Notes
Soundtrack suggestions:
At the station:
- Raiders of the Lost Isla Nublar — Michael Giacchino, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Up to 01:00).
Rushing to the switch:
- Stranded in SEAS Jungle – Tilman Sillescu and Pierre Langer, Paraworld.
- Catching the Train — Rupert Gregson-Williams, The Legend of Tarzan (Up to 01:45).
- Baloo – Basil Poledouris, Jungle Book (Starting from 02:15).
- The Railroad Waits for No One – Hans Zimmer, The Lone Ranger.
- The Twelve Towers and Race to Libertalia - Henry Jackman, Uncharted: A Thief's End.
- End of the Line – Henry Jackman, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
- Train Attack – Simon Franglen, Avatar: The Way of Water (From 00:51 to 02:20).
The Humvee's attack:
- Ambushed – Henry Jackman, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy.
-o-
"How could they make the train fall from the viaduct?" Franklin asked.
"By making it take the track that leads to it," Owen replied.
"And how do you make a train change tracks?"
"Through the switch!" Claire exclaimed suddenly.
"The switch?" The IT technician repeated.
"The situation is the same as in the last Uncharted, the spin-off with Chloe. Except we have to do the opposite…" she explained, remembering her game a few months earlier and its final act. "Do you still have your phone, Franklin?"
"Nope. I left it in Benito's car..."
"I still have mine," Owen said. "But I have very little battery left," he added after looking at his screen, where a value of barely ten percent was indicated next to the battery sign. "Just enough to make a call..."
"Warn someone you trust," his girlfriend said.
He nodded and called Juan.
At the station, the Shitpiercer's final preparations were underway as the day drew to a close. The train was so long that laying on the loop around the old station, it completely encircled its buildings and stretched almost to the barricade erected in view of the road bridge, with its huge locomotive seeming to defy the journalists and onlookers gathered at the top of the bridge. In all, the Shitpiercer had more than sixty wagons and was about half a mile long. It was quite possibly the largest train that ever ran in Costa Rica.
Locked in containers, cages or crates, all the animals it had to transport were there and Brice Le Goff and the other veterinarians present had administered sedatives to the largest and most powerful of them. There was indeed no question that they would panic because of the transport and make the train derail. So when they wake up, it won't be until hours later, after the convoy's arrival at the port facility. The only missing animals were Toro and Ariadne, which were still in the jungle between Site D and the village of Corrales, which adjoined the railway. The ACU helicopter was hovering over that area, waiting for them to leave the cover of trees. The sabotage at Site D having delayed the schedule, Torres had given the order to bring the two carnotaurs back to Site D and remove them from the Arcadia's list because they would later charter a plane to transport them to the United States.
Having just been called by Juan, Valentine Taylor looked for the director of InGen Security. The guard's face was very dull and the edges of his eyes were still wet. He had learned about Benito's betrayal and Jocelyn's death, and it had affected him a lot, so much he wanted to pick up his luggage inside the train and volunteer to be part of the team remaining in Costa Rica. But while he was still undecided about that, he spotted Torres further away and after taking a deep breath, he hailed him:
"Sir!"
The director of InGen Security turned to his subordinate.
"Yes?"
"Mr. Baró told me of disturbing news. Enemy agents are seeking to send the train to the broken viaduct."
Torres laughed softly.
"The switch is monitored. This train will take the right track, be sure of that. What's Mr. Baró's source?"
"I don't know. He said that some friends overheard a conversation in town."
"A conversation overheard by friends…," the director of InGen Security repeated in a mocking tone. "I don't like to be disturbed by this kind of gossip, Mr. Taylor."
"Sorry, sir... But it wouldn't hurt to make sure no one tampered with the switch."
"I told you it was being watched. Stop being impertinent and get on that train. We're leaving. We're already late..."
"As you wish, sir," Valentine answered in a slightly hesitant voice before heading for the carriage where he was to travel with his fellow guards.
Torres huffed and walked away too, looking pensive. It was then that he saw a trio of guards conversing casually further away and he sighed. The first of the guards was a thickset man in his forties or fifties and not very tall; the second was of similar age but of medium height, with a rather thin, almost emaciated face; and the third was a tall, burly man of Italian descent in his late thirties. Torres had recognized the trio, as he heard bad things about them after the fall of Jurassic World and Operation Fallen Kingdom. Pierre, John and Henry, InGen Security's Three Stooges, notable slackers and buffoons.
"Hey you three! Go in the locomotive!"
The trio of guards obeyed and heading for the first train car, Torres followed them.
