Metal crashed loudly against metal as the heavy door was thrust open with great force, smashing into the wall with a noise that resonated down the grimy corridor of the mining compound, seeming to shake the rust-corroded building it was a part of. Floki retracted his bulky, booted foot from kicking the door open, and, taking Chloe by her bound wrists, he shoved her hard into the small, filth-covered room. She stumbled and fell to the floor, landing in a puddle of stagnant water that had collected over time.
"Hey, I'm callin' the management," Sully said as a thug shoved him in behind her. "This is all wrong, I asked for the penthouse suite."
"And a jacuzzi," quipped Charlie as he received similar treatment to his comrades.
Floki sneered at them. "Three jokers who just won't shut their mouths." He inclined toward them, placing one hand on the door knob, and looked at each in turn. "We'll see whether any of you has gnawed their own arm off by the time your friend gets here."
Scrambling up off the ground as Floki moved to shut the door, Chloe asked quickly, "How will he find us?"
Floki paused. "I'm going to tell him, of course!" he growled. He pulled Chloe's phone from his pocket and waved it in her face. "Thanks to you, I can send text messages from remote parts of the world and not even run up a charge."
Chloe's eyes went wide. "Hey! Kidnap is one thing. Racking up a phone bill is something else entirely!"
Floki snickered. "Brave woman, you are." He looked at her contemplatively. "It's a shame you can be such a bitch." He exited the room between two goons that held their rifles trained on the three tied-up captives, pulling the door shut behind him. Before he fully closed it he said in an aside to Chloe, "Also, dearest, be more careful what pictures you keep on your phone. You never know who might see them."
The door slammed shut, echoing even more loudly in the small, windowless room the three treasure hunters now found themselves in. The rattle of a deadbolt being drawn was followed by the soft ping,ping,ping of retreating footsteps on the diamond plate floor, and then silence.
Sully and Charlie both looked at Chloe with eyebrows raised. In lieu of explanation, she commented, "He's bluffing. I think. Wait, maybe- no, I'm pretty sure he's bluffing."
The rugged-tread tires splashed through the shallow stream, spraying water on both sides as the jeep lurched and bounced over ruts and bumps. With a roar, the 4x4 crawled its way out of the stream bed and back onto the grass, tearing up clods of dirt and mud as it went. Nate downshifted and then gave it some more gas as he approached an incline.
Fishing in his pocket for his phone, Nate flipped it open and checked the last text he had gotten from Floki, then matched the coordinates therein with his GPS for what might have been the thousandth time that day. The events of the last week or two had him on edge, and he knew it. Though he knew that it was possible Floki had sent him to a spot completely separate from wherever he was holding his teammates, it was all he had to go on, and he'd be damned if he ended up on a wild goose chase because of an error in inputting the lat/long. Glancing back to his surroundings, he nodded once to himself.
"The Atlas mountains." He scoffed. "How could it be anywhere else? I've been such a-" Sully's fatherly admonishment to not follow such self-deprecating thoughts came back to him, and he snapped his mouth shut. Sully was right. He was always right. If he was going to do this, he needed to be absolutely taut and alert, not wallowing in despair and self-pity. He knew that even if this was the coordinates for his friends place of imprisonment, it was unlikely the big Icelander would let him just waltz up to their door and let them out. Most likely, he'd be sending people out to stop him and get the astrolabe long before he ever got within range of them, and that was what he needed to watch out for.
The drivable path suddenly narrowed and rose steeply, becoming dotted with boulders and crevices, and Nate knew his jeep had brought him as far as it would. From here, it was the heel-toe express to Floki's supposed "abandoned copper mine". He pulled the parking brake, turned off the engine and removed the key, then hopped out and walked around to the back to grab his bag. Slinging his backpack over his shoulder, he turned to the path ahead, his eyes trailing up the formidable slopes to the visible peak- which he knew was only what he could see from his vantage point. The foreboding and rugged terrain suddenly made him feel very small and vulnerable, and, in spite of his determination to get his friends back, he found his face sagging in dread.
He sighed. "I don't suppose they have an elevator?"
"No, there's no elevator!" Floki bellowed at the hapless goon. "What do you think this is, vacation? You can take the stairs to the surface and then get your sorry butt out there to look for Drake!" He threw a wrench at his subordinate who ducked out of the way, and the tool ricocheted off a pipe. "We can't let him get anywhere near the mine."
