D'Autrefois - Chapter 10 - The kick
Title: D'Autrefois
Part II: Chapter 10: The kick
Author: koushi
Rating: R
Word count: 4633
Disclaimer: I do not own nor am I in any way affiliated with Inception and/or its creators.
The room was dimly lit, but he could discern her silhouette clearly against the backdrop of a curtained window. Mal was sitting on the bed and her back was facing him. She was mute and solemn, characteristics that had never previously described her.
Arthur walked in, careful not to disturb the heavy blanket of silence wrapped over the room like plastic wrap. One crinkle and he’d be discovered.
“Hello, Arthur,” she said, not even turning her head.
He froze. Caught. “Mal, chérie. Is anything wrong?”
“Everything is as it should be.” Where was the passion they were used to? She normally lunged at him with kisses, refusing to let go until the very last moment-when Cobb’s footsteps would be heard down the hall-the two of them wrapped together so tightly it was impossible to extricate one from the other.
“Well, that’s good to hear. I’m glad I got to see you today... it’s been awhile. I’ve missed you, baby...” He was met with no visible response.
“I’ve been keeping busy.” As cold as the icicle dripping from a winter branch.
He searched his mind for possible explanations. She could be moody at times, it was true, depending on the state of the often-strained relationship with her husband. But typically any marital strife was cured with the magic eraser of the PASIV. “Dreaming with... Dom again?” He wasn’t sure what took place in those sessions but was always appreciative of the resulting smile on her face.
“No, no. It’s over between us. He won’t listen to a word I say.”
“Huh? You decided to leave him after all?”
“Yes. I will be leaving him.” Arthur felt a jolt to his heart. Oh, can it be true?
“...And you.” What? “But I’ll see you both on the other side.” He was spurred into motion, making his way to her and joining her on the bed. But still Mal stared steadfastly ahead without even a glance of acknowledgement in his direction.
“What are you talking about, Mal? Where are you going?” There was something very wrong about this whole situation. He could feel the chill in his bones, pulling his leather jacket tighter around himself. How was she not freezing, sitting there unmoving in her sleeveless nightgown?
“Back where I came from. Back where I belong.” Homesick for Paris, maybe?
“Honey, what about Las Vegas? We were going to take a vacation there this summer; I already have the plane tickets and the reservation at the Excalibur.” Can she even hear me? “I thought you would have wanted to live in a castle, if only for a few nights.”
“I don’t regret our time together, Arthur. You helped me come to a realization.” No, I guess she can’t.
“Speak some sense, Mal. I have no idea what you’re on about.” He tried to put an arm around her, finding her skin icy to the touch. She finally reacted, shrugging him away firmly.
“Things will be fine. I will be with my children and my husband. My real husband. And I will no longer need to hide under the guise of lies.”
She’s always been a dreamer, an idealist, sort of off-kilter. But this...? This was like screaming at a soundproof box. “Mal, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you seen to have gotten much worse. Please, come with me and we can find you a therapist.”
“I’ve seen three already, Arthur. And I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m afraid I do not need you anymore... so this is goodbye. Goodbye and farewell.”
This is not how I expected it to end... In fact, I never thought it could end. “I can’t accept this, Mal. I can’t imagine losing you to some crazy fucking idea. Whatever it is that’s taken hold of you.” He tried again to wrap her within his arms, as if the nostalgic touch would rekindle what they’d lost.
She pushed him back tersely and stared at him with distant, lifeless eyes. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Arthur, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Mal stood and left the room, footsteps as light and airy as the floating of a phantasm.
Despite the unexplainable burial of their relationship, despite the feeling that this would be the last time, despite the violent cleaving of his insides in twain, Arthur couldn’t help his watering eyes from admiring her graceful form for his appreciation of all things beautiful. His aesthetic wouldn’t allow him to hold a grudge against a porcelain vase, to fume at a bouquet of arranged flowers, to scuff during the performance of a mesmerizing ballet. And never had he been witness to a more perfect work of art.
Two days later, he got the call. Cobb called him sobbing, begging for help, “She’s gone... she’s gone.”
He clutched his loaded die. He’d gambled on her and lost it all.
***
Arthur hated the kick. He hated waking up to the nauseating sensation of free-falling into nothingness, reaching out for something to grab hold of, but the ledge was always just inches too far from his fingertips. Worst of all, it now reminded me of how Mal must have felt, as she flew alone through the air. Where was her cloud when she needed it most, the one that allowed her to float leagues above the Earth? He wondered what her last thoughts were as she threw her head back for the final time, face upwards to the night sky as it slipped further and further away. Did she think about... him at that moment? Or had it been Cobb and only Cobb all along?
He then had to ask himself: If you had been in Cobb’s place, what would you have done? Would you have jumped after her? But he never had an answer. Because it never would have been him.
Stretching as he sat up, he pulled out the PASIV attachment from his wrist.
Despite it being a difficult subject to broach, he’d found it surprisingly easy to talk to Ariadne about Mal. Perhaps it, in a way, needed to come out. He already felt the knots in his muscles loosen, to a point he didn’t know was possible due to years of bearing that silent shame.
“You loved her so much,” Ariadne said wistfully as she, too, awakened. With her encouragement, they’d gone under together to experience the one memory he couldn’t put into words.
“Yeah... and I’d like to think that in her own eclectic way she loved me too,” he replied. “But I knew what I was getting into our first night alone together. She told me, ‘Nothing can destroy my love for my husband. This arrangement is purely one of necessity.’ But of course, I was stupid. I let the idea of ‘us’ run away with me like some goddamn Disney movie where I was the unknowing villain.”
