Everyone has their own way of dreaming, their habits. Ariadne's dreams are always beautiful, elaborate and calculated. Arthur likes to think it's because of her artistic training, but it's not. Maybe it's the other way around. The way her subconscious functions could have naturally made her choose an artistic career. She's good at what she does, and her lips taste insecurity and doubt. It's a shame Arthur probably won't see her again.
The Fischer job had been a disaster. Arthur wishes he had talked Cobbs out of it sometimes. They could have called it a mixed result, a truly enlightening experience or the reason why they should never, ever bring tourists on jobs like these. Inception is the kind of unrealistic thing Cobbs somehow manages to make happen. Arthur still believes it is impossible. Robert Fischer had had this look of mild insecurity in his eyes when he left the air plane and everyone had received their share. No question were asked.
The television talks of hurricane and economy. It's incredibly boring and Arthur barely pays attention to it. He's drinking to himself, his eyes wandering out the window. It's raining over New York today. His hands are fumbling the little red dice.
He remembers Saito's dreams, their simplicity. Mazes made of grey concrete, large, infinite white buildings. Ariadne hated to work with them, Arthur could see the look of deception in her eyes every time they woke up from one of them. She liked Yusuf's crowded cities and tropical jungles, how realistic they felt. Trained extractors like Cobbs and himself had boring, generic dreams. It came with the experience, although Eames was different.
Eames dreams weren't special in themselves. They had that bland look and small details that somehow made them realistic. A tendency to be outdoor locations, too. No, no, the thing that made Eames' subconscious so special was his projections.
As he sits next to the window, Arthur remembers one particular dream, the Museum one. Ariadne had the most extraordinary visual memory, and he had surprised himself recognizing some of the sculptures showcased in the gallery. He simply walked around, not touching, not changing anything. He wanted to see how good Ariadne was with paradoxical architecture. Cobbs had to teach Yusuf and Saito some basic notions about the technical part of dream-sharing and Eames' subconscious was the best when it came to track down intruders.
He reminds sitting down, looking out the window. The gallery seemed infinite, Ariadne had learned her lesson, and every painting had something that made it captivating. She was a natural, like Cobbs, picking it up right away. Arthur hadn't been as good as her during his first experience of dream-sharing. He had worked to get where he now was.
His line of thoughts got distracted by some Chinese tourist's camera flash. He lifted his eyes toward the crowd surrounding him. It was the first time Arthur ever paid attention to Eames projections.
They had worked on other jobs together before, but it was the first time Arthur had actually seen them. Normal projections have their dream-like way of walking around, something weird in their eyes. They're never truly realistic in the eye the skilled extractor. Those people, the one that populated Eames' subconscious seemed ordinary, but, when you paid attention to it, they stood out from anything Arthur had ever witnessed. They seemed so real, and every one of them had those tiny little details that made them unique, a personal way of standing, a certain smile or an different overall attitude.
He doesn't know how long exactly he had sat there, avidly looking at a group of Asian students examining a painting or a father and daughter interacting in a perfect imitation of reality. Maybe an hour, maybe less. Then, at one point, a flash a dark hair had caught the corner of his eyes and he looked at himself.
Arthur was wearing his light brown pants and his stripped white shirt. It looked clean and, even from the distance, he could see the crisp line of ironing on his collar. He liked this trench coat very much, the way it made him look somewhat taller. The tie was nice, too, although obviously not his favourite. He remembered wearing the same ensemble last week, when he spent the day building and organizing his file on Fischer's father.
He definitely stood the same way he usually did, his back a little stiff and his shoulders straight. He looked at the paintings, his hands in his pockets. Through the small gap between his hand and the fabric, Arthur could see the glittering of his gold watch.
His eyes met his reflexion. His reflexion smiled, and, for a moment, Arthur could have sworn it was Eames taking control of his own features.
Then, he had raised from his seat,walked past Eames' projection of himself and promptly shot himself in the head.
His cellphone ring tone is one of those annoying electronic sounds that barely classify as music. He never bothered to change it by pure laziness. He looks at it for a moment that seem to stretch over decades. His hand grips it, in a slow, fluid motion, and he finally answer.
OBECKO Alternatives Firm. This should be interesting.
