A/N: Soooo, time for a confession: I, jollyjackclewline- AM NATHAN DRAKE!
No? Not buying it? Alright, no, what I should say is that I got six or seven chapters in to writing this story before I posted the first chapter, in hopes that that would be enough of a head start to keep up with a once a week update. Well, life was unusually favorable to me writing for a while there, and I kept that lead until about, ohhh, chapter seventeen or so, when I finally caught up to myself. Now, I'm busier than possibly ever, and I'm not sure I'll be able to keep up with weekly updates- I'll do my best, but I don't want to sacrifice whatever fledgling bit of quality I manage for time, so... don't hold your breath. Thanks to everyone reading, and I'll do my damndest to not make you wait inordinate lengths of time for updates!
Nate crouched low, braced against the wall of the cable car just below the window as a maelstrom of machine gun fire beat on the outside of it, making the whole car tremble like a flag in a gale. From the proximity of the noise, he could tell that the gondola was very close now, which meant if his plan was going to work, he would need to swap cars soon. Squeezing his eyes shut as the thundering of bullets hit a crescendo, Nate tightened his grip on the AK-47 in his hands and waited for an opening.
"When I get home, I'm doing some serious soul-searching to find out what it is about me that has this effect on people!" he said, raising his voice over the din even though he was talking to himself. A moment later the fact he had done so struck him as odd, but before he had time to think much of it, the gunfire paused as the magazine was spent and the thugs hurried to reload it. "Now or never!" he muttered, standing up and leaping onto the side of the car.
Bending his knees, he launched off to clear the wide gap between him and the other gondola, scarcely giving a thought to the dizzying drop below him, his arms stretched in front of him to catch the other side. He saw the surprised looks on the faces of the three thugs in the gondola, though whether the surprise was over the fact that he was suddenly coming at them or over the insanity of the jump he was currently making was anyone's guess. Nate's fingers flexed to the utmost to catch the bottom lip of the rail on the cable car, and one sweaty hand slipped off as the weight of his body jerked at his precarious grip. As he wrenched himself around to grab hold again, he saw the thug who had been at the turret lean over the side, and instead of grabbing the rail he reached for the collar of the man's shirt and pulled him over the edge of the gondola. As the goon's screams faded into the vast expanse below them, Nate threw himself up and vaulted the rail of the car, immediately going on the offensive to meet the remaining two. Delivering a quick elbow to the chest of the first thug, he followed quickly by kicking the second between the legs, and after a short scrimmage one thug lay unconscious on the floor of the cable car while the other had met a similar fate as the first after being thrown over the side. Nate wasted no time in taking control of the turret as the planes circled around yet again to strafe their target. Whirling the heavy machine gun around, Nate held down the trigger and unleashed a storm of bullets at the aircraft, finally feeling like he was able to give tit for tat for the first time since this skirmish began.
"Yeah! How's it feel gettin' some back?" Nate crowed as he promptly shot down a plane in a glorious display of pyrotechnics. The previously untouched gondola car was shelled heavily as the jets passed, but Nate made sure to return the favor by catching the tail sections of the aircraft when they had gone by. Taking a wide stance in preparation for the next bombardment, Nate took a look over his shoulder at the gondola station that was approaching at the high end of the cables. "Almost there," he reassured himself. "Just gotta last a little longer, and I'll be all clear!"
"I'm telling you, he's gotta be almost here," Sully said, looking at the wall beyond which they would be able to see the descent toward the gondola station attached to the mine, if only their room had windows in it. "Knowing Nate, he'll come kicking down our door any time now."
Cutter raised an eyebrow, peering at Sullivan from where he sat on the floor with his head leaned against the wall. His nose was itching something fierce, but he had not discovered a satisfactory way to scratch it being that his hands were still tied behind his back. "Are you trying to reassure yourself of your imminent freedom, or your imminent ability to light up?" Charlie asked dryly, nodding his head toward the unlit cigar that Sully had managed to get in his mouth, despite being similarly restrained. Even if the old man had been able to somehow light it, Cutter and Chloe had voted out the possibility of ignition in the completely non-ventilated room they had been stuck in, for fear of asphyxiation, or at least of generally unpleasant odors.
