- Museum (Present Day)
Lara Croft was seated in a first class flight to New York. There she will meet her old friend Jane Riverton, an old colleague of Lara from the past. It had been a few weeks since Lara took her adventure pursuing the Nightmare Stone for Professor Igor Bowmane, and destroying it. Since that adventure, Lara received a phone call from Jane about some new artefacts she had discovered on one of her many journeys. Jane wanted to show Lara the newly set up New York Museum of Antiquities, and for her to examine the artefacts Jane had collected, and showcase in the museum. Straight away after the phone call, Lara booked the first flight to New York, as well as synchronising and setting up her watch for the New York clock time setting.
She fell asleep on the flight, since it was just pass midnight and they weren't landing until 7:30AM. The sound of the captain in the aeroplane awoke Lara, as they were preparing to make their descent to John F. Kennedy International Airport. She buckled her seatbelt and thought about spending a few days with her good old friend, hopefully without any mishaps or danger.
"Lara!" Jane waved from the arrivals terminal, Lara rushed over to greet and hug her old friend. "Good to see you Jane, you look very well since I last saw you!" They departed from the airport into a taxi cab, which the driver started to ask the two ladies what their destination was.
"You must be famished after that long flight. Did the cabin crew provide you any sort of breakfast at all?' Jane asked Lara.
"Actually I slept through the whole flight, so you're right I am quite hungry!" answered Lara.
"Okay, I know a good place where we can have some breakfast" replied Jane. "Driver, we're off to the E.A.T restaurant please!"
"Right you are, E.A.T restaurant, here we come!" The taxi driver confirmed.
New York was quite congested at the time of 8:30AM. The road was filled with rush hour traffic, with different people wanting to travel to their destinations. Lara and Jane arrived at the E.A.T restaurant around half an hour later. It had been quite a distance from the airport, and was also no thanks to the many traffic jams too. Both entered the restaurant and sat down at the table nearest to the window, so they can enjoy the wonderful view of the New York skyscrapers as the sun rises up further in the sky.
When it came to ordering, Jane ordered the Croissant with butter & jam, while Lara had ordered a Tomato & Mozzarella Omelette. They both had also ordered an espresso coffee too.
"So out of all you've collected over the past months, which of all the artefacts is the most fascinating?" Lara had asked Jane.
"Well... in my opinion, the one ancient object that stands out is a sword" answered Jane.
"A sword?" Lara replied.
"Yes, but not just any sword, this particular one feels as if it has had some history behind it... its like as if there is some aura around it" Jane told Lara.
"Okay" Lara said, in a bit of confusion.
"Don't worry Lara, you'll see what I mean once we'll get to the museum" said Jane.
Lara nodded and both finished off their breakfasts. They left the restaurant, and whistled for another cab, this time to take them to the New York Museum of Antiquities.
They drove through the driveway into the grand entrance of the New York Museum of Antiquities. The taxi had pulled up, and parked in one of the free spaces in the car park. Jane paid the taxi fare and they both got out of the car, making their descant towards the double doorway of the museum. To Lara, it was very impressive structural architectural building, since it had accurate symmetrical columns/pillars supporting to the roof of the building itself. It reminded Lara of an Ancient Rome building, and furthermore it seemed like they had converted the Maison Carrée in Nîmes, which is situated in France, into an antiquities museum, here in New York as it had a noticeable resemblance.
Jane greeted the two policemen guards, one on each side of the doorway. They ensured to check everyone who passes through, making sure that no-one suspicious enters the building. Lara and Jane walked pass through the security, and into the entranceway. The massive hallway they stood in was surrounded with ambient light, from the different glass paned windows in the ceiling, where the sun shone through. Furthermore, the reflection from the thoroughly polished golden tile floor had made the hall far from being a dark place to be in.
The reception area was too filled with a lot of different ornaments. These ornaments varied to what they were, some were artefacts collected by many archaeologists over the years, with the information displayed about them. While the other ornaments were models of some objects that were either drawn from past paintings, or described by in ancient transcripts, recreated as a model.