Moscow tastes of shitty cigarettes and cheap vodka. It reeks of expensive prostitutes, ex-military now rich on oil money and high-class gangsters smuggling drugs, guns, people. Moscow has rules of its own, a way you have to stand when you walk in the street, a move of the wrist you have to do when you give your credit card to a salesman to pay for the most expensive suits known to man, a smile you have to make to persuade tall, slender eastern beauties to follow you in the backroom.
It would be a lie to say that Arthur hates Russia. He enjoys the long afternoons spent watching the public square from his hotel room, the ridiculously expensive Bolshoï tickets, the taste of sour cream and the sound of a language he has yet to fully master. What Arthur truly hates is the Russians.
He hates the self-importance of the old, fat man who wants him to find out if his wife is having an affair, like if dream-sharing was a gadget, a fancy way of playing private detective. He hates the lame jokes, the hours it takes for them to finally tell him what the want him to do. He hates the way the gorillas surrounding him look at him with disdain, because he's a fucking American and they probably haven't completed their primary education. He hates the money, the hypocrisy of it all, the falseness of the gifts they keep sending him for him to work for them on a more regular basis.
Cobbs never worked with the Mafia on principle. Cobbs had kids, had had a wife and things he actually cared about in his life. While Arthur isn't pessimistic enough to say he had nothing to lose, he, unlike Cobbs, truly doesn't care about the consequences of any of the jobs he had ever participated in. The thrill of the extraction, the carefully laid-out plans, the infinite possibilities of the dream, that's what keeps him going. He doesn't really need the money, but a bit of extra is always nice and helps him to keep the most perfectly unaffordable wardrobe.
They do pay well, and most of the time, their demands are simple enough. The ask for names, places, numbers, the same thing they all want, all the Cobol Engineering and Marston Global. Working for illegal groups is often simpler than working for corporations. The hired hit-men they send after you are easier to spot.
Arthur does what he's told. Goldberg is a good architect and it seems nearly too easy to just get in there and steal it. It's simple, simpler than any of the jobs he ever worked on with Cobbs. Still, it feels a bit odd when he sees the mark's splattered brain all over the news two days before his flight back to America. He doesn't want to stay here any longer.
Money comes in a sealed envelope, because that is the way people do things in Russia, and the sealed envelope comes in the hands of an awkward teenager with the most terrible accent Arthur has ever heard. He's wearing an ill-fitting grey suit and sunglasses, trying to make himself look tough. Middle-class gangsters tend to hide their ill-mannered habits earned from the street. He must be some underdog they use to send things to people, a pawn, from the way he stands, all hunched-over and not caring at all.
They talk for a moment, in the lobby of Arthur's hotel, and he thanks in poor English him for the job on the behalf of his boss. He's got a nice voice, that's what make his accent tolerable, and he speaks like he's singing. After a while, Arthur rises from his seat to leave but the boy stops him. For a moment, he gets to see his eyes over the rim of his glasses. They're blue.
They end up in a bar. Arthur unashamedly drinks girly drinks. He like the warmth of alcohol, the nice feeling of drunken numbness, but hates the taste of the vodka they sell here. It's cheap.
The first minutes are kind of weird. The boy desperately tries to speak in correct English, and fails. Arthur sighs and ends up answering him in Russian. There's a spark of something like relief in his eyes and suddenly tension between them completely disappear.
Arthur's Russian is not good, far from it, but he understands most of what he's told. The boy's name is Evgevny. He's seventeen. He's the adopted son of one of the oligarchs that rule the country. That's the reason why he's allowed in the inner circles. Mr. Sochenkov is his uncle and doesn't know about what he is. He asked him to go give the money. He asked him because he wanted to see the American.
It's brutally honest, and Arthur is already a bit inebriated and they kiss against the wall of the back-alley, the autumn wind sending shivers down his spine. He likes the way Evgevny doesn't seem to know what he's doing, with his too large suit and unruly hair. It reminds him of himself, some years ago, before dream-sharing and corporate spying. He's not very good at this kissing thing, no teenage boy ever is good at it, but Arthur is too drunk to care.
When Evgevny shyly moves his hands somewhere Arthur is pretty sure is not exactly legal for him to enjoy, at least in the United States, he pulls away and shakes his head. No matter how much he wishes he could bring himself to, he doesn't do boys.
"Maybe when you're older, Zhenya."
The ride back to the hotel feels like a dream, a real, natural dream, not those PASIV-made artificial worlds. Lights shine in the surrealistic painting that is Russia at night.