“It wasn’t the best way of going about things, no. In fact, I am amazed that your relationship with Cobb isn’t in shambles,” Ariadne expressed honestly.
“I try not to think about it, but I definitely resented him for getting to her first. They weren’t right for each other-they enabled each other to drift away from reality even more than they had individually-but she was stuck... she believed that marital vows extended into perpetuity.”
“I-I believe that too,” Ariadne blurted out. “Call me old-fashioned, call me a Disney girl at heart, but I can’t help but believe that a promise is a promise.”
Arthur nodded slowly. “It certainly was the way I was raised as well. So I guess you end up adopting the beliefs that justify your own actions. The only way I could live with myself, as sickened as I was by my behavior, was to modify my moral code.”
“Look, I’m not here to chastise you,” she said. She’d been doing her best to remain calm, to forget her own trauma and jealousies, and to immerse herself in the job of being his security blanket. “What’s done is done. If you truly cared about her, you should care what she would want. And you know, Arthur, that she would want you to go on with your life.”
“Does that include confronting and making amends with Dom?” he asked apprehensively.
“I think she would have wanted that,” Ariadne mustered a smile. He returned it.
“They’re looking over here,” Arthur then said out of the blue.
Ariadne turned around to check out what he was talking about, but he took her by the chin and planted a kiss on her half-open lips. Thank you.
***
Eames had a hearty English breakfast of ham, two eggs sunny-side up, toast with marmalade, and deliciously saucy beans that morning: a sizable feast that left a whirlwind of pans and dishes littered around Ariadne’s kitchen. It takes quite an appetite to stomach working alongside Cobol agents after all.
While jet lag plagued the average traveler, Eames had no problem coping with the lack of sleep. In fact he believed the harsh strain on his senses made him better at his job, that his prowess in the dreamworld would help him pick up on signals that might escape someone of a sober mentality. It makes sense if you don’t think about it. This he affirmed as he wiggled into the Cobol t-shirt and torn jeans that were part of the dress code.
“I heard you jumping rope to Lady Gaga until late in the night... Are you sure it was a good idea creating even more of a challenge than was required?” Yusuf asked, his arms crossed and leaning against the door frame of Ariadne’s bedroom. His eyes twinkled in amused curiosity.
“Mm,” Eames said, examining himself in the full length mirror in front of the bed and straightening out the shoulder holster he’d be sporting under his outer coat. “I have everything under control. Don’t worry yourself, Yusuf, wrinkles are far from becoming.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you,” he retorted smugly.
“Oh?” Eames placed his hands on his hips in mock offense. “And what have I done to deserve this vote of confidence?”
Yusuf cleared his throat to ward off a laugh and announced, “Better give that fly a nice tug.”
Besides that one minor hitch, however, Eames’ day played out smoothly. Immediately upon entering the premises, he was escorted by several of his future co-workers to the back elevators, which were roped off from the public by a construction warning sign. Clever, he thought, making note of the fact. Different elevators for different areas of the building.
One of the escorts was a dirty blond man with a lanky build who’d introduced himself as Roger; he’d apparently been transferred over from Cobol’s London office about a month ago. The fairly new employee had some slight troubles in remembering the floor number, but the other man, a tall, buff fellow in a muscle tee with the company logo imprinted instinctively slapped the “13” button.
They kept quiet for the most part, save for a few sparing attempts at conversation from Roger, which the other, highly-ranked guard, whom he addressed as Johnny, dismissed for the most part, scoffing at his speech patterns. Eames made a note of adopting his American accent for this workplace.
Once arrived at the floor, they entered a long hallway, at the end of which was one solitary office with no outer designations. The door was made of solid wood, with no window pane, solely an intercom for those desiring entry. Johnny tapped on the red button, “It’s me, boss.”
“Come in.” The door opened on its own, sliding open slowly for the guests and doing the same in reverse once they were situated within, the lock clicking for both sides as it closed. Paranoid much?
The bureaucrat in charge of Security and Internal Affairs, as Eames knew from the application process, was a Mr. Mitch Wilcox, and his office lived up to his designation. It was spacious, with a panorama view of the city in its glass wall to the exterior. The furnishings were simple yet elegant, more like a modern living room than an office, save for the grand desk in the back of the room and the bookcases to the side. Mr. Wilcox sat behind the desk, dressed in a conservative three-piece suit, his fingers tented in anticipation.
“Please sit down,” he motioned to Eames, who took the swiveling black leather chair directly in front of the desk. The veteran guards seated themselves on the sofa in the center of the room, still within hearing range.
“Well, it appears to me that you, Mr. uh,” he checked the name on the documents before him, “Stuart Bronson, have only earned the highest accolades and acclaims from your time at the Mombassa post. You’ve had some of my sternest colleagues as your commanders, too. Very, very impressed, I must say,” Mr. Wilcox remarked, skimming Eames’ hoax recommendation letters with his reading glasses perched at the tip of his nose. “I must say I’d be inclined to offer you a job in the highly confidential, highly prestigious M&E division right off the bat, if it weren’t for that messy pile of paperwork awaiting me. You know how it goes: you’re bound to following strict procedure in a delineated hierarchy like Cobol Engineering.”
“Yeah, but that’s why we’re so awesome,” Johnny piped in from behind Eames, somewhat unnerved by the quality of the new hires they’d been seeing recently. No one, not even a Cobol grunt, enjoyed the whooshing sound of his job flushing down the toilet.
Wilcox sighed. “Johnny, if I wanted your opinion, I would have asked my magic eight-ball.” He then turned back to Eames with a shared eye roll. “And I must remark on your answer to number seven of the application form. ‘Describe a time when you faced adversity and had to resolve the problem.’ ‘I shot the fucker in the face.’ To be perfectly blunt with you, I have never received such a concise yet evocative response in all my fifteen years at Cobol and am much delighted to have such a literary genius on our staff.”
