Inception/Ocean's 11: I Don't Think You Think I Think About Probability (Eames, Rusty, CAST)
This fic took my soul, beat it up, and when I wasn't looking, took it and beat it up some more, and then kicked it in the face. I am happy to let it out into the wilds; I want to set it free so that it will let go of my heart and the claws it has sank into it. I thank charlie_d_blue for hearing my confessions. Without you, Ambiguous Backstory Is Nothing.
So yeah, my GQMF. This is Inception/Ocean's 11, Slash If You Squint, Image-Heavy, Over 4000, OMFG, BBQ. ABCD. E. F. Maybe even a G. MY HANDS. WILL THEY EVER STOP SHAKING.
There are many things I will apologise for in the morning when I have my brains, including but not limited to: managling US phone numbers, mangling Chinese, mangling Photoshop, mangling architecture, mangling Japanese, mangling your eyesight. 以上です。
I Don't Think You Think I Think About Probability
Fandom: Inception, Ocean's 11
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Every effing one. Eames, Ariadne, Saito, Cobb, Arthur, Cast. Danny, Rusty, Cast.
Warnings: Slash if you squint. In all directions.
Summary: Saito, on a vacation with thieves and thieves.
4822 words and more everything than I can ever enumerate, ever.
'I think I need a vacation,' Saito said to Ariadne as they drifted along Lake Como in one of his boats, lazy in the afternoon sun. 'Because I have just saved the world from a terrible energy monopoly, and therefore deserve one.'
It was the summer of the year after, a good time to be an intern with the best, never mind the consequences of what might happen post-graduation. 'Now that Fischer's disbanded his father's company, you are the monopoly,' she said, trying very hard to sound less relaxed than she felt, but it was hard work with a cocktail in hand. She'd gone through as much drafting paper the past month as she had Saito's generous funding of her cross-globe recess from the suffocating pressure of Professor Mile's expectations.
'I prefer to think of it as an autocracy,' Saito rebuked mildly. Ariadne tipped down her sunglasses to look at him. 'Would you rather me think of it as global progress by fiat?'
'That's the truth.' That the cocktail was ridiculously good, also truth.
'You make it all sound very unsubtle,' Saito objected, motioning to the man at the helm to take them back to shore. 'But as I was saying - a vacation.'
'Where are you going to go?' Ariadne asked idly. Saito could go on whatever vacation he wanted, he can afford in in between his hostile takeovers and gala dinners and --
'Where are we going?' Ariadne asked, looking out the window of Saito's Cessna as they took off. She hadn't been expecting this; the immigration officials hadn't asked any questions, so she hadn't told any lies.
'I'll tell you after we get to cruising altitude,' Saito says. 'Here.' He pushes a familiar-looking cocktail into her hands. 'I brought the bartender.'
At altitude, plied by two drinks, Ariadne asked again, 'Where are we going?'
'We are going,' Saito pronounced solemnly, 'to Las Vegas.'
There was a long pause. 'Vegas. City in the middle of the desert? Horrible lights. Nonsensical architecture. Vegas. You're taking me to Vegas?'
Saito paused as if mulling over her question, then looked up and said, 'Yes.'
Ariadne jerked forward off her seat, leaning against the aisle separating them. 'I thought you were -- we were -- you were going on a vacation to somewhere like Spain, where the buildings don't make people want to tear their own eyes out!'
'It's not healthy for you to spend so much time in Europe,' Saito said peaceably. They were 30,000 feet up in the air and the door to the pilot's cabin was securely locked. 'You must learn about your enemy if you are not to make the same mistakes.'
'I couldn't draw up that much --' Ariadne motioned in the air with her hands, violently '-- if I tried, Saito.'
'There are another 4 hours until we land.' Saito blithely put a remote control into Ariande's hand, patting it when her fingers curled helplessly around the plastic. 'I suggest you amuse yourself. The plane comes with the entire collection of Pixar films,' he added helpfully.
At least the limo had tinted glass windows, never mind that it'd been twelve in the afternoon when they'd landed. Ariadne sulked all the way to the villa Saito had hidden away in this part of the world (why he had a villa here was anyone's guess, beyond the de facto answer which was that Saito had a villa everywhere). One of his international army of butlers pulled open the passenger door the moment the engine hummed down. Ariadne got out. 'Woah.'
'I had it designed by a very enterprising Japanese architect,' Saito said over her shoulder, squinting critically at the four-storied mansion in the glare of the afternoon sun. The buildings were mostly glass, concrete and wood, with a blessed absence of neon and/or pretentious name plates declaring it to THE BELLAGIO GRAND MGM ULTRA MEGA DELUXE. 'Do you approve?'
'Never mind that,' Ariadne said, pointing at the patio with its dining set and the people sitting at it. 'What are they doing here?'
'Hello Mr. Cobb!' Saito strode forward, ignoring her question. 'And of course, Arthur, Yusuf. Mr. Eames. I trust that the accommodation is to your liking?' Ariadne put her hand into her pocket, where the familiar weight of her chess piece felt exactly and horrifically real.
'I thought you said vacation!' Ariadne she called at his back, catching up. 'This is not a vacation Saito!'
'Hello Saito,' Eames greeted pleasantly, one leg cocked over a knee and a glass of something dark in his hand. 'We were just starting lunch, and wondering why the hell we're in Vegas.'
Against all physical laws, a housekeeper'd made two additional settings appear while the butler teleported into place to pull back a seat back for Saito just as they reached the table. Saito sat, food arrived; voila. Arthur had a napkin over his lap; he nodded. Cobb's hello was a glance and an abbreviated cock of the eyebrow. You too? 'To you, Saito,' Cobb raised his glass. Everyone met the toast, then he said, 'Now why the hell are we in Vegas?'
'Amen,' Eames murmured into his glass.
'Come now, gentlemen.' Saito cut cheerfully into his meal. 'I felt a vacation was in order.'
Arthur put his napkin onto the table. 'This is a waste of time, Cobb.'
Everyone else's appetites seemed to have betrayed them, but Eames didn't hesitate at the free food. 'I could be in Bombay right now with my good friend Lady Sapphire,' he pointed out after a mouthful of deftly dissected chicken. 'Give me a reason why I shouldn't be.'
Yusuf said, 'I really enjoy the casinos.' At the pause, he added, 'I really don't believe in confrontation. Carry on,' and went back to his food.
Arthur got up.
'Sit down, Arthur,' Cobb said, his eyes on Saito. 'What's the real reason?'
'After all we've been through together,' Saito said expansively, distributing salad, 'I wanted to reward you all.'
'Right,' said Cobb.
'Saito,' said Ariadne.
'Reward,' said Arthur.
