out of the frying pan (and into the fire) part five
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN (AND INTO THE FIRE) PART FIVE
word count: 5,28O
They threw themselves into their work. Arthur forewent working on his final essays in favor of spending an entire night researching on anything that could prove Sean Hall had ulterior motives in marrying Greg Payne's daughter, Ayla.
At their meeting, the next morning, Arthur slapped down a 50-page thick compilation of his findings on the table. Cobb kind of gawked at it, but Mal smirked, as though she had known what to expect from Arthur all along.
"Sean Hall comes from a very modest background," Arthur summarized for them. "His parents ran a grocery store together until they divorced and his father enrolled in the army. Sean was about fifteen years old, at the time. Three years later, his father died during a training drill. The official report said that he mishandled the weapon, causing it to backfire. Rumors claimed that it was a weapon malfunction. Whatever the reason, the affair was never pursued. My guess is that the family was given a hefty sum of money to not make a scene. A month later, though, the entire line of weaponry was recalled to the manufacturer and discontinued."
Cobb let out a grunt of understanding. "So, Sean never believed the official report, obviously, and the hush money only fuelled this train of thought."
"Exactly. Sean went into the weapons business after that, as a weapons regulator. He came out top of his class, with grades never seen before. He got his pick of career, obviously. He chose to be on the board of military weapons regulations."
"How does this link to Payne?"
"It doesn't explicitly. Not officially, anyway. Not until I found out that the manufacturers had wanted to do some more testing on the weapon, unsure if it was ready for distribution, but Payne was anxious to see the profits rolling in and forced their hand. The affair was really well covered up, I almost missed it myself. I have no idea how Sean caught wind of this situation, but he must have. Everything in his career steps and personal life now, shows him trying to get close to Payne and his family."
"All right. So, we have cause and motive." Cobb picked up the file that Arthur had put together, looking highly intimidated. "Good job, Arthur. Now, how do we go about forcing Sean to show us what his intentions are?"
**
The job was a smashing success, if not a bit depressing. Sean was on his way out of his office, on his way to a meet Ayla when he was arrested, or so the dream went. Arthur and Cobb flipped their badges to Sean and then escorted him to the police car. He protested right up until Arthur left the interrogation room, replaced by Mal. She shared Ayla's dark good looks, and though that was where their resemblance ended, it was often more than enough for Hall as the dreamer to make the connection to the person he had been thinking of in real life before going under.
"What's this all about?" Sean snapped, patience worn thin since the car ride. His eyes found Mal and he lingered there, hoping for a reply.
"Don't look at her," Cobb said, as Mal slapped down a tape recorder and took the seat opposite Sean with unusual force. "She's the bad cop here."
"We have evidence of what you were planning on doing," Mal's voice was thickly-accented by anger, "to Ayla."
Sean froze for a second, then he looked confused. "What are you talking about? I'm going to be marrying that woman. Why would I want to hurt my fiancée?"
Mal shared a look with Cobb, who cocked his head, and she snorted in disbelief. Then she reached over and turned on the recorder.
The thing about dreams was that they built the carcass of the gun. Molded nice and realistically, so that when the mark entered, he provided the ammunition through his memories. But it was his subconscious that pulled the trigger. The thing about weapons, though, was that sometimes they are faulty. And sometimes they backfire. As Sean was so well-placed to know.
Arthur held his breath. He was on the other side of the glass, watching the scene: he could see Sean staring down in confusion at the recorder, and he could hear the soft static silence as the recorder tape began, and thought, for a moment, that their gun had backfired.
Then they heard voices, slightly distorted by the bad recording, but recognizable nonetheless.
"I want that fucking pig to bleed," Sean was saying, lips popping on the harsh consonants. "I want him to feel the same pain I did. He murdered my father, you know." So, he was talking to someone, Arthur noted. They needed a name though. Without a name, they would have nothing concrete to give to Payne.
There was a disinterested grunt from the second person. "Is this the girl, Ayla?" There must have been a nod of confirmation from Sean, because the nasally voice added: "Pretty little bit. What a shame." Then he cleared his throat, and any sympathy for Ayla’s life was lost, or discarded. "What shall we want done with her, then?"
"Make her disappear," Sean snarled meanly. "And then deliver her dead body to his doorstep." Arthur's blood ran cold. Some people were just fucking animals. A part of him had always hoped that this idea was just fodder for a good movie. But now he had proof with his own ears and eyes that they existed.
The man hummed. "Such demands do not come cheap."
"Price is not a problem," Sean replied. "Her life insurance money will cover it nicely." The other man must have done something then, or looked a certain way, because Sean grew impatient and vile again. "Don't pretend you're better than me. What are you but a lapdog anyway? I want to see Crain." Arthur's head snapped up. They had a name. Crain. It was flimsy, but enough to go on if Arthur had to make do. Thankfully, in his arrogance, Sean continued. "I want to see Crain Molt myself."
"You do not see Molt. That was the deal," the other replied steadily, as though he heard such insults every day. Maybe he did. "Or is there no deal, now?"
There was a pause, a hesitation, and then Sean said: "We have a deal. See that it is done two weeks after the wedding." The wedding had been planned for July 4th; July 18th was the anniversary of his father's death. The tape was silent now, and all the blood had drained from Sean's face. They had him.
They told Payne the name of the hitman who had been hired: Arthur had looked into it and assured the client that, for the right price, the deal could be reversed. Molt had that kind of reputation.
Payne smiled humorlessly, and handed them a check which Cobb politely accepted, though he wouldn't look at it until Payne had left. "I won't forget this." Payne nodded to the three of them stiffly before leaving the room. Only then did Cobb flip over the check and sputtered all over it.
"A hundred and fourteen thousand." A clean thirty-eight thousand for each of them, Arthur calculated instantly. He felt a slow grin form, which he shared with Mal. Who needed a degree?! This had only been their first job, and not only had it been more exciting than any career real life had to offer, but the debuting payout was generous.
Cobb seemed to read his mind. He gave Arthur a hearty slap on the shoulder. "And it's only the beginning," he laughed, handing the check to Mal, as though the authenticity of it could only be verified by her.