Eames merely nodded, occupied with studying Wilcox’s every movement, his accent, his mannerisms in preparation for the upcoming extraction. All the while not falling flat on his face from sleep deprivation.
“So I will put you on a very temporary probation stationed on the ground floor. Code 12(b)6 Pay Grade and Level Four Access. If you prove worthy, I shall promote you as I see fit. Sound agreeable to you?” He furnished a personnel card from his desk, the security clearance levels embedded in the barcode and slid it forward across the surface of the desk.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, picking it up and sliding it into his pocket.
“Johnny and Roger will brief you on the details of your duties, but considering your training in Mombassa, I doubt it shall be much of a learning curve. Any questions?”
“No, sir.” Eames rose along with the other guards, preparing to return to their posts.
“Now off with you all. I have some prisoner termination procedures to plot out.”
The rest of the day was uneventful, although Eames was able to see the dynamic between the guards in action. From his vantage point on the ground floor, he was able to keep tabs on all who entered and exited, scribbling down relevant information in his mental journal.
The members of the Security Division were not to discuss work matters with each other, as they were never sure of the others’ clearance levels within the system. But of course, it was easily apparent who was favored by the higher ups as to sensitive, vital operations and who was no more than a typical security-guard for hire, the ones who’d just left their careers as mall security.
Eames chuckled as he revisited the notes he’d recorded during some heated calisthenics. Cobol thought it was clever, not publicly disseminating information about guards’ rank, to protect against security breaches in case of mutiny. But it was hard not to tell the M&E officers, the elite corps of the Cobol guard, who were seen disappearing into the underground dungeons of the Cobol compound, no, it was quite apparent from their steel-toed loafers-the shiny, sometimes blood-encrusted, metal proudly glinting under the fluorescent lights. Vanity really did not bode well for secrecy.
The next workday his resolve was set although he was far too concerned with planning out every possible contingency to catch up on much-needed rest. Thankfully Yusuf, who was more than aware of Eames’ sporadic insomnia, had taken it upon himself to be the chef that morning.
When he arrived at Cobol headquarters that day, cheery and surprisingly awake, Eames and Roger, his partner for the remainder of his probation period, spent the morning patrolling the ground floor. The man was slightly neurotic, with a nervous tic on the right side of his face and an overwhelming need to squirt hand sanitizer into his palms every twenty minutes or so. He wondered if this would cause his projections to be antsier than those of the usual subject.
Yes, he’d locked his crosshairs onto the target-to-be, thanks to his fellow Englishman’s choice of foot attire and disdain for the lowly task of handling security above ground. He had to have some information about Cobb if he were down there, and Eames was betting on yes. He’d gone through Miles’ cell phone to catch himself up with Ariadne and Arthur on the details of the operation, concurring with their assessment. Despite only being on the staff for a couple of days, he was cognizant of the fact that he had to act swiftly. Time was extremely crucial: for all they knew, Cobb’s head could already be on the chopping block.
“Where would you like to go for lunch today, Stu?” Roger asked, glancing at his watch and rubbing his hands together.
“How about the Mexican place near Hollywood Park?” Eames suggested, trying to think of something a little out of the way, so that they weren’t in danger of bumping up against other Cobol employees.
“Uh, that’s a tad far…”
“It's on me,” he winked.
This was, to be sure, a game changer. “But I suppose it’s all right if it’s a good restaurant.”
“We can even take a nice long lunch break to enjoy ourselves.” Siesta included.
When the noon hour came, they walked out to Roger’s vehicle, spotting a few others on the way. The rowdy clan gazed at the two relative newbies warily and kept on talking amongst themselves.
“Should we invite them along too?” Roger asked, obviously still shy about approaching his fellow guards, who no doubt teased him about his neurosis and Briticisms.
“Nah,” Eames replied, relieved that he had picked the runt of the pack. “It seems like they’ve already got a place picked out.”
Inside the car, a pine-scented air freshener hung from the rearview mirror and extra bottles of hand sanitizer stocked the cup holders. It was eerily spotless for a used car, unless, as was the case, such used car belonged to a germophobe. They made small talk, the majority of which consisted of Roger relaying an embarrassingly detailed account of his recent divorce. Eames could not have recited a single word of it back to you, however: he was reviewing Wilcox’s profile in his mind for the impending forgery. Run of the mill midlevel self-absorbed tool of an evil corporation. Within the dream, he would impersonate their mutual boss in order to extract information about the identities of the prisoners and the routine of the dungeon crew.
“Turn left here, correct?”
“Yep, and it’ll be right before the next light.”
Because he didn’t know how far from the premises Cobol’s security cameras extended, Eames waited until they were all but pulling into the parking spot before leaning over to spritz a Yusuf-prepared sedative into Roger’s face. He quickly passed out-luckily his head missing the horn as he fell forward-and Eames reached over to guide the wheel the rest of the way, shifting on the parking brake.
He pulled the slumped over man into the front passenger seat and took the helm, driving them both to Ariadne’s apartment, where the rest of the team was waiting, save Arthur, who was watching the children and decided that it wasn’t in their best interest to observe an illegal extraction first hand.
“I guess I shouldn’t have doubted you after all,” Yusuf looked on, impressed, as Eames carried a sleeping Roger into the living room.
Ariadne rose from the kitchen table, helping to plug the man into the PASIV, which sat on the coffee table, as Eames set him down on the corduroy loveseat.
“Remind me again, where do I start out in this dream of yours?” Eames asked, seating himself in one of the metal folding chairs they’d placed next to the couch.