There's a message for him when he finally gets there. The receptionist presents him a white paper with his name written on it. Arthur doesn't even have to open it to know who it's from. He places it next to the brown envelope for the last job. He then proceeds to stare at it for a moment, not knowing if he should open it or not. He starts with the money, carefully counts it, recounts it, put it back in its envelope. While opening the letter, his fingers shake. Eames only wrote a single sentence.
Just be back before the kick.
Arthur isn't surprised when Saito calls him for another job. He's a good businessman, and he is aware that the PASIV is pretty much the best weapon he could ever use against his competitors. The flight to Kyoto is a long one, and he doesn't see Saito until the second day after his arrival. Arthur hates jet-lag.
The meeting feels like a date, mainly because Saito is being obnoxiously rich and takes him to the most fancy and expensive restaurant he can get his hands on. The place has a pretty name Arthur is completely unable to pronounce and the waitress who takes his order smiles too much. They serve something that looks like French cuisine, although it's obviously heavily influenced by its Japanese surroundings. Fusion gastronomy or something like that. The onion soup they serve him tastes of miso and seaweeds. It's actually pretty good and Arthur knows better than to complain.
"Do you know if Cobbs will take the job ?"
He's not asking for Inception, thank God, he knows better than that now, but Arthur feels a trap. Saito wants to know the new prototype released by one of his competitor, a Korean firm. He wants the best for it, because Saito has money and he can afford the best, and Cobbs is the best.
"Cobbs is retired now," Arthur says in a calm voice. "He's gone back to architecture. You won't persuade him."
Saito smiles, one of those half-smiles that are not exactly there.
"You do such things in your business of extraction ? Retire ?"
"Cobbs is off-limits, Saito."
The man has a point, and Arthur is well aware that no one can truly go back to a normal, boring life after working as an extractor. He knows from Cobbs phonecalls that he misses it, but he also knows that Cobbs will never go back to that, never to the fear of being killed by Cobol or Pilados or TransMedia, and never to a job that would separate him from his children. Cobbs is off-limits, because Arthur doesn't want him to go back to that poisonous dream of Mal.
Saito's grin fades and Arthur hopes that he has somehow understood. He can get the job done more efficiently than anyone else on the dream-sharing market, but he's not going to ask Cobbs for help, not now and not ever.
They discuss of the specifications, and the foie gras on rice crisps is surprisingly delicious. Park Hyung-Chow, the mark, is the youngest daughter of the owner of Hyunasung and head of the applied sciences division. She looks like a serious woman, from the picture, with her rectangular glasses and clean-cut pencil skirt and jacket.
Arthur watches her again, when he's alone in his room. Saito's hotel. Asshole always had to buy entire fucking companies. The business dinner went better than expected. Arthur didn't look at the note. The champagne was cheap, but he knows better than to expect quality wine from Saito who never drinks anything but sake.
Hyung-Chow. She has something uneasy in the way she stands. Eames would know why. Arthur closes his eyes. He wondered if, really, really, calling Eames would be a good choice. He's a good thief. He's an excellent forger, the best he knows. While Arthur still has to work on the specifics of the heist, he is well aware that Eames would be a good choice for a partner. Saito knows him, trusts him, and Arthur knows that having Saito's trust and respect might be a good thing if he ever hopes of convincing him of not playing tourist again.
His cellphone lies next to him, on the bedside table. He should call Eames. He's not going to.
There's a fleeting moment while which Arthur wonders why they never properly fucked, him and Eames. Drunken blowjobs do not count as proper sex. It seemed like the logical course of action. Eames only liked women as abstract concepts and Arthur knew how to be flexible. It should have happened, in all honesty. They had plenty of time, plenty of money in Arthur's bank account and plenty of glorious drug-induced dreams Eames navigated through, alone, in his huge, empty apartment in Paris.
Arthur remembers cornering him, asking him why, why, why did he forge him, why was his forgery of him that fucking good and who the fuck did Eames think he was to mock him like that. He remembers the cold touch of metal against his hand, because Arthur didn't kill people in real life, he paid people to do it for him, but that day had been a special day and guns were that little specific argument that made people tell the truth.
"He's a beauty, isn't he darling ?"
Arthur clenches his left fist at the thought of Eames' grin. He calls Sören.