"You're a train aficionado?" Peter asked John.
"Well, papa was a locomotive driver. He often took me with him."
When Torres arrived at the first car, he radioed an order and the next moment the phrase Ready to go! relayed from the barricade to the station.
"Juan said he was passing the info on to Torres?" Claire asked Owen.
"Yes."
They had just joined the road linking Burgo Nuevo to the entrance of The Pillar of Heaven nature reserve.
"Fuck!" The fallen park director suddenly exclaimed before speeding up.
"Where are we going?" Franklin asked noticing this.
"At the switch. If you see anything that looks like a lever near the rail, let me know."
"But Torres has been warned…"
"Something tells me he doesn't give a fuck and that we'll have to do it ourselves."
Straight ahead, the bridge spanning the railroad came into view.
"Wouldn't it be better if we called the cops?" Franklin suggested.
"We do not have time. By the time they'll decide to send someone, if they do, it will already be too late," Owen told him. "We're the only ones who can prevent that!"
"Let's hope Torres doesn't actually decide to send his goons there. He wants our heads!" Claire reminded them.
"Mine too?" Franklin asked.
"Since you ended up with us, probably yes," the keeper replied.
"Jesus fuck…" the young man moaned.
"At least we'll have the means to defend ourselves," Owen said, looking first at the machete, then at the sawed-off shotgun stowed behind the driver's seat, and finally at the pistol he'd just taken out of the glove compartment.
When they started crossing the bridge, Claire slowed down a bit, as a large crowd occupied the sidewalk just to their right. Between the onlookers, Owen could see the barricade and the Shitpiercer's locomotive. He saw it approaching the bridge.
"The train is leaving," he informed his companions.
"Ok, it's time to act like Paul Walker," his girlfriend declared before suddenly accelerating again. "The first who utters the word Family shall be left on the roadside like an old mutt!"
They reached the northern end of the bridge and under the surprised eyes of the local police officers in charge of watching the journalists and the onlookers, the jeep bolt away. Behind it, some of the civilians crossed the road to follow the moving train.
"Logic would dictate that we find the switch by the fork," Owen pointed out while they drove above the speed limit. "We find the fork, we find the switch."
"We're approaching the second bridge," Claire pointed out. "I take it or I continue straight?
"Straight. The vegetation is less dense on our side."
Passing in front of the entrance to the second bridge, the one they had taken during their tour with Juan, they continued on the same road, following a sign which indicated the direction of the village of Cedral. Before descending there, the road skirted the railway line, overhanging it by about forty meters. Owen and Franklin began scanning the landscape to their left, trying to locate where the rail forked. Meanwhile, the sun was gradually approaching the horizon line.
Nearly a kilometre and a half from the second bridge, they saw the rail split in two, with the left track going up through the jungle to regain elevation.
"The fork!"
However, no road seemed to lead there and theirs began to curve to the right, towards Cedral. But they had neither time to make a long detour through that village, nor time to walk down.
Claire slowed down and carefully observed the scenery to their left. The slope down to the railway line was covered by jungle but most of the trees growing in that area hadn't a very thick trunk while the bushes were sparse enough to let something the size of a jeep pass between them. The slope was also gentler than the one they had descended with Benito's car.
"Hang on. We're having another ride," she declared.
"Having another ride? Franklin repeated apprehensively.
She suddenly steered the wheel to the left, the jeep left the road, and the IT technician let out a frightened cry before closing his eyes while Owen gripped tightly to the top door handle. The jeep began to descend the slope in the straightest way possible, avoiding slaloming unnecessarily and taking the risk of losing its balance. They descended faster and faster, so much that Claire lost control of the vehicle. As it smashed through the bushes in its path, she and Owen widened their eyes to see that in the flattened portion ahead of them, a huge tree trunk laid, resting on huge boulders.
"Trunk!" The keeper shouted.
The trunk and the rocks were comparable to an archway because between the trunk and the ground, there was a space as wide as a small road but not very high, less than two meters, if not barely one meter eighty. The jeep was too high for this passage which they were approaching at full speed and could no longer avoid. Owen shouted again.
"Get down!"
Franklin more or less laid back in the back seat, Owen hunched forward, and Claire nearly flattened herself against the steering wheel while trying to control the car. The next moment, the jeep reached the trunk. They first heard a shock, then a major tearing of metal, a very unpleasant scraping for the ears and then something falling behind the jeep. Looking up, Owen and Franklin saw that they no longer had a roof over their heads, as the trunk had turned the jeep into a convertible by ripping off the entire upper bodywork.