“You’ll be in what looks like a company break room. The subject will enter, and that’s when you question him. I’ll be right outside the door, warding off projections as well as I can.”
“Whatever you do though, please do it quickly,” Yusuf urged. “The sedative you gave him is very light.”
Ariadne checked on the pillows placed behind the chairs in case of an emergency and then took the chair next to Eames, the two of them attaching themselves to the machine.
“You guys ready?” Yusuf said, his hand hovering over the Somnacin release button.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Ariadne replied, closing her eyes.
The device hissed slightly as it pumped the chemicals into their bloodstreams, and Yusuf watched over them with wonderment. No matter how many times he assisted people in entering the dreamworld, he never got over the soft, comforting feeling of seeing people vanish from their bodies, limbs falling limp to the side, knowing that they are experiencing something far beyond the limited reach of their flesh.
But something was different this time. Instead of their bodies entering the relaxed trance of slumber, they seemed to turn rigid, as if all of their muscles were replaced by molten lead, hardening under the cool breath of the air conditioner. He dashed over to check Eames’ pulse, placing two fingers on his neck, but couldn’t find anything.
Shit. Shit shit shit. What do I do? Yusuf panicked, wondering if somehow the PASIV had been tampered with. Maybe Eames ingested some of his sedative, and it was botched? But then Ariadne would be showing symptoms too...
With conflicted and inordinately guilty thoughts flooding his mind, he sat stunned for a second, battling the disconcerting feeling of being saddled with the responsibility of playing God over three lives.
But lucidity returned to him as he turned his eyes back to his close friend. What would Eames do?
A curve of a smile on those fleshy lips. Give them the kick!
Yusuf stopped the PASIV and hurriedly ran from one chair to the other, as if playing some life and death game of Duck Duck Goose, pushing first Eames and then Ariadne over to reawaken the minds within. They fell into the piles of pillows, gasping for air as they came to, like they’d been resuscitated from drowning.
What about the Cobol man? They couldn’t lose their one source of information...
Yusuf dragged him off of the couch, letting the blond man fall to the floor below him with a thud.
“What the hell happened there?” Ariadne demanded between huffs, her lungs still burning. “All I saw was this dark nothingness, and then suddenly I was conscious again. But I felt like I’d been smothered with a pillow.”
Eames coughed a few times, still straining for air flow, but he answered, “It was my fault. Lack of oversight.”
“Huh?” Ariadne and Yusuf echoed each other.
“I didn’t know what their required immunization was for. They said I needed a malaria shot, and I didn’t think anything of it,” Eames explained. “But it now appears that what they really require of every Cobol employee is an anti-Somnacin injection.”
“Oh dammit,” Yusuf said, bopping himself on the head in disappointment with his memory. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize the signs. Yes, that must have been what happened.”
“What is that?” Ariadne asked, quite exasperated at being the perpetual novice.
“It’s a substance created to block the person as a possible target for extraction: a poison pill of sorts. When people hook themselves up with him or her using a PASIV, their minds can only extend to the machine itself, not to the subject. It basically causes a glitch in the system. Then each of their minds are shut off entirely until they die of a lovely mixture of suffocation and heart failure.”
She looked horrified. “How much more is there to dreamshare?”
“There are plenty of details and possibilities that we have yet to explore,” Yusuf replied. “It being a recently implemented technology and all.”
Meanwhile Roger had woken up. He was lying still on the floor, trying to find an opportune moment to either jump up and take one of them out or to slink away. Adjusting the position of an arm, he prepared to rise in attack.
“Don’t fucking move,” Eames said, the motion catching his attention. He pulled a gun out of a shoulder holster and cocked it at the Cobol underling.
Roger turned his head toward Eames and the others, his look of outraged horror only interrupted by his uncontrollable tics. He was, much to his chagrin, caught.
“One toe out of line, and I’ll blow your fucking brains out,” Eames threatened, stepping towards and keeping his pistol trained on Roger.
“So you’re British too?” he exclaimed. “You sure had me fooled, bloody traitor!”
“I’ll be asking the questions around here,” Eames muttered, smacking him across the face with the gun, maintaining the air of dominance required to batter information out of an uncooperative captive.
Ariadne gulped with widened eyes, extremely uncomfortable with the situation. Yusuf noticed this and patted her on the back, whispering, “If you need to go, just go.”
She nodded and slipped out the door without a word, savoring the fresh breeze outside and letting the wind flow over her, tousling her hair about wildly. But she didn’t care anymore. Her mentor had been calling her cell phone, worried about her health, as she had called in sick for three days in a row now. But she couldn’t deal with forming an explanation right now, much less constructing a new auditorium for some town’s football team. It was enough just to stay focused at the task at hand: saving her friend’s life.
She took deep breaths, keeping the nausea that washed over her at bay. Two near death experiences within a week had definitely left her frazzled, but she told herself to hold on, that this would be over soon, that this was all for a good cause. It’s for Cobb. You need to break some eggs to make an omelet, Ariadne. These people knew what they signed up for; they wouldn’t bat an eye at watching you die.
But how low was she willing to go? Was it wrong that she stood by while someone was being tortured? Wasn’t she above this sort of cruelty? Was she just as culpable as the executioner?
She didn’t know how long she stood like that, motionless next to the door. She heard crying, screaming, and finally a muffled shot. But her face never changed: she didn’t even know which expressions to use anymore. None of her previous repertoire would say what she was feeling with adequate meaning. So she didn’t say anything at all. She was a blank.
