With Regard to the Shadowboxers [1/2]
Artist: kehrilyn
Pairings: Arthur/Eames
Rating: R
Word Count: 17,000
Warnings: None
Notes: For i_reversebang! All credit for everything goes to kehrilyn, the WIND BENEATH MY WINGS ♥ Also, sorry about all of these... cross-posted links leading to other entries that lead to other entries, it's like that one ~Internet blonde joke~, only... not funny...
Summary: Arthur and Eames sabotage each other's jobs-- until they can't anymore. Or: How Arthur and Eames Learned to Stop Worrying and Make Their Own Form of Social Capital.
Eames likes Saint-Tropez in the off season. Doesn't he like most anything better in the off season? Signaling behavior of the self-superior, he guesses. A reluctance to follow the herd.
But the weather's still warm as the French Riviera heads into winter, and Eames thinks there's no better spot in the world to spend a week or two basking in the afterglow of success. Word of the Fischer inception is spreading, slow and insidious as treacle. He's besieged with potential job offers, but he's in no hurry to take on another run, when his cut keeps climbing with each moment he stalls.
More than anything, right now he's busy being idle. He swallows a mouthful of his tarte tropézienne. (C'est merveilleux.) The brioche is light, the cream sweet. It's a fantastic November day, with the wispy clouds skimming across the sky, the murmur of the sparse crowd unobtrusive-- the sea breeze pleasant past the bright red awning of the cafe--
--when suddenly, unaccountably, he feels a shiver run through him.
He starts. In an instant, his hand is inside his linen jacket, gripping the concealed semi-automatic.
But one long minute passes after another with him frozen in place, and nothing happens to disturb the lazy quiet of St. Trop. Gradually the feeling fades, leaving a faint cold sweat at the back of his neck, the ringing in his ears ebbing away.
Nonplussed, Eames stares down at his plate.
"What the fuck," he says, just to hear his own voice.
(Eames doesn't know it yet, but the shiver he felt did in fact have a specific cause; it was that forty-five hundred miles away, in a third-floor apartment suite in Chicago, Illinois, an acquaintance of his called Arthur had just started to fidget.)
+
The proposition that Eames ends up accepting calls him to Florida. Geriatric rock star, old record label, royalty disputes. The really fascinating part is that the mark has spent sixty years more or less under the influence, and it's rumored that his mind is simply too great a mess to yield anything coherent through extraction.
Eames is interested enough that he refuses to wait for an extractor to hire him. He's headed teams before, no shoddy extractor in his own right. Luckily his profile is high and the job is glitzy, so the recruitment process goes without a hitch. He makes a few calls, sets the lobby of his hotel as the rendezvous point, and knocks back a mimosa.
On the scheduled date, his architect, Caleb, arrives ten minutes early in a straw hat. Even Eames thinks that his shirt is a bit loud.
"If any job ever needed a chemist, this is the one," says Caleb. "Who did you get?"
"Ekaterina," says Eames. "She flew in yesterday."
Instead, the glass doors slide open and Mad Dog Banzini strolls in, tugging three suitcases behind him. Eames feels a twinge of annoyance that they might be running jobs in the same city.
"What are you here for," Eames asks him, when he sinks into a couch.
"What are you on about?" asks Banzini. "I'm your chemist, remember?"
"The hell you are," snaps Eames. "Where's Ekaterina?"
Just then, Ekaterina marches up to him and demands, "You hired two chemists? You hired Mad Dog? What, you didn't think I was good enough?"
Eames holds up his hands, There's been a mistake, let me explain, in case Ekaterina decides to sock him in the face like she did in Cairo.
"And if you hired two chemists," she continues, "what do you need a materials supplier for? Don't give me that look, I ran into Darwish at customs, he said he was here for your job. Eames, what's going on?"
"I didn't hire Darwish," protests Eames. "I didn't hire Mad Dog either! It's just supposed to be you, me, Caleb, and Sorel to infiltrate the nursing home, I don't know what the rest of these wankers are doing here, honest--"
His phone starts to buzz in his pocket. It's Sorel, speaking so fast he can't even pick out all the words, but it's abundantly clear that she's furious.
"--ever fucking work with you again," she's snarling, "if you doubted my fucking abilities, you should have said so to my fucking face, don't fucking sneak around and hire all three of the fucking Madsen brothers to do my job for me--"
Just as Eames has calmed her down and pleaded with her to show up at the hotel, his phone rings again.
"It's good to hear from you, Mrs. Nzekwu," Eames says weakly, "but I thought you were on maternity leave."
"For the price you offered, I'd come out of my coffin," says Mrs. Nzekwu.
"What do you need her for?" Caleb asks, outraged. "Am I not architect enough for you?"
By the end of the hour, it turns out that he's apparently hired four architects, six chemists, two materials suppliers, three surveillance tech specialists, and seven moles. All twenty-two of them show up, and the concierge asks them to please take the commotion outside, they're upsetting the other guests. They relocate to the parking lot where they surround Eames like an angry flock of geese, jabbing their fingers into his chest and refusing to leave.
"If you can't even keep track of who you hired," says Banzini, "why don't you get in touch with your point? He's the one that contacted me, negotiated the whole deal."
"A point?" asks Eames. "I'm not using a point, what are you talking about?"
"Your goddamn point man, Eames," says Banzini. "You know, David Emmerdale?"
"Yeah, David Emmerdale," says Yan. "He said he was taking care of personnel for you-- he'll know what to do."
"David Emmerdale?" repeats Eames. "David Emmerdale?"
Eames sits on the lip of the whirlpool bathtub, wedging his phone into his neck. He hikes up the hem of his trousers and dips his toes into the churning, steaming water. Five rings, then he's through.
"David Emmerdale," says Eames. "You son of a bitch."
"Do I hear you running your bath?" asks Arthur. "That is extremely gauche, Eames. You should have e-mailed me, or texted me, at least."
"I didn't think that textual communication would quite sufficiently convey just how incredibly angry I am right now," says Eames, then adds, "you son of a bitch."
"I have no idea what you mean," says Arthur. "But I bet you're about to tell a great story."
"Twenty-two people showed up, nineteen of whom claimed to have been hired by David Emmerdale, my point man," says Eames. "They insisted they were all contracted with a set upfront fee, which they demanded that they be paid. There was a fair bit of physical confrontation, some very choice threats -- extra thanks for Mad Dog Banzini -- and in the end, I had to dip into two personal savings accounts. Because one wasn't enough. To top it off, even my original crew requested to be paid in advance, because they were beginning to harbor serious doubts of my sanity, my sense of responsibility, my long-term memory, and all other manner of professional qualifications."
"Don't be too upset," says Arthur. "The concept of tithing is designed to remind us that material possessions are cumbersome obstacles in the path of salvation."
"You're not even religious," says Eames.
"David Emmerdale is," says Arthur.
"David Emmerdale isn't real," yells Eames. "David Emmerdale was invented by you three years ago in Vilnius when you had to pose as a reporter interviewing the City Council, he's about as real as that press ID I made for you when we were on that job. Despite what you've led half the mindheist community to believe, Arthur, I don't actually have a memory problem."
"All you ever do with your money is lose it in casinos," says Arthur. "I just saved you time."
"Why are you doing this?" groans Eames, massaging his temples. "Is this because of Quezon City? The Christmas gift exchange? Because that wasn't my fault, that was because you cheated-- the only thing you put on your top three wishlist was 'voluptuous Ukrainian nurse.' How was I supposed to get you one of those? Since when do you prefer the voluptuous type, anyhow?"
"I've always preferred the voluptuous type," says Arthur. "But this isn't a grudge, Eames. I'm not exacting my revenge on you. Don't worry."
"But then why?" asks Eames. "What is this about?"
"Lately," says Arthur, "I've been feeling a bit unfulfilled in my career. After what we did with Fischer, everything just seems so routine, so mundane. I have started spending long, meaningless hours hunting down the most exciting jobs on the market, but even through it all, I can't help but notice a certain ennui settling over myself."
"You-- are you serious," stammers Eames, "a certain ennui-- Arthur, are you honestly saying that you sabotaged my job and set me well on the path to poverty because you were bored?"
"Don't be dramatic," says Arthur. "It's insensitive of you to refer to your state as poverty."
"But is that what you're saying," demands Eames.
"Well," says Arthur, and hangs up.
+
Arthur doesn't pick up again, even when Eames tries a pay phone, even when he tries borrowing a stranger's mobile from off the street. Either he's tossed the number, or somehow he knows. Eames has learned to always assume the worst when dealing with Arthur, so he's content to blame clairvoyance.
He sends Arthur an e-mail, though, just in case. dont think youve won arthur, i can play this game as well as you, ta, all in lowercase because he feels like being petty.
The geriatric rock star job chugs along. Most of the burden falls on Ekaterina, who has to whip up a proper stabilizing compound, and on Sorel, who has to slip low-dose receptor primers into the mark's daily handful of pills. It leaves Eames with enough time to pace and look thoughtfully out the window, his heart as aimless and hollow as the ruin of his bank accounts.
It's not the money, per se. Of course. But the ignominy of having been caught a sitting duck is too mortifying for him to overlook, and some measure of payback is in order. Eames gnaws his toothpick back down to wood pulp. Eames draws diagrams.
Arthur's initial offensive, thinks Eames, made good use of his tactical advantage. Point man to the best extractor in the business for two years, and history with the technology all the way back to its earliest days. Arthur's metaphorical Rolodex is a treasure trove, a who's-who, a constant bloody census.
This is something Arthur has that Eames doesn't; connections. A spinning spiderweb of names. Eames knows enough people to suit his needs, but his skill set is inherently a one-man affair. Yet-- his skill set, he realizes as a nascent idea sparks to life, is his own tactical advantage over Arthur. As is the independence his position allows him, when a point ultimately has no choice but to depend on extractors for jobs.