'Wanted to,' said Eames. 'And this is what a rich and busy man like you wants to do with his time?'
Saito put down his fork and knife; the cutlery made very precise noises as they clinked against the china. 'How about I put it this way,' he said reasonably, linking his hands together as he looked around the table. 'I hired all of you to conduct inception. I fell into dreams and lived 80 years in a hell of crashing waves and lacquered walls and, at the end of it, I did not wrangle any of your necks.' He flashed them all a smile. 'Instead I paid you all, handsomely. And here we are --' Saito spread his hands over the table. 'Young men and women together again. Don't you think that that is something worth celebrating?'
Cobb coughed. A pin dropped, then there was a slow exhalation of tension.
'See?' Saito called over the butler, who brought a bottle of champagne. 'We can all have a good time together here.' Saito popped the cork and, with impeccable manners, poured everyone a glass. 'Now,' he said, taking the first sip. 'There is just a vault that I need unlocked.'
'This is not a vacation,' Ariadne sighed as Eames asked, 'Why not just call a locksmith?'
'I did,' Saito said, cocking his head at the doors of the villa. 'Mr. Ocean,' he called over his shoulder, his eyes still on the table. 'Would you like to come out and join us?'
Ariadne was vaguely aware of Eames almost choking on his drink as she watched Cobb spin around so fast in his seat that he must have broken something. Yusuf put down his mango lassi and mopped his face thoughtfully with a handkerchief. She followed his line of sight.
'Ah,' Arthur said, simply. 'The enemy.'
An atrociously dressed man came down the front steps of the villa and up to their table. 'Well, well, well,' he said, grinning unabashedly. 'The cheaters.'
They migrated inside because Saito's cavernous living room turned out to have better acoustics for yelling than the patio. Ariadne didn't pretend to understand how everyone else understood, and Arthur had only managed a very brief "it's an industry matter" before going in to back Cobb up, so she was left outside with the champagne and Eame's attempts at finishing the bottle alone.
('Mr. Saito, do you know what you've done here?' she heard one of them ask, American.)
'Eames,' Ariadne asked, 'Who are these people?'
(Saito was beaming. 'There's a vault I need unlocked.')
'"The enemy" might be a smidgeon harsh, but Arthur's not precisely incorrect.' Eames settled the champagne bottle back into the ice and tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket. 'The one with the smile is Ocean.' Eames nodded at him. 'He's the idea man.'
('您爲什麽不叫這些伙子進什麽人的夢中-- 哦，知道了，是不是他們不肯做？還是不可以做 哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈--'
'You know, that'd be a little bit rude if it weren't so true.')
'An architect?' Ariadne asked.
'Architect?' Eames asked, sounding surprised. 'Oh, no. These are bona fide crooks of the lock-picking and mummery variety. I suppose you could call Ocean an architect, in the rawest sense of the word. Without him there is no plan. Everyone else in there is collateral -- business partners, for the most part, except.' Eames dipped his chin against his chest, gone languid. 'Except for that smartarse there with the tattoo.'
Ariadne spotted him, standing casually with a shrimp cocktail in the hand with the marks, talking to Arthur. Arthur wasn't talking back. 'Who's he?'
'Rusty Ryan,' Eames pronounced, rolling the Rs. 'And the little bastard's stolen my food.' He stood.
'Either everyone's insane,' Ariadne said to Yusuf, watching as Eames joined the furor, 'or this is just a nightmare.'
'Might be true. Sometimes it is hard to square reality with madness,' Yusuf said contemplatively. He poured her what remained of the champagne. 'Maybe I could interest you in a few good dreams?'
'Uh,' Ariadne said, warily accepting the flute. 'No thanks.'
'Vaults have two things,' Saito declared to his living room of thieves. 'Locks, and keys.'
Everyone was seated, mostly because while Saito didn't have bodyguards he did have a way of making cars disappear from the garages of villas built in the middle of the (goddamn) desert in the middle of (goddamn) summer. ('You could walk,' Saito'd said amenably to Eames, dressed as he was to the nines. 'Thanks,' Eames'd said. 'I'll take the van der Rohe couch.')
'Can I ask a question?' Danny asked, raising his hand. He tilted his palm when Saito threw him a look. 'Just checking. What's the catch?'
'I'm on vacation, Mr. Ocean,' Saito said, looking his way. 'I need one to recover from the recent loss of several very expensive paintings that I was very fond of. You may know something about it.'
Danny put his hand down. 'I think a vacation is a great idea,' he said. By his side, Rusty was looking fixedly at the walls. Danny smiled. 'So, what was that you were saying about a vault?'
[Click for larger pic.]
'Did you know that there was this warlord from Japan who lived in the 1500s called Saito Dosan?'
'Any relation?'
'He was a bad ass son of a bitch. They called him the Viper of Mino. Now that's a cool name. Viper.'
'Think that means something?'
'Think it means we should be keeping our heads down, that's what I think. So, is it Fox News or the BBC tonight?'
[Click for larger pic.]
Their mark was just possibly the most boring person on earth, which made everyone paranoid. Well, some people paranoid. A few of them paranoid. Ariadne couldn't actually keep track of the ebb and flow of Ocean's improbably large team, but she knew that at least one of them was paranoid. Properly paranoid.
'Livingston,' Eames said, looking over the man's shoulder at the array of video feeds set up in the suite the team's taken up on the floor of the hotel that Saito's commandeered for their use. 'We're doing surveillance, not filming an episode of Big Brother.'
'I like to watch,' Livingston mumbled, tweaking a setting. 'It's reassuring.'
Eames patted him on the shoulder. 'If that makes you happy.'
Livingston looked up at Eames. 'W-w-would you know, by any chance, Roman?'
'Nagel?' Eames asked. 'I know very few people who don't know him, if that's what you're asking.'
'P-personally?' Livingstone asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 'S-sorry, it's just that you remind me a lot of him. Um.'
'We were at school together,' Eames replied off the cuff. 'He was a few forms ahead. Arrogant little shit. Would never have made it in the military. Come on,' he motioned to Ariadne. 'No more questions. Cobb wants us in the conference room. Test run.'
They headed in. Saito was there.
'Saito, are you --?' Ariadne asked, stopping short at the door.
'Yes,' Arthur said. 'Don't stare, Mr. Eames.'
'I'm on vacation,' Saito reminded them. 'And I have just gone bowling with Mr. Yen.'
'In a Hawaiian print t-shirt?' Ariadne eyes were on fire.
'It helps me to blend in,' Saito said. 'Now, I'll leave you to your work.'
Yusuf broke the silence produced in the wake of Saito's exit by unlatching the case sitting on the table. 'Here's the first batch of the compound. How much time do you want?'