They went out to celebrate. They went to the loudest bar they could find, and shouted with the best of them as they tipped back countless glasses. It wasn't until it was nearing two in the morning that Mal slicked back Cobb's hair and leaned into his ear. Arthur couldn't hear them, but he could see the shapes of her lips as she articulated 'Let's head back, baby.'
Arthur walked out with them, but slowed as they veered toward the bus stop which would take them to Mal's dorm.
"You coming?" Cobb's words were slurred, and he was leaning heavily on Mal, but Arthur knew he wasn't as drunk as he let on.
Arthur shook his head. "You guys go back. I'll see you tomorrow."
There was a short silence while Mal stared at Arthur and Arthur stared at Cobb, who smiled dumbly back, still riveted by the day's success. Mal disentangled herself from Cobb's grip and hugged Arthur. "You be careful, now. Do you hear me?" she said firmly in his ear, breath warm and accent comforting. "Stay safe."
A lump formed in Arthur's throat as he nodded. He honestly hadn't thought she'd connected the dots that far. She had figured out about Eames, but he hadn't thought she'd known about the bars. About the other men, the succession of shaggy-haired brunets with cocky grins and broad shoulders, because he had given up, but had not stopped yearning.
Mal kissed his cheek, lips cool and still slick from her last drink. The nights were hot now, but the warmth Mal gave him was a different kind. Arthur never wanted to let go. But she stepped back, and he let his arms fall.
"Call in the morning," she ordered. Then she stopped in her turn and grinned at him. "Or afternoon."
That night, he went home with a muscled brunet named Edward From Manchester. He knew that what he was doing wasn't all that healthy. It wasn't helping him forget in the least. But he wasn't trying to forget. He knew there was no way he ever could, so why try to fight an impossible battle? From the seven-odd torturous months Arthur had lived without Eames, he had come to realize that remembering while being sexually frustrated was worse than remembering with his hormones sated. The sex wasn't amazing; no one would replace Eames and everything he had been able to do with that damned mouth and those hands of his, and granted Arthur held not even a trace of the emotional bond he'd had with Eames with the men he now went with, but they were attractive and turned him on, and Arthur knew his body well enough to realize what it needed and provided it.
He hoped that, one day, he would be able to close his eyes when he kissed and not see a grinning dirty-blond with a cocky grin revealing a row of crooked teeth behind plush lips. But until then, Arthur would do what he had to in order to keep going without snapping.
**
Their next client contacted them directly. They had come highly recommended, he said, and he was willing to pay.
"It's not like he had a wide range to select from in the first place," Mal told them after the man had left the briefing. "Other than the military's PASIVs and ours, there are three PASIVs that have gone rogue since the operation's beginning. One was faulty, and as for the other two, well … they have three of the world's biggest governments hunting for them. They go to their clients, and not the other way around. There's no way to know if they're operating at all."
Cobb tapped a pencil against the table. "We need to find them. There's an underground community, that's for sure. Not knowing who our competitors are could be dangerous, especially if word is getting out. Your father has protected us until now, Mal, but even he will be powerless to stop the military if they catch wind of our PASIV."
Mal hesitated. "Papa knows of one, who works underground. If we met with him, maybe it could open the gateway to others. I would like for us to have our own chemist as well, in case Papa is unable to provide us with Somnacin in the future."
Arthur listened silently to their musings. He agreed with Mal, they would have to break off their ties with Miles sooner or later. The arrival of their latest client unnerved him. Miles hadn't known anything of the man when Mal had called him, which meant that they were getting an independent reputation. It would be dangerous to be so dependent on one so close to the military for much longer, both for them and for Miles.
Cobb agreed. "We'll start off small," he said. "Do you think your dad could set us up to meet with this guy? What's his name?"
Mal nodded. "I will call him tonight. I believe his name is Nash."
**
That summer, Arthur went home for Amanda's wedding. He had met Brad, the groom, a few months ago when he and Amanda had come to New York to see him, and he had liked him well enough. He'd still done a thorough background check on him when Amanda had announced their engagement. He was a decent guy. Arthur gave Amanda his seal of approval, but she just laughed and pulled him into a hug.
Arthur hugged her tightly, tears on the brink of his lashes.
"Don't fucking cry," Amanda ordered, punching him meanly on the shoulder. For a petite girl, barely 5"5' in a white lace wedding dress, she had one heck of a right hook. "If you cry, I'll cry, and then my makeup will be ruined."
Arthur grinned, and leaned down to peck her cheek. He loved her so much in that moment, a part of him wanted to pack her up and run away with her, put her somewhere high and unreachable so that she could never be hurt. "He better make you happy. Or I'll have to hurt him."
Amanda snorted very inelegantly. "Uh, have you seen Brad, little brother?"
She had a point. Brad was a rugby player, with large shoulders and thick thighs. Still, despite his intimidating build, there was something soft in his face, and something innocent in his eyes, which betrayed his young age and proved his gentle nature. Arthur rolled his eyes. "I know people."
Amanda laughed, not believing him. Then, she sobered. "I really hope you'll be this happy, one day," she said, softly. Arthur had told her about Eames. She had been the only person he'd told, and she'd listened wholeheartedly and hadn't fed him any clichéd bullshit about how Arthur was better off without him. Arthur loved her for that.
"Yeah." He thought of Eames wearing a white tux, and smiled. "Yeah, me too."
"You will find someone," she said, and Arthur loved her even more because her voice held no room for contradiction and he knew that, unlike him, Amanda didn't doubt the truth of her words.
"Come on." He brushed a curled strand of hair behind her ear. "You're keeping everyone waiting." Amanda had thrown all of her bridesmaids out of the room when Arthur had arrived. Arthur knew they were all tittering impatiently outside the door.
"All right." Amanda grinned, and leaned in for another quick hug. "Wish me luck."
Arthur watched her run to the door in her white stiletto heels, and knew he didn't have to.
**
That summer, Arthur also told his mother that he wasn't going back to university for his second year. He had already decided this long before the final exams of the second semester, but he hadn't want to tell his mother such news by the phone.
