A/N: Rework of my other Inception story, "Forgotten." I'm trying this out from Eames' POV limited instead, just to see how it works :D
I looked over "Forgotten" just now, and saw so many errors. So many errors. Why did no one point them out to me? Like how projections can't speak? In the movie, Cobb directly says:
"You can literally talk to my subconscious." (pointing at the projections to an oblivious Ariadne)
...SOO.
Please tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: Nomine.
-Sanded Silk-
Eames scratches his chin roughly with a gloved hand, trying to ignore the oncoming numbness in his cramped knees. Music sounding like grumbling, roiling, incessant thunder echoes across the sky.
"Trent, we have to get out of here now," he mutters into his walkie-talkie, unable to resist. The music, the rain, the bucking ground, the increasingly-hostile projections. Eames had been stabbed and shot and beaten countless times in dreams, but he still could not entirely take comfort in the fact that he would wake up in reality. Being stabbed or shot or beaten—or some messed-up combination of all three—was not fun.
"We have another twenty minutes down here, Eames."
"I don't care at this point, Trent. Goldsmith will discover us, if he hasn't already, and his subconscious will eat us alive."
"He hasn't yet, and that's all that matters."
"Damn it, Trent, this is an army base we're in right now!"
"Courtesy to our architect. Goldsmith is a military official, after all."
"I don't mind the army base, but the soldiers—"
Something blows up behind Eames, and he struggles to his feet, cursing his pinpricked legs like mad.
"Eames?"
"Shut up!" Eames roars, not bothering to hold down the speak button, as he runs for his life.
"Eames? Hello? Ea—"
Eames rips his walkie-talkie from his vest, throwing it aside as he runs.
Dirt and rock and metal fall around him like bits of dying lightning. Shouts behind him, rapid gunfire, thudding footfalls. Securing his gun in the holster, Eames sprints across the rutted ground, occasionally stumbling over jutting bits of rock. The sky above him frowns, dark, almost black, tinged with red in some places. Never a good sign.
Flat brick buildings, unforgiving, half-buried by the sun-baked earth, rise along the horizon. A rusting metal fence surrounds the buildings, spiked, ready to crackle at the slightest touch. Eames runs faster, away from the ruined shelter he had been hiding in, towards this intact brick prison. He recognizes the rough layout from the architect's debrief. The main headquarters. Probably where Goldsmith himself is.
Something shoots into his leg. It might be a piece of rock. It doesn't have to be a bullet. He tells himself this as he continues running, a sweat breaking across his brow.
There is no way he will run headlong into the main headquarters. The main entrance itself is hard to find as it is. So he veers hard left, partly to find another new hiding spot, partly to ease the pain in his injured calf. Something in his brain—a faint memory—tells him to keep running, keep running; there's a hiding spot here, somewhere. A hole in the metal fence. Eastep said so. Showed him the layout.
Headquarters security sees him. More shouting, more gunfire. Another piece of—of something—in him, this time in his shoulder. Eames doubles over, his breath wrenched out of his lungs.
He calls the layout back to mind, in bits and pieces. Tries to remember Eastep's debrief. Where is he now? Where might he find some place to crouch and lick his wounds, maybe even wait out the remaining twenty minutes? The hole was somewhere here—
He doesn't have to think much more. A hand appears, flying out of nowhere, dragging him towards the fence, around a corner, through the metal fencing. The barbed edges, sunken into the shadow of the building, brush his arms harmlessly. He stumbles under a brick outcropping of the building. Too blinded by the pain to care who it is dragging him along, Eames holds his other hand over his shoulder and tries to keep up.
A brick wall hits him hard on the side, and the hand guides him sideways. He feels a long strand of hair whip across his hand. Who on his team has long hair?
The thought dies on his mind as he is pulled through a meshwork of metal, pipes, brick, stone, round smooth surfaces, sharp baked edges.
"Murris?" The other forger, Eames thinks. "Is that you?"
"Shh." Eames can't discern whether the hushing voice is feminine or masculine. He nearly trips over another low-lying pipe and curses Eastep's claustrophobic taste.
"Murris, once we get out of here, help me boot Eastep."
"Shhh." More insistent this time. Eames shuts his mouth.
Shadows whip over his eyes, across his brow. He tries to look up, sees nothing but a pale patch of artificial light, blotted out mostly by…by something. Pipes. Oh, right. Pipes.
Endless ropes of metal, welded together, twining, bending, over him now. Beautiful, uniform diamonds, whizzing by over his head. Countless little windows to the open, breathing sky.