'Fifteen minutes,' Cobb said. 'We need to meet. Privately.'
They went under.
They sat in a haphazard circle of chairs in an empty warehouse that was sparse and full of light.
'Daniel Ocean, born 1962,' Eames read off an ID card taken from a wallet.
'Fake,' Arthur said, pulling up a whiteboard.
Eames tossed that aside and read another ID. 'Daniel Ocean, credit card number 3482 2842 8847 531.'
'American Express,' Arthur said. 'And 5349 3896 2834 8063 --'
'Mastercard Platinum.' Eames tossed the bit of plastic at Arthur. 'Well done, sir, you've done your research properly this time.'
'You didn't just make that up,' Ariadne realised as Eames withdrew another wallet, this one larger and gaudier and were those rhinestones? 'Those numbers are real.'
Cobb said, 'We do not steal from members of our own team.'
'They are not,' Eames told Cobbs, '"our team." They're thieves of a very different degree.'
'Do you know how many people Danny Ocean has stolen from?' Arthur asked Cobb.
'No,' Cobb admitted.
'Neither do I,' Eames concurred, tossing hundred dollar bills onto the concrete floor. 'I can't count numbers that big without a calculator, darling.'
'Precisely,' Arthur said, tipping his chair back. 'He is a very good thief.'
Eames snapped the wallet in his hands shut. 'He's standing right behind me, isn't he.'
'You know,' Rusty said, rolling his roller chair into their dream, sitting astraddle. 'Rolly chairs are better.'
'Yeah?' Cobb asked coolly. Ariadne threw a look at Arthur, who shrugged.
'Yeah,' Rusty smiled. 'Harder to kick over.'
'That hurt,' Cobb said, waking up with his face against floor.
'Yes,' Eames agreed from somewhere on the other side of the table. 'Yusuf's gone. And he's still asleep,' he observed of Arthur. 'Because he's in a chair. With wheels.'
'Turk,' Rusty called out, rubbing his wrist where the IV'd sat. 'Could I get a bucket of water in here, please?'
Ariadne got back to the suite from a day pulling a second set of blueprints out of the repository to find the rest of the team gone and most of Ocean's crew circling the dining table. Danny and Rusty were at the bar counter, heads bent together and an array of bottles in front of them. 'Where did everyone go?' Ariadne asked, putting her document rolls down and looking around. Yusuf wasn't around either, and he had the least amount of antagonism for the other side. Ariadne sniffed the air. 'Is that cheese I'm smelling?'
'Yeah, sorry about that,' Rusty said, looking up.
'Turk and Virgil have sensitive taste buds,' Danny said. 'They've been on stakeout for the last 8 hours, so we had to.'
'They sent a couple of text messages,' Rusty said.
'Three.'
'Four.'
'Many text messages,' Rusty said, pouring Ariadne something out of many bottles. 'It was going to be pizza or mutiny, so.'
'Your Mr. Eames didn't take it very well,' Danny said to her with a smile. He sliced a wedge of lemon and dropped it into the glass that Rusty sent sliding her way. 'They went out for dinner at some place with an unpronounceable French name --'
'-- Château de cartes --'
'-- but we saved you a couple of slices. They're in the oven.'
'Thanks,' Ariadne said, popping open the oven door and extracting a plate stacked high with slices of pepperoni and cheese. It smelled good, like there were a thousand calories in it. No wonder the others had fled.
'Come sit with us.' Danny motioned with his head to the empty seat left at the counter. 'I bet you have questions.'
'Yeah,' Ariadne agreed, hopping onto the barstool. She looked down at the glass in front of her. The wedge of lemon smiled up at her. 'What did you put into my drink?'
'Nothing,' Danny said, the same time Rusty said, 'Everything.' 'It's good,' Rusty assured her. 'I won't even try to inject it into you through an IV. And if you don't trust me now you don't know a lot about thieves.'
'That's because I don't,' Ariadne said, picking up the glass anyway. 'I don't even know why they call you the enemy.'
'Ah,' Danny leaned back, drumming his hands against the counter. 'Now that's a story.'
'Not really a story,' Rusty corrected, but he didn't sound to Ariadne like he was disagreeing. Ariadne wasn't sure if it were possible for Rusty and Danny to disagree; their conversations weren't back-and-forths so much as they were continuations of the same long thought. Rusty said, 'It's more like history.'
'Same thing,' Danny said, looking up at Rusty. 'Not for you, sure, for you it's history, but for the rest of us it's a story.' Rusty raised his glass to Danny in a silent salute that Ariadne couldn't read.
'So tell me,' Ariadne said, looking between the two of them.
'It's a matter of legwork,' Rusty said, still looking at Danny for a long while before he turned to her, which made Ariadne wish a little that he hadn't. Cobb was a decently good actor, and Eames unparalleled at what he did, but the two of them were always wearing some sort of a face, underneath which there were real people that Ariadne could understand and get to know. Watching Rusty talk was something else all together, like the physics of a dream packaged up into the physics of a man's voice, changeable and hypnotic. 'Our sort call your type cheaters because you design the field instead of playing it. We don't really like architects --'
'We like you,' Danny said.
'But we don't like architects,' Rusty said. 'But that's just professional pride speaking. Your type call us the enemy for very different reasons, because there's what you might call a certain conflict of interests that arises when you have two types of people playing the same sort of game.'
'What we do isn't a game,' Ariadne said, her fingers tight around her glass.
'Nope,' Rusty agreed, 'and it's hard work for what you do. But you play it like a business when we play it because it's a game. Not to say that everything isn't driven by profits - it is - but our type aren't exactly afraid of playing it like we have nothing to lose. You do.'
'We have to,' Ariadne amended.
'You have to because you're the ones shaking hands with the executives and whales that we choose to knock over. When it all comes tumbling down and the curtains are drawn, they always want a scapegoat to lead to the slaughter. And, well,' Rusty pulled up a shoulder in a shrug. 'It's only to thieves that other thieves look different.'
'So they come after us,' Ariadne said as it began to dawn on her. 'Because they know our names even if they don't know yours.'
'There's still honour amongst thieves,' Rusty said, raising three fingers of his left hand in a salute, Scout's Honour. 'We wouldn't tell them your names even if we did know them.'
'So who'd sell out?' Ariadne asked. 'Who'd do something like that?'
'People who play both sides,' Danny put in. Ariadne started; it was the first Danny'd spoken since Rusty began. 'That's a rat,' Danny clarified for her. 'And they're not very well liked by either side.'