She was shocked, but rushed to comfort him. She agreed that he should take a year or two to try and 'find himself,' she said. Arthur wanted to tell her that he had found himself, that he'd found his calling in life, what he had been meant to do. He didn't, though, and let her hug him.
He told Eames' mom when they bumped into each other at the supermarket and she greeted him with a wide smile, remembering him as Eames' childhood friend. He told her that he and Eames had unfortunately lost touch a few months ago, and that university just wasn't cutting it for him. She wished him the best of luck finding his path, and went to pay for her groceries.
Eames called him a week later. "I talked to my mum. She told me you weren't going back for a second year of uni." It wasn't a question, but a reproach.
Hearing his voice was enough to make Arthur's throat tighten and his heart stretch. He'd missed it, he realized, like a traitor's knife to his gut. He irrationally felt guilty for all he had done, for having believed he was fine without Eames. He wasn't fine at all. He was burning to know how many guys Eames had been with, not since the phone breakup, but what Arthur now considered to be their true breakup, the last time they had seen each other in person. He hated Eames for calling now, for bringing everything back.
"Yeah," he patted himself on the back for keeping a steady voice and a flippant tone. "It wasn't what I thought it would be. I got a desk job, white-collar, and all that." At least lying was easier over the phone, though it burned him up inside to be unable to confess to Eames the magnificent world he had discovered. He knew Eames would have loved dreamsharing. The actor in him would have thrived in the environment. He wasn't an architect or a point man (as Cobb had come to call Arthur's job), and extraction probably wouldn't have come as easily as it did to Cobb, but they hadn't even scratched the surface of the possibilities of the world. Arthur was sure Eames would have surprised them all with a new discovery.
"A desk job?" Eames was echoing on the other end of the phone. "What the fuck, Arthur? You're so much better than that." The concern, the goddamn pity in his voice made Arthur bristle. Fuck his misplaced sympathy. It was no longer his right, and honestly it was goddamn insulting that the only time Eames thought to contact him was to be condescending.
"Yeah, well, what I'm good for is no longer your concern, Eames." He hung up, cutting Eames off in mid-syllable as he called his name.
Arthur stared at the phone, his entire body was vibrating, and he'd never felt more aware of being so empty. He missed Eames like a limb. He wondered if he would feel this way forever. He was angry that he had been able to trick himself into believing he was fine, that he had been fine, and that all it took to bring that illusion crashing down was the first vibration of that voice. Arthur was scared that Eames would forever be making momentary appearances just to take a jab and remind him that this scab could be peeled off and bleed and hurt just as much as always, before disappearing again, leaving Arthur as raw and bleeding as when he had left the message on the answering machine.
Eames didn't call back.
The next day, Arthur changed the numbers of his home phone and cell.
**
They met Nash in the fall. Miles had finally been able to get ahold of him, somewhere in the Asian continent, and had sent him on the first plane to New York. They met in a boisterous cafe, because Miles knew Nash, but that didn't meant he trusted him. Arthur understood immediately when they saw Nash.
He was a shifty guy, greasy all around in every sense of the word, with an evasive look in his eyes and a downward turn of the mouth, which seemed reluctant to part with any syllable.
"So you guys are the new team?" He glanced them over, all three of them sitting side by side on the booth across from him. It felt more like an interview than a meeting between potential coworkers, and Arthur feared that they weren't the ones doing the evaluation. "Been hearing rumors. Just low murmurs, nothing loud enough to rouse much attention though."
"How many are there in the business?" Mal asked, her voice sharp with business. Arthur knew that she didn't like Nash one bit either.
If Nash noticed the hostility coming from them, he didn't let it show. "Let's see...There are six unregistered PASIVs floating around. I've worked with two before. One's permanently located in LA. They don't move around much, and only in the States. Second is in Mombasa on a job at the moment. They're from England though."
"How do you know all of this?" Arthur couldn't help but ask, with a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. He had searched incessantly for any signs of another PASIV since the beginning, but he had come up with nothing. He had come to discover just how fickle illegal researching was. You had to know exactly what you were looking for, and know where to look for it. Otherwise, some information would be lost to you forever. It angered him that someone like Nash would know, and not him.
Nash seemed to find the question very amusing. "It's just a matter of knowing the right people in the wrong crowds," he answered like a smartass. "Anyway," he went on, "there's a rumor of a seventh PASIV being functional, but no one's ever worked for the guy, and the source is highly questionable."
Arthur forced himself not to meet Mal's gaze. Nash hadn't taken offense to their attitude up to this point, but he may take offense if he saw just how much they considered him to be a dubious source. He couldn't believe how off Miles had been. There were six, possibly seven, PASIVs floating around this whole time, and three of them were so off-grid that not even Interpol knew about them.
They took Nash back to Mal's dorm. They had stopped working out of a hotel room because of the cost. Their clients paid generously, but they knew they would have to invest the money wisely if they were to then invest in the PASIV and developing their own independent team. They were reluctant to bring Nash back to either of their places, but Cobb absolutely wanted them to go under with Nash. He had been in the business longer than any of them, Cobb whispered to them when Nash went off to the toilets. He may be able to teach them something.
And boy, did he ever.
**
The dream was fine at first. Mal was the architect and Nash, the dreamer. They weren't working on extraction for the moment, so Cobb and Arthur were observers more than anything. They walked around for a while, but Arthur couldn't see how Nash's dream was any different from any of theirs.
That all changed when Arthur tried to build a bridge to take them across the lake to where Nash and Mal were walking, and the projections lost it. They didn't run, but walked toward Arthur with scary intent in their eyes. When Arthur turned to Cobb, he found them separated by a wall of projections, closing in around him. They attacked when Arthur panicked and tried to break through them.
They grabbed for him, yanking handfuls of hair, dragging him down. They didn't kill him, they beat him down. Dozens of feet, smashing into his body. Arthur curled into a fetal position, but he felt the hard tips of boots and shoes smashing into his back with murderous intent. When one of them jumped on his ankle with both feet, Arthur cried out and reached for it, breaking his defensive wall.
