Chapter 1: When the Job Goes Wrong
Arthur is very precise. He has to be, he's the point man. In fact, one of the most well reputed point men in the dreamsharing world, both legal and not, and for a very good reason. Arthur knows everything. He makes sure of it.
After the Fischer inception took place, Arthur tried to distance himself from anyone on the team for a while. Arthur had to let go of his iron-tight hold on the facts, and give some work to the new team members around him. Arthur hated it, but there was nothing else he could do. Besides putting the original team in danger by subjecting them to another mission, they weren't even interested in another job at the moment.
Cobb was too busy fawning over his children to work in dreamsharing, and Ariadne was again wrapped up in university life. Yusuf had vanished into the wind, and Eames… well, Arthur knew exactly where Eames was. He justified to himself that Eames was a great professional to work with, and that's why Arthur knew that at this exact moment Eames was in London getting shitfaced at some hole-in-the-wall bar. Just a professional curiosity, Arthur reasoned. That one little heated encounter the night after the inception where they both got a little too buzzed and ended up telling secrets like sixteen year olds at a sleepover just didn't count. They were both former military; of course they had plenty of war stories and gossip. It meant nothing that Arthur had never gossiped with a colleague before. Absolutely nothing.
So coincidentally Arthur found himself in London as well. And, for the first time in a long time, Arthur was deigning to work with a slightly shifty team. The extractor, Sandy, wouldn't make direct eye contact with anyone – and looked a little too much like that serial killer who had never been convicted in the States. Hans looked more like a club bouncer than an architect, but Arthur found his work passable. The fact that Hans' projections looked more like former Navy SEALs than normal people was something Arthur was willing to overlook. The chemist, Ray, was a man of Moroccan descent who spoke seven languages, though none of them being English. However, again Arthur had vetted him, so when Ray stood against the scrutiny Arthur allowed him on the team. Finally, the forger, Emilia, was a soft spoken Spaniard who was so good at blending in with her surroundings Arthur was surprised she didn't just melt into the wall. Emilia was so different than Eames' loud, flirtatious way of scoping out the mark, that Arthur found himself once again discomfited. Why should I care if she's different from Eames?Arthur thought. It's not like Eames is the gold standard. The problem is, in Arthur's mind, for some inexplicable reason, suddenly Eames was.
The job was easy. A simple extraction. Get into an investment banker's head, find the passwords to her stock portfolio, and then get out.
The son, named Colin, was paying for the job. He was an average guy, by all accounts. He just happened to have information that the medical stock in a certain pharmaceutical drug, owned almost completely by his mother, Eva Jansen, was about to go up in value 400%. He was paying them all in cash, half before the job and half after. Arthur would've questioned the son more in depth about his motives, but he promised Sandy that he would let her handle the son's profile. Arthur felt unsettled by that, but he was so busy planning out the actual job that he couldn't argue too much.
They had a small window for the job, but the setting was ideal. Eva Jansen was temporarily working at a lowered security banking area, because the last one had been flooded by a particularly harsh rainstorm. Arthur could almost hear Eames saying, a bank in London not prepared for a little rain? Disgraceful, darling. In any case, Arthur was happy about this turn of events, as was the rest of the team. With his usual attire and attitude, Arthur found that it was laughably easy to case the building, chat up the employees, and find a place to set up camp during the job. Ray would lure the mark into an abandoned private meeting room, and the plan would be set into action.
If Arthur expected any problems with the London job, it wasn't the job itself, rather the co-workers he chose to surround himself with. He hated giving up some responsibly to other members of the team, but even Arthur had to concede he couldn't do everything.
During the test runs that Arthur oversaw, Hans' reconstruction of London was surprisingly accurate. "For a man with a German accent, you sure know London," Sandy had muttered. For his part, Arthur made sure everything had been organized to the second, and waited patiently for their mark to simply waltz in the meeting room with Ray. Sandy and Hans waited impatiently in the corner beside him, while Emilia practiced the facial expressions of the son one last time. She would be distracting Eva by "taking her mother out to lunch" while the whole process of finding the passwords went down.
