The Eyes of Intelligence Chapter 1, an inception fanfic

Disclaimer- I don't own any of this. This is all Christopher Logan. Thanks!

I'm the top student in my college class. French Architecture, I got a scholarship about a year ago. Never thinking I would do something as big with my life. I wasn't anything special, my hair was a glossy brown, but my eyes were a lackluster hazel, my skin pale and dotted with tiny freckles, the only part of my appearance that I thought was pretty were my lips. They were shaped beautifully and full, and the perfect shade of pink. I never expected to meet a brilliant mind of my professor. Known as Miles, he insisted I call him by his first I did. I laid my head down on my hands my literature class was so boring even though I did at times enjoy Shakespeare's childhood other times, it was quite vexing. I closed my eyes and listened to the sound of Professor Jullian carry on about Shakespeare's "beautiful", play, Hamlet.

"Ariadne DeAngelo! A mon conseil de classe vous avez déjà? Parce que je me souviens la dernière fois que vous avez fait la même chose, alors je crois que vous serez rester après la classe aujourd'hui? Est-ce acceptable à vos normes, mon élève?"

"Sorry sir, my apologies. I didn't get that my sleep last night. " I sat straight up my face reddening as my classmates snickered. As the bell rang I went up to Professor's Jullian's desk,

"Comprenez-vous pourquoi je Ariadne devez le faire pour vous chaque fois de nouveau? Vous êtes un de mes meilleurs élèves, vous perdre à l'emprise de la paresse ... ce serait le plus triste jour de ma vie." He said sternly.

"Yes sir, I understand completely. It won't happen again, I promise you that." He smiled firmly, then looked back down at his many papers and stacks of portfolios. I sighed and walked out into the now near empty hall, my fellow classmates had left. My bag banged against my leg, as I walked criskly to my next class my favorite, French Architecture. As I was about to enter the empty classroom, I noticed a strange man standing adjacent to Miles. He was cleanshaven, but a small prickle had become other his slightly peach colored skin. His eyes were bright and warm, but had intelligence inside of them. But deeper into them I saw hurt, hurt and longing for something that wasn't there anymore. Miles was talking to him in English, he rarely talked to him in that tongue.

"I've got someone better…Ariadne." I stepped over to him, he smiled kindly at me. (This is going to be just a bunch of lines from the movie, sorry.) "I'd like you to meet Mr. Cobb." He holds out his hand for me to take it. But I study him first, my eyes running up and down his tall thin appearence. I thought of how good he looked in his crumby jacket. I take his hand and shake in warily.

"Pleased to meet you." I smiled cautiously, he was as wary as I was. I myself was stunned by his alertness. A thirty year old man like himself, does not just show up in France with some weird excuse to talk to Miles. How did he know him? Who was he? I was already figuring about a million options. But not one seemed to fit.

"If you have a few moments, Mr. Cobb has a job offer to discuss with you." This sparked my interest,

"A work placement?" I said raising a eyebrow. Cobb smiled slyly,

"Not exactly." He leads me out to the rooftop, the sub is gleaming over the shining city of Paris. I smile at the sight of it once more, I could point out ever square centimeter between the bars of the Eiffel Tower, and of the other tall buildings of the France. I lean against the parapet, then pull out a sandwich. Cobb offers me a piece of paper and a pen, a grid is drawn on it. I bite into the sandwich. Mm, ham and turkey with a twist of mustard. I close my eyes in delight, then quickly snap them open to Cobb who stands impatiently.

"A test." He says, I put my sandwich down then take the paper and pen from him. I still have my food in my mouth when I say,

"Aren't you going to tell me anything?" I ask my mouth full of ham and turkey.

"Before I describe the job, I have to know if you can do it." He says his voice very teating, I feel my heart start to thump with determination. I give him a look, then ask,

"Why?"