Danny was looking at Rusty again. Ariadne looked over. Rusty was back in his habit of eating, the last slice of pizza off of her plate in his hand. …the little bastard's stolen my food. Slowly, a little afraid of the answer, Ariadne asked, 'And what's Eames?'
'Your Mr. Eames,' Danny said, his fingers tapping a meaningless pattern of Morse code onto the counter, 'is what we call a freelancer.'
'And a very good one,' Rusty added, a wolf's smile visible between his lips. He finished the pizza slice, and licked his fingers. Ariadne could see teeth.
'You know what, I think I'm still hungry,' she said, pushing herself away from the counter. 'I'm going to go find the others.'
'Say hi to Eames for me when you catch him,' Rusty said.
'Yeah,' Danny said. 'Say hello.'
They waited for the door to shut behind Ariadne before Danny said, 'Pizza was a low blow, wasn't it.'
'Yeah.'
'Chinese would have been more--'
'Merciful.'
'But at least it wasn't McDonald's.'
'Hey, at least it wasn't Macs.'
'Rusty?'
'Mm?'
'Scouts use their right hand.'
Ariadne didn't go to find Eames during dinner, because she knew where Eames slept at night. Some things were better swept under the rug, and she wasn't sure if this was something she wanted to talk about in front of the others. (That would be a good conversation: "Hi, so what's the skeleton in your closet?") 'Eames,' she hissed at him at 3 the next morning, perched on the edge of Eames' bed. Finding her way through his room in the dark had been like fumbling across an obstacle course of belts and shirts. She tugged at his sheets. 'Eames, wake up. I need to talk to you.'
Eames rose as gracefully from sleep as a shirtless man with tousled hair could. 'You're going to give me the wrong impression, coming in here like this,' he said, casting a glance over Ariadne. 'But you're not dressed for that sort of a talk, so what is it?' He looked at the clock's glow display on his bedside table and put his fingers up against his temples. 'This isn't exactly a decent hour.'
'Eames,' Ariadne said, low. 'Were you the one who gave the names of Ocean's team to Saito?'
Eames went very still for a moment, tension drawing his body taut like a bow, his shoulders risen out of their usual slump. Ariadne's breath held itself high in her throat. 'You know,' Eames said at last, the sleepiness stripped out of his voice. 'You're very lucky that you're pretty and young, because that deserved a slap.'
'Were you,' Ariadne hissed.
But Eames's looked irritated, not angry, when he said, 'If I was calling names it was only Ryan's, and certainly not to Saito.'
There was a moment's pause. 'You slept with Rusty?'
'And yes, mother, I wore a condom.' Eames pulled his sheets back up over himself. 'Tell Ocean he's had his fun with the personal questions; take your anger out on him if you'd so like to. Now go away, Ariadne, or I will humiliate you in the morning.'
'Good morning,' Rusty said to Eames when he came out to the breakfast room at 9:30 the next day. He held up a carafe and smiled. 'Orange juice?'
Eames raised an eyebrow. He'd passed Rusty's room in the hallway coming in. 'No, thanks,' he said, reaching into his pocket for his phone. 'I have to text somebody, excuse me.'
'Big day tomorrow,' Rusty said after Eames'd put his phone away.
'Yes.' Eames flashed Rusty a smile. 'Let's not fuck this one up, shall we?'
'Eames,' Arthur said, popping his head through the door. 'Final run through. Five minutes.'
'Coming, darling,' Eames said, standing and taking Rusty's mug of orange juice with him as he went.
Later, Frank found Rusty at the table with the carafe still held in midair. He threw a look back down the corridor, then pulled up a chair at the table and poured himself some cereal. 'I don't know about you,' he said to Rusty, 'but having girls on the job always make it so much more exciting.'
After going through the building that could not be breached to kidnap the man who could not be missed and extracting the combination from a uniquely militarised mind before entering the antechamber that couldn't be lifted/blasted/probed, the two teams that couldn't co-operate stood in front of the vault that couldn't be opened, and Dom Cobb said to Danny Ocean, 'You first,' to which Danny Ocean said to Dom Cobb, 'No you, I insist.'
'Maybe you should hold hands and do it together,' Eames called out from behind.
'It's very sweet,' Rusty agreed. 'I've never seen two people less eager to help someone rob another man of cash and valuables.'
Then the vault door hissed open with a soft expulsion of compressed air.
Cobb looked at Danny. Danny shrugged. 'Wasn't me.'
'Get back,' Arthur said to the others, hand darting beneath his blazer as someone in the background swore aloud.
'For a vault combination that has 24 digits, the total possible permutation of codes is 1024, an enormously huge number, and so the probability of a randomly chosen code being incorrect is therefore extremely high,' Saito's voice came through from behind the vault. The doors were pushed open, revealing him standing at the threshold of a small room that contained a poker table, at which was seated their mark. ('No.') Saito gestured an invitation at them. 'I would like you to meet one of my executive vice presidents. I am very pleased with the progress he's made, in no small part thanks to your efforts. Do come in.'
'Did I mention, bad ass son of a bitch?' someone said out loud as they filed in.
'Some vacation,' Ariadne muttered under her breath to Saito as she passed.
'You've all come very far,' Saito congratulated as they seated themselves around the table. He pushed forward a set of chips, all of them marked in different big denominations from different casinos. The MGM Grand, the Bellagio, the Sands. At least a few million dollars worth on the table. At least. 'And in exchange for your forthrightness I'm willing to bet you all the promised collective take of this job that the codes that Mr. Ocean and Mr. Cobb have in their hands are not the same.' Saito looked at them. 'Am I wrong?'
Danny tore up the piece of paper he had in his hand. He looked at Cobb. 'Are you in or out?'
Cobb crumpled his own paper. He pulled his chair into the table, and started distributing the chips. 'How'd you know?' he asked Saito, quietly.
'Because while 1024 is a very large probability, the probability of thieves being thieves can, in many circumstances, be approximated to 1.' Saito smiled. 'And you, Misters Cobb and Daniel? How did you know?'
'Because I don't trust architects who build two vaults into one mental space,' Danny said.
'Because I don't trust cons to pick only one lock when there're two,' Cobb said.
'In other words,' Saito said. 'If this were a prisoner's dilemma, you'd both have been better of trusting each other instead of not. Perhaps then you wouldn't have needed to guess who conned who first.'
'You're forgetting that you're on vacation,' Eames said, interrupting. The table turned to look at him. 'You're a tourist, Saito,' Eames said, shuffling a deck of cards. He was good at it. He was very good. 'Perhaps we don't know which of us first jumped a gun, but even if we did,' Eames dealt Saito the first hand. 'We wouldn't tell.'
A slow smile spreading across his face, Rusty held up his right hand, and saluted.