Next Chapter
D'Autrefois - Master Post
Part II: Chapter 10: The kick
Author: koushi
Rating: R
Word count: 4633
Disclaimer: I do not own nor am I in any way affiliated with Inception and/or its creators.
The room was dimly lit, but he could discern her silhouette clearly against the backdrop of a curtained window. Mal was sitting on the bed and her back was facing him. She was mute and solemn, characteristics that had never previously described her.
Arthur walked in, careful not to disturb the heavy blanket of silence wrapped over the room like plastic wrap. One crinkle and he’d be discovered.
“Hello, Arthur,” she said, not even turning her head.
He froze. Caught. “Mal, chérie. Is anything wrong?”
“Everything is as it should be.” Where was the passion they were used to? She normally lunged at him with kisses, refusing to let go until the very last moment-when Cobb’s footsteps would be heard down the hall-the two of them wrapped together so tightly it was impossible to extricate one from the other.
“Well, that’s good to hear. I’m glad I got to see you today... it’s been awhile. I’ve missed you, baby...” He was met with no visible response.
“I’ve been keeping busy.” As cold as the icicle dripping from a winter branch.
He searched his mind for possible explanations. She could be moody at times, it was true, depending on the state of the often-strained relationship with her husband. But typically any marital strife was cured with the magic eraser of the PASIV. “Dreaming with... Dom again?” He wasn’t sure what took place in those sessions but was always appreciative of the resulting smile on her face.
“No, no. It’s over between us. He won’t listen to a word I say.”
“Huh? You decided to leave him after all?”
“Yes. I will be leaving him.” Arthur felt a jolt to his heart. Oh, can it be true?
“...And you.” What? “But I’ll see you both on the other side.” He was spurred into motion, making his way to her and joining her on the bed. But still Mal stared steadfastly ahead without even a glance of acknowledgement in his direction.
“What are you talking about, Mal? Where are you going?” There was something very wrong about this whole situation. He could feel the chill in his bones, pulling his leather jacket tighter around himself. How was she not freezing, sitting there unmoving in her sleeveless nightgown?
“Back where I came from. Back where I belong.” Homesick for Paris, maybe?
“Honey, what about Las Vegas? We were going to take a vacation there this summer; I already have the plane tickets and the reservation at the Excalibur.” Can she even hear me? “I thought you would have wanted to live in a castle, if only for a few nights.”
“I don’t regret our time together, Arthur. You helped me come to a realization.” No, I guess she can’t.
“Speak some sense, Mal. I have no idea what you’re on about.” He tried to put an arm around her, finding her skin icy to the touch. She finally reacted, shrugging him away firmly.
“Things will be fine. I will be with my children and my husband. My real husband. And I will no longer need to hide under the guise of lies.”
She’s always been a dreamer, an idealist, sort of off-kilter. But this...? This was like screaming at a soundproof box. “Mal, I don’t know what’s gotten into you, but you seen to have gotten much worse. Please, come with me and we can find you a therapist.”
“I’ve seen three already, Arthur. And I know exactly what I’m doing. I’m afraid I do not need you anymore... so this is goodbye. Goodbye and farewell.”
This is not how I expected it to end... In fact, I never thought it could end. “I can’t accept this, Mal. I can’t imagine losing you to some crazy fucking idea. Whatever it is that’s taken hold of you.” He tried again to wrap her within his arms, as if the nostalgic touch would rekindle what they’d lost.
She pushed him back tersely and stared at him with distant, lifeless eyes. “There are more things in heaven and earth, Arthur, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Mal stood and left the room, footsteps as light and airy as the floating of a phantasm.
Despite the unexplainable burial of their relationship, despite the feeling that this would be the last time, despite the violent cleaving of his insides in twain, Arthur couldn’t help his watering eyes from admiring her graceful form for his appreciation of all things beautiful. His aesthetic wouldn’t allow him to hold a grudge against a porcelain vase, to fume at a bouquet of arranged flowers, to scuff during the performance of a mesmerizing ballet. And never had he been witness to a more perfect work of art.
Two days later, he got the call. Cobb called him sobbing, begging for help, “She’s gone... she’s gone.”
He clutched his loaded die. He’d gambled on her and lost it all.
***
Arthur hated the kick. He hated waking up to the nauseating sensation of free-falling into nothingness, reaching out for something to grab hold of, but the ledge was always just inches too far from his fingertips. Worst of all, it now reminded me of how Mal must have felt, as she flew alone through the air. Where was her cloud when she needed it most, the one that allowed her to float leagues above the Earth? He wondered what her last thoughts were as she threw her head back for the final time, face upwards to the night sky as it slipped further and further away. Did she think about... him at that moment? Or had it been Cobb and only Cobb all along?
He then had to ask himself: If you had been in Cobb’s place, what would you have done? Would you have jumped after her? But he never had an answer. Because it never would have been him.
Stretching as he sat up, he pulled out the PASIV attachment from his wrist.
Despite it being a difficult subject to broach, he’d found it surprisingly easy to talk to Ariadne about Mal. Perhaps it, in a way, needed to come out. He already felt the knots in his muscles loosen, to a point he didn’t know was possible due to years of bearing that silent shame.
“You loved her so much,” Ariadne said wistfully as she, too, awakened. With her encouragement, they’d gone under together to experience the one memory he couldn’t put into words.
“Yeah... and I’d like to think that in her own eclectic way she loved me too,” he replied. “But I knew what I was getting into our first night alone together. She told me, ‘Nothing can destroy my love for my husband. This arrangement is purely one of necessity.’ But of course, I was stupid. I let the idea of ‘us’ run away with me like some goddamn Disney movie where I was the unknowing villain.”
“It wasn’t the best way of going about things, no. In fact, I am amazed that your relationship with Cobb isn’t in shambles,” Ariadne expressed honestly.
