Anabasis: Part I: 1
Title: Anabasis
Author: coldthermistor
Artist: ellegen
Rating: R just in case, mostly for violence. There is no porn.
Word count: 80,617 words
Warnings: A little violence (possibly graphic), implied torture, and swearing.
Pairings: Cobb/Mal, Arthur/Cobb
Summary: Dominic Cobb is a man on the run. He's on the run from a marriage slowly falling apart, from being framed for a crime he didn't commit...and on the run from the memories of a betrayal that haunts him still. He remembers little of the night except for one thing, burned into his mind: Arthur betrayed him. Arthur cannot be trusted. Now, a business man, Saito has come forward: with what seems to be Cobb's best hope of learning the truth about that night so many years ago...and with Cobb's best hope of clearing his name. In return, he only wants an impossible job performed. Inception. There is no room for failure. The stakes are too high. But there is an enemy haunting Cobb's footsteps...an enemy wearing the face of a man that Cobb knows only too well: Cobb's former point man, Arthur...
-
Part I: Extraction
He lies face down for a long time, after the sea chewed and spat him up, breathing through a mask of wet sand. Everywhere aches and when he cranes his neck and grimaces at the pain in the movement, he sees the sun overhead through the sparkling lens of saltwater droplets. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. He doesn’t know how long it is, since he’s spoken. Since he’s spoken to someone real. The two are one and the same.
Sand and salt sting in his cuts. He’s been hurt somewhere, somehow, can’t quite remember. His side aches, and when he shifts a little, it bleeds fire. Oh, he thinks vaguely. There is that, and the cool metal of the gun pressing against him, tucked into his waistband. He’s so tired. He should close his eyes and just sleep. He thinks maybe he has, drifting off once or twice in the middle of all this. His sun dazed mind finds it hard to cling to anything particularly solid, or coherent.
There’s a man he’s come to find, down here, where sand and sea meet. He holds on to that thought, feeling the imperative urgency in the hard unyielding corners of the plastic red die he grips between his fingers.
“Get up,” Someone says, and he groans, shifting slightly. The sand gives beneath him and he doesn’t find enough purchase to get up. Maybe, maybe he knows that voice. There’s something familiar about it. Another important thing.
“Damn you, Cobb, get up!”
Cobb. His name.
That someone kneels down in front of him: clean, Cobb thinks, strangely clean, never mind all the sand here that cakes everything in a crust of dirt. Hands reach out, slipping in under his armpits and haul him to his feet. He flops, limp like a rag-doll.
Arthur, Cobb remembers. That’s Arthur.
Funny, he thought he’d shot the projection. A long time ago. Or maybe yesterday. Or several layers up. He fumbles briefly for his gun and then gives up. Arthur wouldn’t kill him. Arthur wouldn’t -
Arthur shakes him. “Come on,” he says, voice low and fierce. “Don’t pass out on me now,”
Okay, Cobb says. He thinks he says that. His throat works, hoarse and raspy. Nothing comes out. He tries again. “Okay.”
Arthur makes a sound, half exasperation and half impatience. He bends, Cobb’s left arm slips across his shoulders and stays there, so now Arthur is supporting him. “I don’t suppose you can stand?” he asks wryly, then answers his own question. “Evidently not.”
“You should be dead,” Cobb mumbles, sagging against Arthur. His knees threaten to give up on him. His legs are shaky. He remembers the sound of the gun discharging, sharp against his skull. Arthur holds him, steady, dependable, solid and very real. They always feel real in dreams.
“Yeah,” Arthur says, after a heavy pause. “I should be.”
“But you always come back,” Cobb manages, through lips cracked and bleeding sluggishly from sun and salt. He thinks he’s raving, maybe delirious and dehydrated. It’s an effort to keep his eyes open. “No matter what I do. You always come back.”
Arthur stops, and is silent for a while. Finally, he chooses to ignore Cobb’s words. “We need to find Saito,” he says abruptly, scanning the distance ahead of them. There’s a familiar palace, Cobb realises, blinking. He built it before, a lifetime ago, in a dream. Maybe a dream of a dream. Or was it Nash? His eyelids are heavy with exhaustion and don’t want to open again.
Cobb only realises he’s drifted off when he hears Arthur’s voice, more distant, and claws his way back towards it through the fog of heat, sun flare and cold saltwater tides pounding at his brain, eroding layers and layers of memory. Arthur is looking at him, frowning in concern. He looks a bit older and more tired than Cobb can remember, and there’s something about the grave set to his face that Cobb - doesn’t know what to make of. A dimension that’s always missing from his projection.
He’s too tired to make much sense out of any of these. Too tired to do anything except to hang limp and let Arthur support him. Too tired to wonder. The voice at the back of his head says he knows the answers. Cobb doesn’t know if he does know them, or if he’s just too tired to ask the old questions. Too tired to believe that Arthur’s going to kill him, in short order.
“Come on,” Arthur prods, “Stay with me, Cobb. Keep going. We’re almost there.” He keeps saying that, taking another step forward, urging him to stay awake. Cobb all but collapses against Arthur. His arm slips free of Arthur’s shoulders. He slides downwards, towards the sand.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
Maybe Arthur catches him, even before he falls.
-
“I know you,” the old man said, eyes switching from where Arthur sat, forearms resting against the smooth black lacquer of the wooden table, to where Cobb sat, maybe less than half a metre away. Cobb glanced up from the bowl of gravy-soaked rice, momentarily. “Both of you.”
There was…something, Cobb thought. Something elusive, that flickered in the depths of his mind like sunlight on water then vanished. It slipped through his fingers. His thoughts were still scattered and unfocused. There was an entire patch of nothing but sand and ocean and sky, and around all of that - ghosts. Snatches of conversation, things he knew he must remember, but could not quite. It wasn’t the only blank. There was another one, right between Arthur finding him, and ending up here.
What do you remember? How did you get here?
The questions were important, Cobb knew. He was just short on answers at the moment.
What do you remember?
Ocean. Sand. Sky. Blue, bright blue with very little clouds. Sun. Hot, scorching. The taste of salt and blood. Arthur.
How did you get here?
I can’t remember.
“Have you come to kill me?” Saito asked. He reached out for the gun that lay on the table. His hand trembled slightly. His fingers brushed the cold metal, but he did not glance down at it.
“Yes,” Arthur said, very carefully. “You need to wake up.”
“I know,” Saito whispered, deepset dark eyes almost unfocused. He reached out and touched the object next to the gun instead, picking it up and then dropping it. The hard red acrylic die hit the table with a clatter, bounced off the surface, and rolled, coming to a stop. Arthur looked surprised - and as though someone had kicked him in the ribs. “I know what this is. I’ve seen one before…many, many years ago. It belonged to a man I met in a half-remembered dream…a man possessed of some radical notions…”
Cobb glanced up at Saito again, frowning at the die. The numbers were important, he remembered. The numbers were important, and yet it wasn’t what the die showed, so much as what it didn’t show. He remembered that much at least.
The die was important too. He thought he remembered why and the memory slipped through his grasping fingers like a wet fish and disappeared.
What do you remember?
Saito laid his hand on the gun.
-
“What’s the most resilient parasite?” Cobb asked.
Saito glanced at him.
“A bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm?”
Saito’s fork paused, in mid-air. He said nothing, but shifted back in his seat, regarding Cobb with those disconcerting dark eyes. It was almost impossible to tell what he really thought.
“An idea,” Cobb continued. He leaned forward, intent. “Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken root in the brain, it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully-formed, fully understood - that sticks.” He tapped his head, by way of emphasis. “Right in there, somewhere.”
“For someone like you to steal?”
Cobb shrugged, just a little uncomfortably, acknowledging the statement. “Yes,” he said, after a bit of a pause. “Mr Saito, there are many companies who see the advantages that those with my skills can offer them, over their competitors. I can train your subconscious to defend itself from even the most skilled extractor.”
“How can you do that?” Saito wanted to know. Cobb thought he caught the first signs of interest, though Saito tried to conceal them, glancing only negligently at Cobb and then back at his meal, as if his food was far more interesting.
“Because,” Cobb replied, “I am the most skilled extractor. I know how to search your mind and find your secrets. I know the tricks, and I can teach them to you so that even when you’re asleep, your defence is never down.” He let Saito chew on that for a moment, and then stood up and continued, pressing his advantage. He had Saito’s attention now, he thought. “Look, if you want my help, you’re going to have to be completely open with me. I need to know my way around your thoughts better than your…wife, better than your therapist, better than anyone.” The edged smile on Saito’s face was pleasant, suggested that Saito was humouring him, nothing more. But, Cobb thought - Saito hadn’t interrupted him. That was something. “If this is a dream, and you have a safe of secrets, I need to know what’s in that safe. In order for this all to work, you need to completely let me in.”