[edit] Because charlie_d_blue is actually a magical unicorn of awesome, Without You, Ambiguous Backstory Is Nothing actually exists and if you don't go and read it immediately there is something terribly wrong with you.
So yeah, my GQMF. This is Inception/Ocean's 11, Slash If You Squint, Image-Heavy, Over 4000, OMFG, BBQ. ABCD. E. F. Maybe even a G. MY HANDS. WILL THEY EVER STOP SHAKING.
There are many things I will apologise for in the morning when I have my brains, including but not limited to: managling US phone numbers, mangling Chinese, mangling Photoshop, mangling architecture, mangling Japanese, mangling your eyesight. 以上です。
I Don't Think You Think I Think About Probability
Fandom: Inception, Ocean's 11
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Every effing one. Eames, Ariadne, Saito, Cobb, Arthur, Cast. Danny, Rusty, Cast.
Warnings: Slash if you squint. In all directions.
Summary: Saito, on a vacation with thieves and thieves.
4822 words and more everything than I can ever enumerate, ever.
'I think I need a vacation,' Saito said to Ariadne as they drifted along Lake Como in one of his boats, lazy in the afternoon sun. 'Because I have just saved the world from a terrible energy monopoly, and therefore deserve one.'
It was the summer of the year after, a good time to be an intern with the best, never mind the consequences of what might happen post-graduation. 'Now that Fischer's disbanded his father's company, you are the monopoly,' she said, trying very hard to sound less relaxed than she felt, but it was hard work with a cocktail in hand. She'd gone through as much drafting paper the past month as she had Saito's generous funding of her cross-globe recess from the suffocating pressure of Professor Mile's expectations.
'I prefer to think of it as an autocracy,' Saito rebuked mildly. Ariadne tipped down her sunglasses to look at him. 'Would you rather me think of it as global progress by fiat?'
'That's the truth.' That the cocktail was ridiculously good, also truth.
'You make it all sound very unsubtle,' Saito objected, motioning to the man at the helm to take them back to shore. 'But as I was saying - a vacation.'
'Where are you going to go?' Ariadne asked idly. Saito could go on whatever vacation he wanted, he can afford in in between his hostile takeovers and gala dinners and --
'Where are we going?' Ariadne asked, looking out the window of Saito's Cessna as they took off. She hadn't been expecting this; the immigration officials hadn't asked any questions, so she hadn't told any lies.
'I'll tell you after we get to cruising altitude,' Saito says. 'Here.' He pushes a familiar-looking cocktail into her hands. 'I brought the bartender.'
At altitude, plied by two drinks, Ariadne asked again, 'Where are we going?'
'We are going,' Saito pronounced solemnly, 'to Las Vegas.'
There was a long pause. 'Vegas. City in the middle of the desert? Horrible lights. Nonsensical architecture. Vegas. You're taking me to Vegas?'
Saito paused as if mulling over her question, then looked up and said, 'Yes.'
Ariadne jerked forward off her seat, leaning against the aisle separating them. 'I thought you were -- we were -- you were going on a vacation to somewhere like Spain, where the buildings don't make people want to tear their own eyes out!'
'It's not healthy for you to spend so much time in Europe,' Saito said peaceably. They were 30,000 feet up in the air and the door to the pilot's cabin was securely locked. 'You must learn about your enemy if you are not to make the same mistakes.'
'I couldn't draw up that much --' Ariadne motioned in the air with her hands, violently '-- if I tried, Saito.'
'There are another 4 hours until we land.' Saito blithely put a remote control into Ariande's hand, patting it when her fingers curled helplessly around the plastic. 'I suggest you amuse yourself. The plane comes with the entire collection of Pixar films,' he added helpfully.
At least the limo had tinted glass windows, never mind that it'd been twelve in the afternoon when they'd landed. Ariadne sulked all the way to the villa Saito had hidden away in this part of the world (why he had a villa here was anyone's guess, beyond the de facto answer which was that Saito had a villa everywhere). One of his international army of butlers pulled open the passenger door the moment the engine hummed down. Ariadne got out. 'Woah.'
'I had it designed by a very enterprising Japanese architect,' Saito said over her shoulder, squinting critically at the four-storied mansion in the glare of the afternoon sun. The buildings were mostly glass, concrete and wood, with a blessed absence of neon and/or pretentious name plates declaring it to THE BELLAGIO GRAND MGM ULTRA MEGA DELUXE. 'Do you approve?'
'Never mind that,' Ariadne said, pointing at the patio with its dining set and the people sitting at it. 'What are they doing here?'
'Hello Mr. Cobb!' Saito strode forward, ignoring her question. 'And of course, Arthur, Yusuf. Mr. Eames. I trust that the accommodation is to your liking?' Ariadne put her hand into her pocket, where the familiar weight of her chess piece felt exactly and horrifically real.
'I thought you said vacation!' Ariadne she called at his back, catching up. 'This is not a vacation Saito!'
'Hello Saito,' Eames greeted pleasantly, one leg cocked over a knee and a glass of something dark in his hand. 'We were just starting lunch, and wondering why the hell we're in Vegas.'
Against all physical laws, a housekeeper'd made two additional settings appear while the butler teleported into place to pull back a seat back for Saito just as they reached the table. Saito sat, food arrived; voila. Arthur had a napkin over his lap; he nodded. Cobb's hello was a glance and an abbreviated cock of the eyebrow. You too? 'To you, Saito,' Cobb raised his glass. Everyone met the toast, then he said, 'Now why the hell are we in Vegas?'
'Amen,' Eames murmured into his glass.
'Come now, gentlemen.' Saito cut cheerfully into his meal. 'I felt a vacation was in order.'
Arthur put his napkin onto the table. 'This is a waste of time, Cobb.'
Everyone else's appetites seemed to have betrayed them, but Eames didn't hesitate at the free food. 'I could be in Bombay right now with my good friend Lady Sapphire,' he pointed out after a mouthful of deftly dissected chicken. 'Give me a reason why I shouldn't be.'
Yusuf said, 'I really enjoy the casinos.' At the pause, he added, 'I really don't believe in confrontation. Carry on,' and went back to his food.
Arthur got up.
'Sit down, Arthur,' Cobb said, his eyes on Saito. 'What's the real reason?'
'After all we've been through together,' Saito said expansively, distributing salad, 'I wanted to reward you all.'
'Right,' said Cobb.
'Saito,' said Ariadne.
'Reward,' said Arthur.
'Wanted to,' said Eames. 'And this is what a rich and busy man like you wants to do with his time?'