Lara followed Jane past through the reception area. They headed straight into the Shipwrecks and Lost Treasures section of the building, as it was pointed out by an arched banner. It was a massive room, split up by two ends. One for recreations of the ships that have been previously explored as wrecks, with a description of the history and how they would have functioned e.g. they were either running on steam or man-powered by oars. On the other side of the room, was the treasures salvaged by different underwater explorers, and each were protected and displayed by glass cabinets with alarms attached. Jane pointed to one of the treasures near the middle of the room, "Over there Lara" Jane said, as both made their way towards the object.
The object in question was a sword, as they approached it and Lara examined carefully through the glass pane both the hilt and blade of the sword. It was in excellent condition, as if it hadn't have been used very much. The silver glinting blade looked as it had just been thoroughly polished, and also the shagreen leather hilt, looking as if there has been no wear and tear throughout its lifetime.
"It's a wonderful piece Jane. Where did you acquire it?" Lara asked Jane.
"It was found in a shipwreck off the coast of Florida" Jane answered. "We believe it was used in rituals of dark magic..."
BOOM! The painful sound of both a blast and shattering glass above in the ceiling, had took away the sentence Jane was about to say. Both Lara and Jane swiftly turned their heads towards the direction of the explosion, and saw a quick dissention of ropes. With it men were rapidly climbing downwards, quicker than a blink of an eye.
"What the..." A surprised Jane shouted, as the intruders began heading towards Lara and Jane.
"Watch out Jane!" warned Lara, as one of the men got out a gun and was aiming the hilt of it, ready to hit something. With haste, Lara and Jane jumped out of the way, the duo falling right down onto the museum floor.
"Lara!" "He's stealing the sword!" Jane spotted that an intruder was actually aiming for the glass cabinet, as the sound of a WHAM echoed the room! With another sound of breaking glass, he broke into it successfully, grabbed the sword and made a run out towards the exit. Just as he broke the glass, an alarm sounded.
"Don't Worry Jane, I'll get them!" A determined Lara promised her friend, as she quickly got up from the glossy floor, and sprinted as fast as she can in the direction the intruders were heading. Just then she remembered something, as she felt her pistol holsters.
"OH NO!", "I haven't got my guns!" she cursed herself. She thought just how foolish it was to just go after armed enemies, without any weapons. It was then the effect of the alarm came into practice. The entrance was locked down with bars, and the police guards began to flood the building. But Lara knew that these intruders would have planned to make a different escape route, instead of just the entrance. They would have anticipated the police force coming in once the alarm had been alerted. She had to be quick in order to catch up to the thieves. They were probably already one step ahead of her, and maybe have made their way to an escape route. Lara remembered the last intruder she saw had made his way to the right once he had left the room, so she headed in the right direction of the building.
Since Lara hadn't fully explored the building, her surroundings became unfamiliar quickly, as she was met with an elevator at the end of the hallway. She assumed the intruders had used the elevator to make their way into the top floor, in order to flee from the building. There was no response from the button, when Lara had pressed to gain access to the elevator to the top floor. "Blast, the elevators out of power!" Annoyed by the delay of getting to the top floor, Lara backtracked through the hallway looking for either a room where a generator may have been, so she can reactivate the elevator, or if there had been any stairs, leading to the upper floors. Lara had thought that maybe part of the alarm procedure was to deactivate power to the elevators.
'At last' Lara only jogged for a few meters through the hallway, until she found a symbol engraved on a door in the hallway of what seemed to be the 'Power Room', to where the generator to the whole building was placed. Upon opening the door to the room, Lara was met with scurrying rats running around in the room. Though they weren't the most harmful and dangerous of animals, Lara was wary if they had come near to her for a good bite. It took only a few steps, until Lara was standing in front of the power generator. It had been looked after very well, with the shining cogs reflecting the lighting within the room and parts covered by sheets of bended coloured steel. All weren't moving as this provided power to the function of the elevators.
Lara searched for a trip switch, in order to reset the generator motor, and to get it generating power for the elevator, in order to catch up with the intruders. A few seconds passed, and Lara saw the trip switch to restart the motor. With one simple push on the chunky plastic switch, the generator motor began to run through its general routine of checks (to ensure that every component was functioning as intended). Then, with an out of the blue resounding click, the rotary motor started moving the cogs in a clockwise direction, ensuring that the generator is doing its task of providing power to the elevators.