"It's not, strictly speaking, legal." I raise my eyebrows, then give him a squinted look. He nods. "You have two minutes to draw a maze that takes me one minute to solve." I look down at the grid with it's tiny blue lines running up and down it. He looks at his silver wrist watch then mutters, "Go." I start to draw a basic maze, he thinks I'm stupid. Does he not know I'm the top student in my class! "Stop." I hand it back to him, he looks me square in the eye as he traces the solution with his finger. Then he gives me the pen and grid back. "Again." I smile toughly, then start to draw once more, I'm trying to concentrate when once more he tells me to stop. I hand him back the grid sure this is it, I smile at him sure I've got it. He chuckles then hands it back, my smile is wiped right off my face. This guy is insane, he just solved my best work within a thirty second interval.

"You'll have to-" I yank the grid from his hand and turn it over, to my own surprise I think of circles, and start to draw round symmetrical circles, round, round, round, and round… I feel Cobb's eyes on me, he smiles. Then he takes it away once more. I'm defiant this time, I know it's right. No one can solve that kind of maze within a minute. He nods,

"More like it." He smiles and I follow him through the school to a taxi, as we drive. I ask him about the job, he explains to me that the work they do is very confidential. He tells me about his childhood, but he skips over the whole fact of his marriage and his mysterious wedding ring. I'm still skeptical of him. He acts as if I won't understand, I do understand sorrow. My mother and father died when I was six, I would know what sorrow is.

"Were here." I see we have pulled up to a dusty warehouse, and it looks like it could come crumbling down any minute now. Cobb gets out and starts to walk briskly I quickly catch up with him. My boots clicking against the cracked cement, we go up stairs and enter a room. With windows overlooking once more Paris. Equipment is set up on beat up tables, and two lawn chairs now I noticed in the corner was a man. He was unlike any guy I had ever seen before. He was handsome and tall, he was around Cobb's age. But his skin was a Greek bronze skin color, and his hair was a silky black. His eyes the most beautiful color of black, I was amazed by his beauty. His appearance made me lose my self for a moment.

Cobb and I sit at a outdoor table in the middle of Paris, I think. A market sits next to us, vibrant colored fruit towers, and my mouth waters at the sight at the ripeness. A man on a bike rides past, a mother and her child walk past. The child whines and the mother smiles sweetly. I watch after them wishing I had some childhood memories but I don't. I watch the life surround us and the buildings across the street show hanging plants hanging from the tiny balconies. There is a bakery next to the market, the scent is heavenly. I'm amazed that so much commotion goes on around us, while we sit in silence hardly moving.

"They say we only use a fraction of the true potential of our brains…but they're talking about when were awake. While we dream, the mind performs wonders." Cobb says his voice the same calm and firm tone. I look at him with surprise, not knowing much about the human anatomy myself.

"Such as?" I ask, my own mind trying to figure out what meant. I had just had a dream last night about my old Grandfather who had beaten me.

"How do you imagine a building? You consciously create each aspect, puzzling it over in stages… But sometimes, when your imagination flies-"

"I'm discovering it." I say realizing, the buildings in a dream you never really pay much attention to it. But the mind created it, without even my own self conscious.

"Exactly. Genuine inspiration." He takes the napkin that's by my glass of lemonade, and starts to draw a circle made with two arrows, "In a dream your mind continuously does that… It creates a world simultaneously. So well you don't feel your brain doing the creating. That's why we can short-circuit the process."

"How?" I ask, my mind absorbing all the information Cobb is feeding me. I take it on like a test, I want to try to figure it out, but he's making it a little bit more difficult then in some cases, for example I think by my mind creating the architecture in a dream, I never hardly realize that I'm doing it. He's just sliding in a bunch of fancy words, I figure.

"By taking over the creating part." He draws a line straight through the two arrows. "This where you come in. You build the world of the dream. We take the subject into the dream, and let him fill it with his subconscious." Why would I do that? I wonder,

"But are you trying to fool him that the dream is actually real life?" Cobb nods, his sorrowful eyes are gleaming. He's found me, like I'm his prey.

"While were in there, we don't want him to know he's dreaming.

"How could I ever get enough detail to convince him it's…real?" I ask, my had already starting to pound with ideas, but the trick is to create it. How will I do it? Oh, why did I have to be the top student in my class? Why did I have to such a stupid logical mind! Cobb smiles, then gestures around us.