Saito put down his fork and knife; the cutlery made very precise noises as they clinked against the china. 'How about I put it this way,' he said reasonably, linking his hands together as he looked around the table. 'I hired all of you to conduct inception. I fell into dreams and lived 80 years in a hell of crashing waves and lacquered walls and, at the end of it, I did not wrangle any of your necks.' He flashed them all a smile. 'Instead I paid you all, handsomely. And here we are --' Saito spread his hands over the table. 'Young men and women together again. Don't you think that that is something worth celebrating?'
Cobb coughed. A pin dropped, then there was a slow exhalation of tension.
'See?' Saito called over the butler, who brought a bottle of champagne. 'We can all have a good time together here.' Saito popped the cork and, with impeccable manners, poured everyone a glass. 'Now,' he said, taking the first sip. 'There is just a vault that I need unlocked.'
'This is not a vacation,' Ariadne sighed as Eames asked, 'Why not just call a locksmith?'
'I did,' Saito said, cocking his head at the doors of the villa. 'Mr. Ocean,' he called over his shoulder, his eyes still on the table. 'Would you like to come out and join us?'
Ariadne was vaguely aware of Eames almost choking on his drink as she watched Cobb spin around so fast in his seat that he must have broken something. Yusuf put down his mango lassi and mopped his face thoughtfully with a handkerchief. She followed his line of sight.
'Ah,' Arthur said, simply. 'The enemy.'
An atrociously dressed man came down the front steps of the villa and up to their table. 'Well, well, well,' he said, grinning unabashedly. 'The cheaters.'
They migrated inside because Saito's cavernous living room turned out to have better acoustics for yelling than the patio. Ariadne didn't pretend to understand how everyone else understood, and Arthur had only managed a very brief "it's an industry matter" before going in to back Cobb up, so she was left outside with the champagne and Eame's attempts at finishing the bottle alone.
('Mr. Saito, do you know what you've done here?' she heard one of them ask, American.)
'Eames,' Ariadne asked, 'Who are these people?'
(Saito was beaming. 'There's a vault I need unlocked.')
'"The enemy" might be a smidgeon harsh, but Arthur's not precisely incorrect.' Eames settled the champagne bottle back into the ice and tucked his hands into the pockets of his jacket. 'The one with the smile is Ocean.' Eames nodded at him. 'He's the idea man.'
('您爲什麽不叫這些伙子進什麽人的夢中-- 哦，知道了，是不是他們不肯做？還是不可以做 哈哈哈哈哈哈哈哈--'
'You know, that'd be a little bit rude if it weren't so true.')
'An architect?' Ariadne asked.
'Architect?' Eames asked, sounding surprised. 'Oh, no. These are bona fide crooks of the lock-picking and mummery variety. I suppose you could call Ocean an architect, in the rawest sense of the word. Without him there is no plan. Everyone else in there is collateral -- business partners, for the most part, except.' Eames dipped his chin against his chest, gone languid. 'Except for that smartarse there with the tattoo.'
Ariadne spotted him, standing casually with a shrimp cocktail in the hand with the marks, talking to Arthur. Arthur wasn't talking back. 'Who's he?'
'Rusty Ryan,' Eames pronounced, rolling the Rs. 'And the little bastard's stolen my food.' He stood.
'Either everyone's insane,' Ariadne said to Yusuf, watching as Eames joined the furor, 'or this is just a nightmare.'
'Might be true. Sometimes it is hard to square reality with madness,' Yusuf said contemplatively. He poured her what remained of the champagne. 'Maybe I could interest you in a few good dreams?'
'Uh,' Ariadne said, warily accepting the flute. 'No thanks.'
'Vaults have two things,' Saito declared to his living room of thieves. 'Locks, and keys.'
Everyone was seated, mostly because while Saito didn't have bodyguards he did have a way of making cars disappear from the garages of villas built in the middle of the (goddamn) desert in the middle of (goddamn) summer. ('You could walk,' Saito'd said amenably to Eames, dressed as he was to the nines. 'Thanks,' Eames'd said. 'I'll take the van der Rohe couch.')
'Can I ask a question?' Danny asked, raising his hand. He tilted his palm when Saito threw him a look. 'Just checking. What's the catch?'
'I'm on vacation, Mr. Ocean,' Saito said, looking his way. 'I need one to recover from the recent loss of several very expensive paintings that I was very fond of. You may know something about it.'
Danny put his hand down. 'I think a vacation is a great idea,' he said. By his side, Rusty was looking fixedly at the walls. Danny smiled. 'So, what was that you were saying about a vault?'
[Click for larger pic.]
'Did you know that there was this warlord from Japan who lived in the 1500s called Saito Dosan?'
'Any relation?'
'He was a bad ass son of a bitch. They called him the Viper of Mino. Now that's a cool name. Viper.'
'Think that means something?'
'Think it means we should be keeping our heads down, that's what I think. So, is it Fox News or the BBC tonight?'
[Click for larger pic.]
Their mark was just possibly the most boring person on earth, which made everyone paranoid. Well, some people paranoid. A few of them paranoid. Ariadne couldn't actually keep track of the ebb and flow of Ocean's improbably large team, but she knew that at least one of them was paranoid. Properly paranoid.
'Livingston,' Eames said, looking over the man's shoulder at the array of video feeds set up in the suite the team's taken up on the floor of the hotel that Saito's commandeered for their use. 'We're doing surveillance, not filming an episode of Big Brother.'
'I like to watch,' Livingston mumbled, tweaking a setting. 'It's reassuring.'
Eames patted him on the shoulder. 'If that makes you happy.'
Livingston looked up at Eames. 'W-w-would you know, by any chance, Roman?'
'Nagel?' Eames asked. 'I know very few people who don't know him, if that's what you're asking.'
'P-personally?' Livingstone asked, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 'S-sorry, it's just that you remind me a lot of him. Um.'
'We were at school together,' Eames replied off the cuff. 'He was a few forms ahead. Arrogant little shit. Would never have made it in the military. Come on,' he motioned to Ariadne. 'No more questions. Cobb wants us in the conference room. Test run.'
They headed in. Saito was there.
'Saito, are you --?' Ariadne asked, stopping short at the door.
'Yes,' Arthur said. 'Don't stare, Mr. Eames.'
'I'm on vacation,' Saito reminded them. 'And I have just gone bowling with Mr. Yen.'
'In a Hawaiian print t-shirt?' Ariadne eyes were on fire.
'It helps me to blend in,' Saito said. 'Now, I'll leave you to your work.'
Yusuf broke the silence produced in the wake of Saito's exit by unlatching the case sitting on the table. 'Here's the first batch of the compound. How much time do you want?'
'Fifteen minutes,' Cobb said. 'We need to meet. Privately.'
They went under.