The opportunity was seized with a kick to his throat, and his windpipe was smashed. The whirl of emotion was torture. Arthur couldn't breathe, but he wasn't dying either. He felt his ribs crack, and a hit to his face made his vision spin black.
He saw the man with the bat arrive straight in front of him. He saw the bat swing for his skull. He felt the impact, the pain of his skull exploding. And still he wasn't dead.
It wasn't until he brought the bat down a second time that Arthur snapped awake, leaning forward so far with a gasp of a scream of agony that had died in his throat that he fell off of his chair.
He threw up on the carpet, body shaking violently at the memory of the pain. His hands fervently ran over his body, his ribs, his face... his head, all fine. But he could see the feet, the hard, cold gazes of the projections looking down at him as they kicked with all of their strength. He could still see his blood spurting from his body, could still taste the blood as his teeth fell in his mouth.
His ears were ringing with screams, and he didn't realize he was the one still screaming until he felt strong hands pulling him back, and he finally fell silent, his throat raw and his eyes burning.
"Arthur!" It was Cobb, pushing him back onto a chair, sitting down in front of him. Arthur was finally able to focus on his face, on his eyes. They shone with worry, but with something else - anger. White, hot anger. "You're okay. You're fine." Arthur realized dully that Cobb was yelling, nearly screaming, at him. Somehow, his voice was still so far away. "It was just a dream, do you hear me? Just a fucking dream."
Arthur nodded, but he felt sick. He was seeing himself from the outside, his body limp and broken and bloody, gasping vainly for breath. He saw his skull busted open, his brains leaking out onto the pavement, his legs twisted in the wrong direction. It hadn't been a dream. It had been so real. The pain, lingering and unable to stop, because he had been unable to die: you didn't need oxygen to live, when you weren't even awake.
There must have been a noise, because suddenly Cobb had turned away, had stood up. Arthur looked up, and saw more than heard Cobb yelling at Nash, getting up close in his face, spittle flying and his arms flailing as he barely restrained himself from hitting him.
Mal was moving away, toward Arthur, and Arthur forced himself to stand, forced himself to push his yells still echoing in his ears away.
"Arthur, Arthur, what happened?" she whispered, arms wrapping around him, pulling him close.
He could hear again, in that moment, safe in Mal's arms, and suddenly everything felt so loud.
"Cobb." He pulled away from Mal to put a hand on Cobb's shoulder, reining him in. "Stop."
"What kind of sick person are you?" Cobb spat, one last time, but letting himself be pulled away. "You fucking tore him apart."
"I'm sorry," Nash said, turning to Arthur. There was something akin to sorrow in his face, and Arthur actually believed him. "You have to understand that things are different, out there. Not all clients are so wealthy, and not all marks are so morally abiding. Sometimes, you have to resort to unconventional means to get a job done. Sometimes, a job turns nasty, and a mark turns violent. In the end, your own subconscious does all it can to protect itself."
Cobb wasn't buying it. "You should have warned us. I want you to leave."
Nash handed them a card, white and blank except for a series of numbers scrawled onto it. "The number of the architect in Mombasa. He'll be more helpful than the one located in LA, more open to newcomers in the business. Tell him Nash recommended him."
He was walking toward the door when he stopped and turned again. "I'm sorry for how today happened, but I can't say I'm sorry it did. It would have happened eventually, and it's better you know the stakes while it's still early enough to pull out." Then he was gone.
**
Nash had been wrong about Arthur. It was already too late for him to pull out now. For weeks, he was unable to sleep, plagued by Nash's projections closing in on him. In his dreams, they hissed and bared fangs when they snarled, their feet were metal spikes, and when they kicked him, they pierced through his body, but even the pain wasn't able to wake him up. He started taking sleeping pills, to chase away the demons of his dreams, and soon he was unable to fall asleep without them.
When he finally went under again, with the PASIV, Cobb was the first person his projections turned against, beating him down like Nash had done to him. Mal and Arthur had been unable to help him, unable to kill him through the wall of projections, and Arthur had had to hold Mal back to keep her from trying anyway. When they were done with Cobb, the projections turned, closing in on Mal. That was when Arthur finally had the good idea to dream up a gun and wake Mal up.
Cobb had woken up in a cold sweat, shaking, but more composed than Arthur had been. At least he had been prepared, and he understood. He shared a long, haunted look with Arthur, and then got up to clap him on the shoulder. No offense taken.
Mal was the one who asked that it happen to her as well.
"It's not like I want to die by a mob beating," she'd snapped at Arthur when he'd protested. "But I'm not about to stand around and be coddled because you think I'm too weak to handle it. It's a dream, and I won't be at a disadvantage here."
She went under alone with Cobb. When they woke up, Mal locked herself in the bathroom. They heard her sobbing for hours, but she came back out, no one mentioned it, and that was that.
Arthur joined a tae-kwon-do class a few days later. He liked the mentality of the art, and the self-discipline it required of him. His daily workout routine distracted him from the shadows of the night. It was a precise art, with strict rules and respectable morals, which were a welcome change from Arthur's work life that was becoming more distorted and chaotic.
When they finally got in touch with the architect from Mombasa, whose name was Ern and whose voice was like words being grated, Arthur felt they were ready to integrate into the illegal network of international dreamsharing. They had been tried and hardened, and they were no longer the naive children marveling at a new, wonderful, pure technology. They knew, now, that this machine was a weapon, sharp and deadly. They had lived through the worst it had to offer, and now Arthur felt as though nothing could hurt him anymore.
He knew it wasn't the same for Cobb and Mal. When he had seen them, huddled together, trying to heal each other's wounds and only hurting that much more when they took in the depth of their injuries, he knew in that moment that Mal and Cobb were stronger than him. He didn't know if he could have survived the trial of seeing Eames murdered in such an animalistic way. Arthur was wildly glad, for the first time, that he was tied to no one, that he had cut Eames loose before Eames had cut him.