Without hesitation, Lara made her way back to the elevator area. But as she was opening the power room door, the security police had begun to block some areas of the museum. They started to barricade anyone wanting to get access to parts of the expedition. Lara had no time to get mixed up with the security, as she had promised Jane to catch up with the intruders, and return what they had stolen. As soon as one of the guards was turning the other way, not looking through at the hallway, Lara made an attempt at sprinting straight towards the elevators.
"YOU THERE!", "STOP WHERE YOU ARE!" A strong loud male voice shouted across the hallway, as Lara had been caught by the guard. Immediately, the guard thought that the person he had just ordered to halt was going to obey the demand. To his surprise however, this person just carried on running down through the hallway, ignoring his command. He saw that she had quickly made her destination to the elevators, and tried to call on them.
Not taking his chances, the guard started to make a breakaway run in the person's direction to seize her. Going as fast as his legs could take him with all the police equipment to carry as well. Repeatedly Lara pressed the 4th floor button, which would take her to the highest floor in the museum. She also spotted the guard, and certainly she didn't want to be forced to abandon her pursuit against the intruders.
"Phew!" Exhaled Lara, as that was the only expression she could give out. Since the guard was ever so closing within Lara's range, she thought for a moment that he would catch up with her. But just as her heartbeat was ever more rapidly beating with the guard was closing in on her, the elevator doors had finally started to shut out the view of the hallway, and altogether both sides had now closed. The elevator than began its ascension upwards, heading for the fourth floor. Lara wondered how far the intruders had got, and questioned herself if she would be able to reach them in time to retrieve the stolen sword. Another thing that Lara also thought about was the security guards. What their progress was in securing the museum, because if they had already reached the top floor, then they would only slow her down. Furthermore, she knew that she was already at a disadvantage of having not explored the layout of the museum, so she would not be accustomed to the surroundings, as the security guards would.
"DING!" "Fourth floor" the elevator announced, and the elevator doors began to slowly open. This was until they reached their maximum widening gap. Looking straight ahead, Lara saw the main passageway splitting into two separate ways on each side, and straight in front was the fire escape exit. Lara ran to the fire exit door, reached out to the opening handle bar and pushed it down. 'Locked!'' How can it be?' Lara questioned, as the door wouldn't budge even one bit. She then spotted a keyhole beside the handle bar. 'Blast!', 'a key must be somewhere around here to open up this escape route, but where could it be?'
The separate sections that were split up into one on each side of the corridor had led into different expeditions. To the left of the corridor, was the Dinosaur expedition and finally to the right was the Roman expedition. Not knowing where the key may have been hidden in one of these expeditions, Lara decided to try and search for it in the dinosaur expedition. She had to be quick though, as no doubt the intruders were one step ahead of her.
Entering the Dinosaur expedition, Lara was initially met with a rounded circular room that included a semi globe like ceiling. Pure sunlight was shining into the room. Straight in the centre of the room was a huge skeletal model of a Tyrannosaurus Rex dinosaur. The skull nearly filled up the whole top of the room, and the size of each of its talons was about the size of her fist. It was an impressive sculpture, but Lara had no time to admire the quality and construction of the dinosaur body. She glanced right and left, looking for any clues that would point in the direction of the whereabouts of the fire door key.
The dinosaur expedition was split into three rooms. A map guide was placed in a small glass paned desk. It had showed that Lara was currently standing in the first main room, known as the Tyrannosaurus room. This was the main feature of the dinosaur expedition on the floor. Not only had it contained the model, but as the map detail showed, the other two rooms ahead of it weren't as extravagant as the one she was in. The map also partially detailed what was on this floor too. So as well as showcasing the dinosaur expedition, it also showed detail of the Roman expedition too.
'Of course, the office would have the fire escape key for emergencies, if a lockdown were to occur' Lara quickly thought. She began to dash towards the office, skipping past the many objects, gallery pictures and information terminals that were based on dinosaurs that were held in the two rooms. 'Blast!' Lara cursed. Another locked door barred the way forward, 'another key to search for!', but she was interrupted by a sudden presence.