Scrambling away like a kicked puppy, the goon called back, "Where are we supposed to look for him?"
"On the roads, you idiot!" Floki yelled back. "Do you think he'd take the hard way just for fun?" He snarled at the man. "Besides, the chopper's going to be out looking for him, too. They'll radio if they see anything. Now get some men and go!"
The man scurried up the metal stairs while Floki glared daggers after him. The Icelander remained frozen in place until a drip of water from the ceiling fell with a plop onto the floor. His gaze lowered to the puddle which the offending drip had become a part of, a hazy rainbow of oil and industrial scum shining on the surface of the stagnant pool.
"The trap is set," he murmured. "The prey draws closer."
A fine mist hung in the air, tossed up by the river rushing below, carried on the mountain breeze that channeled down the gorge. Nate eyed the shiny-slick bark on the fallen tree he was currently traversing and tried his best to focus on putting one foot in front of the other instead of on the sickening fall onto jagged rocks far below that would be the result of even a small misstep. About twelve feet from solid ground on the one side and at least as many from the other he paused as a sudden gust threatened to upset his balance. His arms, held up perpendicular to his body, windmilled a bit as he steadied himself.
"If I die," he said to himself through slightly clenched teeth, "I hope it's said of me that at least I didn't wear sea turtles on my feet." He composed himself and crossed the rest of the log as fast as safely possible, and then climbed through the huge, decaying root ball to the rocky ledge it rested on. He spared a glance back at the gorge he had just crossed and chuckled to himself a bit grimly. "At least it didn't crack in half on me. That would have been classic. Heh," he scoffed, "figures that the one time Elena's not here with me..." he trailed off, losing the humor of the situation in the stinging pain her name brought to his heart. Shaking his head vigorously to clear away the dark cloud, he turned and kept walking, hooking one thumb through his backpack strap. He had just rounded the corner of the mountain when he heard a faint humming which made him stop again. Squinting into the bright sun, he surveyed his surroundings, keeping his ears attentive to the sound as it grew louder and closer. It was definitely mechanical, he thought. Probably an aircraft of some type.
Just then a helicopter came into view from over a ridge in the distance and swept slowly back and forth over the peaks as if looking for something. Nate's eyes went wide and he jumped behind a boulder, as it drew closer, crouching low to try to remain hidden. He winced as it flew directly overhead, and pretty low at that, its blades thrashing the air as it seemed to linger momentarily over his hiding spot. His hand moved instinctively to the butt of his 9 mil, but then the chopper turned and flew away, the noise soon fading into the distance.
When the rhythmic beating of the rotors had gone entirely from his earshot, he cautiously stood up and scanned the sky. "That can not have been good," he murmured. "Wonder if they saw me?" Frowning, he added to himself, "I'd better get moving."
He increased his already brisk pace up the path, occasionally taking detours when it was blocked by rock slides, or washed out, or crumbled away. The road had been made by whichever mining operation worked up here, but after being abandoned along with the mine it was showing signs of its neglect, with many large boulders and fallen trees across it. While scrambling up the other side of a wash out, Nate slipped on some scree and banged his knee on a rock, hissing in pain as he rolled over onto the ledge at the top. He stood, gingerly rubbing his knee, and flexed his leg back and forth a couple times to loosen it up again. "Ah, I'm gonna feel that for a while," he muttered as he limped away.
Soon enough, though, the pain was subsided to a dull ache and his tempo increased again, with him constantly reminding himself that he was probably on borrowed time at this point. He had been walking about an hour since seeing the helicopter when he came upon an old steel bridge, spanning another gorge with the sound of the river drifting up from below. To the left of the bridge, on his side of the chasm, an old metal cart lay discarded and forgotten, cocked at an angle as it was missing a wheel. Nate strode forward with purpose, wryly saying to himself, "Well, looks like I get another chance to have a bridge break on me. I'd knock on wood if I could find any."
Suddenly, from around the bend in the road across the way, a half a dozen of Floki's men came swarming out and quickly advanced on the bridge. "There he is!" the man who seemed to be in the lead shouted. "Get 'im boys!"