“I try not to think about it, but I definitely resented him for getting to her first. They weren’t right for each other-they enabled each other to drift away from reality even more than they had individually-but she was stuck... she believed that marital vows extended into perpetuity.”
“I-I believe that too,” Ariadne blurted out. “Call me old-fashioned, call me a Disney girl at heart, but I can’t help but believe that a promise is a promise.”
Arthur nodded slowly. “It certainly was the way I was raised as well. So I guess you end up adopting the beliefs that justify your own actions. The only way I could live with myself, as sickened as I was by my behavior, was to modify my moral code.”
“Look, I’m not here to chastise you,” she said. She’d been doing her best to remain calm, to forget her own trauma and jealousies, and to immerse herself in the job of being his security blanket. “What’s done is done. If you truly cared about her, you should care what she would want. And you know, Arthur, that she would want you to go on with your life.”
“Does that include confronting and making amends with Dom?” he asked apprehensively.
“I think she would have wanted that,” Ariadne mustered a smile. He returned it.
“They’re looking over here,” Arthur then said out of the blue.
Ariadne turned around to check out what he was talking about, but he took her by the chin and planted a kiss on her half-open lips. Thank you.
***
Eames had a hearty English breakfast of ham, two eggs sunny-side up, toast with marmalade, and deliciously saucy beans that morning: a sizable feast that left a whirlwind of pans and dishes littered around Ariadne’s kitchen. It takes quite an appetite to stomach working alongside Cobol agents after all.
While jet lag plagued the average traveler, Eames had no problem coping with the lack of sleep. In fact he believed the harsh strain on his senses made him better at his job, that his prowess in the dreamworld would help him pick up on signals that might escape someone of a sober mentality. It makes sense if you don’t think about it. This he affirmed as he wiggled into the Cobol t-shirt and torn jeans that were part of the dress code.
“I heard you jumping rope to Lady Gaga until late in the night... Are you sure it was a good idea creating even more of a challenge than was required?” Yusuf asked, his arms crossed and leaning against the door frame of Ariadne’s bedroom. His eyes twinkled in amused curiosity.
“Mm,” Eames said, examining himself in the full length mirror in front of the bed and straightening out the shoulder holster he’d be sporting under his outer coat. “I have everything under control. Don’t worry yourself, Yusuf, wrinkles are far from becoming.”
“Somehow, I don’t believe you,” he retorted smugly.
“Oh?” Eames placed his hands on his hips in mock offense. “And what have I done to deserve this vote of confidence?”
Yusuf cleared his throat to ward off a laugh and announced, “Better give that fly a nice tug.”
Besides that one minor hitch, however, Eames’ day played out smoothly. Immediately upon entering the premises, he was escorted by several of his future co-workers to the back elevators, which were roped off from the public by a construction warning sign. Clever, he thought, making note of the fact. Different elevators for different areas of the building.
One of the escorts was a dirty blond man with a lanky build who’d introduced himself as Roger; he’d apparently been transferred over from Cobol’s London office about a month ago. The fairly new employee had some slight troubles in remembering the floor number, but the other man, a tall, buff fellow in a muscle tee with the company logo imprinted instinctively slapped the “13” button.
They kept quiet for the most part, save for a few sparing attempts at conversation from Roger, which the other, highly-ranked guard, whom he addressed as Johnny, dismissed for the most part, scoffing at his speech patterns. Eames made a note of adopting his American accent for this workplace.
Once arrived at the floor, they entered a long hallway, at the end of which was one solitary office with no outer designations. The door was made of solid wood, with no window pane, solely an intercom for those desiring entry. Johnny tapped on the red button, “It’s me, boss.”
“Come in.” The door opened on its own, sliding open slowly for the guests and doing the same in reverse once they were situated within, the lock clicking for both sides as it closed. Paranoid much?
The bureaucrat in charge of Security and Internal Affairs, as Eames knew from the application process, was a Mr. Mitch Wilcox, and his office lived up to his designation. It was spacious, with a panorama view of the city in its glass wall to the exterior. The furnishings were simple yet elegant, more like a modern living room than an office, save for the grand desk in the back of the room and the bookcases to the side. Mr. Wilcox sat behind the desk, dressed in a conservative three-piece suit, his fingers tented in anticipation.
“Please sit down,” he motioned to Eames, who took the swiveling black leather chair directly in front of the desk. The veteran guards seated themselves on the sofa in the center of the room, still within hearing range.
“Well, it appears to me that you, Mr. uh,” he checked the name on the documents before him, “Stuart Bronson, have only earned the highest accolades and acclaims from your time at the Mombassa post. You’ve had some of my sternest colleagues as your commanders, too. Very, very impressed, I must say,” Mr. Wilcox remarked, skimming Eames’ hoax recommendation letters with his reading glasses perched at the tip of his nose. “I must say I’d be inclined to offer you a job in the highly confidential, highly prestigious M&E division right off the bat, if it weren’t for that messy pile of paperwork awaiting me. You know how it goes: you’re bound to following strict procedure in a delineated hierarchy like Cobol Engineering.”
“Yeah, but that’s why we’re so awesome,” Johnny piped in from behind Eames, somewhat unnerved by the quality of the new hires they’d been seeing recently. No one, not even a Cobol grunt, enjoyed the whooshing sound of his job flushing down the toilet.
Wilcox sighed. “Johnny, if I wanted your opinion, I would have asked my magic eight-ball.” He then turned back to Eames with a shared eye roll. “And I must remark on your answer to number seven of the application form. ‘Describe a time when you faced adversity and had to resolve the problem.’ ‘I shot the fucker in the face.’ To be perfectly blunt with you, I have never received such a concise yet evocative response in all my fifteen years at Cobol and am much delighted to have such a literary genius on our staff.”