Eames clicks through to his cloud storage account, and his plan is already well underway when Sorel gets back from the retirement home for the day's debriefing. The image files fill his laptop screen in a slide show, photographs of Arthur's lists on a whiteboard, Arthur's notes in the margins of a dossier, the scrawl of Arthur's signature on a billing receipt.
"Are you even fucking listening to me," says Sorel.
"I knew these would come in handy," says Eames, beaming, and gets a stapler thrown at him for his troubles.
By the time the job ends with barely a hitch (save the appearance of an insect of truly Kafkaesque proportions, the crystallized memory of a trip gone bad many decades ago), Eames is prepared to launch his attack. He buys a Moleskine notebook, copies down his prepared statement, and takes a few damning pictures.
Sneaking onto the listserv for Anglophone extractors is none too difficult, bloated and unwieldy as it is. He attaches the photographs and hits send, leaning back in his chair to the sweet thought of outrage crackling all around the world.
(These handwritten pages taken at great personal peril from the private notebook of Arthur Mangrove, onetime point man for extractor Dominic Cobb. It is suspected that he was planning to circulate this manifesto underground among members of the dreamshare community, save for us extractors, whom he views as the enemy. Please forward this e-mail to your colleagues, extractors; I trust that you can comprehend the dangers of mutiny in store for you, should you choose to hire this man in the future. Sincerely, an anonymous informant.)
[...] an analogy, for easier understanding. The rest of us are the mechanics, the car-washers, the chauffeurs, struggling our asses off to put everything in order for the extractors. What is it that THEY do, other than blunder into the back seat and let OUR hard work take them smoothly to the endpoint, never lifting a finger? How many times have you had to suffer the insult of extractors shooting your idea down, even as they offered no alternative or constructive criticism in its stead?
Extractors, my comrades in oppression, are PIGS. They are fascist tyrants hell-bent on controlling the market through their cowardly machinations. How long must we play at being their lackeys, their SERVANTS? All together, extractors make up only 12% of the working population in mindheist-- yet somehow, during the last fiscal year, their earnings stood at an egregious 26% of total revenue. THE MATH IS CLEAR.
Where is justice, if we do not bring it down upon them with our own hands? We are many, comrades, and we are skilled beyond their wildest dreams; they have driven us to this brink, and we will link our arms together in this moment of need. MARCH upon them! Thus we must incite ourselves to take the following concrete measures against this totalitarian institution: First, by refusing to offer our services unless the minimum cut guaranteed us fulfills [...]
"I got your present," says Arthur.
"Did you like it?" asks Eames, shading his eyes against the Aruban sun. He's wandering past the candy-bright buildings of downtown Oranjestad, his feet drawn half in fear toward the Royal Plaza Mall, which looks rather like a fairy has vomited all over it. Those Dutch, he thinks, perplexed.
"To begin with," says Arthur, "my last name isn't Mangrove."
"I bet it's pronounced Mangrove, though," says Eames. "That's a joke. How's work?"
"You can guess," says Arthur. "At any rate, retaliation calls for retaliation, I'm sure you agree. A token of my appreciation will be heading your way in the near future."
"You're bluffing," says Eames. "It'll be a while before you can find work in this town again. Besides, aren't we even now? You hit me, I hit you?"
"So childish, Eames," says Arthur. "That would be the case, only there's someone you've ended up hurting far more than me, and I'm afraid my loyalty won't let me rest until I've done right by him."
"Please don't be talking about Cobb," says Eames. "Remember right after the Fischer job when I found you in that bar in Los Angeles, and you insisted on buying a round for everyone there to celebrate the fact that you were 'no longer obligated to wipe up after your lunatic boss since he finally killed the dead wife that lived inside his brain'?"
"That was a good day," says Arthur, wistfully.
"The point is," says Eames, "it's preposterous to think that you would have any interest in defending Cobb's honor."
"Fair enough," says Arthur. "But in light of how much time I've been wasting trying to reassure him that I don't actually think he's a fascist pig, I'm still going to get you back."
"Except you do think he's a fascist pig," says Eames.
"This is not true," says Arthur. "Dom's not built for fascism. He doesn't have the constitution for it."
"I notice you're not refuting the part where he's sort of a pig," says Eames.
"Listen," says Arthur, "I'm supposed to be planning my revenge right now, so you'll excuse me if I hang up on you."
"Been there--" begins Eames, but there's a click on the other end and then a forlorn dial tone.
Eames gives his cell phone a look of dismay, miffed at Arthur's recalcitrant insistence on dispensing with the trappings of civility. But then his inbox flashes with a new forwarded e-mail, and its contents please him greatly (Todos, miren estas fotos. ¡Una vergüenza!) so he loses the momentum for indignation. That's all right.
+
Special Agent Morimoto calls him with a job.
"Please don't say that," Agent Morimoto tells him. "Your jobs qualify as criminal activity. I must insist on making it clear that the Bureau requests your cooperation as a consultant."
The Bureau suspects that a mass murderer in their custody may have had an accomplice, whose existence the suspect is loath to confirm, let alone whose identity he is prepared to divulge. Some calculated (and humane, says Agent Morimoto, humane) interrogation may be in order.
Agent Morimoto is pushing fifty-five, and even if he were younger and angrier, Eames is simply too slippery to be thrown behind bars again. The necessary caveat of "again" is a blemish on his record, but Eames is adamant that the Annapolis fiasco was absolutely not his fault. It was absolutely not Arthur's fault either, so naturally he and Arthur were the only ones who ended up being arrested, wheedled into immunity in exchange for their valuable services, and added to Agent Morimoto's speed dial.
(Though, Eames assumes that Arthur's number has hardly been used, if ever; Agent Morimoto finds him unapproachable, not in the way that a man is wary of a criminal, but in the way that a man is wary of a well-groomed jaguar. Eames thinks this is understandable.)
The good news is that Eames has been dying to test-drive a certain type of long con. The inverse-reality dream, he's taken to calling it. Eames and his crew enter the dream with the mark, convince him that he was subjected to extended dream-interrogation all this while, and that in the dream, he's finally been allowed to wake up. They inform the mark that his subconscious testimony led the FBI to his accomplice, and march him past a row of maximum-security holding cells. And voila, sulking there in jail, whoever they find is the man they're looking for.
The bad news is that Agent Morimoto offers Eames immunity in exchange for his valuable services, again.
"I don't need immunity, you don't even know what I've been doing," says Eames, patiently. "You can't threaten to arrest me for nothing in particular and then expect me to cower in fear. Make me a better offer and call me back in a week, Morimoto."
He hangs up with a flourish, feeling all-powerful.
Only, the worst news comes a week later, and it's that hubris has smashed all his eggs against the wall of the barn before they've had a chance to hatch. He's on his third day in San Nicolaas, debating the merits of moving back up north because he's in danger of accidentally befriending everyone in the bite-sized town, when his phone rings.
"What?" he asks. "What do you mean, someone's done it already?"
"That's what happens when you waffle back and forth," says Agent Morimoto. "People beat you to the punch. I guess you must be glad that we're not trying to foist immunity off on you anymore, though."
"Why didn't you just negotiate with me?" demands Eames. "Why did you have to-- who else do you even know that does this sort of thing? Who did you call?"
"We didn't call him," says Agent Morimoto. "He called us out of the blue and offered to take on the consultant duties. You two are friends, right? You mentioned the deal to him, so naturally he went behind your back and contacted us. Can't trust thieves, Eames."
"I'm friends with-- who the hell is this," asks Eames, and knows the answer already.
"What kind of last name is Mangrove?" asks Agent Morimoto.
"Oh," says Eames, "you're fun."
"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to American freedom," says Arthur. "I believe in the principles of democracy that this great country was built upon, and the threat of such heinous crimes as plague most lawless, liberal European states--"
"What'd you get from Morimoto?" asks Eames. The salt breeze and heat off the sand make for agreeably damp beach weather, but his toes are beginning to cook in the sun. The parasol doesn't quite shade him all the way down, it appears. He wriggles them experimentally; no pain yet.
"The extractor opted for financial compensation," says Arthur. "Retirement fund nest egg, I presume. Certain other members of the crew were unfortunate enough to need the offered immunity, but I had the luxury of requesting that my payment be donated to charity."
"You requested what?" asks Eames. "What did you even-- what charity?"
"The British Food Trust," says Arthur. "I was thinking of you."
"I should hope so," says Eames, "seeing as how it was my job you stole from right under my nose."
"Only after you forced me into a vacation against my will did I finally realize the wonders of unemployment," says Arthur. "It's invigorating, Eames. I just want you to experience its benefits as well."
"Thank you, Arthur, that's very thoughtful of you," says Eames. "But I'm afraid I'll be going straight back to work after this moment of respite-- I keep hearing my mum's voice nagging in the back of my head, idle hands, devil's tools, you know how it is. I'm a good son."
"Let's not even start on how much you abhor working for the sake of working," says Arthur. "Besides, I'm sure your mother wouldn't object to a hiatus in your career as an international criminal."
"You can take my hiatus for me," says Eames. "Not that you have much of a choice."
"Don't be too sure," says Arthur. "I've clawed my way through worse than a little slander."
"Right, well," says Eames, "you've had your revenge, so I hope you're satisfied. What a tidy end to things. This has been an immensely diverting couple of months, but I think I'm ready to return to my regular, boring old life of stealing ideas out of people's minds, if it's quite all right with you."
"First of all, you're wrong," says Arthur, and he has the nerve to sound amused. "You're as stubborn as they come, Eames. You'll do anything to get the last word-- well, anything short of putting yourself in any real danger, that is. You're not ready to quit because the moment you forfeit, you let me win. I think we both know you wouldn't stand for that."
Eames is glad that Arthur is a long-distance call away, because his left ring finger twitches, that minuscule tell he can't seem to get completely rid of. He just grips the phone tighter and draws his knees up, moving his toes out of the sun.