Saito smiled, and wiped his mouth with a napkin. He said nothing, at first. It was a knowing smile, and a dangerous one. He knows, Cobb thought, in that moment. It was the amused smile of a cat, toying with its prey. Someone who knew he had the advantage, and a brief flash of fangs and claws. And then the tiger sheathed its claws, appeared to be a sleepy, affable housecat.
“Enjoy your evening, Mr Cobb,” he said, getting up and heading towards the exit. The bodyguards slid the double doors open as he approached and left. “I will consider your proposal.” Cobb caught sight of the people milling outside, drinking, laughing - then the doors slid shut.
For a moment, the ceiling - comprised almost entirely of hanging lamps - trembled and shook. It didn’t seem close enough, Cobb thought clinically. He drained his wineglass and left it on the table. It probably wasn’t from Nash’s layer. Maybe the train had encountered some difficulties. There was no way to tell for sure.
No, Cobb realised, as he made his way towards the exit. It wasn’t just the ceiling. The whole dream was feeling the tremors - the railings, the doors, even the floor pitched and vibrated against the soles of his shoes.
It didn’t matter if Saito knew. That wasn’t the whole point of this charade. Extraction was usually about deception, cunning - just how crafty you could really be. But Saito had glanced at the safe, for a moment, and that was more than enough for Cobb to guess where the information he needed was.
He didn’t need to memorise the layout of the room. This was his dream, and despite his misgivings, Cobb thought he knew the best way to make the approach to the safe. But now wasn’t the time. He’d have to do it later. Saito would have put him under surveillance - he was already suspicious enough.
Cobb frowned, and wished Ramirez was able to make the job. Another extractor would have made a difference on this job, and made things a lot easier for Cobb. But Ramirez was also a point man, first and foremost, and ever since Arthur, Cobb had made it a point never to work with one.
Never again.
-
Another tremor came, shaking the elegant castle as Cobb carefully made his way around the rooftop terrace, assessing the positions of Saito’s security projections. The research had shown that Saito’s mind wasn’t militarised, which was something that Cobb had found slightly odd in a man of Saito’s power and position. It didn’t mean Saito didn’t have some form of subconscious security though, and Cobb was taking note of everything he caught sight of. He’d have to slip past them, later.
“He’s playing with us,” Someone said, right behind him.
Time was when Cobb would have been slightly startled. By now, he was all but used to this happening. Not that it was, in any way, a good thing. “I know,” he said aloud. “What are you doing here?”
Arthur shrugged. He was wearing a dinner jacket - black tie, Cobb identified, after a moment of hesitation. “We’re on a job, aren’t we?”
Cobb shook his head slowly. He started to walk again. Arthur followed, walking a little faster at first to keep pace with Cobb. “No,” Cobb said, softly, entering one of the small rooms to the side. He’d picked it because it offered a direct path downwards, to take him to almost directly outside the room that held the safe. He’d attract far less attention from Saito’s projections that way. “I’m the one on the job.”
Don’t screw it up this time.
Arthur took that with another shrug that said he was quite unaffected. “How’s Mal?” he asked, instead, idly surveying the paintings that hung on the walls of the room. Cobb wasn’t so interested in the paintings - he studied the windows, and decided that breaking them would attract too much attention. He could work it open enough to squeeze out. “And how’re your kids?”
Cobb squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a moment. “Fine,” he said, quietly. “I should think they’d miss you. Mal does, you know.” He unlocked the latch and pushed the windows wide open, feeling the cold night air stream into the room. He shivered a little, and didn’t glance down. It was a long way down.
He moved away from the open window, producing the length of black rope from inside his jacket. He tested it, tugging at the rope thoughtfully. There was no telling if it could take his weight, not until he was outside. By then, it would be a little too late. But then again - he had dreamed the rope up. It should hold up fine. Now he just had to find something to anchor one end of the rope to. “You shouldn’t be here, Arthur,” he said, binding the rope end tightly to the window grilles. He knotted it again and tugged, making sure it was secure, and that it wasn’t going to slip or unravel mid-descent. “What are you doing?”
“Looking in on you,” Arthur said. The corners of his mouth quirked upwards in one of the mild smiles that Cobb remembered too well. “Thought I’d drop by and see how you were doing, maybe come along for the ride. Interesting place, isn’t it?”
“I’m here to work,” Cobb replied.
“So am I,” Arthur countered. He nodded over in the direction of the door. “You’ve about two more minutes before you don’t come out - and your tail starts to get alarmed.”
Cobb studied the window and wondered if it was safe or worth it to attempt the descent when Arthur was around. He decided it didn’t make any difference and grunted as he carefully climbed out, gripping the window frame. He straddled the edge and tested the rope again. For one worrying moment, he thought it was going to give, but then it held up, fine.
What he wanted to say in reply to the question Arthur hadn’t quite asked: Yes, but I can’t trust you anymore. Instead, he forced himself to sound casual. “Maybe he’ll think we’re making out or something,” he said, lightly. “And have the courtesy not to look in.”
Arthur raised his eyebrows, sardonically. “You think?” he wanted to know.
Cobb shrugged. He glanced down. Four windows, he figured. Four levels. He’d have to be careful not to overshoot when he descended, and let out the rope bit by bit. “Worth a shot,” he admitted. This wasn’t going to be a good idea, but Cobb was more than slightly out of ideas at this point. There was no way he was going to negotiate the descent in less than two minutes, and the last thing he wanted was Saito’s security projections on high alert. “Don’t suppose you can handle him?”
Arthur scoffed at Cobb’s words. “I can handle a few security projections,” he called over his shoulder, as he turned and walked out of the room. “You worry about your end.”
If things went according to plan, Cobb thought, Arthur would buy him - maybe five to seven minutes. If they didn’t - he was no worse off than he was now. Cobb swung his other leg over the window sill and let out a bit of rope. He didn’t let go of the window sill yet, held it in a white-knuckled grip. The rope went taut. Carefully, he let out a bit more rope, and then let go of the window sill. He dropped, for one frightening moment, and then the rope went taut with tension and held. He was dangling outside the building, now. Cobb exhaled, feeling just a little of the worry leave him, and started to carefully make his way down, level by level.
-
It wasn’t that tricky a climb. There were ledges and shutters and cracks - all sorts of things to aid a climber, even if he didn’t have a rope. This had been part of Nash’s design, Cobb thought, as he counted the levels he descended, letting out rope as fast as he dared. Five to seven minutes still wasn’t very much time, and the sooner he got out of sight, the better.
There. He jerked to a halt, swinging towards the walls of the building, scrambling to find some sort of purchase. His feet found a slightly precarious spot - he glanced down, it was one of the many shutters on the level below. He wedged his feet into the gap and then carefully reached for one of the explosive charges. It was small, and shouldn’t make too much of a sound. He attached it to the window, primed it, and then carefully climbed a little higher, not wanting to be struck by falling fragments of glass. Technically, the glass shouldn’t fall outside the building. Cobb didn’t see the point in testing that close up. Catching glass fragments in the face hurt.
When he was sufficiently clear, Cobb remotely triggered the charge and listened. The glass broke at once, with a sharp cracking sound, and then the tinkle of fragments hitting the floor and breaking into even smaller pieces. He let himself down again, and climbed in through the gaping hole where the glass had been, wincing a little as some of the sharp edges dug into his palms. At least the dark leather gloves he’d pulled on protected him from the worst of the broken glass, so that was something.
The kitchen was mostly dark. There was barely enough light to see by, and Cobb did his best to avoid stepping on bits and pieces of glass as he made his way in, passing ill-lit counters and stoves gone dead. No projections were around, not at this time of the night. That, at least, made things a little easier. Cobb threaded the suppressor onto the barrel of his gun as he moved, and pictured the layout of the palace in his head again.
He’d need to find the exit from the kitchens again. That’d bring him right outside the building. From there, he’d need to take out the guards, and then descend the staircase. It’d take him back to the passage that led to the safe. This was a maze, after all, and Nash knew his job well enough to design the shortcuts through it. Cobb just hoped that it was enough. It would have to be enough.
Cobb clung to the wall of the building as he emerged into the open again, staying as close as he could to the shadows. He moved quietly and quickly until he saw the first guard, and then stood still, trusting that he was well-hidden. There was no sign he’d been noticed. The guard turned around, presenting his back to Cobb, and moved out again along the section of the boardwalk. Cobb didn’t shoot yet. He strained to make out signs of other guards in the darkness, but could see none of them. The patrols were widely spaced out, then. It would make his job easier. He waited for the guard to make one more round, and then as soon as the guard turned his back, Cobb moved. He sighted, fired, caught the shell casing and then darted forward to catch the guard as he fell, and lowered him to the ground gently.