Eames merely nodded, occupied with studying Wilcox’s every movement, his accent, his mannerisms in preparation for the upcoming extraction. All the while not falling flat on his face from sleep deprivation.
“So I will put you on a very temporary probation stationed on the ground floor. Code 12(b)6 Pay Grade and Level Four Access. If you prove worthy, I shall promote you as I see fit. Sound agreeable to you?” He furnished a personnel card from his desk, the security clearance levels embedded in the barcode and slid it forward across the surface of the desk.
“Yes, sir,” he replied, picking it up and sliding it into his pocket.
“Johnny and Roger will brief you on the details of your duties, but considering your training in Mombassa, I doubt it shall be much of a learning curve. Any questions?”
“No, sir.” Eames rose along with the other guards, preparing to return to their posts.
“Now off with you all. I have some prisoner termination procedures to plot out.”
The rest of the day was uneventful, although Eames was able to see the dynamic between the guards in action. From his vantage point on the ground floor, he was able to keep tabs on all who entered and exited, scribbling down relevant information in his mental journal.
The members of the Security Division were not to discuss work matters with each other, as they were never sure of the others’ clearance levels within the system. But of course, it was easily apparent who was favored by the higher ups as to sensitive, vital operations and who was no more than a typical security-guard for hire, the ones who’d just left their careers as mall security.
Eames chuckled as he revisited the notes he’d recorded during some heated calisthenics. Cobol thought it was clever, not publicly disseminating information about guards’ rank, to protect against security breaches in case of mutiny. But it was hard not to tell the M&E officers, the elite corps of the Cobol guard, who were seen disappearing into the underground dungeons of the Cobol compound, no, it was quite apparent from their steel-toed loafers-the shiny, sometimes blood-encrusted, metal proudly glinting under the fluorescent lights. Vanity really did not bode well for secrecy.
The next workday his resolve was set although he was far too concerned with planning out every possible contingency to catch up on much-needed rest. Thankfully Yusuf, who was more than aware of Eames’ sporadic insomnia, had taken it upon himself to be the chef that morning.
When he arrived at Cobol headquarters that day, cheery and surprisingly awake, Eames and Roger, his partner for the remainder of his probation period, spent the morning patrolling the ground floor. The man was slightly neurotic, with a nervous tic on the right side of his face and an overwhelming need to squirt hand sanitizer into his palms every twenty minutes or so. He wondered if this would cause his projections to be antsier than those of the usual subject.
Yes, he’d locked his crosshairs onto the target-to-be, thanks to his fellow Englishman’s choice of foot attire and disdain for the lowly task of handling security above ground. He had to have some information about Cobb if he were down there, and Eames was betting on yes. He’d gone through Miles’ cell phone to catch himself up with Ariadne and Arthur on the details of the operation, concurring with their assessment. Despite only being on the staff for a couple of days, he was cognizant of the fact that he had to act swiftly. Time was extremely crucial: for all they knew, Cobb’s head could already be on the chopping block.
“Where would you like to go for lunch today, Stu?” Roger asked, glancing at his watch and rubbing his hands together.
“How about the Mexican place near Hollywood Park?” Eames suggested, trying to think of something a little out of the way, so that they weren’t in danger of bumping up against other Cobol employees.
“Uh, that’s a tad far…”
“It's on me,” he winked.
This was, to be sure, a game changer. “But I suppose it’s all right if it’s a good restaurant.”
“We can even take a nice long lunch break to enjoy ourselves.” Siesta included.
When the noon hour came, they walked out to Roger’s vehicle, spotting a few others on the way. The rowdy clan gazed at the two relative newbies warily and kept on talking amongst themselves.
“Should we invite them along too?” Roger asked, obviously still shy about approaching his fellow guards, who no doubt teased him about his neurosis and Briticisms.
“Nah,” Eames replied, relieved that he had picked the runt of the pack. “It seems like they’ve already got a place picked out.”
Inside the car, a pine-scented air freshener hung from the rearview mirror and extra bottles of hand sanitizer stocked the cup holders. It was eerily spotless for a used car, unless, as was the case, such used car belonged to a germophobe. They made small talk, the majority of which consisted of Roger relaying an embarrassingly detailed account of his recent divorce. Eames could not have recited a single word of it back to you, however: he was reviewing Wilcox’s profile in his mind for the impending forgery. Run of the mill midlevel self-absorbed tool of an evil corporation. Within the dream, he would impersonate their mutual boss in order to extract information about the identities of the prisoners and the routine of the dungeon crew.
“Turn left here, correct?”
“Yep, and it’ll be right before the next light.”
Because he didn’t know how far from the premises Cobol’s security cameras extended, Eames waited until they were all but pulling into the parking spot before leaning over to spritz a Yusuf-prepared sedative into Roger’s face. He quickly passed out-luckily his head missing the horn as he fell forward-and Eames reached over to guide the wheel the rest of the way, shifting on the parking brake.
He pulled the slumped over man into the front passenger seat and took the helm, driving them both to Ariadne’s apartment, where the rest of the team was waiting, save Arthur, who was watching the children and decided that it wasn’t in their best interest to observe an illegal extraction first hand.
“I guess I shouldn’t have doubted you after all,” Yusuf looked on, impressed, as Eames carried a sleeping Roger into the living room.
Ariadne rose from the kitchen table, helping to plug the man into the PASIV, which sat on the coffee table, as Eames set him down on the corduroy loveseat.