Ray, minutes later, successfully lured Eva into the room, with promises of growth charts and progress report sheets that had somehow failed to make it to the right floor of the banker's work that day. It helped that Ray spoke Dutch, Eva's native language. She had been "helplessly charmed" according to Ray (Ray bragged in fluent French to Arthur as they shot her up with the sedative).
Everyone flew into action. The door was closed. Ray handled the drugs, getting everyone set up in their respective chairs. Arthur, still disgruntled, had reluctantly agreed to be put under as well. Ray had argued (in German this time, to Hans' relief) that he had extensive training in both hand to hand combat and firearms situations, having been in some obscure resistance group or another in Africa. Plus, Ray stated to Sandy (this time in Italian) that this job had little to no risk in the real world, seeing as how no one blinked if the banker took "a sick day" (Arthur's skills hacking through the company's firewall took care of that record).
The last thing Arthur saw before shutting his eyes was Ray's curly black hair above him. He was making some kind of gesture and saying something in Turkish. Arthur does not speak any Turkish.
The second they were in the dreamscape, Emilia waved nervously, now looking the part of the son, and bolted off into the crowd to find Eva.
But as soon as Arthur entered the dreamscape, something felt off to him. As the rest of the group began to walk through Hans' London, it looked a shade too much like Eastern European architecture. Eva's projections looked even more hostile than Hans' had been in the test runs (and Arthur hadn't thought that was completely possible up until now). His pressed shirt suddenly felt a size too small under his suit jacket, and his coiffed hair was shaken in a breeze that hadn't been there during the test runs. Looking over at his partners, Hans and Sandy looked similarly uneasy. Hans was running his obscenely large hands through his thick blond hair, his muscles straining through the military issue t-shirt. Sandy was sending a fierce death glare into the ground, and her Fall Out Boy hoodie was looking more ratty than normal. "Somezing iz not richtig, Arthur." Hans' blue eyes looked worriedly into Arthur's own, more emotion showing on his tan face than Arthur had ever seen. "It feels like ze day Bayern lost to Mönchengladbach, and that was not a gut day."
Arthur looked back to him levelly as the three continued their trek into the heart of the city. "I don't watch football," Arthur stated, his hand instinctively lying on the holster for his Glock. "But I tend to agree with you, Hans. Something is off. Stay alert." Once in the main square area, they approached the conspicuous looking building ahead of them, obviously the place where Eva's subconscious was storing its info. As they drew closer, Arthur was the first to realize what the structure was. Of course Eva would pick a bank as the secret keeper for her passwords, Arthur thought. So predictable.
"Let's just finish the job," Sandy stated, her fingers twisting in the black strings of her hoodie. "The son confirmed she's definitely not militarized, she doesn't even know about the dreamsharing world."
Arthur did not like how Sandy had taken the son's word at face value, and silently berated himself for letting Sandy handle any of the preparations.I need my old team back, Arthur thought bitterly.
"Tell me again vhy the de son has an American accent while ze mother does not?" Hans asked, opening the door to the imposing bank.
Arthur took flank, ushering in Sandy and Hans ahead of him, keeping a solid grip on the large glass doors. "He studied abroad in the U.S. and decided to stay there," Arthur replied, reflexively straightening his tie once the bank's door closed behind them. He hated feeling the scrutiny of people. He liked be the observer, not the observed. Something still wasn't right.
"The projections are still paying too much attention to us, Sandy," Arthur said quietly, his hand straying back to the familiar outline of his Glock.
"We're fine, Arthur, stop micromanaging. I did my research. Hans, go chat up the lady at the reception desk. Arthur, I'll go crack the safe in the back while you stay on watch, like we talked about, unless you want to abort?" Sandy tone conveyed that if Arthur wanted to stop the operation, he was going to have to dispatch her if he wanted to leave the meeting room unscathed.
Arthur again thought of Eames, and how he said sometimes fake acquiescence was better than starting a fight with teammates.
"Fine." Arthur stated, already moving smoothly towards the entrance. His mind began to formulate exit strategies and options for cover under gunfire. Hans put on his best I am a lost attractive tourist help me face and began moving toward the receptionist. Arthur couldn't believe it worked, but with that chest and arms, Hans got most things that he wanted, good actor or not.
