasn't one of the ones who disappeared, and he wasn't on the plane. And at that very moment they pass by a huge airplane with its nose stuck in the jungle. In the torch light, we see the plane is smoke-stained, banged up and has a hole in the bottom. It has landed on its belly with the landing gear up, and the wings have sheered some of the surrounding foliage, but it is otherwise intact. Painted on the side is Ajira Airways and a tiger logo on the tail.
Caesar and Ilana ignore the plane and continue to the beach where they meet this mysterious man. He introduces himself as none other than John Locke. Sure enough, he's wearing a suit and a tie, and he talks. Locke is no longer a dead man in a coffin.
The next morning Locke takes off his wingtip shoes with the mismatched laces and stands in the ocean barefoot looking at a bigger island across the way. Is he standing on the smaller Hydra station island? Could the office Caesar had searched be Ben's old office? Ilana comes over and offers him some mango. Locke nods to two outriggers on the beach and asks if those are hers. Ilana says no, the were already here. There were three, but the pilot and some woman took one. Locke asks for a passenger list of the plane, but Ilana says he'll have to talk to Caesar about that. Ilana says no one remembers him being on the plane. Locke says he doesn't remember being on it either. Then what does he remember? Why is he dressed up so nice? Locke says he thinks he was going to be buried in this suit. Locke remembers dying, and he turns and looks at the big island.
WHOOSH to Locke in the room with the frozen donkey wheel with Christian Shephard as he turns the wheel. The deafening hum begins as a bright white light fills the room. Christian tells Locke to say hello to his son, and Locke asks who's his son when the light washes over him and FAAZAAM! Locke suddenly finds himself in the Tunisian desert during a hot day. His leg is broken from the fall into the wheel chamber, he's in horrible pain, and there's nothing there -- except a few yards away a video camera. It's pointed right at him. A black cord runs from it to a rusted box mounted at the bottom of a telephone pole, which is part of a line of telephone poles that run over some rocks and disappear in the distance out of sight.
Locke calls out for help. Desperate. Louder. Cut to night, and Locke is still waiting there. He hears an engine quickly approaching, and headlights wash over him. The old desert jeep skids to a stop right in front of him. Four men jump out and roughly pick him up, throw him in the back and speed away.
Locke is taken to a run-down, decrepit hospital. A doctor comes in and forces Locke to swallow some pills with some dirty, cloudy water. He looks at Locke's broken leg and immediately barks out orders. The men bring over a bucket, old sheets, and prepare a plaster mixture. The doctor shoves a wood block in Locke's mouth and ties it in place with a leather cord around Locke's head. One guy takes hold of Locke, and the doctor grabs Locke's broken leg -- and yanks the broken bone down, realigns it, and jams it back into place. Locke screams in intense pain. He tries to struggle free, but the men hold him down. Then the men begin ripping the sheet into pieces, dip them in the plaster, and wrap them around his leg forming a cast. Before Locke passes out from the pain, he sees a tall, bald black man watching from the shadows.