Sully frowned at him. "Yes," he replied, sinking into a sitting position across from the Brit.
Cutter chuckled and shook his head.
A few minutes of relative silence followed until Chloe, who was completing the treasure hunter triangle by sitting in the middle of the wall adjacent to both of her male companions, piped up, "Anyone game for I Spy?"
"Really?" Sully smirked and ran his eyes around the room, soaking in the austerity of the bare walls and grimy floor. "Sure. You go first," he said.
With a smile at the absurdity of her proposition, Chloe considered carefully, then, to no one's surprise, started with, "I spy... something gray."
"The general mood of this entire hell-hole," Sully immediately guessed.
"The sky over London down by the river Thames," Cutter called. When the other two looked quizzically at him, he shrugged. "What? Sorry, I was daydreaming."
"Well, you're both wrong," Chloe said. "It's not dour dispositions or stormy skies. It's-"
The door was suddenly kicked open in a way that they had come to recognize as a sort of trademark entry of the bizarre Scandinavian man who was the leader of this band of half-baked insurrectionists. True to form, Floki's bulky boot was next to enter the room, followed by the burly redhead himself. "Visitation time!" he roared. "How're my prisoners doing?"
"A lot better before you showed up," Sully growled.
Floki sneered at him. "Well, then you should be thrilled to know that you won't have to put up with me much longer. Your friend Drake is nearly within our grasp. Once he's secured, along with the astrolabe, we can move on to putting you three out of your misery."
"And you just came to rub it in our faces a bit?" Chloe asked sarcastically.
A slimy smile spread across Floki's face. "And to give you notice so you can make any final prayers, meal requests, the like. Can't promise I'll care, but you can make them anyway..."
"Meal requests? Hmmm..." Sully said, stroking his chin in mock contemplation. "I'm no cannibal, but the idea of you roasting on a spit is real tempting right now."
Holding up a finger as if the thought had just occurred to him, Floki addressed Chloe with feigned cheeriness. "Oh, by the way, I suppose you can have your phone back now, seeing as my little trap worked so well." He slid the device out of his pocket as Chloe mumbled an "It's about time" under her breath, then he sighed dramatically as he looked at it. "Pity your hands are tied, though. Oh well," He shrugged, then slammed the phone into the wall without warning, making all three of his prisoners jump. Glass tinkled down the wall from the shattered screen, and he opened his hand to let the crumpled and broken object fall desolately to the ground.
"Hey, come on!" Chloe objected. She glowered at the worthless pile of trash that had once been her phone and groused, "Second one this year..."
Floki turned to the door, throwing one last leer at them over his shoulder. "Enjoy your final day- give or take a few hours, that is."
"Let's give those hours, if it's all the same to you," Charlie piped up as the door swung shut. "I quite enjoy my life."
The butt of the machine gun juddered violently against Nate's chest as he held the trigger down, teeth clenched and knuckles white, while the gun roared and sprayed a continuous stream of bullets out of it's muzzle as he followed his target across the sky. An explosion, followed by a billowing fireball crashing into the gorge, and Nathan let out a victorious cry.
"Only two more!" he said eagerly. "Just two more! I got this!" Over the front of the cable car, he could see the station drawing ever nearer. "I got this, I got this..."
The planes looped around, following the same circuit they had been repeatedly executing for the last twenty minutes. Nate lined up the sights of the turret and squinted down the barrel, oblivious to the figure that was rising slowly behind him. "Come and get it boys..." he muttered.
Suddenly he was grabbed by his shirt from behind and ripped back away from the turret, then immediately slammed forward into it again so that the butt of the gun smashed into his rib cage, knocking the wind out of him. He grunted in pain as he was jerked backward again like a rag doll, and he saw the face of the man he had knocked unconscious after boarding the gondola. The thug began running, growling in rage and shoving him in front of him toward the edge of the car. Before Nate could even react he was being tossed over the side, and would have cleared it entirely if he hadn't hooked the rail with the toe of his right boot, which helped him swing just close enough to the car that he could grab onto the landing skid on the bottom. He gasped in surprise and swung onto a crossbar in the middle of the car just in case the thug leaned over to attack him from above. As he dangled from the bottom of the gondola, he looked toward the two fighter jets screaming toward him. His face fell.