Of course, the moment Arthur realized that was the moment Eames came waltzing back into his life.
part six...
word count: 5,28O
They threw themselves into their work. Arthur forewent working on his final essays in favor of spending an entire night researching on anything that could prove Sean Hall had ulterior motives in marrying Greg Payne's daughter, Ayla.
At their meeting, the next morning, Arthur slapped down a 50-page thick compilation of his findings on the table. Cobb kind of gawked at it, but Mal smirked, as though she had known what to expect from Arthur all along.
"Sean Hall comes from a very modest background," Arthur summarized for them. "His parents ran a grocery store together until they divorced and his father enrolled in the army. Sean was about fifteen years old, at the time. Three years later, his father died during a training drill. The official report said that he mishandled the weapon, causing it to backfire. Rumors claimed that it was a weapon malfunction. Whatever the reason, the affair was never pursued. My guess is that the family was given a hefty sum of money to not make a scene. A month later, though, the entire line of weaponry was recalled to the manufacturer and discontinued."
Cobb let out a grunt of understanding. "So, Sean never believed the official report, obviously, and the hush money only fuelled this train of thought."
"Exactly. Sean went into the weapons business after that, as a weapons regulator. He came out top of his class, with grades never seen before. He got his pick of career, obviously. He chose to be on the board of military weapons regulations."
"How does this link to Payne?"
"It doesn't explicitly. Not officially, anyway. Not until I found out that the manufacturers had wanted to do some more testing on the weapon, unsure if it was ready for distribution, but Payne was anxious to see the profits rolling in and forced their hand. The affair was really well covered up, I almost missed it myself. I have no idea how Sean caught wind of this situation, but he must have. Everything in his career steps and personal life now, shows him trying to get close to Payne and his family."
"All right. So, we have cause and motive." Cobb picked up the file that Arthur had put together, looking highly intimidated. "Good job, Arthur. Now, how do we go about forcing Sean to show us what his intentions are?"
**
The job was a smashing success, if not a bit depressing. Sean was on his way out of his office, on his way to a meet Ayla when he was arrested, or so the dream went. Arthur and Cobb flipped their badges to Sean and then escorted him to the police car. He protested right up until Arthur left the interrogation room, replaced by Mal. She shared Ayla's dark good looks, and though that was where their resemblance ended, it was often more than enough for Hall as the dreamer to make the connection to the person he had been thinking of in real life before going under.
"What's this all about?" Sean snapped, patience worn thin since the car ride. His eyes found Mal and he lingered there, hoping for a reply.
"Don't look at her," Cobb said, as Mal slapped down a tape recorder and took the seat opposite Sean with unusual force. "She's the bad cop here."
"We have evidence of what you were planning on doing," Mal's voice was thickly-accented by anger, "to Ayla."
Sean froze for a second, then he looked confused. "What are you talking about? I'm going to be marrying that woman. Why would I want to hurt my fiancée?"
Mal shared a look with Cobb, who cocked his head, and she snorted in disbelief. Then she reached over and turned on the recorder.
The thing about dreams was that they built the carcass of the gun. Molded nice and realistically, so that when the mark entered, he provided the ammunition through his memories. But it was his subconscious that pulled the trigger. The thing about weapons, though, was that sometimes they are faulty. And sometimes they backfire. As Sean was so well-placed to know.
Arthur held his breath. He was on the other side of the glass, watching the scene: he could see Sean staring down in confusion at the recorder, and he could hear the soft static silence as the recorder tape began, and thought, for a moment, that their gun had backfired.
Then they heard voices, slightly distorted by the bad recording, but recognizable nonetheless.
"I want that fucking pig to bleed," Sean was saying, lips popping on the harsh consonants. "I want him to feel the same pain I did. He murdered my father, you know." So, he was talking to someone, Arthur noted. They needed a name though. Without a name, they would have nothing concrete to give to Payne.
There was a disinterested grunt from the second person. "Is this the girl, Ayla?" There must have been a nod of confirmation from Sean, because the nasally voice added: "Pretty little bit. What a shame." Then he cleared his throat, and any sympathy for Ayla’s life was lost, or discarded. "What shall we want done with her, then?"
"Make her disappear," Sean snarled meanly. "And then deliver her dead body to his doorstep." Arthur's blood ran cold. Some people were just fucking animals. A part of him had always hoped that this idea was just fodder for a good movie. But now he had proof with his own ears and eyes that they existed.
The man hummed. "Such demands do not come cheap."
"Price is not a problem," Sean replied. "Her life insurance money will cover it nicely." The other man must have done something then, or looked a certain way, because Sean grew impatient and vile again. "Don't pretend you're better than me. What are you but a lapdog anyway? I want to see Crain." Arthur's head snapped up. They had a name. Crain. It was flimsy, but enough to go on if Arthur had to make do. Thankfully, in his arrogance, Sean continued. "I want to see Crain Molt myself."
"You do not see Molt. That was the deal," the other replied steadily, as though he heard such insults every day. Maybe he did. "Or is there no deal, now?"
There was a pause, a hesitation, and then Sean said: "We have a deal. See that it is done two weeks after the wedding." The wedding had been planned for July 4th; July 18th was the anniversary of his father's death. The tape was silent now, and all the blood had drained from Sean's face. They had him.
They told Payne the name of the hitman who had been hired: Arthur had looked into it and assured the client that, for the right price, the deal could be reversed. Molt had that kind of reputation.
Payne smiled humorlessly, and handed them a check which Cobb politely accepted, though he wouldn't look at it until Payne had left. "I won't forget this." Payne nodded to the three of them stiffly before leaving the room. Only then did Cobb flip over the check and sputtered all over it.
"A hundred and fourteen thousand." A clean thirty-eight thousand for each of them, Arthur calculated instantly. He felt a slow grin form, which he shared with Mal. Who needed a degree?! This had only been their first job, and not only had it been more exciting than any career real life had to offer, but the debuting payout was generous.
Cobb seemed to read his mind. He gave Arthur a hearty slap on the shoulder. "And it's only the beginning," he laughed, handing the check to Mal, as though the authenticity of it could only be verified by her.