"You still have your heads?" Claire asked them, raising her head immediately to regain full control of their trajectory.
"Yes!" they replied.
They emerged from the dense vegetation shortly after, almost bursting onto the rail. They began to follow it, heading towards the fork which was not very far, about a hundred and fifty meters away. Owen turned around and saw the Shitpiercer on the horizon. The train was still far away, but it was gradually closing the distance between them.
"Hurry, it's coming," he said.
Quickly, they saw the beginning of a maintenance track and a large lever near the rail.
"There's a lever over there!" Franklin pointed.
"That must be it," Claire said, kicking the throttle.
She stopped the jeep by the lever, they got out and approached the lever. Looking at the tracks, they noticed that in the current state, the Shitpiercer was indeed going to be shunted onto the track leading to the viaduct. Not only had someone changed the switch, but Torres had done nothing about it.
"It's not the right track," Franklin observed.
"So let's change it!" Claire pressed them.
The trio grabbed the lever, starting to push it.
"This was Don't touch that, you little jerk!" John said, pointing to one of the levers.
He then showed Pierre and Henry one of the buttons on the locomotive's driving station.
"That was Don't touch that, you little jerk! too"
Then gathered around the driver and his station in the locomotive's cab, the three guards saw through the windshield that some people had parked near the fork and were busy with some kind of lever.
"Hey, what's the lever over there?" Pierre asked the driver.
"The switch…" the latter replied nervously.
Pierre took his radio.
"Boss. Three people are tampering with the switch."
"Make them move away!" Torres ordered them.
"How?" John asked, standing next to Pierre.
"Shoot in their direction! Hurry!"
John looked around the inside of the locomotive. He didn't see how he could shoot the trio.
"How can I do that?!" He exclaimed, looking at his two companions.
Henry responded with a shrug. Meanwhile, the train hadn't slowed down and they were now close enough for the three guards to recognize those at the lever.
"Wait, isn't that Dearing and her boyfriend?" John pointed out aloud.
With their radio being still on, Torres heard them.
"What?!"
"Push!" Claire said as the lever resisted, creaking under their assault.
Owen couldn't help but stare at the approaching Shitpiercer.
"Come on! Come on! Come on!"
He, Claire and Franklin then pushed with all their strength and just in time, the lever finally moved, changing the switch. The next moment, the train's locomotive passed the switch lever and the trio, deafening them and sending a great rush of air into their faces. The train went straight ahead, on the main track, heading towards the Celeste Gorges as planned. From one of the windows of the passenger car attached behind the generator car, which itself followed the locomotive, Torres had given the couple a look filled with frustration and hatred. The train moving too quickly, they had not seen him.
"We did it!" Claire exclaimed with relief as the shipping containers passed before their eyes.
"We saved them. Let's go fix our own problems now," Owen suggested.
"If it means getting out of life and death situations, I'm all for it," Franklin said.
Claire nodded and they got back into their jeep. Following the maintenance track along the rail, they began to drive parallel to the Shitpiercer.
"Have you seen their jeep?" Henry asked his two companions. "It looked like a cauliflower!"
"But wait, we're continuing on the right track," Pierre pointed out. "Does that mean the switch was set incorrectly? And that they helped us?"
"It seems to be the case," John said. "If I knew the idiot who changed it!"
He took his radio and informed Torres of the situation.
"False alarm, boss. In fact, they put us back on the right track."
"I don't give a fuck! They are dangerous fugitives, saboteurs and killers! They must not board this train! They have to be stopped!"
Torres ended the communication on his end. John looked out the window.
"Anyway, they're far behind us now. It's up to the chums to take care of them."
"You believe in that story of dangerous fugitives?" Peter asked him.
"To be honest, I don't give a fuck about their crap... I'm not paid for that."
"What do we do now?!" Franklin asked the couple, shouting to be heard above the noise made by the train a few meters away from them.
"We're trying to find the road!" Claire replied. "We're heading to the police station in town!"
"There! A fork!" Owen suddenly exclaimed a few seconds later.
Looking down the track, Claire noticed that it did indeed split in two a little further on, with the lane on the right descending into a tunnel. Recalling the map of the surroundings, the fallen park director knew that the ridge to their right separated them from Cedral and supposed that this tunnel led to the road connecting the latter to Burgo Nuevo. But as they were about to take that lane, they suddenly saw headlights in the tunnel. Unaware of who was approaching and whether the tunnel was wide enough to allow two vehicles to pass each other, they stopped just in front of the fork. As the last cars of the Shitpiercer passed them, the other vehicle moved into the daylight, revealing itself to be a green-grey humvee. On board were individuals wearing bulletproof vests over familiar midnight blue uniforms.