"Ah, crap," he grumbled, tightening his grip on the metal bar he was clinging to. "This is why you never leave loose ends- they always come back to bite you!"
In the leading plane of the remaining duo, one of Floki's thugs lined up with his target directly in front of him: a slowly moving gondola that was within ten yards of the station, with one thorn-in-the-side American dangling from underneath. A thin smile spread across his face, causing wrinkles to appear on his stubbly cheeks near the corners of his mouth. Through the windshield of the plane, he could see the tiny silhouette of Drake hanging from the bottom of the gondola like a frog clinging to the underside of a branch in the scarlet of evening- helpless, hopeless, and moments from his ultimate demise. It was almost a pity, he thought, the way he had gotten so close to making it to the end of the gondola line only to be destroyed within a stone's throw of safety. His grin broadened and he spoke into the radio that was built into his helmet, hailing the only other remaining pilot of the squadron that had come out.
"Locked on to target- Drake just got thrown over the side, and he's a sitting duck dangling from the car like that." His eyes shone as he pulled slightly up on the yoke. "I'll take out the whole car and make a clean sweep of him."
After a moment, the other pilot's reply crackled through. "The whole car? One of our men is still on there!"
The first pilot considered this, then spoke callously, "It's fine, not like he has a family or something." He made another small adjustment to the plane's attitude, as the other pilot mumbled a reply, then he spoke a simple command to his copilot. "Fire the missile."
There was a flash, and the rocket streamed out before him, leaving a wake trail behind it to linger in the sky. It struck home, exploding on the trolley, destroying it and severing the cable, the latter of which snapped back like a rubber band, snaking viciously through the air until it hit the previous pylon. The cable car plummeted, going through an impressive display of flips and twists before ultimately crashing on the valley floor in an ignominious heap of twisted and smoking scrap metal.
"Kveðja, Nathan Drake," he said with a smirk, then twisted the yoke to fly away and addressed the other pilot. "Mission accomplished. Let's go back and tell the boss."
Nate stared at the plane, watching as it ran him down, and he knew there was almost nothing he could do about it. Except maybe hope he misses, that was something. "This is not good," he muttered to himself for the umpteenth time that day, flashing a glance to his right to see the pylons that supported the edge of the gondola station looming almost near enough to reach out and grab. "Just, like, thirty more seconds, and-" he looked back just in time to see a flash of light from the leading fighter jet.
"Crap."
The missile exploded directly above him, and his heart and stomach both seemed to make the trip to the bottoms of his feet and then all the way back up into his throat as the car was suddenly in a free fall, spinning end over end as it barreled toward destruction. As he hung on for dear life, Nate managed to plant his feet against the bottom of the gondola, poised in a sort of crouch on the skid as it spun like a carnival ride from hell. Everything was a blur- the open sky, the hard, unforgiving earth below, and the foundations of the gondola station all passing by in an indecipherable swirl that was absolutely nauseating in its effect as Nate tried to time a jump to the pylons nearby. In desperation, he gave up and flung himself blindly from the car, screaming as he tumbled out of control while flying through the air like an insect hurled from the end of a stick. Somewhere nearby there was a tremendous crash as the cable car hit the ground. Nate's back slammed against the cold, hard steel of the pylon, the impact bracing, snapping him back to reality after the sickening g-forces he had just experienced, and his body began to plummet. He realized in an instant that he was falling headfirst, having apparently hit the pylon upside down, and he panicked, putting his legs out straight in front of him to help turn himself right side up. His body flipped over, and Nate reached frantically for the pylon, grabbing onto the angle iron that zig-zagged up its length, and smashed into the metal again as his fall was arrested. From sheer exhaustion, he let go with one hand.
Everything hurt. Everything was tired. As his left arm fell limply to his side, Nate groaned and shut his eyes. That last thirty seconds had been hell, and it was a wonder he had survived. "Everything... so sore..." he mumbled, voice hoarse from exertion. "Arm's cramping, I think I hyper-extended my knee... now here I am, dangling from the underbelly of a gondola station, high in the Atlas mountains, after getting shot down by a fighter jet." He scoffed. "When you put it that way, days just don't get much better than this. At least, not unless it's a train in the Himalayas."