"Ah, crap, even worse!" Nate groused. As the men began deploying their weapons and taking aim, he dove behind the cart and flipped it the rest of the way on its side to create some cover. Bullets began to pound the cart and into the ground around him, and Nate pulled the pistol from his shoulder holsters and peered around the end with just one eye. He was hopelessly outmatched: machine guns, high powered rifles- heck, even an RPG or two, not to mention grenades. He fired off a couple shots just to try to keep them back from crossing the bridge, but knew he was going to have to play this fight smart if he was going to get out of it.
"I need some kind of edge!" he muttered to himself as he squeezed off another shot, clipping the shoulder of one of the thugs. An edge... He saw the jagged edge of the mountain just a couple feet away from him, and an idea came into his mind. "That's it!" he said. "I just need some kind of a distraction, just for a moment, until I can get their attention how I want!" A grenade landed a little ways away from him and he frantically dropped to the ground prone as it went off and showered shrapnel around him. Pushing himself up to peer over the cart again, he saw one of the other guys drawing his RPG. I gotta do this, NOW! he thought. He glanced up the face of the cliff above the thugs and spotted a fairly large boulder a little ways up. "That'll do," he muttered, taking aim with his pistol. He fired off several shots directly at the cliff before he saw the RPG line up with him and knew he had to move fast. He lunged and rolled to the side, knowing in an instant his cover would be gone, and prayed that those few bullets he fired had been enough to dislodge the boulder. Rolling as he hit the ground, he heard the roar of the rocket hitting the metal cart and hurling it into the air only to come down with a mighty crash a moment later. At the same time he heard screams and shouting from the goons and knew his little trick must have worked- which meant he only had a moment to get into position. Scrambling to his feet, he scampered to the cliff edge and unhooked the astrolabe from the loop on his leather shoulder holsters, and with one hand he dangled the device over the precipice, while pointing his gun at the surprised thugs with the other.
"NOBODY MOVE!" he screamed. Composing themselves from the shock of the sudden boulder attack, the men on the other side locked eyes on Nate, at the gun pointed at them, and at the astrolabe in his hand with the little carabiner swinging from a meridian line. "Put your guns down!" Nate shouted to them.
A pause, then the leader of the troop, who sported a prodigious mustache, called back, "Why sho-"
"Why should you?" interrupted Nate, who was not in the mood for dumb questions. "Because if you don't, I drop the astrolabe into the river to be lost forever, and I guarantee that when you get back to your boss without it, the astrolabe's not gonna be the only thing your missing. You shoot me, same thing. I drop it." He glared at them. "Now do it!"
Mustache maintained his hard, steely gaze back at him, then reluctantly conceded. "Do it, men. He's serious."
"I'm always serious," Nate shot back flippantly. Mustache raised an eyebrow but said nothing, and instead dropped his pistol to the ground. The others began following suit, dropping weapons one by one, and the guy with the RPG tried putting it back on his back while just dropping his handgun. "You-chuckles," Nate snapped. "Nice try, but the RPG goes, too."
The goon smirked and carefully placed it on the ground.
"Alright," Nate continued to dictate, "now slowly walk backwards, facing me, over there." He nodded down the path away from where they had come, and away from the pile of guns. They obeyed, and as they walked Nate crossed the bridge, hugging one side so as to keep the astrolabe suspended over the gorge, and keeping his gun trained on them. Once on the other side, he picked an AK-47 out of the pile and slung it over his back, never taking his eyes off the men who stood a short distance away at his mercy- or at least, temporarily. He regarded them, contemplating what to do now, and eventually decided to have them cross the bridge and then destroy it with the RPG, in order to get them off his back for a while.
"Alright!" Nate shouted. "First things first-" The sound of a low, throbbing hum behind him interrupted his sentence, making him turn. Coming over the cliffs was the helicopter he had seen earlier; it swooped in like an eagle descending on a fish until it stopped about a hundred feet from him, bobbing softly as it hovered level with the ledge they were on, directed so as to be squarely facing Nate, poised as the predator eying its quarry. "Oh, I'm dead," Nate muttered.