He glanced around. He’d played with the rules of the dream a little - no gun would have been that silent. Cobb only hoped that because he hadn’t changed the dream - he’d built the dream this way - the projections weren’t going to take as much notice of it as they would have otherwise.
There was no outcry, no sign that anyone had noticed that he’d taken out the guard. Good. Before he could attract more attention, Cobb blended back into the shadows and was moving again, heading for the staircase that would take him down to the passageway.
-
There was another projection at the bottom of the stairs. His back was turned to Cobb; he hadn’t heard anything. Yet. Cobb cursed quietly as he stepped harder than he’d expected to, and the guard began to turn, peering behind him.
He put a bullet into the guard’s head and then covered the distance between them in a few quick steps, clapping one hand over the guard’s mouth just in case he hadn’t killed the guard. But the man went limp, and Cobb carefully let him drop to the wooden planking of the floor.
He didn’t encounter any more guards on the way to the passage, and when he tried the double doors of the room, they were unlocked. There was no sign of Saito’s bodyguards, but they would have followed Saito to the rooftop terraces. That was yet another thing that would make this easier for him.
The room itself was almost completely dark, and Cobb shut the doors behind him, just to try and conceal his presence at first glance. He crossed the room swiftly, counting the painted screens. The safe was behind the fifth; a false panel that slid apart to reveal a wooden cabinet and a matte-black safe. He’d dreamed the safe, so it didn’t take Cobb too much effort to crack the password and open it.
The documents were inside, all of them in a brown envelope - the kind used in offices everywhere. Cobb reached out to take the envelope, quickly folded it in half, and slipped it into his waistband. He pulled out the decoy envelope when a harsh, accented voice startled him - that, and the ceiling lights all flipping on in that instant. “Turn around.” He blinked at the sudden influx of light, reaching for his gun at the same time. He whirled and pointed it at the entrance of the room - where Saito stood, Arthur next to him.
Shit, Cobb thought. He’d been right about Arthur. And he’d been wrong.
“The gun, Cobb,” Arthur said. The muzzle of his Glock did not waver, shifting to follow Cobb’s movement as Cobb moved to the side, trying to edge away from the safe, half-turning so that he presented a much smaller target.
“Did he tell you?” Cobb demanded of Saito. “Or have you known all along?”
Saito’s lips curled in a derisive smile. “That you are here to steal from me? Or that we are actually asleep?” He glanced briefly at Arthur and frowned. It was a puzzled, slightly speculative frown, and one that struck Cobb as odd in a way he couldn’t quite place, but he dismissed it. He had other things to worry about - like how to get the hell out of here with the documents.
“You don’t want to do this,” Arthur said, his voice level.
“But this is a dream, isn’t it, Arthur?” Cobb tried. He glanced around. It wouldn’t have been much of a strong room if there were any other exits so Nash hadn’t put any in. There was no other way out, except past Saito - and past Arthur. Godamnit. “There’s no use threatening me in a dream. Killing me’s just going to wake me up.”
“You can’t access the information if you’re awake,” Arthur replied, implacably. “I think that’s good enough.”
“The envelope, Mr Cobb,” Saito cut in, flicking a cautious glance at Arthur, before his dark eyes turned back to Cobb. He was starting to sound impatient. “And the gun. My men are outside the room. You have no other options.”
-
This is Dominic Cobb, extractor:
He’s one of the best. Some would say, he is the best; the most gifted, daring, and reckless extractor in any generation, with just the right mixture of boldness, vision and a gift for making the impossible real. His name, along with Stephen Miles, along with Lewis Stokes, and a few other names have become bywords in the field of shared dreaming. He’s the pioneer, always pushing the boundaries, and taking things much further than anyone had ever dreamed. He’s more than just an extractor, in the same way that a da Vinci painting transcends a four year old’s first attempt at drawing flowers with paints. What he’s done as a dream architect takes architecture to a new level of sophistication, a new level of possibilities: he’s a pioneer, and he’s more than just a pioneer or an extractor - he’s an artist. What he does in pushing boundaries, as a visionary, is to elevate all of these to a kind of subtle art.
He’s worked on both sides of the field. He’s done the small jobs, the ones that don’t usually require extraction, just a decent amount of sleuthing. He’s done the standard ones too - the ones when someone pays for extractors to teach their subconscious to defend itself from extraction. He’s good at that too. Extractors have run into the results of his work before - and have gotten torn apart.
And he’s done the big jobs. He’s the one the police call in when they suspect extraction, when they need information out, in time to save lives. He’s the one who gets called in as a consultant when there’s a rogue extractor to be dealt with: Dominic Cobb, licensed extractor, simply because he’s the best there is.
And he’s getting better all the time.
It’s not just his boldness either, his willingness to take the impossible, and to turn it to reality. It isn’t the way he seizes on the limits and pushes them and watches them crumble to ash in his grip, revealing new horizons, new unexplored hinterlands. It’s more than that. It’s his cunning, the way he comes up with new plans in the blink of an eye. It’s the way he easily pulls off deception, the way he always has one or two clever tricks in his pocket.
This is Dominic Cobb, one of the best, one of the most skilled extractors alive.
This is Dominic Cobb, before the Algol job. Before everything changed. Now, he’s still one of the best. That hasn’t changed. But everything else has.
Cobb never talks about the Algol job.
-
Carefully, Cobb weighed his options. There weren’t very many of them. He nodded abruptly, turning the gun aside and holding it up, finger off the trigger to show that he surrendered, and took a step forward, towards the smooth, long table. He glanced at Arthur, but Arthur did not visibly relax. Cobb thought of nothing but how he’d been manoeuvred into a corner as he laid the gun down and gave it a push, watching it slide across the polished lacquer of the table.
“Now the envelope,” Saito demanded.
Cobb laid the brown envelope on the table, and then kept his hands in the air.
“I want to know the name of your employer.”
“He’s planning something,” Arthur said quietly, and Saito glanced at him. In that moment, Cobb moved at once, hurling himself across the table and reaching out for his gun. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought he’d missed, but then his fingers closed around it and he fired - not at Arthur but upwards.
At the ceiling.
At the same time, Cobb threw himself sideways to avoid the cascade of broken pieces of glass and sparks from the lights he’d taken out, crashing off the table and onto the floor. He heard the sound of a gun discharging and cursed as he felt a flash of pain in his left shoulder. It hurt like hell but he didn’t dare to glance at it, not now. He managed to get to his feet and charged, closing the distance between him and Arthur in two or three quick strides. It was a reckless and risky plan he’d come up with, on the spot, and he didn’t even know if it was going to work.
He closed the last of the distance with a crunching tackle that had his shoulder screaming in pain (godamnit wrong shoulder). His momentum and his larger frame (not that it really meant anything here) had them skidding out of the open doorway - there were confused exclamations from Saito’s guards, like Cobb had desperately hoped for, and none of them were trying to shoot the tangled pair, especially not when Saito was shouting, “Stop him!”
Somehow, Arthur hadn’t managed to let go of the Glock, so Cobb hit Arthur in the wrist - hard - until his projection let out a muffled cry and released the gun. They were godamned lucky none of them had shot each other yet and Cobb realised he was bleeding freely from his left arm and moving it hurt like hell. He wasn’t in any state to grapple and he didn’t have the time for this, not now. Arthur tried to put an armbar on him. Cobb kneed him in the stomach, and Arthur released his hold. In that moment, Cobb grabbed the lapels of Arthur’s jacket, pulling him close and then slammed him with a headbutt. Something broke, probably cartilage, blood trickling down his forehead, and Cobb swallowed and fought down uncomfortable feelings about this whole thing. There wasn’t time for a chokehold. Cobb released him and rolled free, reaching for Arthur’s gun. He must have dropped the Beretta somewhere in the whole scuffle - it had all happened so fast and now the element of surprise he’d had was all but gone. He had to keep moving before they shot him.
He fired and dropped the first guard and rolled to his feet, running and trying to feel inside his jacket with his bad arm to see if the envelope was still there - the real envelope. It was. Cobb heard the sound of gunfire and hoped to hell he hadn’t been shot, as he all but threw himself down the staircase, his lungs burning. Saito was going to realise the deception at any moment now, and then they’d all be combing the passages of the dream for him. He tucked the gun away into his waistband, and pulled out the crumpled envelope, tearing it open and discarding it in favour of its contents.