His right hand was slick with sweat and the fingers were beginning to slip off the pylon, so Nate quickly shook his other arm to loosen it up and then returned it to helping support himself. His toes found a hold on the angle iron lower down, he pushed himself up to take the load off his arms, and then he just rested there for a moment, breathing heavily as he took a more serious stock of the situation. He looked above him at the rusty and grimy underside of the platform, then down at the broken remains of the cable car, laying in a cloud of dust on the terra-cotta colored earth not so far below him now. A Barbary sheep bounded away as he watched, being frightened by the crash. Turning his gaze upward again, he climbed the pylon like a ladder, steadily working his way to the station. At the top, he heaved himself around the edge and rolled onto his back on the platform, letting his arm flop over his chest and his head fall back against the steel. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes for a minute.
"When I get home, I need a strong drink... a lot of life insurance... and a vacation," he said. Finally getting to his feet, he slid his pistol out of its holster, loaded a fresh clip, and pulled the slide back. "Home... 's a long way from here," he mumbled as he walked slowly into the yawning mouth of the gondola station.
"Drake is dead, sir!" the pilot announced, giving a quick salute to Floki. The redheaded leader of the revolutionaries looked at him skeptically, running his eyes down the man as if he thought he was hiding something on his person.
"He's dead?"
"Yes sir," the pilot replied eagerly.
Floki narrowed his eyes at him. "How do you know? Did you see his body?"
Undaunted by his leader's cynicism, the pilot replied, "I shot down his gondola with a missile while he was hanging from the bottom. There's no way he survived it. It's not possible."
Still stoic, the redhead turned on his heel and began walking down the corridor. "How many planes survived the battle?"
Walking beside his leader, the pilot answered, "My own and one more were the only ones not shot down."
Floki uttered profanities as he turned sharply around a bend in the hall. "Very well. Where's the astrolabe?"
Immediately the pilot's face darkened, he slowed his pace and then halted entirely, a look of trepidation washing over him. Floki stopped as well when he realized the man was no longer walking with him, and he turned to face the nervous insurgent behind him. "The, uh, astrolabe, sir?" the pilot asked.
"Yes, the astrolabe," Floki repeated patronizingly.
Thinking quickly, the pilot stammered, "We can send someone to retrieve it! He fell just before the station, I'm sure that-" his frantic rambling was interrupted by the explosion of a shot being fired from a handgun, and the pilot slumped lifelessly to the floor. Tucking the smoking pistol back into its holster, Floki continued walking through the dank corridors of the complex.
"I'd say it's time I gave my prisoners another visit," he said, his anger still seething at the pilot's incompetent handling of the situation at the gondola. He pulled out a radio and barked into it, "Baldur! I need some men over to the east wing of the complex to help me dispose of the rubbish! Also, send some scouts out to investigate the wreckage of the cable car and see if they can retrieve the artifact that our idiot comrades neglected to secure." He waited to receive confirmation from his lieutenant that the orders would be followed, then jammed the radio back onto his belt. "This is going to go my way- whatever it takes!"
Nate peered around the corner, cautiously scanning for guards before sprinting down the next corridor of the complex. So far, he had yet to encounter resistance since arriving at the gondola station, and he didn't know what to make of that. He figured either- best case scenario- he had significantly thinned out Floki's resources, or they thought he was dead, or- worst case scenario- they had already moved on, having either killed his friends or brought them as captives. That third option was one he didn't care to consider for very long.
After turning another bend in the hall, he was startled to see the lifeless body of one of Floki's thugs slumped in the middle of the floor. He regarded the fallen revolutionary curiously as he passed- had Sully and the others already escaped? Or was Floki beginning to crack under the stress and lashing out like a loose cannon? He peeked around the next corner he got to and then immediately drew back as a small company of thugs went trotting by. The men chatted in a way that seemed relaxed, and even casual, as they passed; their footsteps faded, and only then did Nate dare another look before continuing on.
"They seemed awfully cheery," he murmured to himself, "which means it's not real likely that the gang's gotten loose. I'd better hurry."
