It almost didn't occur to Arthur that the assumed name might be problematic; Ariadne was just a normal architecture student until a few weeks ago, and fake identities were probably just something out of the Jason Bourne movies to her. To Arthur, though, they were just a fact of life. He'd been using them ever since he started working, and although he'd used the name Arthur ever since he started working with Dom, it still wasn't his real name.
"It depends on where I'm caught, how much the authorities are able to connect the name I used at the time with what I did, which shouldn't be much, and on how much evidence the prosecution is able to collect. Extraction cases are essentially a he-said, she-said affair without anything substantial to prove that a theft took place, which is why they're almost impossible to bring to trial." Arthur says, sounding almost as if he were trying to reassure Ariadne... in his own special deadpan way.
"But if I were to be caught and if the government was somehow able to connect me to an extraction case, I would be going to jail for a very long time at best."
Ariadne knows that what they do is illegal, and she's known it since the beginning. She's a little embarrassed that she hasn't particularly considered the severity of the consequences before. Hearing Arthur say that he would be in jail for a long time if he were caught has her frowning, and she fiddles with her fork, looking agitated.
"You kind of forget that this is so illegal," she says quietly, eyes on the fork twirling in her hand.
"But anyway," she adds, looking up with a faint smile. "Like you said, any complaints are mostly hearsay, so it'd be pretty difficult to actually charge any of us."
"Exactly. That's why it's important to not draw attention to yourself if at all possible. They're not above charging us-- or you, in theory, but you haven't done anything criminal since you arrived in the States, so you should be all right-- with something completely unrelated to the extraction if it would mean jail time." Arthur says, sounding very casual for a man talking about the possibility of going to jail.
"... so, how have your classes been?" Arthur asks, belatedly remembering that being arrested might not be the best topic of conversation. Unfortunately, Arthur doesn't have a lot of experience with non-job-related chatter, so he asked the first thing that came to mind.
She's about to say something--her mouth is just staring to open to let words out--when he changes the subject, and she closes her mouth and smirks and rolls her eyes vaguely. Tactful subject change is tactful, and that's actually not irony--it was fairly tactful. Natural, no, since there was definitely a conversation to have continued there, but it was tactful.
"They're alright. I'm having to retake a term of practical architecture nonsense because, according to my professor, I've been "dreaming too big" lately, and she thinks it's because I didn't pay enough attention. Evidently, ironically handing in blueprints for physically impossible structures is a bad thing." She doesn't sound particularly amused, nor does the waitress look it when she materializes with their food. Making it a point to force positively corrosive smiles at their general vicinity, she puts their plates in front of them (getting the orders mixed up), and leaves. Ariadne is baffled.
"Did we accidentally kill her first-born, or something?" She's wondering if they ought to do poison checks on their sandwiches.
The irony of Ariadne being accused of 'dreaming too big' has Arthur smirking a little-- at least, before their little ray of sunshine waitress arrives with their orders. She does not get thanked this time, because it's become abundantly clear that she doesn't actually care and so Arthur doesn't quite see the point in bothering.
"I'm... not sure." Arthur gives his sandwich a slightly suspicious look before noticing that it's actually what Ariadne ordered. See if he tips you now, waitress from hell. "I think we may need to trade, though."
Yeah, that irony tended to get to her, too. She had laughed for a while when the professor said that.
She glances down at her plate, realizes that oh, that's totally not what she ordered, and sighs as she hands the plate to Arthur, taking hers from him.
"Remind me not to tip her well. That's weird, though, I'm pretty sure I had her last time I was here. Unless--aww, man, I really need to teach him how to tip..." She abruptly looks duly scandalized, hands stilling in their habitual rearranging of the sandwich garnishes.
"Ah, that explains it." Arthur says with a nod, trying to decide whether or not to ask who Ariadne was here with before. On the one hand, he's curious... and would like to know if she has a boyfriend. On the other, he's pretty cure that would be considered rude. "I wouldn't think you'd be able to keep a job as a waitress with an attitude like that all the time."
"Yeah, she'd get fired pretty quickly. Then again, she probably does this to everyone who tips poorly, and I'm pretty sure most people tip poorly." She snorts. "I'm so glad I'm not waitressing anymore--that was a seriously terrible job."
Watching their pissy waitress service another table with a much more pleasant expression, Ariadne arches an eyebrow, taking a bite of her sandwich.
"You were a waitress?" Arthur pauses, sandwich halfway to his mouth. He won't mention that he has a hard time imagining Ariadne as a waitress. To be fair, however, he has a difficult time imagining Ariadne as anything but an architect (either small-a architect or capital-A Architect; she seems equally suited to both, although he thinks she prefers the sort of designing found in dreams).
