Rhapsody in Blue: Part Seven (a)
Author's Note: This post is going to be like the last one because there's to much text in my section to post all at once.
Part Six (b)
Part Seven (a)
(Na Na Na)
Everything was set and ready. Ariadne had presented Fischer with the book about Abraham Lincoln after he’d returned from getting dinner. He’d read it excitedly and was about halfway through the large biography by the time the couple was on their way back to the states. Robert and Ariadne got into the country at five fifteen in the evening. They made their way to the Fischer estate and were almost unpacked by seven. Ariadne expected Robert to be tired. She was tired, not that that had anything to do with the flight. But, they had taken a nine hour flight. Fischer was bound to be exhausted.
Thankfully, Robert was tired and was pondering sleep. Ariadne helped him along with things by drugging his orange juice with a light sedative to get him to sleep. After Fischer was passed out on his bed, Ariadne set herself to work. She spoke with Robert’s assistant Andy, telling him that under no circumstances should Robert be woken up during the night, and that they were extremely tired from their flight. He asked her about emergencies, she told him she hoped there wouldn’t be any. She then called Eames who said he and Arthur would be there by nine o’clock and would park out on the main road so that the staff wouldn’t get suspicious about an unknown vehicle. Ariadne then went about making sure that no one would see them come in. PASIV devices weren’t the most inconspicuous things in the business world and it would be best that no one spotted it when it was carried in.
Eames and Arthur arrived on time and were ushered in the back door by Ariadne. She smiled at them both with tight lips as they came.
When they were all set up, conversation began. The PASIV was set up on the foot of Ariadne’s side of the bed. It was open and ready, with the timers flashing the dream time they had selected for her, Robert, and Eames. Ariadne sat on the bed with her hands folded in her lap. She looked at Eames and Arthur. Their gaze shifted back and forth between her and Fischer’s sleeping figure.
“You remember all the plans, right?” Ariadne asked Eames.
Eames nodded and pointed to his head. “It’s all in here,” he said smiling. Then a cloud of confusion went over his face and he looked to Ariadne with a more serious expression. “Ari, are you sure you want to do this…? I know we talked about it a little bit but, they don’t exactly know what effect the Somnacin will have on….you…”
Ariadne nodded her head and looked to Arthur. He looked as if he was trying not to read into what Eames was saying. She assumed that he didn’t know about the child, and only about her and Robert’s relationship. “This is more important than that…. You’ll never get through to him if I’m not there…. And I need to do this. I read about it, there nothing that shows it will hurt anything. It will be okay. And if it isn’t then I’ll deal with that when the time is right…”
“Okay,” Arthur said as he looked at his watch. “It’s time, we need to do this before Fischer wakes up…”
Both Ariadne and Eames nodded. Eames got out of the chair he was sitting in across the room and came to take a seat on the floor next to the bed. Ariadne pulled two lines out of the PASIV. She connected one gingerly to Robert’s wrist and one to her own. Quietly, she lied down and closed her eyes.
Arthur helped Eames get set and when both Ariadne and Eames were ready he cleared his throat. “Are you guys ready to do this?”
“Yes,” Ariadne said in unison with Eames.
Arthur nodded and pressed the button, sending the Somnacin into their veins. “Good luck,” was the last thing Ariadne heard.
Ariadne opened her eyes, hoping that Eames would not be in the room with her and Robert. Sure enough, she and Robert were the only ones in the room. She let out a sigh of relief and looked to Robert. He was ‘waking’ as well and sat up in bed. “Good morning, sunshine.” He said as he stretched his legs and snuggled a little closer to Ariadne.
Smiling, Ariadne said her good morning with a kiss she pressed to his cheek. He grinned and yawned before adjusting his pajamas. The pajamas that he had on were none that Ariadne had seen before. They were light blue with skinny dark blue pinstripes running down them vertically. She shrugged to herself as he climbed out of bed and pressed the tips of his fingers together. She assumed his subconscious created them for the dream, even though he had yet to realize he was dreaming.
