I attributed the long pause to the same thing - Walt being shocked that it was
his dad on the other comp. He probaby thinks everyone else on the raft is dead.
Maybe he is so much harder for the Others to indoctrinate because he is
more "savvy" than the other children. He spent over a month and a half on the
island, learned skills, and made lots of friends (Locke, Shannon etc.) and had
a parent he know on the island before he was kidnapped. I know he is only
ten but he is a mature ten (Harry Potter was only 11 when he saved the
Sorceror's Stone from Lord Voldemort - Ha ha)
Alex was an infant when she was taken and never knew her parents and Emma
and her brother where on the island less than two weeks when they were
taken and had no reason to believe the "Others" were any worse than the
people they had left behind on the beach.
Walt , however. has a reason to fight back - even if he believed his dad was dead
he still has Vincent and the other friends to get back to. I think he is
continually trying to escape from the "Others." The "Others" are probably
in another Dharma bunker with a computer ( I wonder what it's "only function" is)
and he is using it to communicate.

Do we really have to wait until Jan 11??!!??

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Have cluckety cluck day.