"If that's your first argument," says Eames, "what's your second?"
"Second of all," says Arthur, "I think you're enjoying this."
"Right," says Eames, "because there's nothing as pleasant as being swindled out of my liquid assets and my source of livelihood--"
"Remember what you said when I picked up, just now?" asks Arthur. "You called me fun, Eames. Aren't you glad that I am?"
+
Had Arthur been courteous enough to allow him just a few seconds to answer the question, Eames might have said a number of things, You Americans still don't understand verbal irony, or No, you wanker, I'm not glad, why don't you kindly go fuck yourself. But Eames has no choice but to snap his phone closed against the dead dial tone, and then to mull over his reply instead of letting it spray like grapeshot out of his mouth.
There are certain things that Eames takes for granted, assumptions as incontrovertible as the solid earth under his feet. That capitalism works in his favor. That misfortune is cyclical. That Arthur's sense of humor is a brittle thing at best, an occasional tight smile reserved for a tight spot. That Arthur is a stainless knife, the clean burn of something strong served neat. That Arthur only comes alive for a good firefight, a mercenary Galatea melting into motion, eyes bright and vicious as he devours the moon.
(How to reconcile this with Arthur Mangrove, he of the pranks, the games, play-fighting, love-tapping.)
So grain by grain, Eames's world begins to crumble beneath him. Maybe it's something he ought to have expected. He's built bridges across the sky and dreamed up shortcuts tunneling through bedrock, so maybe he never should have believed in anything other than mutability. He should have prepared to be proven wrong.
But even as he's slipping, stumbling, is he glad that Arthur is fun?
Does he wish he could have seen the deepening furrow of Arthur's brow as he scanned the forged manifesto? Does he roll the words over in his mouth, play-fighting, love-tapping, like the weight of a gobstopper across his tongue?
(He is. He does.)
"This is really damn rude of you," says Whittinger. "If you're going to threaten me, at least pay me your full attention."
"What?" asks Eames, startled, instinctively jerking the barrel of his gun back up toward Whittinger's forehead.
"Jesus, Eames!" barks Whittinger. "Careful where you point that thing! I'm seventy, you buffoon, I could keel over at any moment."
"Maybe, before you hired Arthur," says Eames, "you should have considered the ramifications of your actions. I warned you that you might end up with a gun to your head, I said as much. You really don't have anyone else to blame."
"You didn't say it would be your gun," says Whittinger. "How did you find me, anyway? Did Arthur leak that I hired him?"
"Only that the extractor was going to retire," says Eames. "Dreamshare hasn't been around long enough, so even with the burnout, precious few people are planning for retirement at any given time. It was either you or Nana Florence, and you know how she is with conspiracies, so she never would have gone anywhere near Arthur after that e-mail. What about you, didn't the manifesto scare you off?"
"I admit, I had my doubts about trusting him," says Whittinger. "But-- a gun like that for a price like that, Eames! It's not every day I can afford talent of that caliber. I decided to take my chances, run the last big job, and disappear off to someplace warm and peaceful. I was damn well going to, until you broke down my door. What do you want? I don't know where he is, if that's what you're after--"
"I know you don't," says Eames, and takes a seat next to Whittinger on his couch. "What I need from you, Mr. Whittinger, is for you to find me the mark for the highest-profile job on the market right now. You're retiring, so you can deal with the eventual turncoat reputation. Get me in touch with whoever that is, and mention that I would be interested in militarizing their subconscious for a negligible fee. Experimental sort of new procedure, but success completely guaranteed, or their money back. I can provide the credentials, of course."
"You're going to militarize a civilian?" asks Whittinger. "Even if Arthur ends up taking that job, it's not like he's a stranger to razing down security. I think you'll probably need to try harder than that."
"Old man, I am several steps ahead of you," says Eames. "Just find that mark for me, and I'll make sure that no one bothers you at your island paradise for the rest of your long and blissful life."
"You're the only one I'm worried about," says Whittinger. "Get that gun out of my face."
An eye for an eye. If Arthur steals his things, well, Eames will steal Arthur's. The potential mark is a twitchy board member of a major communications giant, who is only too eager to accept the offer of militarization. Eames has to move quickly, before surveillance on the mark begins in earnest-- he works harder and faster than he has in years.
But every moment will be worth it, he thinks, as he puts the finishing touches on the mark's subconscious safe and steps back to admire his work. Just for that look of dismay on Arthur's face.
Eames is rather taken with the tropical hideaway that Whittinger has picked out for himself, but Whittinger categorically refuses to rent out any of his spare rooms. It's no loss. When Arthur calls, Eames is in Imerovigli, waiting for the Santorini sunset.
"As much as it pains me to admit it," says Arthur, "you do have a certain style."
"Tell me everything that happened," says Eames. "Narrate my victory for me."
"You know what happened," says Arthur. "What I want to ask is, how did you even manage to duck under the radar? At least four separate teams were eyeing this job like vultures, and somehow no one noticed you maintaining regular contact with the mark. How'd you do it?"
"A magician--" begins Eames.
"Don't," says Arthur. "I know you're dying to talk about it."
"Whittinger was the go-between," says Eames. "I'm sure you're well-acquainted with him, aren't you? It's heartbreaking to have to point a gun at a man old enough to be your gaffer, but you left me with no other choice, Arthur."
"Is that a word you actually use, gaffer?" asks Arthur. "I can't tell when you descend into self-parody. You do it very abruptly."
"So Whittinger threw all of you off my scent, I assume," says Eames. "Then there's the small matter of my timeline, and how I finished the entire militarization process in -- oh, I don't know -- how about try two days?"
"How did you manage to-- did you fucking shack up with the guy?" asks Arthur. "Two days, Jesus. No wonder no one caught onto the pattern."
"I've told you my story," says Eames. "I think it's only polite that you return the favor."
Arthur makes a thoughtful sort of sound. The shadows are lengthening. Santorini is blue and rose, clusters of people huddled together, leaning over the walls to peer at the sun seeping into the water. Eames unrolls his sleeves against the evening wind.
"You know why I wanted to take this job," says Arthur. "Because the mark was a huge dream tourism enthusiast, and there was the possibility that he might be a lucid dreamer. Turns out that he wasn't, not in an unprepared dream-- and to be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed, when I realized he wasn't going to give us any trouble."
"Until you got to the endpoint," says Eames.
"That wasn't him at all, that was you, asshole," says Arthur. "So there was no subconscious security, no lucid paranoia, everything smooth as velvet. When the extractor got held back at an intersection because of a traffic jam, I chalked that up to the mark's latent animosity toward urban planning."
"But of course, that was me," says Eames. "Militarization comes in different shapes and forms, you know. I built in a transportation gridlock fifteen minutes into an extraction attempt."
"Should have told me that before I went barging into his dream," says Arthur. "That put the extractor out of commission, and I was closest to the endpoint, so I ended up having to fill in. You just wanted me to open that safe, didn't you? You wanted me to be the one to look inside."
"Did you like what you found?" asks Eames.
"Yeah, very nice business card," says Arthur. "Surprisingly tasteful, for something of yours."
Eames tries to picture it, Arthur harried and out of breath, yanking open the door to the safe. And the set of his jaw as he reaches inside the empty vault, for the card left there in the cavernous vacuum. The rapid flicker of his eyes as he reads, Eames, criminal for hire.
"Where'd you get him to store it instead?" asks Arthur. "That layout had absolutely no other hotspots, not even a jammed desk drawer."
"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," says Eames. "I may have shored him up just to spite you, but what's the sense in sabotaging my own hard work?"
"If he's ever up for grabs again," says Arthur, "I'm taking that job. I'm going to break through your goddamn lockdown, Eames."
"So that's a point for me, is it?" asks Eames. "Two and two, dead even."
"Not for long," says Arthur. "You left a calling card, surely you expect me to come calling. I'll be dropping by."
"You must have been furious," says Eames. "Didn't see me coming at all."
"Furious, sure. Frustrated, definitely," says Arthur, and the entire ocean is warm as liquid gold. "But at least I wasn't disappointed."
+
For the next job, his extractor flies all the way over to Greece to scout him in person. Robyn Chen makes him the offer over keftedes and ouzo, punctuating herself by stabbing the air with her fork.
"So the perceived importance of the forger's role in this case," she says, "does mean that you'll command a bigger cut of the payout than usual. There's no question about that, though the precise rate remains to be haggled over."
"But if I fuck it up," says Eames, "I fuck the whole job up."
"Exactly," says Robyn. "The rest of the job is relatively straightforward, and your role is what's difficult. Hell of a lot of thinking on your feet. Are you in?"
How could he not be. Back to America he goes, and he joins her base of operations in the rented second-floor flat. He nearly pulls out when they decide to use Dominic Cobb's foolhardy Mr. Charles gambit, but he has to admit that it's the best course of action.
It's a guilt dream. Little Rose was the mark's child-bride from back in his oil baron days, dead at seventeen (complicated pregnancy). Eames looks at the two photographs there exist of her, back and forth, back and forth. Dwarfed in the tulle explosion of her wedding veil, freckled and toothy on her porch with her sisters.
"We don't know anything about her," says Robyn. "Her voice, her mannerisms, the emotional quality of her relationship with the mark, nothing. There are no videos, no more pictures, no written records. Her hometown was developed into an industrial complex, and the original inhabitants have long since been displaced."
"How bloody fucked am I," says Eames. "It'll be a sort of reverse cold reading, then?"
"Cold as it gets," says Robyn.
A challenge if he's ever heard of one. He has to go in blind wearing Rose's skin, completely dependent on the mark's cues. Her accent, the pitch of her laugh, how close she sits to her husband-- Eames will need to make adjustments to a million different things. On top of which, he has to do it subtly enough that the mark doesn't suspect anything, touch-and-go on the most minute of physiological reactions. The flicker of a projection's eye, the mark's hesitant inhale of breath. It's shifting to find a balance that the mark's subconscious agrees with. Not unlike the process of militarization, ironically enough.