"Shit! Torres' soldiery!" The keeper realized.
Claire pressed the accelerator pedal and their jeep sped along the maintenance track, continuing to follow the valley. Reaching the top of the slope, InGen's humvee turned and sped after them. With its windows rolled down, its passengers pulled their upper bodies out of the car, aimed their weapons at the trio's jeep, and fired. Owen and Franklin ducked and the bullets narrowly missed their target.
"They're shooting at us!" Franklin shouted.
"Thanks, we had noticed that!" Claire answered.
When the InGen soldiers sent another salvo, she accelerated and said:
"They'll soon puncture our wheels at this rate! Someone use the shotgun!"
"It's a sawed off shotgun, we're too far to fire with it," Owen pointed out, taking instead the pistol.
After checking it, he turned to their pursuers and fired, aiming at the front wheels and not the soldiers themselves. If they killed them, they would give credence to Torres' version of events. When they retaliated, he immediately took cover and waited for another opportunity. In the meantime, they had almost caught up with the train. Suddenly the door at the back of the last car, an old passenger carriage similar to the one Torres was in, opened and a man with a balding head and light brown clothes stepped onto the small platform which could be found there. The trio recognized him. Wheatley.
Having seen who was in the jeep following the train, the mercenary leader drew his handgun and aimed at them.
"But what is he doing?!" Franklin asked in a worried tone.
They heard a series of gunshots and bullets hit the track just in front of the jeep and the front of its hood.
"That was for Stan!" The mercenary leader shouted at them harshly.
Realizing why he was shooting them, the couple and Franklin adopted a shocked expression.
"Great! Torres also pitted Wheatley against us!" Owen observed.
"But we didn't killed him! Torres' assassins did!" The IT technician complained.
"Good luck for convincing him of that!" Claire said before accelerating, in order to pass the caboose and the mercenaries it contained as quickly as possible.
A little further on, on a promontory overlooking the railway line and the valley it followed, Jeremy Rankin was scanning the landscape with his binoculars. The mercenary's gaze was fixed on the east, where the destroyed viaduct stood. From time to time, he gazed at the jungle and pastures on the opposite side of the valley, eagerly awaiting the moment when he would see the long form of the Shitpiercer advancing at full speed towards the doom he had reserved for it. The English mercenary was not alone. Next to him were three other men. There was another Briton, William McSweeney, a forty-something, slightly stout, bespectacled man of average height; Dr. Erik Scherrer, a tall lanky middle-aged brown-haired man with a goatee, added to the team by Rankin's current employers; and Adrian Bentley, a handsome thirtyish man with dark hair and an unshaven face. Where the first two were also scanning the surroundings for the train, the third was drinking from its flask. Rankin let out a small sigh at this sight and recalled the day he and his team recruited the ex-InGen Security employee.
They had found him in a seedy bar in the middle of nowhere in the Costa Rican countryside, drunk and having a quarrel with the owner who was telling him to go home to the United States and find a job. It was two weeks before and since then Adrian had told them about the InGen facilities, the equipment and strategies of the security division forces, the information sent to him by his former colleague Benito… Rankin had met with the latter ten days earlier in a café in Burgo Nuevo, near the Cañada de las águilas hotel. That same morning, the ex-secret agent had been surprised to see Claire Dearing across the street while he was sitting quietly in the cafe and waiting for Benito.
Turning away from the American, Rankin turned south, where the last three members of his team, British too, were deployed.
"I see the train!" McSweeney suddenly exclaimed while looking north.
Rankin turned to his compatriot and long-time colleague.
"Where is it?"
"On the wrong track..."
Rankin approached the other mercenary briskly and through his binoculars he saw the Shitpiercer coming from the north, rolling on the main track and not the one that led to the broken viaduct.
"How is it possible?" McSweeney asked.
"Someone got wind of our plan!" Rankin exclaimed irritably.
He turned to Adrian and gave him an accusing look.
"Don't look at me like that. I didn't tell Benito about the switch. I swear it," the former InGen employee argued.
Rankin looked north again.
"Plan B! Unleash the Buzzards!" he ordered.
McSweeney then picked up a phone, wrote a short message, and sent it.
"Everyone in the jeep!" Rankin said to his three companions. "Let's take a closer look at this hunt..."
They descended from the promontory, got into their jeep parked nearby and driving down the slope, they headed for the railway line.