They went out to celebrate. They went to the loudest bar they could find, and shouted with the best of them as they tipped back countless glasses. It wasn't until it was nearing two in the morning that Mal slicked back Cobb's hair and leaned into his ear. Arthur couldn't hear them, but he could see the shapes of her lips as she articulated 'Let's head back, baby.'
Arthur walked out with them, but slowed as they veered toward the bus stop which would take them to Mal's dorm.
"You coming?" Cobb's words were slurred, and he was leaning heavily on Mal, but Arthur knew he wasn't as drunk as he let on.
Arthur shook his head. "You guys go back. I'll see you tomorrow."
There was a short silence while Mal stared at Arthur and Arthur stared at Cobb, who smiled dumbly back, still riveted by the day's success. Mal disentangled herself from Cobb's grip and hugged Arthur. "You be careful, now. Do you hear me?" she said firmly in his ear, breath warm and accent comforting. "Stay safe."
A lump formed in Arthur's throat as he nodded. He honestly hadn't thought she'd connected the dots that far. She had figured out about Eames, but he hadn't thought she'd known about the bars. About the other men, the succession of shaggy-haired brunets with cocky grins and broad shoulders, because he had given up, but had not stopped yearning.
Mal kissed his cheek, lips cool and still slick from her last drink. The nights were hot now, but the warmth Mal gave him was a different kind. Arthur never wanted to let go. But she stepped back, and he let his arms fall.
"Call in the morning," she ordered. Then she stopped in her turn and grinned at him. "Or afternoon."
That night, he went home with a muscled brunet named Edward From Manchester. He knew that what he was doing wasn't all that healthy. It wasn't helping him forget in the least. But he wasn't trying to forget. He knew there was no way he ever could, so why try to fight an impossible battle? From the seven-odd torturous months Arthur had lived without Eames, he had come to realize that remembering while being sexually frustrated was worse than remembering with his hormones sated. The sex wasn't amazing; no one would replace Eames and everything he had been able to do with that damned mouth and those hands of his, and granted Arthur held not even a trace of the emotional bond he'd had with Eames with the men he now went with, but they were attractive and turned him on, and Arthur knew his body well enough to realize what it needed and provided it.
He hoped that, one day, he would be able to close his eyes when he kissed and not see a grinning dirty-blond with a cocky grin revealing a row of crooked teeth behind plush lips. But until then, Arthur would do what he had to in order to keep going without snapping.
**
Their next client contacted them directly. They had come highly recommended, he said, and he was willing to pay.
"It's not like he had a wide range to select from in the first place," Mal told them after the man had left the briefing. "Other than the military's PASIVs and ours, there are three PASIVs that have gone rogue since the operation's beginning. One was faulty, and as for the other two, well … they have three of the world's biggest governments hunting for them. They go to their clients, and not the other way around. There's no way to know if they're operating at all."
Cobb tapped a pencil against the table. "We need to find them. There's an underground community, that's for sure. Not knowing who our competitors are could be dangerous, especially if word is getting out. Your father has protected us until now, Mal, but even he will be powerless to stop the military if they catch wind of our PASIV."
Mal hesitated. "Papa knows of one, who works underground. If we met with him, maybe it could open the gateway to others. I would like for us to have our own chemist as well, in case Papa is unable to provide us with Somnacin in the future."
Arthur listened silently to their musings. He agreed with Mal, they would have to break off their ties with Miles sooner or later. The arrival of their latest client unnerved him. Miles hadn't known anything of the man when Mal had called him, which meant that they were getting an independent reputation. It would be dangerous to be so dependent on one so close to the military for much longer, both for them and for Miles.
Cobb agreed. "We'll start off small," he said. "Do you think your dad could set us up to meet with this guy? What's his name?"
Mal nodded. "I will call him tonight. I believe his name is Nash."
**
That summer, Arthur went home for Amanda's wedding. He had met Brad, the groom, a few months ago when he and Amanda had come to New York to see him, and he had liked him well enough. He'd still done a thorough background check on him when Amanda had announced their engagement. He was a decent guy. Arthur gave Amanda his seal of approval, but she just laughed and pulled him into a hug.
Arthur hugged her tightly, tears on the brink of his lashes.
"Don't fucking cry," Amanda ordered, punching him meanly on the shoulder. For a petite girl, barely 5"5' in a white lace wedding dress, she had one heck of a right hook. "If you cry, I'll cry, and then my makeup will be ruined."
Arthur grinned, and leaned down to peck her cheek. He loved her so much in that moment, a part of him wanted to pack her up and run away with her, put her somewhere high and unreachable so that she could never be hurt. "He better make you happy. Or I'll have to hurt him."
Amanda snorted very inelegantly. "Uh, have you seen Brad, little brother?"
She had a point. Brad was a rugby player, with large shoulders and thick thighs. Still, despite his intimidating build, there was something soft in his face, and something innocent in his eyes, which betrayed his young age and proved his gentle nature. Arthur rolled his eyes. "I know people."
Amanda laughed, not believing him. Then, she sobered. "I really hope you'll be this happy, one day," she said, softly. Arthur had told her about Eames. She had been the only person he'd told, and she'd listened wholeheartedly and hadn't fed him any clichéd bullshit about how Arthur was better off without him. Arthur loved her for that.
"Yeah." He thought of Eames wearing a white tux, and smiled. "Yeah, me too."
"You will find someone," she said, and Arthur loved her even more because her voice held no room for contradiction and he knew that, unlike him, Amanda didn't doubt the truth of her words.
"Come on." He brushed a curled strand of hair behind her ear. "You're keeping everyone waiting." Amanda had thrown all of her bridesmaids out of the room when Arthur had arrived. Arthur knew they were all tittering impatiently outside the door.
"All right." Amanda grinned, and leaned in for another quick hug. "Wish me luck."
Arthur watched her run to the door in her white stiletto heels, and knew he didn't have to.
**
That summer, Arthur also told his mother that he wasn't going back to university for his second year. He had already decided this long before the final exams of the second semester, but he hadn't want to tell his mother such news by the phone.