(First: become familiar with the base environment of your undisturbed dream. Brand it into your subconscious. Learn it until you can detect the smallest deviation, the smallest intrusion, not by looking but by sensing.
Second: associate the deviation with discomfort. Nausea-inducing drugs will do the trick, administered with the Somnacin during the course of the militarization.
Third: condition a defense mechanism against the discomfort. You are only allowed to leave the nausea-inducing dream when your subconscious has summoned a satisfactory response to the intrusion. Bristling guns, a natural disaster, bloodthirsty packs of wild animals, or a safe left empty but for a single business card.
Fourth: repeat until the response is second nature, an instantaneous knee-jerk reaction. Somewhere between the fiftieth and the hundredth repetition, your subconscious will start nailing it perfectly, shifting to eject the intruders just so that it can quell the nausea.)
All in all, the learning technique is behavioral to the point of barbarism, but it works. Repetition almost always does. And it's thanks to repetition that when the canister of tear gas comes crashing in through the window of the flat, Eames has his jacket over his nose and mouth before he's even made sense of the situation.
"Get out," he yells. "Get the fuck out."
"But the blueprints," croaks their architect, scrabbling at the papers, eyes and nose watering wet.
"It's not a fire," Eames snaps, and then the burn hits his throat. He chokes, his vision blurry with tears, and he lurches toward the door as the architect retches.
Outside the front door to the building, they pass a cigarette between them to clear out the last of the sting. The other tenants mull about aimlessly on the sidewalk, and their landlord is staring up at the shattered remains of the second-floor window. He evicts them.
Eames doesn't even have the energy to hang his suit jacket out to air. He trudges into the bathroom, shedding his clothes, a haphazard trail of fabric. He starts the shower and jerks at his tie as the water warms, still weary and sore all over.
Was he there? wonders Eames. If Eames had opened the window, if he'd known where to look, would he have seen him? Did Arthur stake out the room across the street from them, armed with a laptop and a catapult? (Even with his penchant for order and precision, Arthur always brought a certain dash of medieval flavor to his fights.)
It's been several long months since the Fischer job. Eames has gotten just a bit tanner in the meanwhile, just a tad lazier. He wonders if Arthur has changed. (Is his hair overgrown? Are there new scars across his skin?) Eames fumbles with the miniature bottle of hotel shampoo, his fingers suddenly numb, clumsy.
By the time he steps out of the shower, the bathroom is thick with steam. He breathes in, letting it wet his lungs, soothing the bitter taste of CS and defeat. He takes the towel off the rack and runs it through his hair, wondering if Arthur will answer his phone. If Arthur will laugh at him. A sliver of air seeps in from under the door, winding cool around his damp feet.
And then, out of the corner of his eye, he glances at the mirror above the sink-- and he jumps.
The edge of the towel rack promptly stabs his back. Eames curses, and hurriedly ties the towel around his waist, indignant and very much in pain. Scrawled there on the fogged-up mirror in obnoxious capital letters:
CALL ME
AND BEG
FOR MERCY
He feels violated. Thankfully, upon closer observation, it's evident that the message was written long before he took his shower. The letters have been drawn on in some sort of water-repellent solution, and Eames's thumb comes away sticky-slick when he rubs at the glass. Still, it's Arthur's handwriting-- Arthur broke into his hotel room and left him a note on his bathroom mirror. Eames sinks onto the bed and tries to fathom it.
Half an hour and a finger of scotch later, Eames is just agitated enough to try Arthur's number. He pulls on a shirt and a pair of boxers, dropping his towel to the floor in bold defiance, just in case Arthur is monitoring his disquiet through a carefully concealed camera or two. The line clicks connected after the second ring, and Eames draws in a deep breath to protest.
Only, it's an old woman with a heavy Eastern European accent who picks up and asks, "Yes, who is this?"
"Sorry, isn't this--" says Eames, "is Arthur there?"
"You have the wrong number," she says, but doesn't hang up. Eames waits for her to say something else, but she never does, and eventually Eames ends the call himself in vague befuddlement.
Maybe it's just courtesy. Maybe she's just an exceptionally polite old woman with a heavy Eastern European accent. Eames double-checks the number and tries again, but only ends up with her on the other side of the call.
"This is Arthur's number, isn't it?" he asks. "This is his phone?"
"I'm sorry, you must be mistaken," she says, and doesn't hang up.
Eames stands in front of his mirror, the letters just faint smudges now. Call me and beg for mercy. His hair has dried, and he's already trotted about the hotel room picking up his discarded clothes, stuffing them into the laundry bag.
What is he supposed to do? Call Arthur and beg for mercy, supposedly, but how does he beg Arthur for anything if he won't pick up? How does he call someone who won't answer the phone? What is he playing at, Eames wonders, beg for mercy, beg for mercy. Why must he insist on making every step of this a hassle. He traces the word with the tip of his fingernail, M-E-R-C-Y.
And then, as he ponders over each letter, Jesus Christ--
It hits him.
"Yes," says the old lady, "who is this?"
"Please, please may I speak to Mercy," says Eames, and then just for good measure, "please?"
"One moment, Mr. Eames," she says. "I'll be putting you through."
Eames lets out the breath he's been holding and punches his headboard in victory. When the dial tone ends and Arthur answers, at long last, it's like finishing a marathon. It's like gasping his way past the finish line, letting his legs give out from under him.
"I really need to stop underestimating you," says Arthur.
"You contrary fuck," says Eames. "Tear gas? Honestly?"
"Because you're a riot," says Arthur, fondly. "Hey, good job, though. I thought it would take you half a day at least to figure out how to reach me."
"It took me an entire hour and a half," says Eames. "And I have a hematoma on my back."
"You sound happy," says Arthur. "Did you miss me?"
Surely it's much less that, more just the elation of finally getting through. But at any rate Eames still feels like he's run a hundred ragged miles, high off the adrenaline. And when Arthur's question catches him off his guard, god, he startles himself into thinking-- I've raced all the way here just to get to you.
But no, thinks Eames, that's not right. That's not it at all.
Hello, are you still there, Arthur is saying, but Eames hardly hears it, all of his blood running cold. Oh, he's completely fucked. This is what he's been trying to tiptoe around, for as long as he's known Arthur. The sound of what he's been trying to shut out, only to find it lodged in his own throat, about to slip from his own perfidious mouth.
Here are the fruits of his own indecision staring straight back at him. Eames doesn't know how the phone call ends, but the line's dead for a long while before he can move again. His feet feel leaden, rooting him to the ground. If only he could let them drag him down deep into the oblivion of the earth. He'd love to be a hermit or a mole rat. God, he is so fucked.
+
Right then, in the middle of that phone call, Eames realizes that he can't win.
So far he's put up a good enough fight, blow for blow, but the outcome of the war has become clear to him. There are more reasons for his eventual defeat than he can possibly list. It's because of Arthur's vast network of contacts. It's because of Arthur's strangely inventive cruel streak. But above all, it's because thinking of Arthur now makes Eames feel like a bull in a china shop, his every move a blunder.
Here is the thing. Eames has never been very good at leaving Arthur alone, always too curious to keep his hands to himself. That was the lopsided way they lived; Eames needling Arthur just to get a rise out of him, and Arthur obliging him, with a derisive, long-suffering sort of patience. Nothing more than that was expected of them, and that worked fine, for as long as it did.
So in all the years they've spent together, all the jobs they've shown up for only to find each other there at the rendezvous point, all the time Eames has devoted to worming his way in under Arthur's skin-- he has never considered what he would do if Arthur ever decided to let him in. What he would say when Arthur turned around and asked, What do you want from me? The moment Arthur asked him, Did you miss me, and Eames found (to his alarm, to his horror) that his reply would have been, Yes. I did.
What does he want from Arthur. He has no good answer to that, not even a glib comeback to stall for time. It's not a mystery he can solve with enough peace to think. It's a knot he keeps pulling tighter, the more he picks at it. Eames would like to touch him, to push him down and taste him. To make him smile, to rile him up, to drive him to irritation, frustration, explosion-- but more than any of that, Eames just wants to never have to choose. To never have to admit that he can't choose.
But now he's lying on the bed of his hotel room with his arms pillowed behind his head, and he's been cornered at the edge of the cliff. If only he hadn't started playing along, letting himself get close enough to make this ultimatum inevitable. Arthur must have stood in front of his bathroom mirror, leaning over the sink as he wrote out his note. Sleeves rolled up away from the water, hair a little undone from the effort of breaking in. He smiled, didn't he, cocky and bright and demanding. But Eames has no answer to give him.
God, he never should have hit Arthur back. Why did he ever forge that manifesto? What made him think this was a good idea, play-fighting, love-tapping, letting himself get tangled up in Arthur like this, like it wouldn't all come to a head at some point-- at this point, Arthur's handwriting all over his mirror, the expectant weight of Arthur's silence filling his ears.
Down this road, over this cliff, it's question after question that he doesn't know how to answer, quicksand he can't walk on. (What does he want from Arthur? What does he want the two of them to be to each other? Are they supposed to be acquaintances, friends, rivals, the best of enemies, two fucking ships grinding against each other in the night? Why do they need to be forced to limit themselves, when they've done perfectly well before without giving themselves a name?)
Arthur was right when he said Eames would never forfeit willingly, but this is the one exception allowed him. This is when it kicks in, the self-preservation he's known for, because there's nothing that unnerves him half as much as being caught without an answer. He won't tread where he isn't sure of his footing. He can't keep at this, not when it's heading the way it is, pushing the two of them closer together. With the question like a mockery still ringing inside his head, What do you want from him? How can you not know?
It's a little too late to come out completely unscathed, but Eames decides to minimize his losses. Sell, sell, sell; jump ship; the only move to make is to step off the board. He changes hotels and drops his phone onto the metro tracks. He forfeits.