Lara had felt that she was not alone on the fourth floor. Immediately she turned away from the door to spot what had just entered the room. An alarming bark sound came from the other side, as a Doberman pinscher dog had come into view. Its teeth clenched tightly, and two beady eyes staring at Lara. It only took a few seconds, where both were analysing each other, anticipating what moves they were going to do next, until the Doberman had reacted first.
Not wanting to cause any serious harm to the dog, Lara waited for the Doberman to catch up with her from the other side. It was sprinting at a steady pace, and only took a few seconds for it to reach where Lara was. But she was prepared for what the Doberman may do, which she had expected it to jump upon her body, pushing it onto the floor and then attack. In response Lara got ready for a forward roll in the right diagonal direction, to get away from it. Surprisingly the Doberman, as it approached Lara ever closer to her person, was about half the size of her coming around waist high. But this fact didn't disturb Lara's chain of concentration, as one fault in her move could mean a vicious attack from the dog.
The Doberman then leaped onto the table just in front of Lara with its mouth wide open, ready to give her a good bite. But unexpectedly, just before the dog was about to make another pounce towards her direction, Lara had only just managed to do a forward roll diagonally away from the Doberman.
THUD! Was the sound Lara heard after barely dodging the Doberman attack, she looked back to see what had happened to the dog. It had almost been knocked out, having missed Lara and with head first had hit the wall to the Fourth Floor Office. Lara was about to approach the dog to make sure it was properly unconscious. Unpredictably however the Doberman rose itself, shaking its head to shrug off the impact. Having to act quickly, Lara had to formulate a plan to pursue the dog, and make it somehow unconscious without causing permanent damage to the Doberman.
After a few speedy moments, Lara had decided what course of action she would take in order to engage the dog. Just before the Doberman had made a recovery from the bang on the head, she hastily moved out of the Dinosaur expedition rooms, as quick as her legs would take her. The plan was for Lara to hide behind the wall of the entrance to the dinosaur expedition. There she would wait for the Doberman to show itself. Once it had been in her view, she would make a surprise tackle and hold onto the dog, until it would slip into unconsciousness. Finally Lara would also check to make sure that she has caused no harm to its anatomy and just leave the dog to one side.
Waiting for the arrival of the dog, Lara also thought about the whereabouts of the missing fourth floor office key. This was in order to gain access to the fire door key, to which she required to get back on track with the thieves. It was during this time Lara glanced over to the other side of the corridor. In view was the Roman Expedition as the banner on top of the entrance way pointed out. There upon, the dog had appeared into sight. Additionally Lara prepared herself with all of her strength ready to tackle the Doberman. She counted to herself to when she would engage the dog. '3...2...1'. Lara made her move.
Sprinting towards out of the side of the wall, the dog was caught off guard as Lara was too rapid for it to react. Straightaway Lara wrapped her arms around the Doberman and pushed the dog to the ground. Moments passed, Lara could feel that the dog was now motionless. This resulted in her in checking the dogs' heart pulse, so she can be reassured that no real harm has been done.
Lara placed two of her fingers on the middle of the thigh on the dog. She knew that the average dog heart rate was around 70-180 beats per minute. She counted the beats for the minute, and with the result Lara was glad that the dog seemed to be still healthy, just unconscious after counting 168 beats per minute. Lara moved the dog to a more comfortable position where it will be easily spotted. Then she moved onto exploring the Roman expedition on the fourth floor, to see if it had the office key she needed.
Stepping into the Roman Expedition, the room was filled with historical values such as stone sculpture figureheads of past leaders, famous Roman people, paintings and carvings of many battles. This was in addition to a mixture of well known painted buildings at the time. This included coliseums, aqueducts or baths and different models all layered out in both rooms of the expedition. It had all been a beautifully arranged. All the objects within the room had been carefully looked after, and the expedition itself with all its glory was too fascinating to ignore.
Lara began searching through where a good hiding place could be for an office key. She'd looked high and low for a safe place to store such an important object. Lara thought along the lines of the hider, who would want to trick the person trying to find it. In the first room Lara was in, she had searched through thoroughly at every piece within the room, but could not find anything corresponding to the discovery of the office key. She decided to have a look in the other room, for any clues leading her to the key. Again as Lara made her first step into the second part of the Roman expedition, she became speechless.
