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| 2.01. Chapter 01 – “A Rock and a Hard Place” |
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Nathan Drake awakens on a train. A flickering light swings overhead. Curtains
lining the windows have been ripped and torn. Nathan holds his head and groans.
Nathan: What’s going on…?
Nathan groans again. He looks down and notices his hands are covered in blood
and he is wounded in the stomach.
Nathan: That’s my blood… That’s my blood, that’s a lot of my blood…
Nathan rests his head back on the seat and looks out the window. Outside, he
sees a snowy cliff.
Nathan: What…?
He quickly ducks to the side as a wooden crate and an oil drum flies past him.
He looks back and sees the oil drum falling out the back of the train behind
him.
Nathan: Oh God.
His chair starts to break away. Nathan jumps out of his seat and grabs hold of
the seat in front of him as his seat falls away. He loses his grip and falls
through the train carriage.
Nathan: (screams)
Nathan lands on the handrail on the outside of the carriage and quickly grabs
hold of it.
Nathan: Oh, crap.
The train carriage is teetering over the edge of a cliff. A fire burns on the
mountains nearby.
Nathan starts climbing up the side of the train’s chassis. The train shakes
and a large boulder falls from the edge of the cliffs above. Part of the pipe
starts to break away.
Nathan: …It’s ok… it’s ok… come on…
The pipe twists to the side. It swings round and slams Nathan into the side of
the train. Nathan climbs round to the roof of the train and climbs back into
the carriage.
Nathan climbs through the carriage and back outside. As he nears the top of
the carriage, the carriage edges closer over the cliff. A door on the side
of the carriage swings open and luggage falls out.
Nathan climbs onto the second carriage on the edge of the cliff. He runs
through the carriage and leaps out of it as the train falls over the edge.
Nathan pulls himself up onto the cliff and rolls onto his back, gasping for
breath. He loses consciousness and flashes back to the past.
In his flashback, Nathan is sitting at a bar on a beach by the ocean, drinking
a bottle of beer. A man walks up to him and leans on the bar.
Harry: Buy me a drink, sailor?
Nathan: Harry Flynn?! Hey!
Harry: Hey!
Nathan gives Harry a quick hug.
Nathan: What the hell are you doing here?
Harry: I’m looking for you, mate.
Nathan: Uh-oh. Should I be flattered, or worried?
Harry grabs the bottle of beer on the bar.
Harry: Maybe a bit of both.
Nathan: (laughs)
Harry: C’mere –
Harry and Nathan sit down at a small wooden table nearby.
Harry: I’ve got a job for us.
Nathan: Really?
Harry: A client is willing to part with a huge sum of cash if we ‘acquire’ a
certain object for him.
Nathan: All right, I’m listening.
Harry: Now – you’re not gonna like this.
Harry puts a pamphlet down on the table.
Nathan: Oh, no. No, you’re out of your mind.
Nathan pushes the pamphlet away.
Harry: Yeah, just – just hear me out for a sec –
Nathan: Flynn, we both know two people who were killed trying to lift something
outta this place.
Harry: And one who made it out.
Nathan: Yeah, barely.
Harry: I can’t do this without you, Drake. You’re the only one who’s cracked
it. And you know better than anyone, it’s a two-person job.
Nathan: No, no, no – three, actually.
Harry: Right. And speak of the devil – here she comes now.
A woman walks over to the table.
Nathan: Wh -?
Chloe: Chloe Frazer.
Nathan shakes Chloe’s hand.
Nathan: Nate. Drake. Nathan Drake.
Chloe walks around Harry, brushing one hand along his neck.
Chloe: Hello, Harry.
Harry: Chloe here’s one of the best drivers in the business – she’ll take good
care of us.
Chloe sits down at the table.
Nathan: I bet.
Harry: All right, look – I’ve got it all figured out. We go in through the
sewer –
Nathan: Loving it so far.
Harry: That puts us in the courtyard. From there we scale up the wall, run
across the rooftops, and just drop down into the exhibit hall. Bob’s your
uncle. And what is worth all this trouble, I hear you ask…?
Nathan: I didn’t, but go ahead.
Harry turns the page and points to a lamp in the corner of the page, circled
in red pen.
Nathan: That’s it? An oil lamp?
Harry shows Nathan a photo of the same oil lamp.
Harry: Yeah.
Nathan: It’s worthless. I don’t get it.
Chloe: Neither do we. That’s why we tracked you down.
Nathan: Well, it sounds like you’re working for a nutcase. Some collector,
who’s got too much time and money on his hands. And by the way, this – is not
worth any of it.
Harry: But there’s more… How’s your 13th-century Latin, mate?
Harry gives Nathan another piece of paper with a paragraph written in Latin.
Nathan: Where’d you get this?
Harry: ‘Borrowed’ it from the files of the nutcase.
Nathan: ‘In Trebizond we were set upon by thieves. Father, Maffeo and I were
robbed of our greatest treasures…’ This was written by Marco Polo.
Chloe: Yes, that much we were able to work out.
Harry: Unfortunately, the rest of it’s nonsense.
Nathan: Wait, hold on… ‘So that it should not fall into the wrong hands, I
concealed my great sorrow in the unlikeliest place. The light of the Great
Khan shelters the fate of the thirteen.’
Harry: See what I mean? It’s just gibberish.
Chloe: He’s talking about the lost fleet.
Nathan: Yeah…
Harry: Hello, someone want to fill me in?
Nathan: Marco Polo leaves China with 600 passengers and fourteen ships, loaded
down with treasure from Kublai Khan. Now, he lands in Persia a year and a half
later with only one ship left, and only eighteen passengers. Now, he recorded
every detail of his journey but he never told what happened to all those ships,
and the passengers.
Chloe: So – so, somewhere out there – there are thirteen ships, loaded with
the emperor’s treasure, waiting to be found.
Nathan: Yeah, and that is what your client is after.
Nathan holds up the photo of the oil lamp.
Nathan: Look at this lamp. It’s covered in Mongolian script – it must’ve been
a gift from Kublai Khan.
Harry: ‘The light of the Great Khan – shelters the fate of the thirteen.’
Chloe: ‘…shelters the fate of the thirteen.’
Nathan: Marco Polo hid something inside this lamp. Something that pinpoints
the site of the lost fleet.
Chloe: So… we’re dicking this guy over, right?
Nathan: Damn straight!
Harry: Absolutely!
Harry stands up from the table.
Harry: You in, then?
Chloe also stands.
Nathan: What the hell.
Nathan stands up.
Nathan: What could possibly go wrong?
They clink their bottles together and start drinking.