[ next part]
Pairings: Arthur/Eames
Rating: R
Word Count: 17,000
Warnings: None
Notes: For i_reversebang! All credit for everything goes to kehrilyn, the WIND BENEATH MY WINGS ♥ Also, sorry about all of these... cross-posted links leading to other entries that lead to other entries, it's like that one ~Internet blonde joke~, only... not funny...
Summary: Arthur and Eames sabotage each other's jobs-- until they can't anymore. Or: How Arthur and Eames Learned to Stop Worrying and Make Their Own Form of Social Capital.
Eames likes Saint-Tropez in the off season. Doesn't he like most anything better in the off season? Signaling behavior of the self-superior, he guesses. A reluctance to follow the herd.
But the weather's still warm as the French Riviera heads into winter, and Eames thinks there's no better spot in the world to spend a week or two basking in the afterglow of success. Word of the Fischer inception is spreading, slow and insidious as treacle. He's besieged with potential job offers, but he's in no hurry to take on another run, when his cut keeps climbing with each moment he stalls.
More than anything, right now he's busy being idle. He swallows a mouthful of his tarte tropézienne. (C'est merveilleux.) The brioche is light, the cream sweet. It's a fantastic November day, with the wispy clouds skimming across the sky, the murmur of the sparse crowd unobtrusive-- the sea breeze pleasant past the bright red awning of the cafe--
--when suddenly, unaccountably, he feels a shiver run through him.
He starts. In an instant, his hand is inside his linen jacket, gripping the concealed semi-automatic.
But one long minute passes after another with him frozen in place, and nothing happens to disturb the lazy quiet of St. Trop. Gradually the feeling fades, leaving a faint cold sweat at the back of his neck, the ringing in his ears ebbing away.
Nonplussed, Eames stares down at his plate.
"What the fuck," he says, just to hear his own voice.
(Eames doesn't know it yet, but the shiver he felt did in fact have a specific cause; it was that forty-five hundred miles away, in a third-floor apartment suite in Chicago, Illinois, an acquaintance of his called Arthur had just started to fidget.)
+
The proposition that Eames ends up accepting calls him to Florida. Geriatric rock star, old record label, royalty disputes. The really fascinating part is that the mark has spent sixty years more or less under the influence, and it's rumored that his mind is simply too great a mess to yield anything coherent through extraction.
Eames is interested enough that he refuses to wait for an extractor to hire him. He's headed teams before, no shoddy extractor in his own right. Luckily his profile is high and the job is glitzy, so the recruitment process goes without a hitch. He makes a few calls, sets the lobby of his hotel as the rendezvous point, and knocks back a mimosa.
On the scheduled date, his architect, Caleb, arrives ten minutes early in a straw hat. Even Eames thinks that his shirt is a bit loud.
"If any job ever needed a chemist, this is the one," says Caleb. "Who did you get?"
"Ekaterina," says Eames. "She flew in yesterday."
Instead, the glass doors slide open and Mad Dog Banzini strolls in, tugging three suitcases behind him. Eames feels a twinge of annoyance that they might be running jobs in the same city.
"What are you here for," Eames asks him, when he sinks into a couch.
"What are you on about?" asks Banzini. "I'm your chemist, remember?"
"The hell you are," snaps Eames. "Where's Ekaterina?"
Just then, Ekaterina marches up to him and demands, "You hired two chemists? You hired Mad Dog? What, you didn't think I was good enough?"
Eames holds up his hands, There's been a mistake, let me explain, in case Ekaterina decides to sock him in the face like she did in Cairo.
"And if you hired two chemists," she continues, "what do you need a materials supplier for? Don't give me that look, I ran into Darwish at customs, he said he was here for your job. Eames, what's going on?"
"I didn't hire Darwish," protests Eames. "I didn't hire Mad Dog either! It's just supposed to be you, me, Caleb, and Sorel to infiltrate the nursing home, I don't know what the rest of these wankers are doing here, honest--"
His phone starts to buzz in his pocket. It's Sorel, speaking so fast he can't even pick out all the words, but it's abundantly clear that she's furious.
"--ever fucking work with you again," she's snarling, "if you doubted my fucking abilities, you should have said so to my fucking face, don't fucking sneak around and hire all three of the fucking Madsen brothers to do my job for me--"
Just as Eames has calmed her down and pleaded with her to show up at the hotel, his phone rings again.
"It's good to hear from you, Mrs. Nzekwu," Eames says weakly, "but I thought you were on maternity leave."
"For the price you offered, I'd come out of my coffin," says Mrs. Nzekwu.
"What do you need her for?" Caleb asks, outraged. "Am I not architect enough for you?"
By the end of the hour, it turns out that he's apparently hired four architects, six chemists, two materials suppliers, three surveillance tech specialists, and seven moles. All twenty-two of them show up, and the concierge asks them to please take the commotion outside, they're upsetting the other guests. They relocate to the parking lot where they surround Eames like an angry flock of geese, jabbing their fingers into his chest and refusing to leave.
"If you can't even keep track of who you hired," says Banzini, "why don't you get in touch with your point? He's the one that contacted me, negotiated the whole deal."
"A point?" asks Eames. "I'm not using a point, what are you talking about?"
"Your goddamn point man, Eames," says Banzini. "You know, David Emmerdale?"
"Yeah, David Emmerdale," says Yan. "He said he was taking care of personnel for you-- he'll know what to do."
"David Emmerdale?" repeats Eames. "David Emmerdale?"
Eames sits on the lip of the whirlpool bathtub, wedging his phone into his neck. He hikes up the hem of his trousers and dips his toes into the churning, steaming water. Five rings, then he's through.
"David Emmerdale," says Eames. "You son of a bitch."
"Do I hear you running your bath?" asks Arthur. "That is extremely gauche, Eames. You should have e-mailed me, or texted me, at least."
"I didn't think that textual communication would quite sufficiently convey just how incredibly angry I am right now," says Eames, then adds, "you son of a bitch."
"I have no idea what you mean," says Arthur. "But I bet you're about to tell a great story."
"Twenty-two people showed up, nineteen of whom claimed to have been hired by David Emmerdale, my point man," says Eames. "They insisted they were all contracted with a set upfront fee, which they demanded that they be paid. There was a fair bit of physical confrontation, some very choice threats -- extra thanks for Mad Dog Banzini -- and in the end, I had to dip into two personal savings accounts. Because one wasn't enough. To top it off, even my original crew requested to be paid in advance, because they were beginning to harbor serious doubts of my sanity, my sense of responsibility, my long-term memory, and all other manner of professional qualifications."
"Don't be too upset," says Arthur. "The concept of tithing is designed to remind us that material possessions are cumbersome obstacles in the path of salvation."
"You're not even religious," says Eames.
"David Emmerdale is," says Arthur.
"David Emmerdale isn't real," yells Eames. "David Emmerdale was invented by you three years ago in Vilnius when you had to pose as a reporter interviewing the City Council, he's about as real as that press ID I made for you when we were on that job. Despite what you've led half the mindheist community to believe, Arthur, I don't actually have a memory problem."
"All you ever do with your money is lose it in casinos," says Arthur. "I just saved you time."
"Why are you doing this?" groans Eames, massaging his temples. "Is this because of Quezon City? The Christmas gift exchange? Because that wasn't my fault, that was because you cheated-- the only thing you put on your top three wishlist was 'voluptuous Ukrainian nurse.' How was I supposed to get you one of those? Since when do you prefer the voluptuous type, anyhow?"
"I've always preferred the voluptuous type," says Arthur. "But this isn't a grudge, Eames. I'm not exacting my revenge on you. Don't worry."
"But then why?" asks Eames. "What is this about?"
"Lately," says Arthur, "I've been feeling a bit unfulfilled in my career. After what we did with Fischer, everything just seems so routine, so mundane. I have started spending long, meaningless hours hunting down the most exciting jobs on the market, but even through it all, I can't help but notice a certain ennui settling over myself."
"You-- are you serious," stammers Eames, "a certain ennui-- Arthur, are you honestly saying that you sabotaged my job and set me well on the path to poverty because you were bored?"
"Don't be dramatic," says Arthur. "It's insensitive of you to refer to your state as poverty."
"But is that what you're saying," demands Eames.
"Well," says Arthur, and hangs up.
+
Arthur doesn't pick up again, even when Eames tries a pay phone, even when he tries borrowing a stranger's mobile from off the street. Either he's tossed the number, or somehow he knows. Eames has learned to always assume the worst when dealing with Arthur, so he's content to blame clairvoyance.
He sends Arthur an e-mail, though, just in case. dont think youve won arthur, i can play this game as well as you, ta, all in lowercase because he feels like being petty.
The geriatric rock star job chugs along. Most of the burden falls on Ekaterina, who has to whip up a proper stabilizing compound, and on Sorel, who has to slip low-dose receptor primers into the mark's daily handful of pills. It leaves Eames with enough time to pace and look thoughtfully out the window, his heart as aimless and hollow as the ruin of his bank accounts.
It's not the money, per se. Of course. But the ignominy of having been caught a sitting duck is too mortifying for him to overlook, and some measure of payback is in order. Eames gnaws his toothpick back down to wood pulp. Eames draws diagrams.
Arthur's initial offensive, thinks Eames, made good use of his tactical advantage. Point man to the best extractor in the business for two years, and history with the technology all the way back to its earliest days. Arthur's metaphorical Rolodex is a treasure trove, a who's-who, a constant bloody census.
This is something Arthur has that Eames doesn't; connections. A spinning spiderweb of names. Eames knows enough people to suit his needs, but his skill set is inherently a one-man affair. Yet-- his skill set, he realizes as a nascent idea sparks to life, is his own tactical advantage over Arthur. As is the independence his position allows him, when a point ultimately has no choice but to depend on extractors for jobs.