Sheet after sheet of paper - Cobb glanced up and shouldered past a bewildered guard and promptly floored the man with a solid punch. He discarded the first paper, scanning for the information he needed. Page after page of print, all of them in English because it was Cobb’s dream and it was like water, really, Saito’s mind expanding to fill the shape of the container.
Godamnit, Cobb thought, trying to search the papers for the information he needed. Most of it had been blacked out and censored. Saito had left out key pieces of information, the missing links that Cobb would need to give Cobol Engineering what it wanted.
He rounded the corner and was greeted by Arthur, holding Cobb’s silenced Beretta. A corner of Cobb’s mind wondered if there was anything symbolic to it. His nose was most definitely broken; it was a drying mess of clotted blood and his clothing was all but rumpled and disordered - but the expression on his face was something Cobb recognised all too well, with a pang of pain in his chest. Maybe, Cobb thought. Arthur’d looked that way when he -
When he -
“Sorry,” Arthur said, almost-apologetically, and then shot him.
-
Cobb opened his eyes, fighting the urge to swear. He’d been so close to success. He’d just needed a minute or so to scan through the rest of the papers. He ripped the tubes out of his wrist, and then discovered that Saito was awake, and had Nash at gunpoint. Nash’s eyes flicked nervously towards Cobb, and then back at Saito again. His mouth worked as though he’d wanted to say something.
Keep him busy, Cobb thought, pleading, don’t give me away. That was one thing about working with anyone else - he invariably started to compare them to Arthur, because Arthur would be saying something now, trying to get Saito’s attention, so Cobb could attempt to take Saito from behind. Godamnit, Cobb thought. It never went away.
For the second time in the past few minutes, Cobb launched himself into a clumsy tackle, knocking the chair over so it fell and hit the bathtub full of water with a telling splash. At the sound - or maybe at Nash’s poor acting, Saito had begun to turn and Nash moved at the same time, struggling to get the gun free from Saito’s hand. They collided in a tangle of limbs and bodies and then hit the floor. Saito scrabbled for the gun; there was the sound of the weapon discharging, and Cobb tensed but no one cried out. He managed to subdue Saito, frustration making him smash his fist into the man’s jaw just a little harder than he’d meant to, and then turned to Nash when Saito’s head snapped back and he went limp. “He’s out. You okay?” he asked, curtly.
Nash nodded, breath coming out in heavy gasps. “Yeah,” he said. “Gun went off but didn’t get anyone.”
That was something, Cobb thought sourly. They were already short-handed on this job, as it was, and it had just been made painfully apparent to him that this current state of affairs wasn’t going to be ideal for any future jobs.
Don’t think about the future. Think about surviving this. Cobol’s not going to like it if you can’t get anything out of Saito. He grimaced briefly at the idea of just how Cobol would express its dislike.
“What’re you gonna do?” Nash wanted to know. He glanced nervously in the direction of the almost-translucent window-pane. It was then that Cobb registered what he’d been hearing for the past few minutes since he woke up: shouts, the sounds of breaking glass and crunching metal. Godamnit. They were running out of time, fast. Saito’s projections had registered the threat and were already headed their way.
“Give me the gun,” Cobb said, and then took the proffered weapon. He checked it briefly and then kept it. “And put him in a chair. I’m going to see what he knows.”
-
“You came prepared,” Cobb said, after Saito came round. There was a purpling bruise on his jaw where Cobb’s punch had landed, in the earlier scuffle.
Saito ignored the statement. He studied Cobb, perfectly calm and composed. Nash stood behind him, keeping an eye on the situation outside of the apartment. “Not even the head of my security knows about this apartment. How did you find it?”
“Very difficult for a man of your position to keep a love nest like this secret,” Cobb said, making a show of examining Saito’s gun, “Particularly when there’s a married woman involved.” In this case, it was in both senses of the word. Although she disapproved of the whole job, Cobb’s researcher had come through for him, sending him the information he needed to work with to reconstruct the apartment. Let Saito mull over that.
“She would never,” Saito denied, almost immediately. Cobb thought it was a little too quickly.
“Yet, here we are,” Cobb countered.
He was rewarded by the first glimmers of uncertainty in those dark eyes. Saito said nothing, and Cobb decided maybe he had rattled the man. Keep going. Keep pressing him.
Nash coughed, very loudly. He turned away from the window for a short while, signalling urgently. “They’re getting closer,” he warned.
“With a dilemma,” Cobb continued, intent on Saito.
“You got what you came for.”
“Well, that’s not true,” Cobb said, leaning forward in his seat. He held the gun loosely in his hand, but he was far enough that Saito couldn’t try to take it by force. He pointed it at Saito, and watched the man’s eyes narrow - a little. “You left out a key piece of information, didn’t you? You held something back because you knew what we were up to.”
Saito remained silent.
“The question is, why did you even let us in at all?”
Now, Saito smiled. It was a fierce, cold smile. “An audition,” he said.
Cobb blinked, “An audition for what?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Saito replied. His tone and his expression grew harsh and pitiless. “You failed.”
“We extracted every bit of information you had in there,” Cobb reminded him.
“Your deception was obvious.”
Cobb thought he could hear the sound of explosions, drawing closer. Nash glanced away from the window again. “Cobb - “ he began. Cobb held up a hand to forestall him, but made no response. He watched Saito very carefully, considering his next move. And then he heard it. The first strains of Edith Piaf were slowly leaking into the dream, the musical cue warning them they had less than thirty seconds of real time left to extract the required information from Saito. One quick glance at Nash told him that Nash had heard it too.
“So, leave me and go,” Saito ordered, perhaps emboldened by their silence.
Cobb shook his head, slowly. There was always one last gamble left; one last card to play. It was crude and direct, but sometimes, those things worked far better. The time for subterfuge and deception was all but over. “You don’t seem to understand, Mr Saito,” he said, slowly. “The corporation that hired us - they won’t accept failure. We won’t last two days. Looks like we’re going to have to do this a little more simply.” He stood up, moving over to where Saito sat. He grabbed the man, flung him onto the carpeted floor, and held him at gunpoint, shouting, “Tell us what you know! Tell us what you know now!”
Saito made no response. Inexplicably, he had begun to smile - a smug, knowing smile. He chuckled, running his fingers along the woven fibers of the carpet. “I’ve always hated this carpet,” he said, and for a moment, Cobb wondered if the man had gone insane. “It’s stained, and frayed in such distinctive ways…but very definitely made of wool. Right now - I’m lying on polyester.”
Godamnit, Cobb thought. He glared at Nash, who shook his head haplessly.
“Which means,” Saito whispered, face alight with some fierce, intent emotion that Cobb couldn’t quite place - was it triumph? Delight? - “I’m not lying on my carpet in my apartment. “You have lived up to your reputation, Mr Cobb. I’m still dreaming.”
And then the countdown timer run to an abrupt halt, and the infusion of somnacin from the PASIV terminated. Cobb opened his eyes, to the harsh realisation he had failed. He pulled the cannula from his wrist, not stopping to clean the device. There would be time for maintenance later, when they weren’t in the field. Arthur, he almost called out, as he always did whenever it came to one of those small tasks, whether it was research, or even PASIV maintenance…
It hadn’t even been a long time, Cobb thought. Old habits were hard to break.
“How’d it go?” Tadashi wanted to know. Cobb shook his head briefly.
“Not good,” he said, and then checked the remaining countdown timers, just to make sure. In a few more moments, Nash groaned and opened his eyes. “What the hell was that with the carpet?” Cobb demanded.
“It wasn’t my fault!” Nash protested, yanking the needle from his own wrist.
Cobb moved over to disconnect Saito, laying two fingers against Saito’s throat to check for any irregularities in his pulse. It was there, and steady. That was something, at least. Saito wasn’t going to be awake anytime soon, not until the extra dose of sedatives he had received had worn off. “You’re the architect,” he said, disgustedly.
“I didn’t know he was going to rub his damn cheek on it!” Nash spat, and Cobb gave up, letting the whole matter go before Nash pointed out he’d screwed up too.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, dismissively. “Every man for himself.” He reached into his pocket, and pulled out Tadashi’s payment and tossed it over to him. Tadashi caught it, quickly, and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.
“Where’re you headed?” Nash demanded, as Cobb reached up to retrieve his luggage from the overhead luggage rack and then headed towards the exit of the train compartment.
Cobb shrugged. He didn’t turn around to glance at Nash. “Out of this compartment,” he said, and left it at that.
-
Prologue
Part I: Extraction
1 | 2
Author: coldthermistor
Artist: ellegen
Rating: R just in case, mostly for violence. There is no porn.
