"Life is never easy for those who dream." –Robert James Walter
Jason- Chicago, IL
I sat across the table from Darcy, trying to steel my nerves as best I could. She looked calm, if not bored as we talked over our negotiations with our client. I didn't want to look weak compared to her. I'm five years her senior and had always considered myself brave, tough as nails. Even when I was first introduced to the dream world, I was level-headed. That's why I run point. But Darcy's been doing this since she was a little kid. Nothing fazes her, nothing shakes her.
"Miss Gilligan, I must say, this proposal is tempting, and your price is as reasonable as they come…" Our client, Christopher Larson, was rubbing a hand over his bald scalp, silently weighing his options.
"I can assure you, Mr. Larson, that our team is the best there is at performing Inception. We have a successful track record of nearly fifty cases, which I have included in this file for your review." Darcy said, nodding at Larson, her expression weary, as if she had told him this a hundred times. His lips twitched as if he were restraining himself.
"It's only that… I've never heard of you, Miss Gilligan. Or you, Mr. Reynolds, for that matter," he said, flashing me a brief look. "The only successful Inception I've ever heard of was performed not even a month ago by Mr. Cobb and his team." I saw a quick flash of anger cross Darcy's face.
"Truly successful Inception is never publically announced, or even slightly perceptible." Darcy said, her face coloring slightly. "The public eye should never be able to detect it unaided, but if I may give you an example of our work…" She reached into her briefcase and pulled out a manila folder that looked identical to all the others she had provided Larson with. I wondered how she kept them all straight.
"The Martian- Schroder case. Do you remember when Cobalt Corporations had that massive stock-drop last November? That was our work," Darcy said, a little proudly. I remembered that. We'd made their company VP think that the company president was embezzling and he started this whole public feud. I was especially proud because it was my idea.
Larson looked shocked. He looked back and forth between me and Darcy. I knew what he was thinking. We were kids. Young, definitely not that powerful in corporate espionage.
"That's not possible," he said. It sounded like he was daring us to say otherwise.
"Believe it, Mr. Larson." Darcy said. She checked her pocket watch, an old heirloom from her dad. "I'm sorry, but our time here is up. Here's my card. Give me a call if you want to hire." Darcy said. It didn't matter that I couldn't see the face of the watch, I'd never seen it before and I wouldn't know how to read it. It would be ticking backwards. Darcy stood up and straightened out her pencil skirt and tugged on the cuffs of her white blouse. She looked professional. But there was no hiding that she was still only eighteen years old.
Slow, quiet music began to play, Mozart's Concerto for Two Pianos. Darcy looked at me sharply. I knew it too. We had too much time left on the clock, at least six minutes left in this dream. Larson's subconscious was not especially well trained, but we'd been in this dream for nearly two hours, they'd definitely taken notice.
As we left the room, Darcy handed me her briefcase. I fished the gun out of it, then dropped the briefcase in a trashcan. I noticed we had a tail and nudged Darcy slightly. She gave an almost imperceptible nod. She noticed. She'd probably noticed ages ago. I saw her pull a gun out of her skirt. Where the hell had she had room for that? I made a mental note to ask her later.
She turned abruptly down a hallway and then, shedding her high-heels, up a staircase. We ducked into a little alcove. She stood facing me, shielding me in a way, as my back was against a wall.
"Should I shoot you first?" She asked courteously.
"No, no, I can do it," I assured her. She looked disbelievingly at me. I had had trouble with this before. Even in a dream, it's really hard to convince yourself to shoot yourself. It goes against instinct. And my instinct was still really strong.
"Are you sure? Last time…" she trailed off. We both remembered last time. She'd let me kill her first and I'd ended up getting shot in the shoulder by the projections because I'd waited too long. It had hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before, so I decided to ditch my pride.
"Right, you shoot me," I said. I closed my eyes and I heard her remove the safety. But before she fired, she let out a strangled scream. I opened my eyes and she was on the floor, clutching her side where she'd been shot. In a matter of seconds, I shot her in the head and she stopped moving. Nathan was going to kill me for that. But I had bigger problems. Like Larson's entire subconscious pointing guns at me. I closed my eyes and pressed the gun to my own head. I couldn't do it.
I opened my eyes and saw that Darcy was already removing Larson's lead and Nathan was collecting all of our stuff. I was on my side on the floor in the operating room. We had been in his head while he underwent a minor shoulder surgery.
"Shit, Dar, I'm so sorry," I said, getting to my feet. She looked at me sharply.
"Don't be sorry, Jason." She chastised me.
"I just can't shoot myself." I said miserably.
"It'll come with time. Until that time comes, we have the kick." She said patiently. God, she was being more tolerant with me than I deserved.
"And trust me, I don't mind giving you the kick," Nathan interjected from across the room.
"I know you don't," I said a little grumpily. Nathan is our architect and Darcy's older cousin. He stuffed a wad of bills into the doctor's hand. Then he gave the doctor a small envelope that I knew contained our calling card.
"Put it on his bedside before he wakes up. Don't let anyone else open it." Nathan instructed. The doctor looked doubtful, but Nathan slid another bill into his coat pocket. Probably a hundred. The doctor gave him a blissful smile and nodded.