Eames clicks through to his cloud storage account, and his plan is already well underway when Sorel gets back from the retirement home for the day's debriefing. The image files fill his laptop screen in a slide show, photographs of Arthur's lists on a whiteboard, Arthur's notes in the margins of a dossier, the scrawl of Arthur's signature on a billing receipt.
"Are you even fucking listening to me," says Sorel.
"I knew these would come in handy," says Eames, beaming, and gets a stapler thrown at him for his troubles.
By the time the job ends with barely a hitch (save the appearance of an insect of truly Kafkaesque proportions, the crystallized memory of a trip gone bad many decades ago), Eames is prepared to launch his attack. He buys a Moleskine notebook, copies down his prepared statement, and takes a few damning pictures.
Sneaking onto the listserv for Anglophone extractors is none too difficult, bloated and unwieldy as it is. He attaches the photographs and hits send, leaning back in his chair to the sweet thought of outrage crackling all around the world.
(These handwritten pages taken at great personal peril from the private notebook of Arthur Mangrove, onetime point man for extractor Dominic Cobb. It is suspected that he was planning to circulate this manifesto underground among members of the dreamshare community, save for us extractors, whom he views as the enemy. Please forward this e-mail to your colleagues, extractors; I trust that you can comprehend the dangers of mutiny in store for you, should you choose to hire this man in the future. Sincerely, an anonymous informant.)
[...] an analogy, for easier understanding. The rest of us are the mechanics, the car-washers, the chauffeurs, struggling our asses off to put everything in order for the extractors. What is it that THEY do, other than blunder into the back seat and let OUR hard work take them smoothly to the endpoint, never lifting a finger? How many times have you had to suffer the insult of extractors shooting your idea down, even as they offered no alternative or constructive criticism in its stead?
Extractors, my comrades in oppression, are PIGS. They are fascist tyrants hell-bent on controlling the market through their cowardly machinations. How long must we play at being their lackeys, their SERVANTS? All together, extractors make up only 12% of the working population in mindheist-- yet somehow, during the last fiscal year, their earnings stood at an egregious 26% of total revenue. THE MATH IS CLEAR.
Where is justice, if we do not bring it down upon them with our own hands? We are many, comrades, and we are skilled beyond their wildest dreams; they have driven us to this brink, and we will link our arms together in this moment of need. MARCH upon them! Thus we must incite ourselves to take the following concrete measures against this totalitarian institution: First, by refusing to offer our services unless the minimum cut guaranteed us fulfills [...]
"I got your present," says Arthur.
"Did you like it?" asks Eames, shading his eyes against the Aruban sun. He's wandering past the candy-bright buildings of downtown Oranjestad, his feet drawn half in fear toward the Royal Plaza Mall, which looks rather like a fairy has vomited all over it. Those Dutch, he thinks, perplexed.
"To begin with," says Arthur, "my last name isn't Mangrove."
"I bet it's pronounced Mangrove, though," says Eames. "That's a joke. How's work?"
"You can guess," says Arthur. "At any rate, retaliation calls for retaliation, I'm sure you agree. A token of my appreciation will be heading your way in the near future."
"You're bluffing," says Eames. "It'll be a while before you can find work in this town again. Besides, aren't we even now? You hit me, I hit you?"
"So childish, Eames," says Arthur. "That would be the case, only there's someone you've ended up hurting far more than me, and I'm afraid my loyalty won't let me rest until I've done right by him."
"Please don't be talking about Cobb," says Eames. "Remember right after the Fischer job when I found you in that bar in Los Angeles, and you insisted on buying a round for everyone there to celebrate the fact that you were 'no longer obligated to wipe up after your lunatic boss since he finally killed the dead wife that lived inside his brain'?"
"That was a good day," says Arthur, wistfully.
"The point is," says Eames, "it's preposterous to think that you would have any interest in defending Cobb's honor."
"Fair enough," says Arthur. "But in light of how much time I've been wasting trying to reassure him that I don't actually think he's a fascist pig, I'm still going to get you back."
"Except you do think he's a fascist pig," says Eames.
"This is not true," says Arthur. "Dom's not built for fascism. He doesn't have the constitution for it."
"I notice you're not refuting the part where he's sort of a pig," says Eames.
"Listen," says Arthur, "I'm supposed to be planning my revenge right now, so you'll excuse me if I hang up on you."
"Been there--" begins Eames, but there's a click on the other end and then a forlorn dial tone.
Eames gives his cell phone a look of dismay, miffed at Arthur's recalcitrant insistence on dispensing with the trappings of civility. But then his inbox flashes with a new forwarded e-mail, and its contents please him greatly (Todos, miren estas fotos. ¡Una vergüenza!) so he loses the momentum for indignation. That's all right.
+
Special Agent Morimoto calls him with a job.
"Please don't say that," Agent Morimoto tells him. "Your jobs qualify as criminal activity. I must insist on making it clear that the Bureau requests your cooperation as a consultant."
The Bureau suspects that a mass murderer in their custody may have had an accomplice, whose existence the suspect is loath to confirm, let alone whose identity he is prepared to divulge. Some calculated (and humane, says Agent Morimoto, humane) interrogation may be in order.
Agent Morimoto is pushing fifty-five, and even if he were younger and angrier, Eames is simply too slippery to be thrown behind bars again. The necessary caveat of "again" is a blemish on his record, but Eames is adamant that the Annapolis fiasco was absolutely not his fault. It was absolutely not Arthur's fault either, so naturally he and Arthur were the only ones who ended up being arrested, wheedled into immunity in exchange for their valuable services, and added to Agent Morimoto's speed dial.
(Though, Eames assumes that Arthur's number has hardly been used, if ever; Agent Morimoto finds him unapproachable, not in the way that a man is wary of a criminal, but in the way that a man is wary of a well-groomed jaguar. Eames thinks this is understandable.)
The good news is that Eames has been dying to test-drive a certain type of long con. The inverse-reality dream, he's taken to calling it. Eames and his crew enter the dream with the mark, convince him that he was subjected to extended dream-interrogation all this while, and that in the dream, he's finally been allowed to wake up. They inform the mark that his subconscious testimony led the FBI to his accomplice, and march him past a row of maximum-security holding cells. And voila, sulking there in jail, whoever they find is the man they're looking for.
The bad news is that Agent Morimoto offers Eames immunity in exchange for his valuable services, again.
"I don't need immunity, you don't even know what I've been doing," says Eames, patiently. "You can't threaten to arrest me for nothing in particular and then expect me to cower in fear. Make me a better offer and call me back in a week, Morimoto."
He hangs up with a flourish, feeling all-powerful.
Only, the worst news comes a week later, and it's that hubris has smashed all his eggs against the wall of the barn before they've had a chance to hatch. He's on his third day in San Nicolaas, debating the merits of moving back up north because he's in danger of accidentally befriending everyone in the bite-sized town, when his phone rings.
"What?" he asks. "What do you mean, someone's done it already?"
"That's what happens when you waffle back and forth," says Agent Morimoto. "People beat you to the punch. I guess you must be glad that we're not trying to foist immunity off on you anymore, though."
"Why didn't you just negotiate with me?" demands Eames. "Why did you have to-- who else do you even know that does this sort of thing? Who did you call?"
"We didn't call him," says Agent Morimoto. "He called us out of the blue and offered to take on the consultant duties. You two are friends, right? You mentioned the deal to him, so naturally he went behind your back and contacted us. Can't trust thieves, Eames."
"I'm friends with-- who the hell is this," asks Eames, and knows the answer already.
"What kind of last name is Mangrove?" asks Agent Morimoto.
"Oh," says Eames, "you're fun."
"Thank you for giving me the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to American freedom," says Arthur. "I believe in the principles of democracy that this great country was built upon, and the threat of such heinous crimes as plague most lawless, liberal European states--"
"What'd you get from Morimoto?" asks Eames. The salt breeze and heat off the sand make for agreeably damp beach weather, but his toes are beginning to cook in the sun. The parasol doesn't quite shade him all the way down, it appears. He wriggles them experimentally; no pain yet.
"The extractor opted for financial compensation," says Arthur. "Retirement fund nest egg, I presume. Certain other members of the crew were unfortunate enough to need the offered immunity, but I had the luxury of requesting that my payment be donated to charity."
"You requested what?" asks Eames. "What did you even-- what charity?"
"The British Food Trust," says Arthur. "I was thinking of you."
"I should hope so," says Eames, "seeing as how it was my job you stole from right under my nose."
"Only after you forced me into a vacation against my will did I finally realize the wonders of unemployment," says Arthur. "It's invigorating, Eames. I just want you to experience its benefits as well."
"Thank you, Arthur, that's very thoughtful of you," says Eames. "But I'm afraid I'll be going straight back to work after this moment of respite-- I keep hearing my mum's voice nagging in the back of my head, idle hands, devil's tools, you know how it is. I'm a good son."
"Let's not even start on how much you abhor working for the sake of working," says Arthur. "Besides, I'm sure your mother wouldn't object to a hiatus in your career as an international criminal."
"You can take my hiatus for me," says Eames. "Not that you have much of a choice."
"Don't be too sure," says Arthur. "I've clawed my way through worse than a little slander."
"Right, well," says Eames, "you've had your revenge, so I hope you're satisfied. What a tidy end to things. This has been an immensely diverting couple of months, but I think I'm ready to return to my regular, boring old life of stealing ideas out of people's minds, if it's quite all right with you."
"First of all, you're wrong," says Arthur, and he has the nerve to sound amused. "You're as stubborn as they come, Eames. You'll do anything to get the last word-- well, anything short of putting yourself in any real danger, that is. You're not ready to quit because the moment you forfeit, you let me win. I think we both know you wouldn't stand for that."
Eames is glad that Arthur is a long-distance call away, because his left ring finger twitches, that minuscule tell he can't seem to get completely rid of. He just grips the phone tighter and draws his knees up, moving his toes out of the sun.
"If that's your first argument," says Eames, "what's your second?"