Word count: 80,617 words
Warnings: A little violence (possibly graphic), implied torture, and swearing.
Pairings: Cobb/Mal, Arthur/Cobb
Summary: Dominic Cobb is a man on the run. He's on the run from a marriage slowly falling apart, from being framed for a crime he didn't commit...and on the run from the memories of a betrayal that haunts him still. He remembers little of the night except for one thing, burned into his mind: Arthur betrayed him. Arthur cannot be trusted. Now, a business man, Saito has come forward: with what seems to be Cobb's best hope of learning the truth about that night so many years ago...and with Cobb's best hope of clearing his name. In return, he only wants an impossible job performed. Inception. There is no room for failure. The stakes are too high. But there is an enemy haunting Cobb's footsteps...an enemy wearing the face of a man that Cobb knows only too well: Cobb's former point man, Arthur...
-
Part I: Extraction
He lies face down for a long time, after the sea chewed and spat him up, breathing through a mask of wet sand. Everywhere aches and when he cranes his neck and grimaces at the pain in the movement, he sees the sun overhead through the sparkling lens of saltwater droplets. He doesn’t know how long it’s been. He doesn’t know how long it is, since he’s spoken. Since he’s spoken to someone real. The two are one and the same.
Sand and salt sting in his cuts. He’s been hurt somewhere, somehow, can’t quite remember. His side aches, and when he shifts a little, it bleeds fire. Oh, he thinks vaguely. There is that, and the cool metal of the gun pressing against him, tucked into his waistband. He’s so tired. He should close his eyes and just sleep. He thinks maybe he has, drifting off once or twice in the middle of all this. His sun dazed mind finds it hard to cling to anything particularly solid, or coherent.
There’s a man he’s come to find, down here, where sand and sea meet. He holds on to that thought, feeling the imperative urgency in the hard unyielding corners of the plastic red die he grips between his fingers.
“Get up,” Someone says, and he groans, shifting slightly. The sand gives beneath him and he doesn’t find enough purchase to get up. Maybe, maybe he knows that voice. There’s something familiar about it. Another important thing.
“Damn you, Cobb, get up!”
Cobb. His name.
That someone kneels down in front of him: clean, Cobb thinks, strangely clean, never mind all the sand here that cakes everything in a crust of dirt. Hands reach out, slipping in under his armpits and haul him to his feet. He flops, limp like a rag-doll.
Arthur, Cobb remembers. That’s Arthur.
Funny, he thought he’d shot the projection. A long time ago. Or maybe yesterday. Or several layers up. He fumbles briefly for his gun and then gives up. Arthur wouldn’t kill him. Arthur wouldn’t -
Arthur shakes him. “Come on,” he says, voice low and fierce. “Don’t pass out on me now,”
Okay, Cobb says. He thinks he says that. His throat works, hoarse and raspy. Nothing comes out. He tries again. “Okay.”
Arthur makes a sound, half exasperation and half impatience. He bends, Cobb’s left arm slips across his shoulders and stays there, so now Arthur is supporting him. “I don’t suppose you can stand?” he asks wryly, then answers his own question. “Evidently not.”
“You should be dead,” Cobb mumbles, sagging against Arthur. His knees threaten to give up on him. His legs are shaky. He remembers the sound of the gun discharging, sharp against his skull. Arthur holds him, steady, dependable, solid and very real. They always feel real in dreams.
“Yeah,” Arthur says, after a heavy pause. “I should be.”
“But you always come back,” Cobb manages, through lips cracked and bleeding sluggishly from sun and salt. He thinks he’s raving, maybe delirious and dehydrated. It’s an effort to keep his eyes open. “No matter what I do. You always come back.”
Arthur stops, and is silent for a while. Finally, he chooses to ignore Cobb’s words. “We need to find Saito,” he says abruptly, scanning the distance ahead of them. There’s a familiar palace, Cobb realises, blinking. He built it before, a lifetime ago, in a dream. Maybe a dream of a dream. Or was it Nash? His eyelids are heavy with exhaustion and don’t want to open again.
Cobb only realises he’s drifted off when he hears Arthur’s voice, more distant, and claws his way back towards it through the fog of heat, sun flare and cold saltwater tides pounding at his brain, eroding layers and layers of memory. Arthur is looking at him, frowning in concern. He looks a bit older and more tired than Cobb can remember, and there’s something about the grave set to his face that Cobb - doesn’t know what to make of. A dimension that’s always missing from his projection.
He’s too tired to make much sense out of any of these. Too tired to do anything except to hang limp and let Arthur support him. Too tired to wonder. The voice at the back of his head says he knows the answers. Cobb doesn’t know if he does know them, or if he’s just too tired to ask the old questions. Too tired to believe that Arthur’s going to kill him, in short order.
“Come on,” Arthur prods, “Stay with me, Cobb. Keep going. We’re almost there.” He keeps saying that, taking another step forward, urging him to stay awake. Cobb all but collapses against Arthur. His arm slips free of Arthur’s shoulders. He slides downwards, towards the sand.
“Sorry,” he mumbles.
Maybe Arthur catches him, even before he falls.
-
“I know you,” the old man said, eyes switching from where Arthur sat, forearms resting against the smooth black lacquer of the wooden table, to where Cobb sat, maybe less than half a metre away. Cobb glanced up from the bowl of gravy-soaked rice, momentarily. “Both of you.”
There was…something, Cobb thought. Something elusive, that flickered in the depths of his mind like sunlight on water then vanished. It slipped through his fingers. His thoughts were still scattered and unfocused. There was an entire patch of nothing but sand and ocean and sky, and around all of that - ghosts. Snatches of conversation, things he knew he must remember, but could not quite. It wasn’t the only blank. There was another one, right between Arthur finding him, and ending up here.
What do you remember? How did you get here?
The questions were important, Cobb knew. He was just short on answers at the moment.
What do you remember?
Ocean. Sand. Sky. Blue, bright blue with very little clouds. Sun. Hot, scorching. The taste of salt and blood. Arthur.
How did you get here?
I can’t remember.
“Have you come to kill me?” Saito asked. He reached out for the gun that lay on the table. His hand trembled slightly. His fingers brushed the cold metal, but he did not glance down at it.
“Yes,” Arthur said, very carefully. “You need to wake up.”
“I know,” Saito whispered, deepset dark eyes almost unfocused. He reached out and touched the object next to the gun instead, picking it up and then dropping it. The hard red acrylic die hit the table with a clatter, bounced off the surface, and rolled, coming to a stop. Arthur looked surprised - and as though someone had kicked him in the ribs. “I know what this is. I’ve seen one before…many, many years ago. It belonged to a man I met in a half-remembered dream…a man possessed of some radical notions…”
Cobb glanced up at Saito again, frowning at the die. The numbers were important, he remembered. The numbers were important, and yet it wasn’t what the die showed, so much as what it didn’t show. He remembered that much at least.
The die was important too. He thought he remembered why and the memory slipped through his grasping fingers like a wet fish and disappeared.
What do you remember?
Saito laid his hand on the gun.
-
“What’s the most resilient parasite?” Cobb asked.
Saito glanced at him.
“A bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm?”
Saito’s fork paused, in mid-air. He said nothing, but shifted back in his seat, regarding Cobb with those disconcerting dark eyes. It was almost impossible to tell what he really thought.
“An idea,” Cobb continued. He leaned forward, intent. “Resilient, highly contagious. Once an idea has taken root in the brain, it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully-formed, fully understood - that sticks.” He tapped his head, by way of emphasis. “Right in there, somewhere.”
“For someone like you to steal?”
Cobb shrugged, just a little uncomfortably, acknowledging the statement. “Yes,” he said, after a bit of a pause. “Mr Saito, there are many companies who see the advantages that those with my skills can offer them, over their competitors. I can train your subconscious to defend itself from even the most skilled extractor.”
“How can you do that?” Saito wanted to know. Cobb thought he caught the first signs of interest, though Saito tried to conceal them, glancing only negligently at Cobb and then back at his meal, as if his food was far more interesting.
“Because,” Cobb replied, “I am the most skilled extractor. I know how to search your mind and find your secrets. I know the tricks, and I can teach them to you so that even when you’re asleep, your defence is never down.” He let Saito chew on that for a moment, and then stood up and continued, pressing his advantage. He had Saito’s attention now, he thought. “Look, if you want my help, you’re going to have to be completely open with me. I need to know my way around your thoughts better than your…wife, better than your therapist, better than anyone.” The edged smile on Saito’s face was pleasant, suggested that Saito was humouring him, nothing more. But, Cobb thought - Saito hadn’t interrupted him. That was something. “If this is a dream, and you have a safe of secrets, I need to know what’s in that safe. In order for this all to work, you need to completely let me in.”