He had a couple more close encounters with almost running into goons as he worked his way through the compound, but managed to stay below the radar for the time being. It was as he was passing one of the many rusty and windowless doors that he heard a familiar voice from inside that caught his attention.
"...no, it's a bad idea because this room has about the same amount of source material as a waiting room at the local clinic- in other words, very, very bad for 'I spy'," Charlie was saying.
"Alright, fine," said a familiar Aussie voice. "Charades?" Chloe asked hopefully.
Nate chuckled to himself and leaned against the door, relief washing over him as he felt some of the tension that had built up over the last few days lift from his shoulders. Just hearing the familiar sound of Chloe and Charlie's voices felt like making it back to a friendly country after being stuck behind enemy lines. Quickly, he knelt down and set to work picking the lock as the voices continued on the other side.
"Charades?" Sully growled. "I've got one- I'm doing it now, it's a charade of a guy being held captive by an evil maniac in an abandoned mine."
The lock sprung and Nate shoved open the door, striding in with the command of a superhero rescuing someone from a burning building. "Nate!" Chloe cried, kipping up to her feet.
"About time, kid," Sully said eagerly, pushing himself up the wall to stand. "I was startin' to worry about you." Looking him over and noticing the evidence of his many scuffles on the way, Sully whistled through his teeth. "God, you're a sight for sore eyes."
Nate chuckled as he flipped open his pocket knife and set to work on cutting each of their wrists free. "Yeah, well... good to see you all alive and in one piece!" He cut the ropes free from Sully's hands, and his mentor gave him a brief bro hug.
"Good to see you, Nate," Sully said with a smile.
Nate smiled back and then turned to cut loose Chloe and then finally Charlie. As his bindings fell to the ground with a soft thud, the Englishman rubbed his sore wrists and asked, "I trust you gave 'em hell on the way?"
Nate grinned a toothy grin and replied, "If by hell you mean, 'shot down four or five planes and two helicopters', then yes, I gave 'em hell."
"That's my boy," Charlie said, slapping his shoulder.
"Sorry to drag you back into this so soon," Chloe said sincerely. "I hope you got the time you needed to sort everything out with Elena before Thing One called you from my phone." She gestured vaguely to the pile of splintered glass and plastic in the corner of the room.
Nate's smile faded, then morphed entirely into a frown as he looked at her, stunned for a second by the thoughts her question had allowed to so rudely barge into his mind and upset his hero groove he had gotten into. Turning quickly to hide the darkened expression that came over him, he said in what he hoped was a convincingly normal tone, "Yeah, it's good. I'm all fine. It's all fine." Retrieving his gun from its holster, he held it up by his face and jerked his head toward the door. "Come on, we'd better get out of here before Floki and his guys find us."
As Nate led the way out the door, Chloe looked questioningly at Sully, who shrugged. They followed him out into the hallway and walked at a brisk pace through the building, and Nate handed the AK-47 he still had to Chloe as they went. They didn't make it far. As they rounded the second corner, they came face to face with the red headed Icelander and the small group of revolutionaries tailing him and both groups stopped and stared at each other.
"Oh, Christ," Chloe groaned.
Floki and all his men pointed their weapons at the treasure hunters while Nate and Chloe leveled their weapons at them, and Floki's eyes narrowed as they flicked back and forth over the group before him. "Drake," he said cautiously, as if uncertain of what was about to happen. He paused and visibly tightened his grip on his handgun. "I suppose that in the spirit of optimism, I should be glad that I still get the honor of killing you." He cocked his head to the side and snarled. "In the spirit of realism, however, my pilot should be glad he's already dead, otherwise I'd kill him again." He wagged his gun at the item dangling from Nate's holsters. "The astrolabe, my pesky friend!"
Nate scoffed. "Yeah, not gonna happen.."
Floki threw his head back and waved his arm impatiently. "Come on. The chips are down, and you're outnumbered and outgunned. Just give it over, dammit. You've got no leverage, now."
"Just let us go free, and you can have the astrolabe, okay?" Nate said, unwavering. "Let's just be reasonable, here."
