Incept Out

Being on the run for so long should have deadened his nerves to the feeling, yet Cobb could not help but feel nervous as he and his friends stepped into the andersen building. The young Riley Andersen had, before the age of thirty-five, built a computer hardware company that made IBM look like a garage sale. Rumors had flown as to how she accomplished this, as she was notoriously tight-lipped in interviews. Some said she had found a way to go without sleep entirely, or that her sheer ruthless drive had allowed her to build so much. Cobb did not care, as long as she was willing to use what she had built to help him. With her contacts and influence growing exponentially, Riley could easily provide Cobb with immunity from persecution. Riley Andersen was Dominic Cobb's last hope now.

There was no-one else who could offer protection from Cobol Engineering or the Fischer Group hunting him and his partners. After the young Robert Fischer had dismantled his father's company, a legion of disgruntled ex-employees and stockholders decided to root out just how Robert Fischer had suddenly decided to destroy his own inheritance over the course of one plane ride. It did not take much detective work to figure out who had been on the plane with Fischer, who had hired them, or what they had been doing given their skill set. The CEO of a major competitor could not buy out an airline without raising someone's suspicion.

The Fischer Group had hunted Cobb and his associates to the ends of the earth, with spies and assassins and mercenaries. If they could not force him to undo his damage, they could at least get their revenge. Eames and Yusuf had gone underground and vanished off the radar. Arthur had stuck with Cobb through these hard times out of friendship, while Ariadne had joined them on the run. She did not know what else to do.

Saito had refused to offer any more help. He had honored his arrangement, what more could he do? Only Riley Andersen, the hockey girl from San Francisco, seemed willing to take him under her wing in exchange for training in the world of corporate espionage. The job was easy enough. Train a newcomer CEO to defend her mind from Extractors and other corporate espionage, get security for himself, his friends, and his family. He would have to be insane to refuse.

Riley stood in a modern, high-tech lobby with sleek, minimalist furniture. She wore a black blouse and skirt with a white pleated shirt. Despite her ruthless reputation, she still seemed friendly and approachable. She retained her blue eyes, grew out her dirty blonde hair, and her round face looked harder and more mature.

"Mr. Cobb," she shook his hand. "Pleasure to meet you."

"The pleasure's mine ma'am," Cobb smiled. That had become harder with his life on the run again.

"Now I've heard that you and your crew are the most skilled Extractors and Inceptors out there," Riley said. "I trust my boys to do their research. So just how much information can you steal from dreams?"

"See, these aren't ordinary dreams," Arthur said. "Extractors like us can infiltrate your mind and steal your most valuable secrets."

"And Inceptors? I've heard a lot about that, but I'm told not to worry about it," Riley said.

"See we're the only ones who've successfully accomplished Inception," Cobb said.

"Twice," Arthur added.

"I think I'd know if someone was trying to put notions in my head," Riley chuckled uneasily.

"If the Inception was a sloppy one," Ariadne said. "But a good Inception can plant an idea that will redefine you, and you would think it was yours. You could lose your deepest secrets, your sense of reality, even your free will. That's what these machines can do."

She opened up a briefcase to reveal the dream-sharing machine.

"We can protect you from that," Arthur said.

"If you protect us and our families from the people chasing us," Cobb said. "Do we have a deal?"

"Well I haven't had this issue with spying yet," Riley said.

"Do we have a deal?" Cobb thrust out his hand towards her.

"Closing the deal," Riley grinned. "I like it. I'll take you on and give you protection, if this works out. All of this under one condition: you stay out of my personal and family matters."

"Ma'am it's not that simple," Arthur said. "If we're going to defend your memories, we need to know your mind as well as or better than you do. Any Extractor worth his contract is going to try to know you just as well."

"My husband and kids are all extractors then," Riley said.

"That's the right mindset, at least," Cobb said.

They went upstairs into Riley's office. Her name was stenciled in gold onto the front of her heavy wooden desk. Cobb, Arthur, and Ariadne sat in high-backed black leather seats while Riley went behind her desk. Cobb noticed she had two crossed hockey sticks mounted on the wall behind her.

"Here are your contracts, I'm a bit of a stickler for paperwork," Riley handed them packets of forms. "So how does this work?"

"We each put a needle in our arm and the sedative knocks us out," Arthur explained while jotting off signatures. "You also need to be wary of people who may try to drug you to access your dreams. Be glad we're doing this in a controlled setting where nothing can go wrong."

"Wait, needles?" Riley grimaced. "Never liked needles, not since I was ten."

"Some phobias never die," Ariadne said.

"No, it's just…when I was thirteen this dog chased after me for my pizza," Riley said. "And while it was grabbing for my pizza it bit my hand. My mom freaked out and rushed me to the hospital, and I guess the doctors freaked out because they gave me all these rabies shots in my belly. To this day, I still don't know whether or not I actually had rabies."

"See?" Cobb said. "It's easy opening up once you realize how important it is for what we do."

After signing and filing away their massive contracts, they each slipped in the needles and fell into a deep sleep. Arthur, Cobb, and Ariadne had spent weeks planning this session. They would all be in a café in Ariadne's dream, Riley wouldn't remember how she got there, then Cobb and Arthur would steal Riley's secrets while Ariadne distracted her with idle chatter. Then, Ariadne would begin to bend the dream's architecture to showcase what dreams could do, and if the projections did not expel them they would simply commit suicide. Once Riley understood just how much she could lose so easily, she would not pick anyone else to train her in mind security.

They started out in the café, just as they had planned, but right away they could see that something was not right. The people in the dream looked like amoebas with faces and limbs, each of them wearing outfits to look like café patrons. Where Riley was supposed to sit, there was instead a camera manned by more of the amoeba people. Looking even further, they realized their café was in fact a set piece in a gigantic studio somewhere.

"Ariadne," Cobb whispered. "This was not in the layout we'd agreed to. Was there supposed to be a studio?"

"No," Ariadne said. "Just a café with a hotel where Riley would store her secrets. I have no idea what the rest of this is."

"What kinds of projections are these?" Arthur said. "Where exactly are we now?"

"I don't know, but I've got a bad feeling about this already," Cobb said.

"Hey!" an amoeba with wavy hair and a beret barked. "Didn't you rehearse for this scene? Look at the camera and say 'Lovely weather today, Mrs. andersen?'. Oh cut, cut!"

The amoeba with the beret, who they guessed was the director, stepped off her chair and walked over to them.

"People, people, people," the director said. "Riley's dreams aren't just a bunch of pointless imagery. They are her muse, her source of inspiration in the waking world. We turn her life's events into imagination, and you will not mess that up by fudging your lines! Back into your places!"

"Now what?" Arthur whispered.

"Play along," Cobb said. "I don't think they realize we're not jellybean people. Let's convince them we're part of the dream, then get to the secrets in the hotel."

"There isn't a hotel anymore," Ariadne said. "Right there, where it's supposed to be on the corner, there's nothing but stage lights."

"Well that complicates things a bit," Cobb said. "Alright, let's find a way to get off this set as soon as-"

"Your lines are up!" the amoeba director said.

"Lovely weather we're having today?" Cobb said.

"Strange weather," Arthur said. "Tell me Riley, do you believe your secrets are safe?"

"What? No, no, no, no, no," the director said. "That wasn't at all in the script. This is supposed to be a mundane dream where you talk about the weather? How is Riley supposed to dream big ideas if she doesn't focus on the mundane? That's it, get 'em out of here. I want new actors on this set in five!"

"That's it, we're compromised," Arthur said.

"Let's get off the set and find that vault!" Cobb said as they scattered from the table.