Saito smiled, and wiped his mouth with a napkin. He said nothing, at first. It was a knowing smile, and a dangerous one. He knows, Cobb thought, in that moment. It was the amused smile of a cat, toying with its prey. Someone who knew he had the advantage, and a brief flash of fangs and claws. And then the tiger sheathed its claws, appeared to be a sleepy, affable housecat.
“Enjoy your evening, Mr Cobb,” he said, getting up and heading towards the exit. The bodyguards slid the double doors open as he approached and left. “I will consider your proposal.” Cobb caught sight of the people milling outside, drinking, laughing - then the doors slid shut.
For a moment, the ceiling - comprised almost entirely of hanging lamps - trembled and shook. It didn’t seem close enough, Cobb thought clinically. He drained his wineglass and left it on the table. It probably wasn’t from Nash’s layer. Maybe the train had encountered some difficulties. There was no way to tell for sure.
No, Cobb realised, as he made his way towards the exit. It wasn’t just the ceiling. The whole dream was feeling the tremors - the railings, the doors, even the floor pitched and vibrated against the soles of his shoes.
It didn’t matter if Saito knew. That wasn’t the whole point of this charade. Extraction was usually about deception, cunning - just how crafty you could really be. But Saito had glanced at the safe, for a moment, and that was more than enough for Cobb to guess where the information he needed was.
He didn’t need to memorise the layout of the room. This was his dream, and despite his misgivings, Cobb thought he knew the best way to make the approach to the safe. But now wasn’t the time. He’d have to do it later. Saito would have put him under surveillance - he was already suspicious enough.
Cobb frowned, and wished Ramirez was able to make the job. Another extractor would have made a difference on this job, and made things a lot easier for Cobb. But Ramirez was also a point man, first and foremost, and ever since Arthur, Cobb had made it a point never to work with one.
Never again.
-
Another tremor came, shaking the elegant castle as Cobb carefully made his way around the rooftop terrace, assessing the positions of Saito’s security projections. The research had shown that Saito’s mind wasn’t militarised, which was something that Cobb had found slightly odd in a man of Saito’s power and position. It didn’t mean Saito didn’t have some form of subconscious security though, and Cobb was taking note of everything he caught sight of. He’d have to slip past them, later.
“He’s playing with us,” Someone said, right behind him.
Time was when Cobb would have been slightly startled. By now, he was all but used to this happening. Not that it was, in any way, a good thing. “I know,” he said aloud. “What are you doing here?”
Arthur shrugged. He was wearing a dinner jacket - black tie, Cobb identified, after a moment of hesitation. “We’re on a job, aren’t we?”
Cobb shook his head slowly. He started to walk again. Arthur followed, walking a little faster at first to keep pace with Cobb. “No,” Cobb said, softly, entering one of the small rooms to the side. He’d picked it because it offered a direct path downwards, to take him to almost directly outside the room that held the safe. He’d attract far less attention from Saito’s projections that way. “I’m the one on the job.”
Don’t screw it up this time.
Arthur took that with another shrug that said he was quite unaffected. “How’s Mal?” he asked, instead, idly surveying the paintings that hung on the walls of the room. Cobb wasn’t so interested in the paintings - he studied the windows, and decided that breaking them would attract too much attention. He could work it open enough to squeeze out. “And how’re your kids?”
Cobb squeezed his eyes tightly shut for a moment. “Fine,” he said, quietly. “I should think they’d miss you. Mal does, you know.” He unlocked the latch and pushed the windows wide open, feeling the cold night air stream into the room. He shivered a little, and didn’t glance down. It was a long way down.
He moved away from the open window, producing the length of black rope from inside his jacket. He tested it, tugging at the rope thoughtfully. There was no telling if it could take his weight, not until he was outside. By then, it would be a little too late. But then again - he had dreamed the rope up. It should hold up fine. Now he just had to find something to anchor one end of the rope to. “You shouldn’t be here, Arthur,” he said, binding the rope end tightly to the window grilles. He knotted it again and tugged, making sure it was secure, and that it wasn’t going to slip or unravel mid-descent. “What are you doing?”
“Looking in on you,” Arthur said. The corners of his mouth quirked upwards in one of the mild smiles that Cobb remembered too well. “Thought I’d drop by and see how you were doing, maybe come along for the ride. Interesting place, isn’t it?”
“I’m here to work,” Cobb replied.
“So am I,” Arthur countered. He nodded over in the direction of the door. “You’ve about two more minutes before you don’t come out - and your tail starts to get alarmed.”
Cobb studied the window and wondered if it was safe or worth it to attempt the descent when Arthur was around. He decided it didn’t make any difference and grunted as he carefully climbed out, gripping the window frame. He straddled the edge and tested the rope again. For one worrying moment, he thought it was going to give, but then it held up, fine.
What he wanted to say in reply to the question Arthur hadn’t quite asked: Yes, but I can’t trust you anymore. Instead, he forced himself to sound casual. “Maybe he’ll think we’re making out or something,” he said, lightly. “And have the courtesy not to look in.”
Arthur raised his eyebrows, sardonically. “You think?” he wanted to know.
Cobb shrugged. He glanced down. Four windows, he figured. Four levels. He’d have to be careful not to overshoot when he descended, and let out the rope bit by bit. “Worth a shot,” he admitted. This wasn’t going to be a good idea, but Cobb was more than slightly out of ideas at this point. There was no way he was going to negotiate the descent in less than two minutes, and the last thing he wanted was Saito’s security projections on high alert. “Don’t suppose you can handle him?”
Arthur scoffed at Cobb’s words. “I can handle a few security projections,” he called over his shoulder, as he turned and walked out of the room. “You worry about your end.”
If things went according to plan, Cobb thought, Arthur would buy him - maybe five to seven minutes. If they didn’t - he was no worse off than he was now. Cobb swung his other leg over the window sill and let out a bit of rope. He didn’t let go of the window sill yet, held it in a white-knuckled grip. The rope went taut. Carefully, he let out a bit more rope, and then let go of the window sill. He dropped, for one frightening moment, and then the rope went taut with tension and held. He was dangling outside the building, now. Cobb exhaled, feeling just a little of the worry leave him, and started to carefully make his way down, level by level.
-
It wasn’t that tricky a climb. There were ledges and shutters and cracks - all sorts of things to aid a climber, even if he didn’t have a rope. This had been part of Nash’s design, Cobb thought, as he counted the levels he descended, letting out rope as fast as he dared. Five to seven minutes still wasn’t very much time, and the sooner he got out of sight, the better.
There. He jerked to a halt, swinging towards the walls of the building, scrambling to find some sort of purchase. His feet found a slightly precarious spot - he glanced down, it was one of the many shutters on the level below. He wedged his feet into the gap and then carefully reached for one of the explosive charges. It was small, and shouldn’t make too much of a sound. He attached it to the window, primed it, and then carefully climbed a little higher, not wanting to be struck by falling fragments of glass. Technically, the glass shouldn’t fall outside the building. Cobb didn’t see the point in testing that close up. Catching glass fragments in the face hurt.
When he was sufficiently clear, Cobb remotely triggered the charge and listened. The glass broke at once, with a sharp cracking sound, and then the tinkle of fragments hitting the floor and breaking into even smaller pieces. He let himself down again, and climbed in through the gaping hole where the glass had been, wincing a little as some of the sharp edges dug into his palms. At least the dark leather gloves he’d pulled on protected him from the worst of the broken glass, so that was something.
The kitchen was mostly dark. There was barely enough light to see by, and Cobb did his best to avoid stepping on bits and pieces of glass as he made his way in, passing ill-lit counters and stoves gone dead. No projections were around, not at this time of the night. That, at least, made things a little easier. Cobb threaded the suppressor onto the barrel of his gun as he moved, and pictured the layout of the palace in his head again.
He’d need to find the exit from the kitchens again. That’d bring him right outside the building. From there, he’d need to take out the guards, and then descend the staircase. It’d take him back to the passage that led to the safe. This was a maze, after all, and Nash knew his job well enough to design the shortcuts through it. Cobb just hoped that it was enough. It would have to be enough.
Cobb clung to the wall of the building as he emerged into the open again, staying as close as he could to the shadows. He moved quietly and quickly until he saw the first guard, and then stood still, trusting that he was well-hidden. There was no sign he’d been noticed. The guard turned around, presenting his back to Cobb, and moved out again along the section of the boardwalk. Cobb didn’t shoot yet. He strained to make out signs of other guards in the darkness, but could see none of them. The patrols were widely spaced out, then. It would make his job easier. He waited for the guard to make one more round, and then as soon as the guard turned his back, Cobb moved. He sighted, fired, caught the shell casing and then darted forward to catch the guard as he fell, and lowered him to the ground gently.