They sat in a haphazard circle of chairs in an empty warehouse that was sparse and full of light.
'Daniel Ocean, born 1962,' Eames read off an ID card taken from a wallet.
'Fake,' Arthur said, pulling up a whiteboard.
Eames tossed that aside and read another ID. 'Daniel Ocean, credit card number 3482 2842 8847 531.'
'American Express,' Arthur said. 'And 5349 3896 2834 8063 --'
'Mastercard Platinum.' Eames tossed the bit of plastic at Arthur. 'Well done, sir, you've done your research properly this time.'
'You didn't just make that up,' Ariadne realised as Eames withdrew another wallet, this one larger and gaudier and were those rhinestones? 'Those numbers are real.'
Cobb said, 'We do not steal from members of our own team.'
'They are not,' Eames told Cobbs, '"our team." They're thieves of a very different degree.'
'Do you know how many people Danny Ocean has stolen from?' Arthur asked Cobb.
'No,' Cobb admitted.
'Neither do I,' Eames concurred, tossing hundred dollar bills onto the concrete floor. 'I can't count numbers that big without a calculator, darling.'
'Precisely,' Arthur said, tipping his chair back. 'He is a very good thief.'
Eames snapped the wallet in his hands shut. 'He's standing right behind me, isn't he.'
'You know,' Rusty said, rolling his roller chair into their dream, sitting astraddle. 'Rolly chairs are better.'
'Yeah?' Cobb asked coolly. Ariadne threw a look at Arthur, who shrugged.
'Yeah,' Rusty smiled. 'Harder to kick over.'
'That hurt,' Cobb said, waking up with his face against floor.
'Yes,' Eames agreed from somewhere on the other side of the table. 'Yusuf's gone. And he's still asleep,' he observed of Arthur. 'Because he's in a chair. With wheels.'
'Turk,' Rusty called out, rubbing his wrist where the IV'd sat. 'Could I get a bucket of water in here, please?'
Ariadne got back to the suite from a day pulling a second set of blueprints out of the repository to find the rest of the team gone and most of Ocean's crew circling the dining table. Danny and Rusty were at the bar counter, heads bent together and an array of bottles in front of them. 'Where did everyone go?' Ariadne asked, putting her document rolls down and looking around. Yusuf wasn't around either, and he had the least amount of antagonism for the other side. Ariadne sniffed the air. 'Is that cheese I'm smelling?'
'Yeah, sorry about that,' Rusty said, looking up.
'Turk and Virgil have sensitive taste buds,' Danny said. 'They've been on stakeout for the last 8 hours, so we had to.'
'They sent a couple of text messages,' Rusty said.
'Three.'
'Four.'
'Many text messages,' Rusty said, pouring Ariadne something out of many bottles. 'It was going to be pizza or mutiny, so.'
'Your Mr. Eames didn't take it very well,' Danny said to her with a smile. He sliced a wedge of lemon and dropped it into the glass that Rusty sent sliding her way. 'They went out for dinner at some place with an unpronounceable French name --'
'-- Château de cartes --'
'-- but we saved you a couple of slices. They're in the oven.'
'Thanks,' Ariadne said, popping open the oven door and extracting a plate stacked high with slices of pepperoni and cheese. It smelled good, like there were a thousand calories in it. No wonder the others had fled.
'Come sit with us.' Danny motioned with his head to the empty seat left at the counter. 'I bet you have questions.'
'Yeah,' Ariadne agreed, hopping onto the barstool. She looked down at the glass in front of her. The wedge of lemon smiled up at her. 'What did you put into my drink?'
'Nothing,' Danny said, the same time Rusty said, 'Everything.' 'It's good,' Rusty assured her. 'I won't even try to inject it into you through an IV. And if you don't trust me now you don't know a lot about thieves.'
'That's because I don't,' Ariadne said, picking up the glass anyway. 'I don't even know why they call you the enemy.'
'Ah,' Danny leaned back, drumming his hands against the counter. 'Now that's a story.'
'Not really a story,' Rusty corrected, but he didn't sound to Ariadne like he was disagreeing. Ariadne wasn't sure if it were possible for Rusty and Danny to disagree; their conversations weren't back-and-forths so much as they were continuations of the same long thought. Rusty said, 'It's more like history.'
'Same thing,' Danny said, looking up at Rusty. 'Not for you, sure, for you it's history, but for the rest of us it's a story.' Rusty raised his glass to Danny in a silent salute that Ariadne couldn't read.
'So tell me,' Ariadne said, looking between the two of them.
'It's a matter of legwork,' Rusty said, still looking at Danny for a long while before he turned to her, which made Ariadne wish a little that he hadn't. Cobb was a decently good actor, and Eames unparalleled at what he did, but the two of them were always wearing some sort of a face, underneath which there were real people that Ariadne could understand and get to know. Watching Rusty talk was something else all together, like the physics of a dream packaged up into the physics of a man's voice, changeable and hypnotic. 'Our sort call your type cheaters because you design the field instead of playing it. We don't really like architects --'
'We like you,' Danny said.
'But we don't like architects,' Rusty said. 'But that's just professional pride speaking. Your type call us the enemy for very different reasons, because there's what you might call a certain conflict of interests that arises when you have two types of people playing the same sort of game.'
'What we do isn't a game,' Ariadne said, her fingers tight around her glass.
'Nope,' Rusty agreed, 'and it's hard work for what you do. But you play it like a business when we play it because it's a game. Not to say that everything isn't driven by profits - it is - but our type aren't exactly afraid of playing it like we have nothing to lose. You do.'
'We have to,' Ariadne amended.
'You have to because you're the ones shaking hands with the executives and whales that we choose to knock over. When it all comes tumbling down and the curtains are drawn, they always want a scapegoat to lead to the slaughter. And, well,' Rusty pulled up a shoulder in a shrug. 'It's only to thieves that other thieves look different.'
'So they come after us,' Ariadne said as it began to dawn on her. 'Because they know our names even if they don't know yours.'
'There's still honour amongst thieves,' Rusty said, raising three fingers of his left hand in a salute, Scout's Honour. 'We wouldn't tell them your names even if we did know them.'
'So who'd sell out?' Ariadne asked. 'Who'd do something like that?'
'People who play both sides,' Danny put in. Ariadne started; it was the first Danny'd spoken since Rusty began. 'That's a rat,' Danny clarified for her. 'And they're not very well liked by either side.'
Danny was looking at Rusty again. Ariadne looked over. Rusty was back in his habit of eating, the last slice of pizza off of her plate in his hand. …the little bastard's stolen my food. Slowly, a little afraid of the answer, Ariadne asked, 'And what's Eames?'