“Remind me again, where do I start out in this dream of yours?” Eames asked, seating himself in one of the metal folding chairs they’d placed next to the couch.
“You’ll be in what looks like a company break room. The subject will enter, and that’s when you question him. I’ll be right outside the door, warding off projections as well as I can.”
“Whatever you do though, please do it quickly,” Yusuf urged. “The sedative you gave him is very light.”
Ariadne checked on the pillows placed behind the chairs in case of an emergency and then took the chair next to Eames, the two of them attaching themselves to the machine.
“You guys ready?” Yusuf said, his hand hovering over the Somnacin release button.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Ariadne replied, closing her eyes.
The device hissed slightly as it pumped the chemicals into their bloodstreams, and Yusuf watched over them with wonderment. No matter how many times he assisted people in entering the dreamworld, he never got over the soft, comforting feeling of seeing people vanish from their bodies, limbs falling limp to the side, knowing that they are experiencing something far beyond the limited reach of their flesh.
But something was different this time. Instead of their bodies entering the relaxed trance of slumber, they seemed to turn rigid, as if all of their muscles were replaced by molten lead, hardening under the cool breath of the air conditioner. He dashed over to check Eames’ pulse, placing two fingers on his neck, but couldn’t find anything.
Shit. Shit shit shit. What do I do? Yusuf panicked, wondering if somehow the PASIV had been tampered with. Maybe Eames ingested some of his sedative, and it was botched? But then Ariadne would be showing symptoms too...
With conflicted and inordinately guilty thoughts flooding his mind, he sat stunned for a second, battling the disconcerting feeling of being saddled with the responsibility of playing God over three lives.
But lucidity returned to him as he turned his eyes back to his close friend. What would Eames do?
A curve of a smile on those fleshy lips. Give them the kick!
Yusuf stopped the PASIV and hurriedly ran from one chair to the other, as if playing some life and death game of Duck Duck Goose, pushing first Eames and then Ariadne over to reawaken the minds within. They fell into the piles of pillows, gasping for air as they came to, like they’d been resuscitated from drowning.
What about the Cobol man? They couldn’t lose their one source of information...
Yusuf dragged him off of the couch, letting the blond man fall to the floor below him with a thud.
“What the hell happened there?” Ariadne demanded between huffs, her lungs still burning. “All I saw was this dark nothingness, and then suddenly I was conscious again. But I felt like I’d been smothered with a pillow.”
Eames coughed a few times, still straining for air flow, but he answered, “It was my fault. Lack of oversight.”
“Huh?” Ariadne and Yusuf echoed each other.
“I didn’t know what their required immunization was for. They said I needed a malaria shot, and I didn’t think anything of it,” Eames explained. “But it now appears that what they really require of every Cobol employee is an anti-Somnacin injection.”
“Oh dammit,” Yusuf said, bopping himself on the head in disappointment with his memory. “I can’t believe I didn’t recognize the signs. Yes, that must have been what happened.”
“What is that?” Ariadne asked, quite exasperated at being the perpetual novice.
“It’s a substance created to block the person as a possible target for extraction: a poison pill of sorts. When people hook themselves up with him or her using a PASIV, their minds can only extend to the machine itself, not to the subject. It basically causes a glitch in the system. Then each of their minds are shut off entirely until they die of a lovely mixture of suffocation and heart failure.”
She looked horrified. “How much more is there to dreamshare?”
“There are plenty of details and possibilities that we have yet to explore,” Yusuf replied. “It being a recently implemented technology and all.”
Meanwhile Roger had woken up. He was lying still on the floor, trying to find an opportune moment to either jump up and take one of them out or to slink away. Adjusting the position of an arm, he prepared to rise in attack.
“Don’t fucking move,” Eames said, the motion catching his attention. He pulled a gun out of a shoulder holster and cocked it at the Cobol underling.
Roger turned his head toward Eames and the others, his look of outraged horror only interrupted by his uncontrollable tics. He was, much to his chagrin, caught.
“One toe out of line, and I’ll blow your fucking brains out,” Eames threatened, stepping towards and keeping his pistol trained on Roger.
“So you’re British too?” he exclaimed. “You sure had me fooled, bloody traitor!”
“I’ll be asking the questions around here,” Eames muttered, smacking him across the face with the gun, maintaining the air of dominance required to batter information out of an uncooperative captive.
Ariadne gulped with widened eyes, extremely uncomfortable with the situation. Yusuf noticed this and patted her on the back, whispering, “If you need to go, just go.”
She nodded and slipped out the door without a word, savoring the fresh breeze outside and letting the wind flow over her, tousling her hair about wildly. But she didn’t care anymore. Her mentor had been calling her cell phone, worried about her health, as she had called in sick for three days in a row now. But she couldn’t deal with forming an explanation right now, much less constructing a new auditorium for some town’s football team. It was enough just to stay focused at the task at hand: saving her friend’s life.
She took deep breaths, keeping the nausea that washed over her at bay. Two near death experiences within a week had definitely left her frazzled, but she told herself to hold on, that this would be over soon, that this was all for a good cause. It’s for Cobb. You need to break some eggs to make an omelet, Ariadne. These people knew what they signed up for; they wouldn’t bat an eye at watching you die.
But how low was she willing to go? Was it wrong that she stood by while someone was being tortured? Wasn’t she above this sort of cruelty? Was she just as culpable as the executioner?
She didn’t know how long she stood like that, motionless next to the door. She heard crying, screaming, and finally a muffled shot. But her face never changed: she didn’t even know which expressions to use anymore. None of her previous repertoire would say what she was feeling with adequate meaning. So she didn’t say anything at all. She was a blank.
Next Chapter
D'Autrefois - Master Post