Floki barked out a laugh and took a couple steps forward, his men tightening up their aim in response to his more dangerous proximity to Nate and his gang. "I've got a better idea!" the brutish insurgent growled, his voice sinister as he glared at them. "You give me the astrolabe, and I give you your head-" he paused for dramatic effect, "on a stake!"
"That sounds quite reasonable, actually," Elena said, leaning back in her chair in her employer's New York office. She finished scanning the last few lines of the documents her new boss, Angela, had given her, and then closed the file, placing it on the desk between them.
"I thought you'd like it," Angela smiled, brushing some imaginary dust off the sleeve of her immaculately tailored navy blazer before retrieving the file. "We've been needing someone with your drive, energy, and determination. I think you'll be perfect for the job, and you and Connie will be a great team." As she tapped the papers on the desk to consolidate them, she gave a more conspiratorial smile. "Plus there's the benefits: Yemen's a new country to see, you'll have better pay, and then there's the company gala coming up this summer."
"The gala?" Elena asked, crossing her legs and smoothing her skirt over them.
"Every year we throw a party to thank our sponsors and contacts for their help and donations," Angela shrugged as a gesture of false modesty. "It's kind of a big deal."
"How generous of you," Elena said, and was proud of herself that she almost meant it.
"Of course," her boss added in a tone that made it clear she was about to reveal the ulterior motive behind it all. "It's also great for networking and exposure, so it works in our favor also."
"Of course." Elena gave a thin smile.
After covering a few more minor details, Angela shook Elena's hand and dismissed her from her office. Elena felt happy as she walked to the door: A new position that was both better paying and higher profile, new coworkers and contacts to meet and befriend, new scenery, and better benefits- what more could she ask for?
She turned the knob and slipped out into the hallway, letting the door swing shut behind her. Lifting her eyes as she turned to walk away, her gaze suddenly caught on a picture that was hanging on the wall directly opposite Angela's office. It was one of those "inspirational" pictures that probably cost ten dollars at a craft store somewhere: A photo of a man climbing a cliff as the sun went down and a river ran below. Beneath the picture was some cheesy anecdote, something about "Determination" or "Resilience" or something. She lingered, her expression quizzical as a strange feeling crept into her- something she couldn't quite place. Her eyes searched the picture, gradually widening as they zeroed in on the man climbing, and the world around her seemed to fade. All she could see was the person clinging to the face of the cliff, scaling it with apparent ease, smiling as he went, and damn if he wasn't wearing a Henley too! Her face became more and more troubled as she stared intently at the picture.
That mountain, that sunset, that look of excitement! Was that what Nate was doing right now, hanging off some mountain somewhere, growing ever nearer the fabled city of Atlantis? What had transpired since she left him on the dock in Xi'an? Had he seen her letter yet?
Was he even still alive?
A pained look crossed her face at that last thought. Damn it, Nate, don't be dead! In her minds eye, it was as if she could picture the glint of Sir Francis Drake's ring hanging in the open placket of the man's shirt, the talisman that was Nate's pride and motivation and inspiration. Did she miss it? The adventure? Surely not... did she?
"Mrs. Fisher?"
"Mrs. Fisher?"
Elena snapped back to the present, realizing that a voice had been calling her multiple times as she stood, all but leaning on Angela's office door and motionless since stepping out of the room. She looked down at herself and realized what a sight she must be, and quickly stepped away from the door, tugging on the hem of her shirt nervously as she met eyes with Liz, the source of the voice calling her. Clearing her throat, Elena said as naturally as possible, "Yes, hi! Liz, uhh, how are you?"
Liz's shoulder length tresses of curly brown hair framed a face frozen in concern, eyes wide and staring unblinkingly at Elena,bright red lips slightly parted in wonder, and a steaming cup of coffee held in her right hand where it had been forgotten on its way to her mouth. The woman's brows knitted together, and she asked candidly, "Are you okay, Mrs. Fisher?"
Elena hesitated, looking away and biting her lip. "I'm fine," she finally said, mustering a smile. "Just, um, just remembered something, that's all." She turned to walk away, then thought again and added in an aside to Liz, "And, please, just call me Elena."
Next chapter should bring us back around to our in medias res opening, because I'm a sucker for Uncharted tropes! :) Till then, sic parvis magna!