She stares at him over the rim of her coffeecup (incidentally, she's on the second cup now), wondering why he looks... surprised. Well, as surprised as Arthur ever looks.
Setting the cup down, she shrugs, ripping a bit of protruding Romaine off, shredding it absentmindedly.
"It was my first job. Worked it all through college. It wasn't anything particularly fascinating, but the paycheck was decent. It got a little... eh." She pauses, smiling uncomfortably at her plate for a second. "Bad side of town. I was that mildly attractive white girl working the local let's-go-eat-really-good-greasy-food-at-midnight restaurant. I'm not really sure why I didn't quit." She laughs, dropping the lettuce. "Barnes & Noble is such an improvement, it's not even funny."
Why did the hostess have to pick a table where both seats had a fairly awkward view of the front door? If she hadn't, Arthur would have seen the two men in ski masks-- the two obviously armed men in ski masks-- before they'd entered the restaurant.
Arthur instinctively leaned forward a little bit, staring at the two men and the obviously terrified hostess with laser-like focus. Sorry, Ariadne. He'll have to listen to your fascinating story another time, when he's not distracted by armed robbers.
Ariadne freezes with her sandwich halfway to her mouth, eyes on Arthur--it amazes her how much like a cat he is, sometimes. Cats only stare like that when they've found something to be very, very focused on. She knows Arthur well enough (which is really not at all, despite everything) to know that that kind of hyperfocus isn't a good thing when in a casual, public setting--it means thing are going to explode, or go crazy, or they're going to get shot at, or something of the like.
She turns her head to follow his gaze, breathes in, breathes out, and puts her sandwich down. She checks her watch. She looks at Arthur, who is still not looking at her, and she says:
"Who would hold a restaurant up at two twenty-eight in the afternoon on a Tuesday?"
"The kind of people who are too stupid to know it won't work." Arthur says, still staring at the would-be robbers. There may be some bravado to that statement (after all, Arthur is a thief too), but it's mostly just common sense and contempt. The getaway-- assuming the robbers even make it to the getaway, which is doubtful-- will be messy and seen by everyone on the block, the police generally aren't busy at two-thirty on a Thursday... the list of problems goes on. It's a sloppy operation, and Arthur honestly can't believe someone thought this attempted robbery was a good idea.
"Ariadne, try to make your way over to the restrooms. Inconspicuously, if you can." He carefully checks the small of his back for his gun, which is there if necessary, then quietly stands up.
Something in her rejects that order as unnecessary--If I lived through that job, I'll live through a restaurant robbery, Arthur.--and she stares at him with a very large glint of stubbornness in the set of her eyebrows. She's not weak--she can sit here like everyone else and do an infinitely better job of not panicking than most a) twenty-two-year-olds, b) women, and/or c) average people. It occurs to her several seconds before she opens her mouth to protest and assert her desire to stay right here, thank you, that there really isn't a battle to be fought here, because she has no idea of what to do when guns start blazing, when people start screaming, when the sky starts falling--the job that she lived through had been in a dream, and though it would have had serious consequences if she'd gotten shot, she wouldn't have died.
I hope you realize what I'm saving you from, she says inwardly--though the pointed frown at him fairly communicates the thought--at Arthur, referring to her oncoming refusal to cooperate, before glancing at the robbers and making her slow, steady way across the restaurant to the bathrooms. She leaves her bag--all that's in it are her books and phone, both of which can be replaced fairly easily, and taking it with her would be "conspicuous".
Also, she looks far too casual for someone aware of a robbery.
Arthur has an incredible amount of faith in Ariadne's ability to not panic. He has considerably less faith in her ability to be bulletproof, which is why he asked her to hide and not argue with him. As soon as she starts moving, he walks straight up to the hostess' booth, completely ignoring the increasing amount of confusion and panic around him.
"Is everything all right up here?" he asks, voice bland and mostly friendly; he might not be the same caliber of actor as, say, Eames, but he's more than capable of temporarily playing a part. The question isn't directed at anyone in particular, although the hostess seems highly unlikely to answer coherently.
Not panicking or not, she thinks vaguely that getting out of the way is a fairly enlightened idea as one of the robbers rounds on Arthur.
"Everything's lovely, pretty boy," he sneers, calmly pulling his gun and jabbing it into Arthur's chest. "Now go sit down and let us finish."
It is notable that Ariadne has not gone into the bathroom--she is peeking around the corner of the little hall with the restrooms, sincerely wishing someone would teach her how to use a gun already so she could start carrying one around with her so she could shoot that guy in the face for jabbing a gun at Arthur.
It is also notable that, with the appearance of the gun, the restaurant has tumbled into chaos.