She was shocked, but rushed to comfort him. She agreed that he should take a year or two to try and 'find himself,' she said. Arthur wanted to tell her that he had found himself, that he'd found his calling in life, what he had been meant to do. He didn't, though, and let her hug him.
He told Eames' mom when they bumped into each other at the supermarket and she greeted him with a wide smile, remembering him as Eames' childhood friend. He told her that he and Eames had unfortunately lost touch a few months ago, and that university just wasn't cutting it for him. She wished him the best of luck finding his path, and went to pay for her groceries.
Eames called him a week later. "I talked to my mum. She told me you weren't going back for a second year of uni." It wasn't a question, but a reproach.
Hearing his voice was enough to make Arthur's throat tighten and his heart stretch. He'd missed it, he realized, like a traitor's knife to his gut. He irrationally felt guilty for all he had done, for having believed he was fine without Eames. He wasn't fine at all. He was burning to know how many guys Eames had been with, not since the phone breakup, but what Arthur now considered to be their true breakup, the last time they had seen each other in person. He hated Eames for calling now, for bringing everything back.
"Yeah," he patted himself on the back for keeping a steady voice and a flippant tone. "It wasn't what I thought it would be. I got a desk job, white-collar, and all that." At least lying was easier over the phone, though it burned him up inside to be unable to confess to Eames the magnificent world he had discovered. He knew Eames would have loved dreamsharing. The actor in him would have thrived in the environment. He wasn't an architect or a point man (as Cobb had come to call Arthur's job), and extraction probably wouldn't have come as easily as it did to Cobb, but they hadn't even scratched the surface of the possibilities of the world. Arthur was sure Eames would have surprised them all with a new discovery.
"A desk job?" Eames was echoing on the other end of the phone. "What the fuck, Arthur? You're so much better than that." The concern, the goddamn pity in his voice made Arthur bristle. Fuck his misplaced sympathy. It was no longer his right, and honestly it was goddamn insulting that the only time Eames thought to contact him was to be condescending.
"Yeah, well, what I'm good for is no longer your concern, Eames." He hung up, cutting Eames off in mid-syllable as he called his name.
Arthur stared at the phone, his entire body was vibrating, and he'd never felt more aware of being so empty. He missed Eames like a limb. He wondered if he would feel this way forever. He was angry that he had been able to trick himself into believing he was fine, that he had been fine, and that all it took to bring that illusion crashing down was the first vibration of that voice. Arthur was scared that Eames would forever be making momentary appearances just to take a jab and remind him that this scab could be peeled off and bleed and hurt just as much as always, before disappearing again, leaving Arthur as raw and bleeding as when he had left the message on the answering machine.
Eames didn't call back.
The next day, Arthur changed the numbers of his home phone and cell.
**
They met Nash in the fall. Miles had finally been able to get ahold of him, somewhere in the Asian continent, and had sent him on the first plane to New York. They met in a boisterous cafe, because Miles knew Nash, but that didn't meant he trusted him. Arthur understood immediately when they saw Nash.
He was a shifty guy, greasy all around in every sense of the word, with an evasive look in his eyes and a downward turn of the mouth, which seemed reluctant to part with any syllable.
"So you guys are the new team?" He glanced them over, all three of them sitting side by side on the booth across from him. It felt more like an interview than a meeting between potential coworkers, and Arthur feared that they weren't the ones doing the evaluation. "Been hearing rumors. Just low murmurs, nothing loud enough to rouse much attention though."
"How many are there in the business?" Mal asked, her voice sharp with business. Arthur knew that she didn't like Nash one bit either.
If Nash noticed the hostility coming from them, he didn't let it show. "Let's see...There are six unregistered PASIVs floating around. I've worked with two before. One's permanently located in LA. They don't move around much, and only in the States. Second is in Mombasa on a job at the moment. They're from England though."
"How do you know all of this?" Arthur couldn't help but ask, with a bitter taste in the back of his mouth. He had searched incessantly for any signs of another PASIV since the beginning, but he had come up with nothing. He had come to discover just how fickle illegal researching was. You had to know exactly what you were looking for, and know where to look for it. Otherwise, some information would be lost to you forever. It angered him that someone like Nash would know, and not him.
Nash seemed to find the question very amusing. "It's just a matter of knowing the right people in the wrong crowds," he answered like a smartass. "Anyway," he went on, "there's a rumor of a seventh PASIV being functional, but no one's ever worked for the guy, and the source is highly questionable."
Arthur forced himself not to meet Mal's gaze. Nash hadn't taken offense to their attitude up to this point, but he may take offense if he saw just how much they considered him to be a dubious source. He couldn't believe how off Miles had been. There were six, possibly seven, PASIVs floating around this whole time, and three of them were so off-grid that not even Interpol knew about them.
They took Nash back to Mal's dorm. They had stopped working out of a hotel room because of the cost. Their clients paid generously, but they knew they would have to invest the money wisely if they were to then invest in the PASIV and developing their own independent team. They were reluctant to bring Nash back to either of their places, but Cobb absolutely wanted them to go under with Nash. He had been in the business longer than any of them, Cobb whispered to them when Nash went off to the toilets. He may be able to teach them something.
And boy, did he ever.
**
The dream was fine at first. Mal was the architect and Nash, the dreamer. They weren't working on extraction for the moment, so Cobb and Arthur were observers more than anything. They walked around for a while, but Arthur couldn't see how Nash's dream was any different from any of theirs.
That all changed when Arthur tried to build a bridge to take them across the lake to where Nash and Mal were walking, and the projections lost it. They didn't run, but walked toward Arthur with scary intent in their eyes. When Arthur turned to Cobb, he found them separated by a wall of projections, closing in around him. They attacked when Arthur panicked and tried to break through them.
They grabbed for him, yanking handfuls of hair, dragging him down. They didn't kill him, they beat him down. Dozens of feet, smashing into his body. Arthur curled into a fetal position, but he felt the hard tips of boots and shoes smashing into his back with murderous intent. When one of them jumped on his ankle with both feet, Arthur cried out and reached for it, breaking his defensive wall.