A scuffle behind him reminded Nate of the presence of the other goons and he turned to see all six of them rushing him. Quickly he dropped and grabbed the RPG and then used its long body to swipe the rest of the guns off the edge of the cliff before his opponents could arm themselves again. One of the thugs came sliding in like a runner in a baseball game as he tried to snag a weapon, Nate rewarded him for his efforts with a heel to the groin. Spinning around and sweeping the RPG in an upward arc, he caught another man under the chin and sent him flying backward and up against the cliff face. Someone else landed a punch to Nate's gut, and Nate responded by driving the butt of the RPG into their cheek and then kneeing them in the crotch. Suddenly Nate was grabbed from behind in a bear hug, and he rammed his elbow into his assailant's side over and over in an attempt to break free. Mustache chuckled as he stalked nearer to Nate and pulled out a long switchblade knife, while the helicopter lurked behind him as if just waiting for a clear shot. The grubby hands that were holding Nate captive began fumbling to try to get control of the RPG while Nate struggled against them, all the while watching the evil, glinting blade coming ever nearer and the powerful guns on the aircraft beyond. What now? he thought. Just die here on the side of the mountain?
Then he thought of Chloe, Cutter, and most of all, Sully, and how, if he failed to make it to them and the astrolabe fell into Floki's hands, their lives would immediately be of no value. No way I'm letting them die! he thought to himself. He felt a kind of power rising up in him, born not only of anger, but of a certain desperation and also recklessness. It pushed him upward and forward, helping him see beyond the raw and festering emotional wounds he was nursing and see that without him, his friends were as good as dead. It was the confidence that came from not caring what happened to himself anymore, of utter abandonment to the job at hand.
With a grunt, Nate pushed back against his captor, ramming him against the cliff and giving himself enough slack to raise his arms and line up the RPG with the helicopter. He fired, and the rocket streamed forward and struck the aircraft with a terrific explosion and a deafening roar. Mustache instinctively ducked at the noise, and Nate threw one last elbow punch into his attacker's kidney to finally break free. Tossing the RPG aside he rushed at Mustache and punched his jaw, catching him off guard. Only for a moment, though. Mustache recovered immediately and slashed the knife through the air so hard, Nate heard the whistle of displaced air. He leaped back to avoid its sting and returned his fists to a defensive position.
"You know," he said, swinging a punch to no effect as Mustache nimbly dodged. "You're really a- pain in my ass." The effort of delivering two more failed blows and then dodging another knife attack punctuated his sentence. Nate retreated a couple paces and quickly sized up his wiry assailant. "Can't blame you for your attitude, though. I think I'd be mad if I had to live with facial hair like that, too."
"Hilarious," Mustache growled, then he rushed at him, attempting to stab the knife into his gut. Nate deflected the attack to the side, but the thug followed through by bringing the bone of his forearm up and striking the bridge of Nate's nose and then wrapped his hand around his face to shove him to the ground. Nate rolled and tried to get to his feet, but the man's boot came down and shoved him a little farther, and suddenly he was falling. Screaming. Reaching out desperately for a handhold, Nate caught a lip on the girder of the bridge with the fingers of his right hand, and his momentum carried his body through an pendulum arch as he swung down. The inertia ripped his fingers free from the lip, and with another cry, Nate lashed out with his left hand and caught another girder closer to the middle of the bridge. Quickly moving his right hand to take hold as well, he dangled from the underside of the structure as footsteps clanged on the steel above him.
"Drake!" Mustache yelled, his voice echoing through the canyon. "DRAKE! Come out, you dirty rat! I'm growing tired of this game."
Meanwhile, Nate was swinging his legs to build some momentum until he was able to throw himself forward to the next girder. Listening to the steady back-and-forth pacing of the irate revolutionary above him in order to keep track of the man's position, he worked his way to the farthest feasible point on the bridge from Mustache before clambering around the edge and pulling himself back up top.
Mustache immediately turned and rushed at him, switchblade flashing, but Nate sidestepped and caught his hand in both of his. A headbutt and a knee to the stomach later, Nate had beat Mustache back as well as having stripped the weapon from his hand. Mustache reeled, stunned by the turn of events, then got caught by Nate's crushing punch to his kidney, followed immediately by a hook to the jaw. With a cry, the lead thug flew backward off the bridge and plummeted to his doom on the rocks below.
Frowning as his eyes followed the man's fall, Nate rubbed his stinging knuckles and turned away. "Never bring a knife to a Nathan Drake fight," he commented dryly as he began walking.
A/N: For those of you who didn't catch it, Nate's comment about sea turtles was a reference to Golden Abyss :)