He glanced around. He’d played with the rules of the dream a little - no gun would have been that silent. Cobb only hoped that because he hadn’t changed the dream - he’d built the dream this way - the projections weren’t going to take as much notice of it as they would have otherwise.
There was no outcry, no sign that anyone had noticed that he’d taken out the guard. Good. Before he could attract more attention, Cobb blended back into the shadows and was moving again, heading for the staircase that would take him down to the passageway.
-
There was another projection at the bottom of the stairs. His back was turned to Cobb; he hadn’t heard anything. Yet. Cobb cursed quietly as he stepped harder than he’d expected to, and the guard began to turn, peering behind him.
He put a bullet into the guard’s head and then covered the distance between them in a few quick steps, clapping one hand over the guard’s mouth just in case he hadn’t killed the guard. But the man went limp, and Cobb carefully let him drop to the wooden planking of the floor.
He didn’t encounter any more guards on the way to the passage, and when he tried the double doors of the room, they were unlocked. There was no sign of Saito’s bodyguards, but they would have followed Saito to the rooftop terraces. That was yet another thing that would make this easier for him.
The room itself was almost completely dark, and Cobb shut the doors behind him, just to try and conceal his presence at first glance. He crossed the room swiftly, counting the painted screens. The safe was behind the fifth; a false panel that slid apart to reveal a wooden cabinet and a matte-black safe. He’d dreamed the safe, so it didn’t take Cobb too much effort to crack the password and open it.
The documents were inside, all of them in a brown envelope - the kind used in offices everywhere. Cobb reached out to take the envelope, quickly folded it in half, and slipped it into his waistband. He pulled out the decoy envelope when a harsh, accented voice startled him - that, and the ceiling lights all flipping on in that instant. “Turn around.” He blinked at the sudden influx of light, reaching for his gun at the same time. He whirled and pointed it at the entrance of the room - where Saito stood, Arthur next to him.
Shit, Cobb thought. He’d been right about Arthur. And he’d been wrong.
“The gun, Cobb,” Arthur said. The muzzle of his Glock did not waver, shifting to follow Cobb’s movement as Cobb moved to the side, trying to edge away from the safe, half-turning so that he presented a much smaller target.
“Did he tell you?” Cobb demanded of Saito. “Or have you known all along?”
Saito’s lips curled in a derisive smile. “That you are here to steal from me? Or that we are actually asleep?” He glanced briefly at Arthur and frowned. It was a puzzled, slightly speculative frown, and one that struck Cobb as odd in a way he couldn’t quite place, but he dismissed it. He had other things to worry about - like how to get the hell out of here with the documents.
“You don’t want to do this,” Arthur said, his voice level.
“But this is a dream, isn’t it, Arthur?” Cobb tried. He glanced around. It wouldn’t have been much of a strong room if there were any other exits so Nash hadn’t put any in. There was no other way out, except past Saito - and past Arthur. Godamnit. “There’s no use threatening me in a dream. Killing me’s just going to wake me up.”
“You can’t access the information if you’re awake,” Arthur replied, implacably. “I think that’s good enough.”
“The envelope, Mr Cobb,” Saito cut in, flicking a cautious glance at Arthur, before his dark eyes turned back to Cobb. He was starting to sound impatient. “And the gun. My men are outside the room. You have no other options.”
-
This is Dominic Cobb, extractor:
He’s one of the best. Some would say, he is the best; the most gifted, daring, and reckless extractor in any generation, with just the right mixture of boldness, vision and a gift for making the impossible real. His name, along with Stephen Miles, along with Lewis Stokes, and a few other names have become bywords in the field of shared dreaming. He’s the pioneer, always pushing the boundaries, and taking things much further than anyone had ever dreamed. He’s more than just an extractor, in the same way that a da Vinci painting transcends a four year old’s first attempt at drawing flowers with paints. What he’s done as a dream architect takes architecture to a new level of sophistication, a new level of possibilities: he’s a pioneer, and he’s more than just a pioneer or an extractor - he’s an artist. What he does in pushing boundaries, as a visionary, is to elevate all of these to a kind of subtle art.
He’s worked on both sides of the field. He’s done the small jobs, the ones that don’t usually require extraction, just a decent amount of sleuthing. He’s done the standard ones too - the ones when someone pays for extractors to teach their subconscious to defend itself from extraction. He’s good at that too. Extractors have run into the results of his work before - and have gotten torn apart.
And he’s done the big jobs. He’s the one the police call in when they suspect extraction, when they need information out, in time to save lives. He’s the one who gets called in as a consultant when there’s a rogue extractor to be dealt with: Dominic Cobb, licensed extractor, simply because he’s the best there is.
And he’s getting better all the time.
It’s not just his boldness either, his willingness to take the impossible, and to turn it to reality. It isn’t the way he seizes on the limits and pushes them and watches them crumble to ash in his grip, revealing new horizons, new unexplored hinterlands. It’s more than that. It’s his cunning, the way he comes up with new plans in the blink of an eye. It’s the way he easily pulls off deception, the way he always has one or two clever tricks in his pocket.
This is Dominic Cobb, one of the best, one of the most skilled extractors alive.
This is Dominic Cobb, before the Algol job. Before everything changed. Now, he’s still one of the best. That hasn’t changed. But everything else has.
Cobb never talks about the Algol job.
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Carefully, Cobb weighed his options. There weren’t very many of them. He nodded abruptly, turning the gun aside and holding it up, finger off the trigger to show that he surrendered, and took a step forward, towards the smooth, long table. He glanced at Arthur, but Arthur did not visibly relax. Cobb thought of nothing but how he’d been manoeuvred into a corner as he laid the gun down and gave it a push, watching it slide across the polished lacquer of the table.
“Now the envelope,” Saito demanded.
Cobb laid the brown envelope on the table, and then kept his hands in the air.
“I want to know the name of your employer.”
“He’s planning something,” Arthur said quietly, and Saito glanced at him. In that moment, Cobb moved at once, hurling himself across the table and reaching out for his gun. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought he’d missed, but then his fingers closed around it and he fired - not at Arthur but upwards.
At the ceiling.
At the same time, Cobb threw himself sideways to avoid the cascade of broken pieces of glass and sparks from the lights he’d taken out, crashing off the table and onto the floor. He heard the sound of a gun discharging and cursed as he felt a flash of pain in his left shoulder. It hurt like hell but he didn’t dare to glance at it, not now. He managed to get to his feet and charged, closing the distance between him and Arthur in two or three quick strides. It was a reckless and risky plan he’d come up with, on the spot, and he didn’t even know if it was going to work.
He closed the last of the distance with a crunching tackle that had his shoulder screaming in pain (godamnit wrong shoulder). His momentum and his larger frame (not that it really meant anything here) had them skidding out of the open doorway - there were confused exclamations from Saito’s guards, like Cobb had desperately hoped for, and none of them were trying to shoot the tangled pair, especially not when Saito was shouting, “Stop him!”
Somehow, Arthur hadn’t managed to let go of the Glock, so Cobb hit Arthur in the wrist - hard - until his projection let out a muffled cry and released the gun. They were godamned lucky none of them had shot each other yet and Cobb realised he was bleeding freely from his left arm and moving it hurt like hell. He wasn’t in any state to grapple and he didn’t have the time for this, not now. Arthur tried to put an armbar on him. Cobb kneed him in the stomach, and Arthur released his hold. In that moment, Cobb grabbed the lapels of Arthur’s jacket, pulling him close and then slammed him with a headbutt. Something broke, probably cartilage, blood trickling down his forehead, and Cobb swallowed and fought down uncomfortable feelings about this whole thing. There wasn’t time for a chokehold. Cobb released him and rolled free, reaching for Arthur’s gun. He must have dropped the Beretta somewhere in the whole scuffle - it had all happened so fast and now the element of surprise he’d had was all but gone. He had to keep moving before they shot him.
He fired and dropped the first guard and rolled to his feet, running and trying to feel inside his jacket with his bad arm to see if the envelope was still there - the real envelope. It was. Cobb heard the sound of gunfire and hoped to hell he hadn’t been shot, as he all but threw himself down the staircase, his lungs burning. Saito was going to realise the deception at any moment now, and then they’d all be combing the passages of the dream for him. He tucked the gun away into his waistband, and pulled out the crumpled envelope, tearing it open and discarding it in favour of its contents.
