It'll be like a video game (3)
Chapter 3
Ariadne really had outdone herself, Eames thought as he ambled his way through the maze. The ruins looked suitably deserted and so there should be no projections for Eames to deal with. Arthur was the dreamer and Ariadne was up top keeping an eye on everyone in Ahuatzin’s apartment.
His mind was already shifting through his readings on Teotihuacan deities when there was the distant sound of gunshots. Eames froze. The radio strapped to his hip crackled he scrabbled for it, “Arthur?”
“Hey, Yeah. Eames, you’re not arachnophobic are you?”
Eames frowned, “No- Why?”
“Don’t worry just yet. Can you meet me at the base of the Temple of the Sun?”
“Certainly.” Eames paused, “You did say she wasn’t militarized Arthur…”
“Yeah.” He sounded annoyed now, “I know. Meet you in fifteen. Over and out.” Then the radio clicked and the static was gone.
Eames made his way quickly to the Temple of the Sun at the center of the ruins. There were no more gunshots, for which he was grateful. He spotted Arthur at the steps of the Temple looking flushed and anxious. Eames opened his mouth to speak but Arthur cut him off, “She’s not militarized. I checked.” He swatted at his neck and Eames slowed his pace, Arthur was practically in the center of a mosquito swarm. He sighed, “It’s just her projections.”
Eames arched an eyebrow, “You fired your weapon because of some mosquitos Arthur?”
Arthur shot Eames a look, “Hardly, there was- Shit!” Arthur drew his glock and fired several shots to Eames’ left.
Eames kept very still until Arthur was quite done, then turned, “Good Lord.” Several paces from him, having just come out of the underbrush, was a massive spider. A horror-movie sized spider. About the size of a great dane. Its head area was a mess of brown pulp courtesy of Arthur. “You’re sure this isn’t militarization arthur?”
Arthur, who was in the process of reloading, scowled, “No. You didn’t want humans, cool. But she’ll still fill in projections. So, here we go.” He gestured at the dead beast, “Spiders. Thanks.”
“Alright," Eames said turning away from the thing, "well we just need to get to the Main Temple before they catch up.”
“Yeah. Now let’s get moving.” Arthur jammed his handguns into his hip holsters and began the climb up the stairs.
They came across another nest of spiders. Arthur had his aim trained on the largest of them when another smaller spider went straight for Arthur. Eames used his whip to drag it back so Arthur could take his shot then turn and kill the small one. Eames did his fair share of damage. The spiders were tough, but his cutlass was able to get through their bodies after a few hacks.
"Arthur, love you did check if she was militarized or not?" Eames said panting.
Arthur snapped his head around and glared at Eames. "Yes. I checked. She wasn't militarized."
"Alright." Eames tried desperately to keep calm. Their plan did not account for projection violence. Unless...
"Fuck." Eames huffed out.
"What Eames. Spit it out."
"Well. The Goddess of Teotihuaca is related to several animals, spiders are just one of them. It probably why Ahuatzin's brought spiders in as projections."
Arthur narrowed his eyes, "What other animals was she associated with Eames?"
Eames pouted, "Owls," Arthur nodded, "and uh jaguars." Arthur scowled.
"Are they gonna be jumbo sized?"
"Who knows. I've never seen this before."
"Fuck. Eames." Arthur gave him a plaintive look, "You're supposed to be the psychologist. Why didn't you psychologize this?"
"That's not really a word--?
"No." Arthur snapped, "I'm so tired of...this was supposed to be a cake walk. I'm so fucking sick of being gored through and tortured and shot and thrown around in microgravity. I just want to get the job, do some cool stuff and get the hell out of dodge. This was not supposed to be so difficult." Arthur looked pained. Eames had had some unpleasant experiences in the dream-scape, who hadn't in the business, but Arthur had been tagging behind Cobb with his neurosis and violent guilt. So Arthur had probably gotten more than his fair share of violent deaths.
"Look. It's fine." Eames said placatingly "We just really need to get to the dais by sundown."
"Why by sundown?" Arthur squinted at the dream-sky.
"Well, those creatures, are underworld and nighttime beasts. We've got spiders now, but it might be a lot worse once it gets dark."
Arthur sighed, "Alright. Let's get this done."
As they ran towards the main temple, Eames wondered how he had pegged Dr. Ahuatzin so poorly. His mind went to the various images of her deep in thought and realized that instead of mulling over the minutiae of her archeological sites, she must have just been bloody daydreaming. Nothing else could explain such an active imagination.
Eames hacked into the nearest spider. In an attempt to lighten the mood he said, “You see Arthur? Guns are noisy.” Eames grunted with the effort of dislodging his cutlass. “Where as Indiana’s weapon of choice is silent but deadly.”
“What a fart?” Arthur muttered while reloading.
Eames laughed, "I know you enjoy being Laurence Croft, Arthur. You don't have to lie to me."
Even covered in spider gore, Arthur looked excited. "Shut up," he said with a grin.
They banked around a corner and Eames was so focused on recreating the maze’s layout in his mind that he was badly startled when Arthur dragged him into an alcove and slapped a palm over his mouth. Once Arthur removed his hand, Eames mouthed “Jaguar?” Arthur nodded and Eames sighed.