"Our dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up that we realize things are strange," I look at him astonished, then start a lecture.

"But all the textures of real life- the stone, the fabric. Cars…people… Your mind can't create this." I look at him skeptically, he just tilts his heads. Then sighs,

"It does. Every time you dream. Let me ask you a question: You never remember the beginning of you dreams, do you? You just turn up in the middle of what's going on."

"I guess…" Still not able to wrap mind around the fact that this guy wants me to create a dream, so detailed the subject can't even know himself it's dream. Most of the time I found out in my sleep it's a dream, you have your normal thoughts and your dreaming thoughts. But my dreams are never detailed, but usually they skip around to weird pictures and scenes. I never know what is real and what is fake.

"So…how did we end up at this restaurant?" He says, his face lifting into a sneaky smile.

"We came here from…" I trail off, and start running my mind for an answer, we came from…we came from the college…no we took a taxi up here to central Paris…no! Ug how did we get here?

"How did we get here? Where are we?" Cobb insists, his impatience starts to make me struggle to remember even worse. I hear a loud sound come from behind him. I look and see a building is starting to collapse.

"Oh my God! We're dreaming!" I exclaim, Cobb nods then the I see the building's rumbling is growing louder.

"Stay calm. We're actually asleep back at the workshop. This is your first lesson on shared dreaming, remember?" I start to look around, anxiety rising in my chest. I see Cobb brace himself for what happens next, the buildings bricks start to fly. The market's fruit flies at me, furniture is destroyed the scene is chaotic. Time slows my hair whips slowly and Cobb moves in a slowed reaction, so his words don't exactly line up with his words. I can't hear him, so I shout over the cracking, and breaking, a plate flies at my head. I duck it.

"If this is just a dream, why are you covering you-" I'm cut off by the massive blast of the buildings, the bricks and metal frame flies at me. I scream and try to save myself, but it's too late.

I wake up suddenly. I look around Arthur's at my side. I see his calm face, and his beautiful black eyes and I stare into them. They calm my heart, my breath becomes slower and he laughs. It's like music to my soul.

"Because it's never just a dream." Cobb answers my question from back in the dream." Arthur stands up and walks over to a table and starts to look over some paper work. "And a face full of glass hurts like hell, doesn't it? While were in it, it's real." Arthur returns back to my side and sits down.

"That's why the military developed a dream sharing-a program where soldiers could strangle, stab, and shoot each other, and then wake up." Arthur says his eyes meet mine and for a second he's silent, I ask more to him then Cobb.

"How did the architects get involved?" Cobb answers,

"Someone had to design their dreams. Let's go another five minutes," He says to Arthur, who nods.

"We were only asleep for five minutes? But we talked for at least a hour…" I say, my heart racing.

"When you dream, your mind functions more quickly, so time seems to pass more slowly."

"Five minutes in the real world, gives you a hour to dream." Arthur says, he looks at me. Once more for the fifth time that day he makes me feel so uncomfortable under those midnight dark eyes. Cobb smiles at me, then says:

"Let's see how much trouble you can cause in five minutes." I give him a smirk, then I close my eyes and dream…

Cobb walks about the crowed streets looking approvingly. His eyes swipe over the café, the market, the bakery, then the table, and the flower shop. "It's good. You've got the café, the layout… You forgot the book shop but pretty much everything else is here." I look at the pedestrians,

"Who are the people?"

"They're projections of my subconscious."

"Yours?" I ask, all along I thought it was my dream, guess not.

"Sure-you are the dreamer, I am the subject. My subconscious populates your world. That's one way we get a subject's thoughts- his mind creates the people, so we literally talk to his subconscious."

"How else do you do it?" Cobb pauses for a second, looking into the distance. Then looks back at me,

"Architecture. Build a bank vault or a jail, something secure, and the subject's mind will fill it with information it's trying protect." I nodded in understanding,

"Then you break in and steal it." I say.

"Exactly." I look at the street, then concentrate on it.