This part of the expedition had a unique three piece statue at the end of the room. As well as other features similar to the first part of the Roman expedition, for instance classic vases. But it was the three piece statue that interested Lara. She walked towards it and began to examine the monumental sculpture. It was the statues of three standing up right historical Roman figures, banded together by a concrete platform stone underneath them. Lara examined the statue with a high level of concentration, since it was the only object that stood out in comparison to all other pieces, within the Roman collection the expedition had to offer overall.
While observing the statue, something off putting was caught at the corner of her eye. She made her way over to the spotted error in the widely built statue. On one of the Roman soldiers, his armour, sword everything was there, except for a shield. The emptiness of the hand was stuck out, wanting to hold onto something like a shield of some sorts. It was then, Lara was also drawn to what may happen if she were to find this requirement, and place it at the palm of the hand. She looked behind the arm, but could not find any mechanic works or any kind. 'It must be internal, within the shoulder of the solider' Lara thought, and she began to feel for a gap for where the shoulder may have similar functionality to a lever.
Lara put firm pressure onto the palm of the solider statues' hand. Almost immediately, she felt the hand lever operate pushing it down. The function of the lever had brought Lara the answer to what she had been searching for, 'The Office Key!' It was sealed hidden within the walls of the expedition, concealed to where a painting of the Roman leader Julius Caesar was hiding the key. Having found the location of the office key, Lara released the pressure she was putting upon the hand lever, and moved towards the revealed office key.
But as Lara had let herself go from the statues' hand palm, the lever brought itself back up, meaning that the revealed office key was now concealed away once again. Annoyed by this upbringing, Lara knew what she had to search for to gain access to the office key, which was the mantle shield piece this statue was missing. In a short few seconds, amongst the collection of all manner of very old weapons and artillery found on the floor, Lara found a heavily decorated stone shield. This looked a bit out of place among the other equipment, but it would have been enough to fool someone walking by it without notice. Swiftly, not wanting to waste anymore time Lara grabbed the shield.
To her surprise it wasn't actually very heavy, and she proceeded to move it and place it upon the statues' palm. Repeatedly the same process happened, but this time around when Lara had released her grip from the shield and the pressure she put onto the hand lever, it had stayed to the 'unlock' position.
After obtaining the office key from its hidden sanctuary, Lara backtracked her way back to the locked door of the fourth floor office. She inserted the key and turned it twice, with a reassuring sound of an unlocking sound. First impressions of the office were instantly what Lara thought it may be, just an ordinary office with a pine softwood desk as well as a leather upholstery chair. A computer was also set up on top of the desk, but there was no need to use it at all. The desk had featured three drawers, which were all unlocked to Lara's satisfaction, and she searched through them one by one.
The first drawer had only office supplies filled with items like pencils, pens and paper etc, none of which could be of any use. Pulling open the second drawer, Lara was taken back a bit to what it had contained ... 'Dual Pistols!' There they were both neatly placed within a foam outline shaped like the guns themselves. Lara pulled them out, along with the additional clips that were stored too. At last she was properly armed, ready to engage the thieves and to get back the sword that they had stolen.
Lara moved onto the final third drawer. Unsurprisingly after rummaging through the belongings properly of the person who is meant to be in charge of the floor, e.g. spare clothes and cards etc. She found a key with a marked engraving saying 'Fire escape key'.
Retracing her steps back to the locked fire escape door, Lara thought of how far the intruders would have gotten. 'I will soon find out' she assumed. Turning the fire door key and pushing on the handle bars, Lara flung open the fire escape door. Straightaway she was met with a brick wall with a ladder, leading upwards to what may be the roof of the museum. Without delay, Lara made her first step onto the ladder and began her descendent up, going as quick as her arms and legs would go. During the long climb up on the long winding ladder, Lara contemplated on the strange architecture of the building. It was most certainly abnormal for a fire escape route to be on the rooftop.
This thought was dismissed as Lara had finally reached to the top of where the ladder had taken her. While lifting herself onto the platform, she spotted an abandoned radio left on the floor. It was still active, and automatically the loudspeaker of the radio came to life with a deep husky voice, "Leader to team! Helicopter leaves in three minutes, over!"
'Three minutes! I have to stop them!' Instantly Lara dashed out to the opening light to the left side, dropping the radio along the way.