The opportunity was seized with a kick to his throat, and his windpipe was smashed. The whirl of emotion was torture. Arthur couldn't breathe, but he wasn't dying either. He felt his ribs crack, and a hit to his face made his vision spin black.
He saw the man with the bat arrive straight in front of him. He saw the bat swing for his skull. He felt the impact, the pain of his skull exploding. And still he wasn't dead.
It wasn't until he brought the bat down a second time that Arthur snapped awake, leaning forward so far with a gasp of a scream of agony that had died in his throat that he fell off of his chair.
He threw up on the carpet, body shaking violently at the memory of the pain. His hands fervently ran over his body, his ribs, his face... his head, all fine. But he could see the feet, the hard, cold gazes of the projections looking down at him as they kicked with all of their strength. He could still see his blood spurting from his body, could still taste the blood as his teeth fell in his mouth.
His ears were ringing with screams, and he didn't realize he was the one still screaming until he felt strong hands pulling him back, and he finally fell silent, his throat raw and his eyes burning.
"Arthur!" It was Cobb, pushing him back onto a chair, sitting down in front of him. Arthur was finally able to focus on his face, on his eyes. They shone with worry, but with something else - anger. White, hot anger. "You're okay. You're fine." Arthur realized dully that Cobb was yelling, nearly screaming, at him. Somehow, his voice was still so far away. "It was just a dream, do you hear me? Just a fucking dream."
Arthur nodded, but he felt sick. He was seeing himself from the outside, his body limp and broken and bloody, gasping vainly for breath. He saw his skull busted open, his brains leaking out onto the pavement, his legs twisted in the wrong direction. It hadn't been a dream. It had been so real. The pain, lingering and unable to stop, because he had been unable to die: you didn't need oxygen to live, when you weren't even awake.
There must have been a noise, because suddenly Cobb had turned away, had stood up. Arthur looked up, and saw more than heard Cobb yelling at Nash, getting up close in his face, spittle flying and his arms flailing as he barely restrained himself from hitting him.
Mal was moving away, toward Arthur, and Arthur forced himself to stand, forced himself to push his yells still echoing in his ears away.
"Arthur, Arthur, what happened?" she whispered, arms wrapping around him, pulling him close.
He could hear again, in that moment, safe in Mal's arms, and suddenly everything felt so loud.
"Cobb." He pulled away from Mal to put a hand on Cobb's shoulder, reining him in. "Stop."
"What kind of sick person are you?" Cobb spat, one last time, but letting himself be pulled away. "You fucking tore him apart."
"I'm sorry," Nash said, turning to Arthur. There was something akin to sorrow in his face, and Arthur actually believed him. "You have to understand that things are different, out there. Not all clients are so wealthy, and not all marks are so morally abiding. Sometimes, you have to resort to unconventional means to get a job done. Sometimes, a job turns nasty, and a mark turns violent. In the end, your own subconscious does all it can to protect itself."
Cobb wasn't buying it. "You should have warned us. I want you to leave."
Nash handed them a card, white and blank except for a series of numbers scrawled onto it. "The number of the architect in Mombasa. He'll be more helpful than the one located in LA, more open to newcomers in the business. Tell him Nash recommended him."
He was walking toward the door when he stopped and turned again. "I'm sorry for how today happened, but I can't say I'm sorry it did. It would have happened eventually, and it's better you know the stakes while it's still early enough to pull out." Then he was gone.
**
Nash had been wrong about Arthur. It was already too late for him to pull out now. For weeks, he was unable to sleep, plagued by Nash's projections closing in on him. In his dreams, they hissed and bared fangs when they snarled, their feet were metal spikes, and when they kicked him, they pierced through his body, but even the pain wasn't able to wake him up. He started taking sleeping pills, to chase away the demons of his dreams, and soon he was unable to fall asleep without them.
When he finally went under again, with the PASIV, Cobb was the first person his projections turned against, beating him down like Nash had done to him. Mal and Arthur had been unable to help him, unable to kill him through the wall of projections, and Arthur had had to hold Mal back to keep her from trying anyway. When they were done with Cobb, the projections turned, closing in on Mal. That was when Arthur finally had the good idea to dream up a gun and wake Mal up.
Cobb had woken up in a cold sweat, shaking, but more composed than Arthur had been. At least he had been prepared, and he understood. He shared a long, haunted look with Arthur, and then got up to clap him on the shoulder. No offense taken.
Mal was the one who asked that it happen to her as well.
"It's not like I want to die by a mob beating," she'd snapped at Arthur when he'd protested. "But I'm not about to stand around and be coddled because you think I'm too weak to handle it. It's a dream, and I won't be at a disadvantage here."
She went under alone with Cobb. When they woke up, Mal locked herself in the bathroom. They heard her sobbing for hours, but she came back out, no one mentioned it, and that was that.
Arthur joined a tae-kwon-do class a few days later. He liked the mentality of the art, and the self-discipline it required of him. His daily workout routine distracted him from the shadows of the night. It was a precise art, with strict rules and respectable morals, which were a welcome change from Arthur's work life that was becoming more distorted and chaotic.
When they finally got in touch with the architect from Mombasa, whose name was Ern and whose voice was like words being grated, Arthur felt they were ready to integrate into the illegal network of international dreamsharing. They had been tried and hardened, and they were no longer the naive children marveling at a new, wonderful, pure technology. They knew, now, that this machine was a weapon, sharp and deadly. They had lived through the worst it had to offer, and now Arthur felt as though nothing could hurt him anymore.
He knew it wasn't the same for Cobb and Mal. When he had seen them, huddled together, trying to heal each other's wounds and only hurting that much more when they took in the depth of their injuries, he knew in that moment that Mal and Cobb were stronger than him. He didn't know if he could have survived the trial of seeing Eames murdered in such an animalistic way. Arthur was wildly glad, for the first time, that he was tied to no one, that he had cut Eames loose before Eames had cut him.
Of course, the moment Arthur realized that was the moment Eames came waltzing back into his life.
part six...