Robert tipped his head to the side and thought. Ariadne smiled. This was exactly what he did on days that he didn’t have to work. He would stare at her and tip his head to the side, thinking. Then he would leave the room for his traditional cup of decaf coffee and then head to the music room to practice his piano. “I’m going to go practice,” he said, all smiles and boyish charm.
Ariadne nodded her approval and then sat up. She watched Robert leave the room. As the door closed behind him, she listened until she could no longer hear his steps in the hall. After half a second she closed her eyes and pictured herself in a light blue summer dress. When she opened her eyes she was wearing it. Quickly, Ariadne left the room running.
Robert got his cup of coffee without any problems. As per usual someone who worked in the business wing of the house had already made a strong cup that had been brewing half the morning.
With his classic blue coffee mug in his hand, Robert walked to the music room while being careful not to spill his beverage. He reached the room with no problems and found it looking as it usually did on his midmorning practice sessions. Gently, he placed his mug on the floor about a foot away from the piano bench. He looked around and smiled. The lighting in this room was always perfect for mornings. The light was strong without being overpowering.
He inhaled gleefully and placed his fingers on the keys of the large black instrument. After a quick second he decided that he’d like to start with something powerful. He quickly decided that Liszt would do.
He played for maybe twenty seconds before things began to get weird. The longer Fischer played the quieter the piano became. It had started strong enough, but soon became so silent that he couldn’t hear anything coming for the piano at all. He stopped. With his hands still on the keys he slammed down quickly, forcefully, as if not playing hard enough was his problem. Despite his desperate banging, no sound escaped the instrument.
Robert sighed and looked around the room. All was silent for a long moment, and then, out of the silence, came music. It was an odd sort of music that reminded Robert of old black and white movies about cowboys drinking in saloons. The music sound like it was coming from a slinky upright player piano that no one had ever tuned.
He stood and stepped up to the side of the piano. Robert looked left and right, feeling that a joke might be brewing somewhere. He lifted the piano lid and was suddenly hit with a gush of wind as well as further music. It was where he was hearing the music from. His eyebrows went up. “This is ridiculous,” he said as he looked into the piano.
Surprisingly, he did not see the normal strings and hammers that should have been inside. Instead he saw a deep dark blackness. Through the darkness he spotted one small flickering light.
He had no clue why, but for some reason he felt the need to climb into the piano. He felt the need to explore what was going on under the house, under his house. So, he did. With a grunt, he placed his right leg into the piano and managed to fall in. After falling through what felt like at least twelve feet of air, he hit a soft surface that smelled of fresh grass.
The light was still flickering ahead of him and he went toward it. As he went on, a tiny winding path met him and he decided to follow it. It was going in the same direction he was, toward the faint glimmer.
The path reminded him of a small cobblestone street that one might find in Europe. It was quaint and littered with mismatched stones. His bare feet grew only a little cold as he walked on. A few moments passed. Looking behind him, Robert realized that the path had been slowly sloping downward. He’d come over a hill and was now going straight into a valley. At either side of him were hills of dark green grass. The grass waved in the light breeze like a living ocean.
It was then that Robert noticed the table. At the very end of the path up ahead there was a tiny café table. Atop the table was the small flickering candle he’d seen so far back. The table was covered with a red and white checkered cotton table cloth. Sitting on top of the table cloth was a cake. The cake was chocolate and round, and had an unlit candle sticking out of the top of it. The candle was blue. Seated at the table were two figures. The first was a woman who was hunched over the menu and was looking at him. The woman was Ariadne, and she smiled at him as he came closer. The other person seated across from Ari was a man who looked vaguely familiar.
Ariadne nudged Eames under the table. Eames turned and stroked his beard. He’d been good at keeping the Abe Lincoln character going, even while they were just waiting for Robert to show. Ariadne watched Robert approach the table. He had a curious expression on his face and came right up to them. “Sit down, Robert,” Ariadne said as she pushed a stool out from underneath the table with her foot.