"Second of all," says Arthur, "I think you're enjoying this."
"Right," says Eames, "because there's nothing as pleasant as being swindled out of my liquid assets and my source of livelihood--"
"Remember what you said when I picked up, just now?" asks Arthur. "You called me fun, Eames. Aren't you glad that I am?"
+
Had Arthur been courteous enough to allow him just a few seconds to answer the question, Eames might have said a number of things, You Americans still don't understand verbal irony, or No, you wanker, I'm not glad, why don't you kindly go fuck yourself. But Eames has no choice but to snap his phone closed against the dead dial tone, and then to mull over his reply instead of letting it spray like grapeshot out of his mouth.
There are certain things that Eames takes for granted, assumptions as incontrovertible as the solid earth under his feet. That capitalism works in his favor. That misfortune is cyclical. That Arthur's sense of humor is a brittle thing at best, an occasional tight smile reserved for a tight spot. That Arthur is a stainless knife, the clean burn of something strong served neat. That Arthur only comes alive for a good firefight, a mercenary Galatea melting into motion, eyes bright and vicious as he devours the moon.
(How to reconcile this with Arthur Mangrove, he of the pranks, the games, play-fighting, love-tapping.)
So grain by grain, Eames's world begins to crumble beneath him. Maybe it's something he ought to have expected. He's built bridges across the sky and dreamed up shortcuts tunneling through bedrock, so maybe he never should have believed in anything other than mutability. He should have prepared to be proven wrong.
But even as he's slipping, stumbling, is he glad that Arthur is fun?
Does he wish he could have seen the deepening furrow of Arthur's brow as he scanned the forged manifesto? Does he roll the words over in his mouth, play-fighting, love-tapping, like the weight of a gobstopper across his tongue?
(He is. He does.)
"This is really damn rude of you," says Whittinger. "If you're going to threaten me, at least pay me your full attention."
"What?" asks Eames, startled, instinctively jerking the barrel of his gun back up toward Whittinger's forehead.
"Jesus, Eames!" barks Whittinger. "Careful where you point that thing! I'm seventy, you buffoon, I could keel over at any moment."
"Maybe, before you hired Arthur," says Eames, "you should have considered the ramifications of your actions. I warned you that you might end up with a gun to your head, I said as much. You really don't have anyone else to blame."
"You didn't say it would be your gun," says Whittinger. "How did you find me, anyway? Did Arthur leak that I hired him?"
"Only that the extractor was going to retire," says Eames. "Dreamshare hasn't been around long enough, so even with the burnout, precious few people are planning for retirement at any given time. It was either you or Nana Florence, and you know how she is with conspiracies, so she never would have gone anywhere near Arthur after that e-mail. What about you, didn't the manifesto scare you off?"
"I admit, I had my doubts about trusting him," says Whittinger. "But-- a gun like that for a price like that, Eames! It's not every day I can afford talent of that caliber. I decided to take my chances, run the last big job, and disappear off to someplace warm and peaceful. I was damn well going to, until you broke down my door. What do you want? I don't know where he is, if that's what you're after--"
"I know you don't," says Eames, and takes a seat next to Whittinger on his couch. "What I need from you, Mr. Whittinger, is for you to find me the mark for the highest-profile job on the market right now. You're retiring, so you can deal with the eventual turncoat reputation. Get me in touch with whoever that is, and mention that I would be interested in militarizing their subconscious for a negligible fee. Experimental sort of new procedure, but success completely guaranteed, or their money back. I can provide the credentials, of course."
"You're going to militarize a civilian?" asks Whittinger. "Even if Arthur ends up taking that job, it's not like he's a stranger to razing down security. I think you'll probably need to try harder than that."
"Old man, I am several steps ahead of you," says Eames. "Just find that mark for me, and I'll make sure that no one bothers you at your island paradise for the rest of your long and blissful life."
"You're the only one I'm worried about," says Whittinger. "Get that gun out of my face."
An eye for an eye. If Arthur steals his things, well, Eames will steal Arthur's. The potential mark is a twitchy board member of a major communications giant, who is only too eager to accept the offer of militarization. Eames has to move quickly, before surveillance on the mark begins in earnest-- he works harder and faster than he has in years.
But every moment will be worth it, he thinks, as he puts the finishing touches on the mark's subconscious safe and steps back to admire his work. Just for that look of dismay on Arthur's face.
Eames is rather taken with the tropical hideaway that Whittinger has picked out for himself, but Whittinger categorically refuses to rent out any of his spare rooms. It's no loss. When Arthur calls, Eames is in Imerovigli, waiting for the Santorini sunset.
"As much as it pains me to admit it," says Arthur, "you do have a certain style."
"Tell me everything that happened," says Eames. "Narrate my victory for me."
"You know what happened," says Arthur. "What I want to ask is, how did you even manage to duck under the radar? At least four separate teams were eyeing this job like vultures, and somehow no one noticed you maintaining regular contact with the mark. How'd you do it?"
"A magician--" begins Eames.
"Don't," says Arthur. "I know you're dying to talk about it."
"Whittinger was the go-between," says Eames. "I'm sure you're well-acquainted with him, aren't you? It's heartbreaking to have to point a gun at a man old enough to be your gaffer, but you left me with no other choice, Arthur."
"Is that a word you actually use, gaffer?" asks Arthur. "I can't tell when you descend into self-parody. You do it very abruptly."
"So Whittinger threw all of you off my scent, I assume," says Eames. "Then there's the small matter of my timeline, and how I finished the entire militarization process in -- oh, I don't know -- how about try two days?"
"How did you manage to-- did you fucking shack up with the guy?" asks Arthur. "Two days, Jesus. No wonder no one caught onto the pattern."
"I've told you my story," says Eames. "I think it's only polite that you return the favor."
Arthur makes a thoughtful sort of sound. The shadows are lengthening. Santorini is blue and rose, clusters of people huddled together, leaning over the walls to peer at the sun seeping into the water. Eames unrolls his sleeves against the evening wind.
"You know why I wanted to take this job," says Arthur. "Because the mark was a huge dream tourism enthusiast, and there was the possibility that he might be a lucid dreamer. Turns out that he wasn't, not in an unprepared dream-- and to be perfectly honest, I was a little disappointed, when I realized he wasn't going to give us any trouble."
"Until you got to the endpoint," says Eames.
"That wasn't him at all, that was you, asshole," says Arthur. "So there was no subconscious security, no lucid paranoia, everything smooth as velvet. When the extractor got held back at an intersection because of a traffic jam, I chalked that up to the mark's latent animosity toward urban planning."
"But of course, that was me," says Eames. "Militarization comes in different shapes and forms, you know. I built in a transportation gridlock fifteen minutes into an extraction attempt."
"Should have told me that before I went barging into his dream," says Arthur. "That put the extractor out of commission, and I was closest to the endpoint, so I ended up having to fill in. You just wanted me to open that safe, didn't you? You wanted me to be the one to look inside."
"Did you like what you found?" asks Eames.
"Yeah, very nice business card," says Arthur. "Surprisingly tasteful, for something of yours."
Eames tries to picture it, Arthur harried and out of breath, yanking open the door to the safe. And the set of his jaw as he reaches inside the empty vault, for the card left there in the cavernous vacuum. The rapid flicker of his eyes as he reads, Eames, criminal for hire.
"Where'd you get him to store it instead?" asks Arthur. "That layout had absolutely no other hotspots, not even a jammed desk drawer."
"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you," says Eames. "I may have shored him up just to spite you, but what's the sense in sabotaging my own hard work?"
"If he's ever up for grabs again," says Arthur, "I'm taking that job. I'm going to break through your goddamn lockdown, Eames."
"So that's a point for me, is it?" asks Eames. "Two and two, dead even."
"Not for long," says Arthur. "You left a calling card, surely you expect me to come calling. I'll be dropping by."
"You must have been furious," says Eames. "Didn't see me coming at all."
"Furious, sure. Frustrated, definitely," says Arthur, and the entire ocean is warm as liquid gold. "But at least I wasn't disappointed."
+
For the next job, his extractor flies all the way over to Greece to scout him in person. Robyn Chen makes him the offer over keftedes and ouzo, punctuating herself by stabbing the air with her fork.
"So the perceived importance of the forger's role in this case," she says, "does mean that you'll command a bigger cut of the payout than usual. There's no question about that, though the precise rate remains to be haggled over."
"But if I fuck it up," says Eames, "I fuck the whole job up."
"Exactly," says Robyn. "The rest of the job is relatively straightforward, and your role is what's difficult. Hell of a lot of thinking on your feet. Are you in?"
How could he not be. Back to America he goes, and he joins her base of operations in the rented second-floor flat. He nearly pulls out when they decide to use Dominic Cobb's foolhardy Mr. Charles gambit, but he has to admit that it's the best course of action.
It's a guilt dream. Little Rose was the mark's child-bride from back in his oil baron days, dead at seventeen (complicated pregnancy). Eames looks at the two photographs there exist of her, back and forth, back and forth. Dwarfed in the tulle explosion of her wedding veil, freckled and toothy on her porch with her sisters.
"We don't know anything about her," says Robyn. "Her voice, her mannerisms, the emotional quality of her relationship with the mark, nothing. There are no videos, no more pictures, no written records. Her hometown was developed into an industrial complex, and the original inhabitants have long since been displaced."
"How bloody fucked am I," says Eames. "It'll be a sort of reverse cold reading, then?"
"Cold as it gets," says Robyn.
A challenge if he's ever heard of one. He has to go in blind wearing Rose's skin, completely dependent on the mark's cues. Her accent, the pitch of her laugh, how close she sits to her husband-- Eames will need to make adjustments to a million different things. On top of which, he has to do it subtly enough that the mark doesn't suspect anything, touch-and-go on the most minute of physiological reactions. The flicker of a projection's eye, the mark's hesitant inhale of breath. It's shifting to find a balance that the mark's subconscious agrees with. Not unlike the process of militarization, ironically enough.