Sheet after sheet of paper - Cobb glanced up and shouldered past a bewildered guard and promptly floored the man with a solid punch. He discarded the first paper, scanning for the information he needed. Page after page of print, all of them in English because it was Cobb’s dream and it was like water, really, Saito’s mind expanding to fill the shape of the container.
Godamnit, Cobb thought, trying to search the papers for the information he needed. Most of it had been blacked out and censored. Saito had left out key pieces of information, the missing links that Cobb would need to give Cobol Engineering what it wanted.
He rounded the corner and was greeted by Arthur, holding Cobb’s silenced Beretta. A corner of Cobb’s mind wondered if there was anything symbolic to it. His nose was most definitely broken; it was a drying mess of clotted blood and his clothing was all but rumpled and disordered - but the expression on his face was something Cobb recognised all too well, with a pang of pain in his chest. Maybe, Cobb thought. Arthur’d looked that way when he -
When he -
“Sorry,” Arthur said, almost-apologetically, and then shot him.
-
Cobb opened his eyes, fighting the urge to swear. He’d been so close to success. He’d just needed a minute or so to scan through the rest of the papers. He ripped the tubes out of his wrist, and then discovered that Saito was awake, and had Nash at gunpoint. Nash’s eyes flicked nervously towards Cobb, and then back at Saito again. His mouth worked as though he’d wanted to say something.
Keep him busy, Cobb thought, pleading, don’t give me away. That was one thing about working with anyone else - he invariably started to compare them to Arthur, because Arthur would be saying something now, trying to get Saito’s attention, so Cobb could attempt to take Saito from behind. Godamnit, Cobb thought. It never went away.
For the second time in the past few minutes, Cobb launched himself into a clumsy tackle, knocking the chair over so it fell and hit the bathtub full of water with a telling splash. At the sound - or maybe at Nash’s poor acting, Saito had begun to turn and Nash moved at the same time, struggling to get the gun free from Saito’s hand. They collided in a tangle of limbs and bodies and then hit the floor. Saito scrabbled for the gun; there was the sound of the weapon discharging, and Cobb tensed but no one cried out. He managed to subdue Saito, frustration making him smash his fist into the man’s jaw just a little harder than he’d meant to, and then turned to Nash when Saito’s head snapped back and he went limp. “He’s out. You okay?” he asked, curtly.
Nash nodded, breath coming out in heavy gasps. “Yeah,” he said. “Gun went off but didn’t get anyone.”
That was something, Cobb thought sourly. They were already short-handed on this job, as it was, and it had just been made painfully apparent to him that this current state of affairs wasn’t going to be ideal for any future jobs.
Don’t think about the future. Think about surviving this. Cobol’s not going to like it if you can’t get anything out of Saito. He grimaced briefly at the idea of just how Cobol would express its dislike.
“What’re you gonna do?” Nash wanted to know. He glanced nervously in the direction of the almost-translucent window-pane. It was then that Cobb registered what he’d been hearing for the past few minutes since he woke up: shouts, the sounds of breaking glass and crunching metal. Godamnit. They were running out of time, fast. Saito’s projections had registered the threat and were already headed their way.
“Give me the gun,” Cobb said, and then took the proffered weapon. He checked it briefly and then kept it. “And put him in a chair. I’m going to see what he knows.”
-
“You came prepared,” Cobb said, after Saito came round. There was a purpling bruise on his jaw where Cobb’s punch had landed, in the earlier scuffle.
Saito ignored the statement. He studied Cobb, perfectly calm and composed. Nash stood behind him, keeping an eye on the situation outside of the apartment. “Not even the head of my security knows about this apartment. How did you find it?”
“Very difficult for a man of your position to keep a love nest like this secret,” Cobb said, making a show of examining Saito’s gun, “Particularly when there’s a married woman involved.” In this case, it was in both senses of the word. Although she disapproved of the whole job, Cobb’s researcher had come through for him, sending him the information he needed to work with to reconstruct the apartment. Let Saito mull over that.
“She would never,” Saito denied, almost immediately. Cobb thought it was a little too quickly.
“Yet, here we are,” Cobb countered.
He was rewarded by the first glimmers of uncertainty in those dark eyes. Saito said nothing, and Cobb decided maybe he had rattled the man. Keep going. Keep pressing him.
Nash coughed, very loudly. He turned away from the window for a short while, signalling urgently. “They’re getting closer,” he warned.
“With a dilemma,” Cobb continued, intent on Saito.
“You got what you came for.”
“Well, that’s not true,” Cobb said, leaning forward in his seat. He held the gun loosely in his hand, but he was far enough that Saito couldn’t try to take it by force. He pointed it at Saito, and watched the man’s eyes narrow - a little. “You left out a key piece of information, didn’t you? You held something back because you knew what we were up to.”
Saito remained silent.
“The question is, why did you even let us in at all?”
Now, Saito smiled. It was a fierce, cold smile. “An audition,” he said.
Cobb blinked, “An audition for what?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Saito replied. His tone and his expression grew harsh and pitiless. “You failed.”
“We extracted every bit of information you had in there,” Cobb reminded him.
“Your deception was obvious.”
Cobb thought he could hear the sound of explosions, drawing closer. Nash glanced away from the window again. “Cobb - “ he began. Cobb held up a hand to forestall him, but made no response. He watched Saito very carefully, considering his next move. And then he heard it. The first strains of Edith Piaf were slowly leaking into the dream, the musical cue warning them they had less than thirty seconds of real time left to extract the required information from Saito. One quick glance at Nash told him that Nash had heard it too.
“So, leave me and go,” Saito ordered, perhaps emboldened by their silence.
Cobb shook his head, slowly. There was always one last gamble left; one last card to play. It was crude and direct, but sometimes, those things worked far better. The time for subterfuge and deception was all but over. “You don’t seem to understand, Mr Saito,” he said, slowly. “The corporation that hired us - they won’t accept failure. We won’t last two days. Looks like we’re going to have to do this a little more simply.” He stood up, moving over to where Saito sat. He grabbed the man, flung him onto the carpeted floor, and held him at gunpoint, shouting, “Tell us what you know! Tell us what you know now!”
Saito made no response. Inexplicably, he had begun to smile - a smug, knowing smile. He chuckled, running his fingers along the woven fibers of the carpet. “I’ve always hated this carpet,” he said, and for a moment, Cobb wondered if the man had gone insane. “It’s stained, and frayed in such distinctive ways…but very definitely made of wool. Right now - I’m lying on polyester.”
Godamnit, Cobb thought. He glared at Nash, who shook his head haplessly.
“Which means,” Saito whispered, face alight with some fierce, intent emotion that Cobb couldn’t quite place - was it triumph? Delight? - “I’m not lying on my carpet in my apartment. “You have lived up to your reputation, Mr Cobb. I’m still dreaming.”
And then the countdown timer run to an abrupt halt, and the infusion of somnacin from the PASIV terminated. Cobb opened his eyes, to the harsh realisation he had failed. He pulled the cannula from his wrist, not stopping to clean the device. There would be time for maintenance later, when they weren’t in the field. Arthur, he almost called out, as he always did whenever it came to one of those small tasks, whether it was research, or even PASIV maintenance…
It hadn’t even been a long time, Cobb thought. Old habits were hard to break.
“How’d it go?” Tadashi wanted to know. Cobb shook his head briefly.
“Not good,” he said, and then checked the remaining countdown timers, just to make sure. In a few more moments, Nash groaned and opened his eyes. “What the hell was that with the carpet?” Cobb demanded.
“It wasn’t my fault!” Nash protested, yanking the needle from his own wrist.
Cobb moved over to disconnect Saito, laying two fingers against Saito’s throat to check for any irregularities in his pulse. It was there, and steady. That was something, at least. Saito wasn’t going to be awake anytime soon, not until the extra dose of sedatives he had received had worn off. “You’re the architect,” he said, disgustedly.
“I didn’t know he was going to rub his damn cheek on it!” Nash spat, and Cobb gave up, letting the whole matter go before Nash pointed out he’d screwed up too.
“Doesn’t matter,” he said, dismissively. “Every man for himself.” He reached into his pocket, and pulled out Tadashi’s payment and tossed it over to him. Tadashi caught it, quickly, and stuffed it into the pocket of his jeans.
“Where’re you headed?” Nash demanded, as Cobb reached up to retrieve his luggage from the overhead luggage rack and then headed towards the exit of the train compartment.
Cobb shrugged. He didn’t turn around to glance at Nash. “Out of this compartment,” he said, and left it at that.
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Prologue
Part I: Extraction
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