Robert eyed Eames and did as he was told. He hunched over the table and looked down at the cake. “Is this for me…?” He asked with wonderment shown all over his face.
Ariadne nodded and whipped out a pack of matches. She lit the candle and smiled to Robert. “It sure is, happy birthday, darling!”
Fischer smiled but then replaced the grin with the previous quizzical look. “It’s my birthday?”
“You might say that, but,” Ariadne smiled and gestured to Eames, “my friend and I were hearing things through the grapevine…” Ariadne took a long whimsical second to point out an antique radio that sat next to the table. Robert hadn’t noticed it before. “You know, the war effort is going on right now…. And we need intelligence. But there’s one problem…”
Robert looked fully immersed in the world they had created for him. “What’s that?” He asked as he leaned as close to Ariadne as he could.
She smiled, “Your cell phone, your Blackberry. It has very important messages on it, and it is imperative that we find it, that you find it. Word has it that another colleague of mine, Mr. Washington, picked it up while he was in his garden planting cherry trees. We believe he’s taken it to the bank in the center of town. It is our job to help you find it…”
“But Ariadne, the town, I don’t know what this town is how will I get there? I don’t kn--”
“Ssshhhh,” she said, scooting closer to Robert. “My codename here is Alice, be sure to call me by it…. And because you seem to like top hats so much you will be hatter.” At this point in the conversation Robert looked down at his attire to find that he was now wearing a suit and a top hat that was far too large for his head. “And this,” Ariadne gestured to Eames, “is honest Abe…”
“Like Abe Lincoln…?”
“No, no,” she said. Eames shook his head for a compounded effect. “He’s just Honest Abe, but you can call him Abraham if you want…”
Robert nodded. “Okay,” he said. He looked more and more confused by the second.
Ariadne smiled, she was happy that Robert was playing exactly into their hands.
Part Seven (b)
Part Six (b)
Part Seven (a)
(Na Na Na)
Everything was set and ready. Ariadne had presented Fischer with the book about Abraham Lincoln after he’d returned from getting dinner. He’d read it excitedly and was about halfway through the large biography by the time the couple was on their way back to the states. Robert and Ariadne got into the country at five fifteen in the evening. They made their way to the Fischer estate and were almost unpacked by seven. Ariadne expected Robert to be tired. She was tired, not that that had anything to do with the flight. But, they had taken a nine hour flight. Fischer was bound to be exhausted.
Thankfully, Robert was tired and was pondering sleep. Ariadne helped him along with things by drugging his orange juice with a light sedative to get him to sleep. After Fischer was passed out on his bed, Ariadne set herself to work. She spoke with Robert’s assistant Andy, telling him that under no circumstances should Robert be woken up during the night, and that they were extremely tired from their flight. He asked her about emergencies, she told him she hoped there wouldn’t be any. She then called Eames who said he and Arthur would be there by nine o’clock and would park out on the main road so that the staff wouldn’t get suspicious about an unknown vehicle. Ariadne then went about making sure that no one would see them come in. PASIV devices weren’t the most inconspicuous things in the business world and it would be best that no one spotted it when it was carried in.
Eames and Arthur arrived on time and were ushered in the back door by Ariadne. She smiled at them both with tight lips as they came.
When they were all set up, conversation began. The PASIV was set up on the foot of Ariadne’s side of the bed. It was open and ready, with the timers flashing the dream time they had selected for her, Robert, and Eames. Ariadne sat on the bed with her hands folded in her lap. She looked at Eames and Arthur. Their gaze shifted back and forth between her and Fischer’s sleeping figure.
“You remember all the plans, right?” Ariadne asked Eames.