Total darkness, suddenly, and Eames panics.
"Murris—"
"I-I'm…um. I'm not Murris."
A female voice. A woman. From the team? There is no woman on the team. Eames presses away from the voice.
"Wait!" Sudden distress, so sudden. "Please don't leave."
"What?" Eames can feel his blood on his shirt, sticking to his skin, rapidly turning cold.
A hand gingerly pinches his shirt, where he was shot. "You're hurt. Sit down for a while."
"You—"
"Sit down." The hand pushes him against a wall, pushes him down onto the ground. His legs give out, the bullet in his calf causing earthquakes of pain across his body. Chasms of pain, nightmares of pain, red washing across his eyes in cresting throbs. How he wishes he could wake up now.
He forces his eyes to open. First and foremost, to figure out where he is.
As the woman, swathed by darkness, works at tearing away his sleeve, Eames' eyes adjust slowly, slowly. There is a dim light almost directly above him, giving off a weak, yellowish light. He slowly begins to make out the rectangular nature of the room, the corners where the walls and the hard floor meet. With an effort, he moves his eyeballs downwards, and tries hard to see the woman.
Hardly a woman, really. Or he can't tell. She's rather short, which he can see even while she's crouched beside him. He squints harder, trying to see her. He makes out impossibly-long hair, vaguely dark, parted messily down the middle. A straight, small nose, highlighted by the dim light overhead. Furrowed brow. Her military garb, while intact, is covered in dirt. Her breath is even and light.
She finishes binding his detached sleeve around his shoulder, and moves to touch his leg.
He jumps. "Don't touch me."
Her head lifts, presumably to look at him. He can't see her eyes, but he can see her smooth cheekbones, her larger-than-normal forehead, a hint of her eyelashes.
"Okay," she says, and leans back.
"What do you want? You're not part of the team," Eames demands shortly.
"I…um…"
"What?" Eames seethes at the pain, at the stranger.
"I w-want to know where I am," she stutters after a long moment.
"…What?"
"Where I am. Can you…um…can you tell me?"
"Wait. You didn't bring me here to torture me for information, or to bait my teammates, or—?"
"No." Her hair juggles the light as she shakes her head.
"Who are you?"
"I…"
"Who are you?"
"I don't know."
"And you don't know where you are."
"R…Right."
"And you're not trying to kill me."
"Why would I?"
Eames shifts on the ground, trying to quell the sudden urge to laugh, to yell.
"You expect me to fall for that innocent question? 'Why would you'? You're part of Goldsmith's subconscious! You're militarized, you're ready to rip the intruder to pieces! So why aren't you doing that now?"
"Who…who is Goldsmith? What is a 'projection'?"
The pain bites at his leg, at his shoulder, but Eames doesn't care. He's too pissed. He leans forward.
"Do you think I'm a fucking idiot? I know who you are, and I know that you know who you are and where you are and what you're trying to do with me. You're just trying to distract me from the mission, from rejoining my teammates—unless you're Murris, in which case you're being a bloody bastard."
"Who's Murris? W-Who's Goldsmith—?"
"Stop asking me! I know that you know!" Eames jabs an accusatory finger at the woman. She leans away, and he sees her brow furrow with worry, with fear.
"Please," she says, "I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm not trying to trick you. I'm not Murris, or Goldsmith. I-I don't know who I am, or where I am. I-If you could just…" She raises her hands before her, palms stretched out, conciliatory.
Eames sits against the wall and thinks. Which is kind of hard, with the bullets in his body and the sweat in his eyes and all.
"How about this," he says more quietly. "Lift your face. I can't see you with the light above your head."
"Oh!" Sounding relieved, she lifts her chin. "I-I'm sorry, that was inconsiderate of me…"
She's smiling, the corners of her mouth turned up in the most relieved smile he's seen, although she still looks a bit anxious. Big eyes, the color of which he can't quite discern— polite, honest eyes, eager to appease. The light pools on her forehead, on the skin under her eyes, making her look bone-thin. A reedy figure in oversized military clothes, boots, a bullet-proof vest hanging loosely about her torso, her long hair cascading down over her shoulders and onto the ground. She doesn't look much older than him; probably several years younger, even.
"You were asking me where you are?"
"Yes," she says, looking at him hopefully, apprehensively.
"You're in Goldsmith's mind."
"Who's…Goldsmith?"
"Military official."
"I'm in his mind?"
"Yes."
"But…how did I get here?"