"It depends on where I'm caught, how much the authorities are able to connect the name I used at the time with what I did, which shouldn't be much, and on how much evidence the prosecution is able to collect. Extraction cases are essentially a he-said, she-said affair without anything substantial to prove that a theft took place, which is why they're almost impossible to bring to trial." Arthur says, sounding almost as if he were trying to reassure Ariadne... in his own special deadpan way.
"But if I were to be caught and if the government was somehow able to connect me to an extraction case, I would be going to jail for a very long time at best."
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"You kind of forget that this is so illegal," she says quietly, eyes on the fork twirling in her hand.
"But anyway," she adds, looking up with a faint smile. "Like you said, any complaints are mostly hearsay, so it'd be pretty difficult to actually charge any of us."
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"... so, how have your classes been?" Arthur asks, belatedly remembering that being arrested might not be the best topic of conversation. Unfortunately, Arthur doesn't have a lot of experience with non-job-related chatter, so he asked the first thing that came to mind.
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"They're alright. I'm having to retake a term of practical architecture nonsense because, according to my professor, I've been "dreaming too big" lately, and she thinks it's because I didn't pay enough attention. Evidently, ironically handing in blueprints for physically impossible structures is a bad thing." She doesn't sound particularly amused, nor does the waitress look it when she materializes with their food. Making it a point to force positively corrosive smiles at their general vicinity, she puts their plates in front of them (getting the orders mixed up), and leaves. Ariadne is baffled.
"Did we accidentally kill her first-born, or something?" She's wondering if they ought to do poison checks on their sandwiches.
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"I'm... not sure." Arthur gives his sandwich a slightly suspicious look before noticing that it's actually what Ariadne ordered. See if he tips you now, waitress from hell. "I think we may need to trade, though."
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She glances down at her plate, realizes that oh, that's totally not what she ordered, and sighs as she hands the plate to Arthur, taking hers from him.
"Remind me not to tip her well. That's weird, though, I'm pretty sure I had her last time I was here. Unless--aww, man, I really need to teach him how to tip..." She abruptly looks duly scandalized, hands stilling in their habitual rearranging of the sandwich garnishes.
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Watching their pissy waitress service another table with a much more pleasant expression, Ariadne arches an eyebrow, taking a bite of her sandwich.
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Setting the cup down, she shrugs, ripping a bit of protruding Romaine off, shredding it absentmindedly.
"It was my first job. Worked it all through college. It wasn't anything particularly fascinating, but the paycheck was decent. It got a little... eh." She pauses, smiling uncomfortably at her plate for a second. "Bad side of town. I was that mildly attractive white girl working the local let's-go-eat-really-good-greasy-food-at-midnight restaurant. I'm not really sure why I didn't quit." She laughs, dropping the lettuce. "Barnes & Noble is such an improvement, it's not even funny."
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Arthur instinctively leaned forward a little bit, staring at the two men and the obviously terrified hostess with laser-like focus. Sorry, Ariadne. He'll have to listen to your fascinating story another time, when he's not distracted by armed robbers.
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She turns her head to follow his gaze, breathes in, breathes out, and puts her sandwich down. She checks her watch. She looks at Arthur, who is still not looking at her, and she says:
"Who would hold a restaurant up at two twenty-eight in the afternoon on a Tuesday?"
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"Ariadne, try to make your way over to the restrooms. Inconspicuously, if you can." He carefully checks the small of his back for his gun, which is there if necessary, then quietly stands up.
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I hope you realize what I'm saving you from, she says inwardly--though the pointed frown at him fairly communicates the thought--at Arthur, referring to her oncoming refusal to cooperate, before glancing at the robbers and making her slow, steady way across the restaurant to the bathrooms. She leaves her bag--all that's in it are her books and phone, both of which can be replaced fairly easily, and taking it with her would be "conspicuous".
Also, she looks far too casual for someone aware of a robbery.
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"Is everything all right up here?" he asks, voice bland and mostly friendly; he might not be the same caliber of actor as, say, Eames, but he's more than capable of temporarily playing a part. The question isn't directed at anyone in particular, although the hostess seems highly unlikely to answer coherently.
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"Everything's lovely, pretty boy," he sneers, calmly pulling his gun and jabbing it into Arthur's chest. "Now go sit down and let us finish."
It is notable that Ariadne has not gone into the bathroom--she is peeking around the corner of the little hall with the restrooms, sincerely wishing someone would teach her how to use a gun already so she could start carrying one around with her so she could shoot that guy in the face for jabbing a gun at Arthur.
It is also notable that, with the appearance of the gun, the restaurant has tumbled into chaos.
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