Eames nodded and pointed to his head. “It’s all in here,” he said smiling. Then a cloud of confusion went over his face and he looked to Ariadne with a more serious expression. “Ari, are you sure you want to do this…? I know we talked about it a little bit but, they don’t exactly know what effect the Somnacin will have on….you…”
Ariadne nodded her head and looked to Arthur. He looked as if he was trying not to read into what Eames was saying. She assumed that he didn’t know about the child, and only about her and Robert’s relationship. “This is more important than that…. You’ll never get through to him if I’m not there…. And I need to do this. I read about it, there nothing that shows it will hurt anything. It will be okay. And if it isn’t then I’ll deal with that when the time is right…”
“Okay,” Arthur said as he looked at his watch. “It’s time, we need to do this before Fischer wakes up…”
Both Ariadne and Eames nodded. Eames got out of the chair he was sitting in across the room and came to take a seat on the floor next to the bed. Ariadne pulled two lines out of the PASIV. She connected one gingerly to Robert’s wrist and one to her own. Quietly, she lied down and closed her eyes.
Arthur helped Eames get set and when both Ariadne and Eames were ready he cleared his throat. “Are you guys ready to do this?”
“Yes,” Ariadne said in unison with Eames.
Arthur nodded and pressed the button, sending the Somnacin into their veins. “Good luck,” was the last thing Ariadne heard.
Ariadne opened her eyes, hoping that Eames would not be in the room with her and Robert. Sure enough, she and Robert were the only ones in the room. She let out a sigh of relief and looked to Robert. He was ‘waking’ as well and sat up in bed. “Good morning, sunshine.” He said as he stretched his legs and snuggled a little closer to Ariadne.
Smiling, Ariadne said her good morning with a kiss she pressed to his cheek. He grinned and yawned before adjusting his pajamas. The pajamas that he had on were none that Ariadne had seen before. They were light blue with skinny dark blue pinstripes running down them vertically. She shrugged to herself as he climbed out of bed and pressed the tips of his fingers together. She assumed his subconscious created them for the dream, even though he had yet to realize he was dreaming.
Robert tipped his head to the side and thought. Ariadne smiled. This was exactly what he did on days that he didn’t have to work. He would stare at her and tip his head to the side, thinking. Then he would leave the room for his traditional cup of decaf coffee and then head to the music room to practice his piano. “I’m going to go practice,” he said, all smiles and boyish charm.
Ariadne nodded her approval and then sat up. She watched Robert leave the room. As the door closed behind him, she listened until she could no longer hear his steps in the hall. After half a second she closed her eyes and pictured herself in a light blue summer dress. When she opened her eyes she was wearing it. Quickly, Ariadne left the room running.
Robert got his cup of coffee without any problems. As per usual someone who worked in the business wing of the house had already made a strong cup that had been brewing half the morning.
With his classic blue coffee mug in his hand, Robert walked to the music room while being careful not to spill his beverage. He reached the room with no problems and found it looking as it usually did on his midmorning practice sessions. Gently, he placed his mug on the floor about a foot away from the piano bench. He looked around and smiled. The lighting in this room was always perfect for mornings. The light was strong without being overpowering.
He inhaled gleefully and placed his fingers on the keys of the large black instrument. After a quick second he decided that he’d like to start with something powerful. He quickly decided that Liszt would do.
He played for maybe twenty seconds before things began to get weird. The longer Fischer played the quieter the piano became. It had started strong enough, but soon became so silent that he couldn’t hear anything coming for the piano at all. He stopped. With his hands still on the keys he slammed down quickly, forcefully, as if not playing hard enough was his problem. Despite his desperate banging, no sound escaped the instrument.
Robert sighed and looked around the room. All was silent for a long moment, and then, out of the silence, came music. It was an odd sort of music that reminded Robert of old black and white movies about cowboys drinking in saloons. The music sound like it was coming from a slinky upright player piano that no one had ever tuned.