"You're a projection of his subconscious. How do you not know this?"
"I'm a…I'm a what?"
"A projection? Of his subconscious?"
Silence.
Eames rubs his head. "Let me put it this way. Every person has a part of his or her that works without their knowing. That's the subconscious, where all the person's uncontrollable, instinctive thoughts and desires are. Do you really not know any of this?"
"Yes. And I am a…a projection of…of this part of Goldsmith's mind?"
"Yes."
"What's a 'projection'?"
"You're a personification of his subconscious. You represent a slice of it, so to speak. A dimension of his mind."
"And…um, what are you?"
"Me? I'm an intruder. I'm here to steal his thoughts."
"Should…um…should you be telling me this?"
"Probably not."
"The pain is really getting to you, isn't it?" She sounds genuinely concerned, leaning forward, tilting her head down a little. Her eyes disappear into the shadows.
"I'm fine. Lift your face, you let it fall." She obligingly lifts her chin again, looking extremely worried.
"I'm fine. And I still don't really believe you," he repeats. His voice sounds slurred, even to his own ears.
She nods thoughtfully, still looking at him, watching his face.
A long bout of silence. Eames fights to keep his head upright, and wonders how much time he has left in the dream.
"How much more time do you have here?" she asks.
"What?" Eames is caught off guard.
"How much…um…" She trails off, looking at the ceiling, frowning. Eames doesn't hear or see anything, but after a moment he does; the music is getting louder, more prominent. Edith Piaf's voice, slowed as it is, is more prominent.
"I have to leave soon," Eames says. To his surprise, her head snaps down to look at him, and her eyebrows knit together in anxiety.
"You have to leave? Will you come back?" She asks urgently.
"What? I—"
The music jars, skips. Must be the iPod—first generation—finally winding down its life span.
She grabs his sleeve. "Are you coming back? Are you?"
"Why?" Eames says, confused.
"Please—you have to come back. Will you? You won't—leave—forever?" She edges closer on her knees, bringing her face closer to his, and he is able to make out her eyes.
"What's wrong?" Eames doesn't move back, only sits still. This girl, this complete stranger. Asking him to come back. Needing him? But why? No one has ever needed Eames before.
The ground rocks. Her hand tightens on his sleeve.
"Please," she says, afraid of—of something. Eames can taste the fear in the air around her, but he doesn't know what she's afraid of. Her earnestness, her genuine fear, eats at him. He can't find the strength to doubt her, or to sustain her worry.
With an effort, he pats her hand.
"I don't know if I'm coming back or not, darling," he says, "but if the others failed, then I'll probably be coming back. If we're done here, if we got what we were looking for, then I won't be coming back."
She sinks visibly.
"There wouldn't be any point!" Eames says, hurriedly. "If we got what Semantics wants, then I'd have no excuse to come muddling around in Goldsmith's mind anymore."
"But then there'd be…" She swallows. "Th-there'd be no one here."
"No one here?"
"Just the darkness. And the floating. Maybe even the metal box."
"…The what?"
Metal creaks around them, grinding against masonry. The light above them swings dangerously.
Eames looks carefully at the girl's face. The skin is tight around her mouth and her eyes, and her brow is deeply furrowed; she's watching him, waiting intensely for him to answer; she looks afraid. Truly, deeply afraid.
"All right. I'll try—"
Before he's done talking, her face has relaxed. She looks happy, even.
And then the ground falls through.
And he's awake, sitting up, rubbing his face. The train bucks, causing him to groan audibly.
Trent is already up and about, collecting the sleep machine together, snapping wires off wrists, clipping the briefcase shut.
"Eames, we've got to go. Now."
"Goldsmith found us out?"
"More or less."
"Shit."
"Well," Trent says, sighing heavily as he straightens, "At least it isn't Cobol. You know what they did to Michel."
"Semantics won't be that much better."
"At least they'll let us back into the country," Trent says, and stifles a yawn when he sees Eames' troubled expression.
"What's wrong?" Trent asks, in a lowered voice; Goldsmith is stirring.
As everyone else files quickly out the train car to the exit, preparing to get off at the next stop, Eames looks back at Goldsmith.
"I met someone in there."
"Met someone?"
"It wasn't Murris, unless he was playing some stupid trick on me."
"Who was it?" Trent asks, motioning for Eames to leave, looking concerned.
As they break into a run, Eames shakes his head. "I don't know."
A/N: Yup.
:D
REVIEEEWS PLEEEASE
-Sanded Silk-