(First: become familiar with the base environment of your undisturbed dream. Brand it into your subconscious. Learn it until you can detect the smallest deviation, the smallest intrusion, not by looking but by sensing.
Second: associate the deviation with discomfort. Nausea-inducing drugs will do the trick, administered with the Somnacin during the course of the militarization.
Third: condition a defense mechanism against the discomfort. You are only allowed to leave the nausea-inducing dream when your subconscious has summoned a satisfactory response to the intrusion. Bristling guns, a natural disaster, bloodthirsty packs of wild animals, or a safe left empty but for a single business card.
Fourth: repeat until the response is second nature, an instantaneous knee-jerk reaction. Somewhere between the fiftieth and the hundredth repetition, your subconscious will start nailing it perfectly, shifting to eject the intruders just so that it can quell the nausea.)
All in all, the learning technique is behavioral to the point of barbarism, but it works. Repetition almost always does. And it's thanks to repetition that when the canister of tear gas comes crashing in through the window of the flat, Eames has his jacket over his nose and mouth before he's even made sense of the situation.
"Get out," he yells. "Get the fuck out."
"But the blueprints," croaks their architect, scrabbling at the papers, eyes and nose watering wet.
"It's not a fire," Eames snaps, and then the burn hits his throat. He chokes, his vision blurry with tears, and he lurches toward the door as the architect retches.
Outside the front door to the building, they pass a cigarette between them to clear out the last of the sting. The other tenants mull about aimlessly on the sidewalk, and their landlord is staring up at the shattered remains of the second-floor window. He evicts them.
Eames doesn't even have the energy to hang his suit jacket out to air. He trudges into the bathroom, shedding his clothes, a haphazard trail of fabric. He starts the shower and jerks at his tie as the water warms, still weary and sore all over.
Was he there? wonders Eames. If Eames had opened the window, if he'd known where to look, would he have seen him? Did Arthur stake out the room across the street from them, armed with a laptop and a catapult? (Even with his penchant for order and precision, Arthur always brought a certain dash of medieval flavor to his fights.)
It's been several long months since the Fischer job. Eames has gotten just a bit tanner in the meanwhile, just a tad lazier. He wonders if Arthur has changed. (Is his hair overgrown? Are there new scars across his skin?) Eames fumbles with the miniature bottle of hotel shampoo, his fingers suddenly numb, clumsy.
By the time he steps out of the shower, the bathroom is thick with steam. He breathes in, letting it wet his lungs, soothing the bitter taste of CS and defeat. He takes the towel off the rack and runs it through his hair, wondering if Arthur will answer his phone. If Arthur will laugh at him. A sliver of air seeps in from under the door, winding cool around his damp feet.
And then, out of the corner of his eye, he glances at the mirror above the sink-- and he jumps.
The edge of the towel rack promptly stabs his back. Eames curses, and hurriedly ties the towel around his waist, indignant and very much in pain. Scrawled there on the fogged-up mirror in obnoxious capital letters:
CALL ME
AND BEG
FOR MERCY
He feels violated. Thankfully, upon closer observation, it's evident that the message was written long before he took his shower. The letters have been drawn on in some sort of water-repellent solution, and Eames's thumb comes away sticky-slick when he rubs at the glass. Still, it's Arthur's handwriting-- Arthur broke into his hotel room and left him a note on his bathroom mirror. Eames sinks onto the bed and tries to fathom it.
Half an hour and a finger of scotch later, Eames is just agitated enough to try Arthur's number. He pulls on a shirt and a pair of boxers, dropping his towel to the floor in bold defiance, just in case Arthur is monitoring his disquiet through a carefully concealed camera or two. The line clicks connected after the second ring, and Eames draws in a deep breath to protest.
Only, it's an old woman with a heavy Eastern European accent who picks up and asks, "Yes, who is this?"
"Sorry, isn't this--" says Eames, "is Arthur there?"
"You have the wrong number," she says, but doesn't hang up. Eames waits for her to say something else, but she never does, and eventually Eames ends the call himself in vague befuddlement.
Maybe it's just courtesy. Maybe she's just an exceptionally polite old woman with a heavy Eastern European accent. Eames double-checks the number and tries again, but only ends up with her on the other side of the call.
"This is Arthur's number, isn't it?" he asks. "This is his phone?"
"I'm sorry, you must be mistaken," she says, and doesn't hang up.
Eames stands in front of his mirror, the letters just faint smudges now. Call me and beg for mercy. His hair has dried, and he's already trotted about the hotel room picking up his discarded clothes, stuffing them into the laundry bag.
What is he supposed to do? Call Arthur and beg for mercy, supposedly, but how does he beg Arthur for anything if he won't pick up? How does he call someone who won't answer the phone? What is he playing at, Eames wonders, beg for mercy, beg for mercy. Why must he insist on making every step of this a hassle. He traces the word with the tip of his fingernail, M-E-R-C-Y.
And then, as he ponders over each letter, Jesus Christ--
It hits him.
"Yes," says the old lady, "who is this?"
"Please, please may I speak to Mercy," says Eames, and then just for good measure, "please?"
"One moment, Mr. Eames," she says. "I'll be putting you through."
Eames lets out the breath he's been holding and punches his headboard in victory. When the dial tone ends and Arthur answers, at long last, it's like finishing a marathon. It's like gasping his way past the finish line, letting his legs give out from under him.
"I really need to stop underestimating you," says Arthur.
"You contrary fuck," says Eames. "Tear gas? Honestly?"
"Because you're a riot," says Arthur, fondly. "Hey, good job, though. I thought it would take you half a day at least to figure out how to reach me."
"It took me an entire hour and a half," says Eames. "And I have a hematoma on my back."
"You sound happy," says Arthur. "Did you miss me?"
Surely it's much less that, more just the elation of finally getting through. But at any rate Eames still feels like he's run a hundred ragged miles, high off the adrenaline. And when Arthur's question catches him off his guard, god, he startles himself into thinking-- I've raced all the way here just to get to you.
But no, thinks Eames, that's not right. That's not it at all.
Hello, are you still there, Arthur is saying, but Eames hardly hears it, all of his blood running cold. Oh, he's completely fucked. This is what he's been trying to tiptoe around, for as long as he's known Arthur. The sound of what he's been trying to shut out, only to find it lodged in his own throat, about to slip from his own perfidious mouth.
Here are the fruits of his own indecision staring straight back at him. Eames doesn't know how the phone call ends, but the line's dead for a long while before he can move again. His feet feel leaden, rooting him to the ground. If only he could let them drag him down deep into the oblivion of the earth. He'd love to be a hermit or a mole rat. God, he is so fucked.
+
Right then, in the middle of that phone call, Eames realizes that he can't win.
So far he's put up a good enough fight, blow for blow, but the outcome of the war has become clear to him. There are more reasons for his eventual defeat than he can possibly list. It's because of Arthur's vast network of contacts. It's because of Arthur's strangely inventive cruel streak. But above all, it's because thinking of Arthur now makes Eames feel like a bull in a china shop, his every move a blunder.
Here is the thing. Eames has never been very good at leaving Arthur alone, always too curious to keep his hands to himself. That was the lopsided way they lived; Eames needling Arthur just to get a rise out of him, and Arthur obliging him, with a derisive, long-suffering sort of patience. Nothing more than that was expected of them, and that worked fine, for as long as it did.
So in all the years they've spent together, all the jobs they've shown up for only to find each other there at the rendezvous point, all the time Eames has devoted to worming his way in under Arthur's skin-- he has never considered what he would do if Arthur ever decided to let him in. What he would say when Arthur turned around and asked, What do you want from me? The moment Arthur asked him, Did you miss me, and Eames found (to his alarm, to his horror) that his reply would have been, Yes. I did.
What does he want from Arthur. He has no good answer to that, not even a glib comeback to stall for time. It's not a mystery he can solve with enough peace to think. It's a knot he keeps pulling tighter, the more he picks at it. Eames would like to touch him, to push him down and taste him. To make him smile, to rile him up, to drive him to irritation, frustration, explosion-- but more than any of that, Eames just wants to never have to choose. To never have to admit that he can't choose.
But now he's lying on the bed of his hotel room with his arms pillowed behind his head, and he's been cornered at the edge of the cliff. If only he hadn't started playing along, letting himself get close enough to make this ultimatum inevitable. Arthur must have stood in front of his bathroom mirror, leaning over the sink as he wrote out his note. Sleeves rolled up away from the water, hair a little undone from the effort of breaking in. He smiled, didn't he, cocky and bright and demanding. But Eames has no answer to give him.
God, he never should have hit Arthur back. Why did he ever forge that manifesto? What made him think this was a good idea, play-fighting, love-tapping, letting himself get tangled up in Arthur like this, like it wouldn't all come to a head at some point-- at this point, Arthur's handwriting all over his mirror, the expectant weight of Arthur's silence filling his ears.
Down this road, over this cliff, it's question after question that he doesn't know how to answer, quicksand he can't walk on. (What does he want from Arthur? What does he want the two of them to be to each other? Are they supposed to be acquaintances, friends, rivals, the best of enemies, two fucking ships grinding against each other in the night? Why do they need to be forced to limit themselves, when they've done perfectly well before without giving themselves a name?)
Arthur was right when he said Eames would never forfeit willingly, but this is the one exception allowed him. This is when it kicks in, the self-preservation he's known for, because there's nothing that unnerves him half as much as being caught without an answer. He won't tread where he isn't sure of his footing. He can't keep at this, not when it's heading the way it is, pushing the two of them closer together. With the question like a mockery still ringing inside his head, What do you want from him? How can you not know?
It's a little too late to come out completely unscathed, but Eames decides to minimize his losses. Sell, sell, sell; jump ship; the only move to make is to step off the board. He changes hotels and drops his phone onto the metro tracks. He forfeits.
[ next part]