He stood and stepped up to the side of the piano. Robert looked left and right, feeling that a joke might be brewing somewhere. He lifted the piano lid and was suddenly hit with a gush of wind as well as further music. It was where he was hearing the music from. His eyebrows went up. “This is ridiculous,” he said as he looked into the piano.
Surprisingly, he did not see the normal strings and hammers that should have been inside. Instead he saw a deep dark blackness. Through the darkness he spotted one small flickering light.
He had no clue why, but for some reason he felt the need to climb into the piano. He felt the need to explore what was going on under the house, under his house. So, he did. With a grunt, he placed his right leg into the piano and managed to fall in. After falling through what felt like at least twelve feet of air, he hit a soft surface that smelled of fresh grass.
The light was still flickering ahead of him and he went toward it. As he went on, a tiny winding path met him and he decided to follow it. It was going in the same direction he was, toward the faint glimmer.
The path reminded him of a small cobblestone street that one might find in Europe. It was quaint and littered with mismatched stones. His bare feet grew only a little cold as he walked on. A few moments passed. Looking behind him, Robert realized that the path had been slowly sloping downward. He’d come over a hill and was now going straight into a valley. At either side of him were hills of dark green grass. The grass waved in the light breeze like a living ocean.
It was then that Robert noticed the table. At the very end of the path up ahead there was a tiny café table. Atop the table was the small flickering candle he’d seen so far back. The table was covered with a red and white checkered cotton table cloth. Sitting on top of the table cloth was a cake. The cake was chocolate and round, and had an unlit candle sticking out of the top of it. The candle was blue. Seated at the table were two figures. The first was a woman who was hunched over the menu and was looking at him. The woman was Ariadne, and she smiled at him as he came closer. The other person seated across from Ari was a man who looked vaguely familiar.
Ariadne nudged Eames under the table. Eames turned and stroked his beard. He’d been good at keeping the Abe Lincoln character going, even while they were just waiting for Robert to show. Ariadne watched Robert approach the table. He had a curious expression on his face and came right up to them. “Sit down, Robert,” Ariadne said as she pushed a stool out from underneath the table with her foot.
Robert eyed Eames and did as he was told. He hunched over the table and looked down at the cake. “Is this for me…?” He asked with wonderment shown all over his face.
Ariadne nodded and whipped out a pack of matches. She lit the candle and smiled to Robert. “It sure is, happy birthday, darling!”
Fischer smiled but then replaced the grin with the previous quizzical look. “It’s my birthday?”
“You might say that, but,” Ariadne smiled and gestured to Eames, “my friend and I were hearing things through the grapevine…” Ariadne took a long whimsical second to point out an antique radio that sat next to the table. Robert hadn’t noticed it before. “You know, the war effort is going on right now…. And we need intelligence. But there’s one problem…”
Robert looked fully immersed in the world they had created for him. “What’s that?” He asked as he leaned as close to Ariadne as he could.
She smiled, “Your cell phone, your Blackberry. It has very important messages on it, and it is imperative that we find it, that you find it. Word has it that another colleague of mine, Mr. Washington, picked it up while he was in his garden planting cherry trees. We believe he’s taken it to the bank in the center of town. It is our job to help you find it…”
“But Ariadne, the town, I don’t know what this town is how will I get there? I don’t kn--”
“Ssshhhh,” she said, scooting closer to Robert. “My codename here is Alice, be sure to call me by it…. And because you seem to like top hats so much you will be hatter.” At this point in the conversation Robert looked down at his attire to find that he was now wearing a suit and a top hat that was far too large for his head. “And this,” Ariadne gestured to Eames, “is honest Abe…”
“Like Abe Lincoln…?”
“No, no,” she said. Eames shook his head for a compounded effect. “He’s just Honest Abe, but you can call him Abraham if you want…”
Robert nodded. “Okay,” he said. He looked more and more confused by the second.
Ariadne smiled, she was happy that Robert was playing exactly into their hands.
Part Seven (b)