"Nathan, we gotta go. Now." Darcy instructed the architect. He didn't like being bossed around by her, but he seemed to agree with this.
"Jason, let's go," Nathan instructed me. I closed up our custom-black case with the sedatives and followed them both out. No one spoke until we got into the car, but I could see that Darcy kept looking at her pocket watch. I was sure that it was ticking forwards again. It was her totem, and it only ran right in the real world.
When we got in the car, I slid into the passenger seat and Darcy made herself comfortable in the back. She immediately began rifling through her backpack while muttering angrily to herself.
"Dammed Dom Cobbs, asshole thinks that he can do Inception once and own the damn business..." She said. I saw Nathan frown. He disapproved of her language. But she was so concretely profane, that he never bothered to correct her.
"Do you want to go back, Dar?" Nathan asked her. She checked her pocket watch again and did some figuring.
"It's seventh period now. It takes like, forty-five minutes to get back… Nah, I'm a senior. Seniors skip out on school all the time." It always slipped my mind that Darcy was still in high school. She didn't seem like a high school student. She acted like a thirty-year-old business person- an efficient machine.
"Alright. The workshop then?" He asked, turning right out onto a busy street. Darcy checked her watch yet again.
"No. I'm actually meeting with someone." Nathan scowled.
"Who?"
"Let's just say that if the meeting goes well, we'll have a forger on the team. Rumor is that he knows a damn good druggist too." Darcy said complacently. Nathan looked unhappy that she'd be doing this solo, but he didn't argue.
"Where do you need to be dropped off?"
"The Corner Bakery on Third and Jefferson," Darcy said dismissively, going through some papers from her backpack. Nathan pulled a U-turn at the next intersection and we sped towards the designated destination. I looked back a couple of times but Darcy was so completely immersed in her work that she didn't seem to notice. I doubted what she was working on was for school, so I tried to peek. She noticed this, and flattened the papers to her chest, scowling at me.
"Turn around," she said stiffly. I held my hands in the air to indicate my innocence and turned to face forward again, only sharing a small grimace with Nathan.
"Darcy, who are you meeting with?" Nathan asked as we neared the bakery. She raised her eyebrows.
"That's classified, Nate."
"Yeah, but I'm your cousin. Not to mention I'm your architect," Nathan said.
"I'm point man," I interjected hopefully.
"Shut up Jason." Darcy snapped at me. She then turned a calmer face on Nathan. "I can't tell you until I know I've got the forger hired for the Weinstein- Elmendorf case. That's all I'm saying." Darcy said. She pulled a few textbooks out of her backpack and replaced them with identical manila folders and a .22. I don't know many eighteen year olds who would arm themselves like that, but in this case, I was glad that she was taking the gun.
As we pulled up, she slid out of the back and slammed the door behind her. She motioned for me to roll down my window. I did as I was instructed.
"Come back to pick me up in an hour. If I call you earlier, it's bad news so you better get here fast. If you're late, I'll start walking." Darcy said. She checked her silver pocket watch again and gave us both a nervous smile as an apology for not telling us what the hell was happening.
"Thanks guys. I promise, whether this works out or not, I'll tell you all about it after." She assured us. Neither of us was especially moved by this act which Darcy clearly considered charitable. When no one reacted to her offer, she gave the side of the car a slap to say "all clear" and she strutted into the bakery. I looked to Nathan, and he looked pissed.
"She was out of line, Nate," I promised him, to assure him I was on his side.
"She's eight-fucking-teen. I'm thirty-three and I'm acting like her bitch, just because she's a fucking god in the dream world. Out here, I'm the boss of her." He said. It sounded more like he was talking to himself than he was talking to me.
"We should go back and meet the forger with her." I suggested.
"I should go back and meet the forger," he repeated. I shook my head.
"No, no, we should go-"
"Shut up." Nathan said. He pulled another U-turn and headed back towards the bakery. I sulked in my seat the whole way there. When we pulled up, he was lucky enough to get a spot right in front of the door. When he turned off the car, he looked at me.
"Stay in the car," he told me. I waited until he was through the bakery door.
"Stay in the car, my ass," I muttered. As I entered the bakery, I was met by a pale-faced Nathan. At first I thought he was going to chew me out for following him, but then I saw that he was truly distraught.
"She's not here." He said, his voice high and panicked.
"Shit, no way. We dropped her off less than ten minutes ago," I said. I pulled my phone out of my pocket to see if she had called. Nothing. Nathan did the same and got the same result.
"Where the hell is she?" Nathan asked me in a low voice.
"Maybe she's meeting him somewhere else. We should just wait here," I suggested, trying to keep a cool head. The kid had brought a .22 pistol in her backpack. I had a hard time believing that she was the one in trouble.
But an hour passed, and there was no sign of Darcy. At Nathan's request, we stayed there for hours. We couldn't contact the police about a thief going missing, even though it was likely that she didn't disappear of her own free will. Darcy Gilligan was, after all, worth millions, dead or alive.
A/N: I know, I know, I'll bring in the original chracters in the next chapter, I promise. I just wanted to give a basis of who the original characters are.
Reviews are encouraged, and *constructive* cristicism is welcome!