Sandy, looking out of place in her casual attire, slipped off her hoodie (and threw it into one of the potted plants) to reveal a no-nonsense black blazer and black pencil skirt. She likes black an awful lot, Arthur thought. Needs a wardrobe upgrade.
Sandy disappeared around the corner, heading towards the safe visible at the end of the hallway. It wasn't an imposing one, just as Arthur had expected. The mark is not aware, we're okay, Arthur reassured himself as he took a calculated seat near the entrance.Why aren't you trusting your gut, dear Arthur? Eames' voice seemed to whisper in Arthur's ear, causing him to tense up. He was sweating. Arthur looked at Hans. Sweat was beading on his forearms as well. Not good,Arthur thought. Change in temperature almost always means a change in the mark's subconscious. Arthur wished Eames had been their forger.
"How are you doing, Emilia?" The whole team had earpieces, only to be used under emergencies. But, damn it, Arthur was feeling emergency-like at the moment.
Emilia's comms crackled to life. "…Arthur?" Her voice, even quieter than normal, whispered through the speaker.
"Ez everything gut, Emilia?" This time Hans was talking from his place across the room.
"No, Hans, no. Eva was suspicious of me. Apparently I was acting 'too nice'! She thought I was trying to con her or something. I'm hiding in an alley right now. The projections were studying me too intently."
Fuck. Arthur swore to himself silently. He knew Emilia hadn't been studying the son's mannerisms enough. But her projection of him was so convincing that the rest of the team had outvoted Arthur, saying they were ready for the operation. "It's alright, Emilia. Just tell us – where was Eva heading?" Arthur found himself trying to reassure Emilia, if only to get information out of her.
"Um, she was going towards the center of town. That one building. I think it was a bank or something?"
Arthur heard Hans swear in German across the room, right before he noticed the receptionist projection pulling something out from under the counter. Arthur shut off the comms with one hand while upholstering his Glock with the other. Arthur walked briskly across the room, shedding his suit jacket, just in time to see the receptionist bringing out a sub-machine gun, and heading towards where Sandy was trying to crack the safe.What the fuck?
Arthur lined up his Glock and shot the receptionist point blank in the side of the head. Blood splattered across his red tie and silky vest, his suit jacket abandoned on the chair behind him. "Danke, Arthur! Nice shot! I vas a little busy!" Hans kicked away suddenly the mountain of projections who had slid upon him, sliding out what looked like three pistols from the depths of his cargo pants, just as more projections tried to crash through him to the safe area.
Eva was militarized. There was no other explanation. Arthur parried a roundhouse kick from one female projection in a red dress while shooting another in the leg. Hans stabbed one 60 year-old rabid older lady with his combat knife, while head butting another away.
Sandy already had at least ten minutes with the safe. They had less than a half hour left in the dream, regardless. "Sandy!" Arthur called, strangling a man by his pinstripe tie. "Are you almost done?"
"It's a Gardall! A bit better than we were expecting!" Arthur felt his stomach drop out from under him, or maybe it was the puncture wound from the stapler that had been jabbed into his side. They had been set up by someone.
Arthur pistol-whipped another banker in his haste to get to Hans, breaking another projection's leg with his foot as he went. "Hans, have you noticed the projections are more interested in getting past us than killing us?" Arthur pulled a stout man in a blue suit off of Hans' leg. He silenced the man's scrabbling fingers by breaking the delicate bones of his hand with a well-placed smack from his Glock.
"Nein, Arthur, vhat are you talking about?" Hans had to shout to be heard as he pulled another gun from his side, this time a Smith and Wesson revolver.
"They want Sandy, not us." The moment Arthur said the realization, he knew it was true. "Eva's not militarized – not in the normal way, Hans. Her projections aren't great fighters. But – but they want Sandy. They know Sandy."
Hans opened his mouth to reply. But then the short man Arthur had pulled off Hans' leg whipped out a pistol with his uninjured hand. He aimed shakily and shot Hans, right in the side of the head.
A/N: Reviews are very much appreciated! My tumblr is the same as my username.