"I love the concrete sense of things," I stamp my boot against the cement, "Real weight, you know? I thought a dream space would be all about visual, but it's the feel of things. Question is what happens when you start to mess with physics…" I stare at the street my mind focusing in on it. My head looking at the angle, the stones engraved in it. I force the dynamics of the road to a upward level, and to my surprise it worked. The buildings on either side of the street stay planted to the ground, cars keep driving up the street and climb up the straight upward climb without any trouble. I look p at the people walking normally as gravity holds it down, I feel Cobb's eyes on me in my excitement. "It's something, isn't it?" I say admiring my own work.

"Yes. It is." He says quietly, I turn and look at him. His face is torn, then we walk up the incline. I notice the subconscious are staring at me, meanly, almost ferociously.

"Why are they looking at me?" I say, feeling quite uncomfortable, at their stares.

"Because you're changing things. My subconscious feels that someone else is creating the world. The more you change things, the quicker they converge on you." The word stops me straight in my tracks, and I look at him suspiciously.

"Converge?"

"They feel the foreign nature of the dreamer, and attack like white blood cells to an infection." My mouth drops, my heart starts to pound,

"Their going to attack us!" I exclaim,

"Just you, actually." He says calmly, like the death of me is nothing. We walk on, then we approach a river. As I approach steps emerge from the flagstone, as I lead Cobb up a small jetty, I concentrate on the pillars and they emerge, and a bridge starts to a telescope, out from the jetty. We step onto it, Cobb looks at me very impressed. "It's beautiful…but if you keep on changing things…" As I cross the bridge, more of Cobb's subconscious start to look at me more furiously. Many of them bump into my solider; I look at them and give them dirty looks right back at them.

"Mind telling your subconscious to take it easy." I say, annoyance rising in my tone. The bridge I created now spans across the Seine. Cobb looks at with wonder and awe, I'm encouraged by the look on his face. I walk on leaving Cobb behind,

"Arched stone, iron pillars, it's…it's…" He pauses for a second, but I ignore him. "I know this bridge. This place is real- You didn't imagine it, you remembered it." I nod,

"I cross it everyday on my way to the college." I say simply.

"Never recreate places from your memory. Always imagine new places." He says urgently.

"You have to draw from what you know." He tenses,

"Use pieces- a street lamp, phone booths, a type of brick, not whole areas." He says, his eyes darting, to the projections, I myself became very nervous that I had done something very wrong.

"Why not?" Panic rising in my chest.

"Because building dreams out of your own memories is the surest way to lose your grip on what's real and what's the dream." He looked me straight in the eyes, his own panic mirroring my own.

"Did that happen you?" I ask, my question striking him, hard. He was off guard, and I didn't mean to say that so rudely, but he had a reason for saying that.

"Look this isn't about me," He reaches for my arm, and turns me to him. I see his eyes are truly hurting.

"Is that why you need me to build your dreams?" A pedestrian grabs my shoulder, I yelp.

"Leave her alone!" Cobb yells, he holds me protectively. But more people surround me, they pull at me, my hair, my face, and even my feet. Then I see a gorgeous woman snap across the bridge, her curly hair waves in the breeze then she runs at me.

"Wake me up, Cobb." I say, he can't there are too many of them. As the woman walks she pulls out a knife.

"Mal, no!" Cobb shouts, and tries to get through the hoards of people, but he can't they block him in.

"Wake me up!" I screech, but then she plunges the blade into my stomach.

I awaken in a cold sweat, once more Arthur is standing next to me. He gently pushes a piece of hair out of my face. I look at him in dear, but his eyes so warm and smart, calm me. I'm not sure I can do this, but his eyes assure me I can…

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Comprenez-vous

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Простите

שמח

mijn vriend

आज मेरा जन्मदिन हैं.

Hjelp!

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Ich bin vierzig Jahre alt

¿Cómo estás?

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Comment allez-vous ?

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Buongiorno Principessa!

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Vær så snill

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Es ist sehr interessant!

さようなら

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Je parle un petit peu français.

La voiture

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