'Your Mr. Eames,' Danny said, his fingers tapping a meaningless pattern of Morse code onto the counter, 'is what we call a freelancer.'
'And a very good one,' Rusty added, a wolf's smile visible between his lips. He finished the pizza slice, and licked his fingers. Ariadne could see teeth.
'You know what, I think I'm still hungry,' she said, pushing herself away from the counter. 'I'm going to go find the others.'
'Say hi to Eames for me when you catch him,' Rusty said.
'Yeah,' Danny said. 'Say hello.'
They waited for the door to shut behind Ariadne before Danny said, 'Pizza was a low blow, wasn't it.'
'Yeah.'
'Chinese would have been more--'
'Merciful.'
'But at least it wasn't McDonald's.'
'Hey, at least it wasn't Macs.'
'Rusty?'
'Mm?'
'Scouts use their right hand.'
Ariadne didn't go to find Eames during dinner, because she knew where Eames slept at night. Some things were better swept under the rug, and she wasn't sure if this was something she wanted to talk about in front of the others. (That would be a good conversation: "Hi, so what's the skeleton in your closet?") 'Eames,' she hissed at him at 3 the next morning, perched on the edge of Eames' bed. Finding her way through his room in the dark had been like fumbling across an obstacle course of belts and shirts. She tugged at his sheets. 'Eames, wake up. I need to talk to you.'
Eames rose as gracefully from sleep as a shirtless man with tousled hair could. 'You're going to give me the wrong impression, coming in here like this,' he said, casting a glance over Ariadne. 'But you're not dressed for that sort of a talk, so what is it?' He looked at the clock's glow display on his bedside table and put his fingers up against his temples. 'This isn't exactly a decent hour.'
'Eames,' Ariadne said, low. 'Were you the one who gave the names of Ocean's team to Saito?'
Eames went very still for a moment, tension drawing his body taut like a bow, his shoulders risen out of their usual slump. Ariadne's breath held itself high in her throat. 'You know,' Eames said at last, the sleepiness stripped out of his voice. 'You're very lucky that you're pretty and young, because that deserved a slap.'
'Were you,' Ariadne hissed.
But Eames's looked irritated, not angry, when he said, 'If I was calling names it was only Ryan's, and certainly not to Saito.'
There was a moment's pause. 'You slept with Rusty?'
'And yes, mother, I wore a condom.' Eames pulled his sheets back up over himself. 'Tell Ocean he's had his fun with the personal questions; take your anger out on him if you'd so like to. Now go away, Ariadne, or I will humiliate you in the morning.'
'Good morning,' Rusty said to Eames when he came out to the breakfast room at 9:30 the next day. He held up a carafe and smiled. 'Orange juice?'
Eames raised an eyebrow. He'd passed Rusty's room in the hallway coming in. 'No, thanks,' he said, reaching into his pocket for his phone. 'I have to text somebody, excuse me.'
'Big day tomorrow,' Rusty said after Eames'd put his phone away.
'Yes.' Eames flashed Rusty a smile. 'Let's not fuck this one up, shall we?'
'Eames,' Arthur said, popping his head through the door. 'Final run through. Five minutes.'
'Coming, darling,' Eames said, standing and taking Rusty's mug of orange juice with him as he went.
Later, Frank found Rusty at the table with the carafe still held in midair. He threw a look back down the corridor, then pulled up a chair at the table and poured himself some cereal. 'I don't know about you,' he said to Rusty, 'but having girls on the job always make it so much more exciting.'
After going through the building that could not be breached to kidnap the man who could not be missed and extracting the combination from a uniquely militarised mind before entering the antechamber that couldn't be lifted/blasted/probed, the two teams that couldn't co-operate stood in front of the vault that couldn't be opened, and Dom Cobb said to Danny Ocean, 'You first,' to which Danny Ocean said to Dom Cobb, 'No you, I insist.'
'Maybe you should hold hands and do it together,' Eames called out from behind.
'It's very sweet,' Rusty agreed. 'I've never seen two people less eager to help someone rob another man of cash and valuables.'
Then the vault door hissed open with a soft expulsion of compressed air.
Cobb looked at Danny. Danny shrugged. 'Wasn't me.'
'Get back,' Arthur said to the others, hand darting beneath his blazer as someone in the background swore aloud.
'For a vault combination that has 24 digits, the total possible permutation of codes is 1024, an enormously huge number, and so the probability of a randomly chosen code being incorrect is therefore extremely high,' Saito's voice came through from behind the vault. The doors were pushed open, revealing him standing at the threshold of a small room that contained a poker table, at which was seated their mark. ('No.') Saito gestured an invitation at them. 'I would like you to meet one of my executive vice presidents. I am very pleased with the progress he's made, in no small part thanks to your efforts. Do come in.'
'Did I mention, bad ass son of a bitch?' someone said out loud as they filed in.
'Some vacation,' Ariadne muttered under her breath to Saito as she passed.
'You've all come very far,' Saito congratulated as they seated themselves around the table. He pushed forward a set of chips, all of them marked in different big denominations from different casinos. The MGM Grand, the Bellagio, the Sands. At least a few million dollars worth on the table. At least. 'And in exchange for your forthrightness I'm willing to bet you all the promised collective take of this job that the codes that Mr. Ocean and Mr. Cobb have in their hands are not the same.' Saito looked at them. 'Am I wrong?'
Danny tore up the piece of paper he had in his hand. He looked at Cobb. 'Are you in or out?'
Cobb crumpled his own paper. He pulled his chair into the table, and started distributing the chips. 'How'd you know?' he asked Saito, quietly.
'Because while 1024 is a very large probability, the probability of thieves being thieves can, in many circumstances, be approximated to 1.' Saito smiled. 'And you, Misters Cobb and Daniel? How did you know?'
'Because I don't trust architects who build two vaults into one mental space,' Danny said.
'Because I don't trust cons to pick only one lock when there're two,' Cobb said.
'In other words,' Saito said. 'If this were a prisoner's dilemma, you'd both have been better of trusting each other instead of not. Perhaps then you wouldn't have needed to guess who conned who first.'
'You're forgetting that you're on vacation,' Eames said, interrupting. The table turned to look at him. 'You're a tourist, Saito,' Eames said, shuffling a deck of cards. He was good at it. He was very good. 'Perhaps we don't know which of us first jumped a gun, but even if we did,' Eames dealt Saito the first hand. 'We wouldn't tell.'
A slow smile spreading across his face, Rusty held up his right hand, and saluted.
[edit] Because charlie_d_blue is actually a magical unicorn of awesome, Without You, Ambiguous Backstory Is Nothing actually exists and if you don't go and read it immediately there is something terribly wrong with you.