He took a peek around the corner and retracted himself immediately. The spiders had been bad, massive buggers. But the jaguar snoozing in the middle of the hall was the size of a Range Rover, and that was lying down. Eames was really not in the mood to be mauled to death. This job really wasn’t worth that sort of PTSD. He wanted to ask Arthur again whether he had checked if the mark was militarized thoroughly, but Eames knew that he was deflecting. The spiders hadn’t all been predatory. Quite a lot of them ignored the pair as they passed. When they did attack they focused on both Eames and Arthur rather than on just Arthur who was the dreamer. Ergo, these were likely not militarized projections. If they were, they were poorly militarized and whoever had done it would have been picked up by Arthur. But Arthur didn’t find anything and so that could only mean a really good militarization, and the argument went round and round. Dr. Ahuatzin really just had some creative projections and Eames, who had been studying the woman had missed on the rampant creativity and wild imagination. Therefore any mauling he experienced his own fault.
He whispered to Arthur, “Jaguars are solitary right?”
Arthur scowled, “How should I know?”
“I don’t know. You know everything. I just thought. Hopefully there’s just one.”
“Eames I really don’t want to get eaten to death. I'm just...Any form of dismemberment is just- no.”
“Alright, alright. We’ll just shoot it.”
Arthur looked down at the pistols holstered against his thighs, then gave Eames an arch look. Right, jaguar beats tiny guns. Eames could dream up something bigger, but then that would really grab more attention. How the jaguar had been able to sleep through their previous gun shots was beyond Eames, but it provided further evidence against militarization. Suddenly Eames smiled and dreamed up a blow gun and several darts. “You know how to use that?” Arthur's expression was skeptical.
“Of course. It’s a dream.”
Eames loaded the dart, careful to avoid the tip; they were dreamed up to be covered in dart frog poison. He’d seen it in a documentary once. Eames aimed and got a dart into the beasts’ flank. It was awake immediately, on it’s feet with a snarl. Eames leaned out and shot it once more while it’s back was turned and then retreated further into the alcove. They could hear jaguar snarling and pacing. Then it’s pacing became staggered and then there was the sound of something heavy falling onto the ground.
They peered out of the alcove and when the jaguar didn’t move they darted off down the corridor.
“That was anti-climactic,” Arthur muttered.
“Did you want something more exciting, Arthur?”
They reached the main chamber. Spread across the wall in brilliant hues was a massive fresco that had certainly not appeared in any of the magazine clippings. In the center was a figure with yellow skin and to her right and left were two attendants. Ahuatzin’s notes were scrawled over the wall in her round bubbly penmanship which Eames had not expected, but was certainly a boon.
Eames focused all of his attention on the fresco, noting the creatures around the figure the doctor labeled as "Gran Diosa de Teotihuancan". The arrows pointing to the Goddess’s noseplate was labeled “mandíbulas”. An arrow pointed above the Spider Woman’s head-piece indicating that the “árbol del mundo” was missing. Smaller cramped writing outlining particular myths and deities that aspects of the fresco alluded to. It went on and on. Eames almost felt a little bad that they were stealing something Ahuatzin had poured her heart into. Eames had been so engrossed in applying Ahuatzin’s notes to memory that he’d all but forgotten about Arthur who had been watching his six.
“Shit.” A gunshot, and then the clatter of a gun falling to the stone floor.
Eames swung around to see Arthur clutching his arm to his chest. A massive spider with its head blown open lay at his feet. “Oh dear. Did it…?.”
“Bite.” Arthur was already looking pale. Eames steadied him on his feet. “Go.” He waved his arm towards the fresco and then swayed alarmingly, “Finish. We don’t have…time.” Arthur shook his head as if dislodging cobwebs. “Fuck. It really got me. Could feel the…”
“Alright love.” Eames took Arthur by the shoulders and guided him to sit on the ground by the fresco. Arthur was beginning to look ashen and his face was twisted in pain. “Do you want me to-?”
Arthur shook his head vehemently, “Finish the job. I don’t want to come back down here. Fucking-“ Arthur panted and rested his head against the wall. Eames felt terrible leaving him there to suffer, but he turned to the wall and memorized Ahuatzin’s notes as quickly as possible. Arthur’s breaths came out in wheezes, then moans before he stopped making a sound all together.
Immediately the dream began to shake. Eames kept his focus trained on the notes. There were so many he probably wouldn’t get them all. This was Ahuatzin’s life and he had twenty minutes to get it all- The dream was collapsing now a crack ran up the center of the fresco and the pyramid split in two and crumbled.
Being crushed to death was incredibly unpleasant.
When Eames woke up he took one deep breath of air. Relishing the feeling of his very whole ribs expanding easily and unflattened lungs taking in air rather than choking on dust. He flexed his hands and feet.
Ariadne was peering at him concerned. “You alright? Arthur woke up and darted off to the bathroom looking really sick. Did something go wrong?”
“Well, I got the information if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Ariadne gave him a look, “You know that’s not what I’m worried about.”
“Had a bit of trouble with the projections, love”
Ariadne looked alarmed, “You said there’d-“
“I know what I said.” Eames snapped. He had felt his skull fracture in the end. He closed his eyes and willed those thoughts away. When he opened them again Ariadne was still looking at him with concern, not the least bit deterred by Eames’ outburst. “I told you it didn’t always work didn’t I?”
“I suppose." she reached out to touch him and he shied away. She frowned, "Are you alright though?”
Eames waved her away, “I’ll be right as rain.”
Arthur emerged from the bathroom looking better than he had towards the end of the dream, “Got what we needed?”
“Of course.” Eames replied. Arthur nodded and went to check on Ahuatzin and unplug her from the PASIV. The three of them cleaned all evidence of their visit in silence and left the apartment one at a time.
Chapter 4