Disclaimer: If I were as brilliant as Nolan or Whedon, I'd own the rights to things like this and I'd have enough money to get myself a PVR. Or a better apartment.
A/n: I've been working on this idea since I first saw Inception and have been petrified that someone was going to get their Firefly crossover idea up first. I initially thought it would be an easy, quick little oneshot (as the basic idea seemed so simple and obvious to me) but I struggled greatly with how to present everything in a non-giant-information-dump type way, so here's my attempt, which hopefully ended up being sufficiently creepy. :) I relied heavily on Ariel and especially the BDM (and its script, found online). And it's very long, but enjoy!
"Two by two, hands of blue," River whispered as footsteps sounded quietly far down the hall outside her room. "They're coming."
Jonahs was not new to science or to the technology of Extraction and Shared Dreaming, or even Blue Sun, so it irritated him that it was mandatory to sit through the Orientation with twenty others who were clearly more green than he was. The guy on Jonahs' right, for example, was taking notes in a shiny notebook labeled none-too-subtley Krick Richardson, and had actually asked him for an explanation on Inception. Jonahs had shaken his head and not replied.
Still, he had to at least look like he was paying attention and interested. He didn't want to be perceived as arrogant or lazy (though he would have to give them the arrogant part, he supposed) and especially not on his first day as a new analyst. He was, after all, planning to climb the ladder here at top speed and be running the place in couple years.
With a suppressed sigh, he tuned back in to the tall, thin woman giving the lecture.
"The concept of Extraction at its most basic is a team of specialized individuals who break into a subject's subconscious and dreams, and essentially steal their secrets. Though it had been used primarily for corporate espionage and military training exercises to this point, the technology began to become too well known and counter measures were swiftly developed."
As she spoke, the screen behind and to the left of her changed images. At times showing graphs and charts, other times various images relating to whatever she was talking about at that moment.
"Chemicals to neutralize any sedatives began to be given out like virus vaccines, and teams were sabotaged and dismantled. Psychologists and psychoanalysts developed ways to protect the mind from the process of Extraction or the less common but more difficult process of Inception."
Krick, the guy beside Jonahs, raised his hand.
"Yes?"
"Could you please elaborate on the concept of Inception?" Krick asked.
Jonahs wanted to shout at him. How did they even let you in the door if you didn't know stuff like this? What a backbirth!
The woman nodded. "Inception is the process of planting ideas and secrets as opposed to stealing them. It is more dangerous, as it requires teams to bury much deeper into a subject's mind and there is always the chance that the implanted idea won't take."
She waited politely for a moment while Krick furiously jotted down what she'd said before continuing.
"Though there were some pockets of underground experimentalists who continued pushing the boundaries of Shared Dreaming, for the most part the technology died off from being too common and then too easily combated. It's only been in the last decade or so, when the military seized some of these underground experimentalists, that the technology has become relevant again."
Jonahs sat up a little in his seat, finally actually feeling interested. Now we're getting to the good part. He thought.
"Together with the covert operations branch of the military, Blue Sun Corporation has selected you as the future of the Shared Dreaming technology. You are here to complete research and training and to develop the technology in ways that a few decades ago, we couldn't have even imagined." Here the woman smiled, as if genuinely thrilled with the prospect. "You will have the freedom to expand on Extraction and Inception in the comfort of a brand new research facility, located in the same building as the prestigious Academy for the Gifted. We will pass out your Orientation kits and then the leaders will show you to your quarters."
Various men and women in equally smart clothing as the speaker came forward from the back of the room and began handing out packets containing various pamphlets and other more relevant things. Jonahs stashed his package in his bag without looking at it – he wanted to get to his quarters and start sketching out ideas at once. He had plenty, after all, and now they were finally going to be put to use.
"Blue Sun thanks you." the woman smiled, repeated the phrase in Chinese, and gave them a tiny bow before she retreated off the stage.
They watched her with critical eyes, stone-faced. She trembled in the chair, full of fear, and then they put her under. She jostled slightly under the restraints and the read-outs showed that the scientists were in complete control of her dreams.
The assistant turned a few dials and sat back and they watched as the dream they had started merged with the girl's own memories and projections.
"Fascinating, isn't it?"
The two men with the blue hands nodded in sync.
Of course there were other reasons to think of an alternative anyways, but Jonahs would be lying if he said his main motivation wasn't so he could stop jabbing the IV needle in his arm. He was sore and bruised and convinced that there had to be a less archaic way of inducing Shared Dreams.
His eyes were red-rimmed, his hair a mess and he was surrounded by a pile of crumpled papers when his roommate, the ever-thick Krick Richardson (it never ceased to amaze Jonahs that not only had Krick stayed in the program, but remained a half-decent analyst), got up to use the facilities sometime around oh-three-hundred hours.
Krick squinted blearily in the low light of the lamp. He muttered something indiscernible before saying louder, "Why are you still up?"
"Because I'm going to devise a way to create the lucid dreaming state without having to be in it."
Krick stared for a minute than snorted, mumbling in Chinese, "That's impossible."
"For you and your very limited imagination, perhaps." Jonahs snapped.
"You have to be in the dream to create it, Jonahs, that's how it works. There always has to be a Dreamer and an Architect so that there is projections and a setting for them to be in. And you call me the backbirth."
"There is a way. I just have to think of it."
Krick shook his head. "This isn't a gorram game, you know. This – what Blue Sun is trying to do here, is very serious work that is going to help a lot of people."
Poor, naive fool. Jonahs thought with a smile. Then it hit him.
"Game..." he said aloud.
Krick waved him off in disgust, grumbling a few choice insults in Chinese before he continued on to the bathroom.
Jonahs didn't even hear when his roommate went back to bed, as he was too busy coming up with the breakthrough of the century.
"So, as you can see, sir, the headset is vaguely modeled off one of those virtual reality games. What we've managed to do is mix the concept of a game, where the player is immersed in a world that feels real, with the technology behind Shared Dreaming. From the headset, we inject sedatives and pharmaceuticals directly into the brain and use these dials and keyboards over here to direct the exact nature of the dream."
The taller man wearing the blue gloves lifted his chin slightly.
The shorter one's features moved just a touch to imply the hint of a smile. "Impressive."
Being promoted was a great thing on its own, of course, but not having to share quarters with the rule-adhering and painfully average Krick was almost as good. The less Jonahs would have to hear his former roommate whining about human experimentation, the better.
"I'm just not sure it's really... right," Krick would mumble.
Jonahs would roll his eyes in response. "This is what we signed up for."
"Yeah, but... it's just all secret, you know? I mean, it'd be another thing if they knew what they were getting into, but it's like... well, it's under false pretenses and then we're basically trapping them, with monitored contact only and... well..."
At this point Jonahs would either doggedly ignore the moral dilemma his roommate was facing or snap something along the lines of, "Then leave, Krick, if you can't stomach it. There'll be more room for those of us trying to change the future."
To be fair, he hadn't honestly expected them to be experimenting on people so soon, and especially young students who came to the Academy to learn, not be lab rats. Still, it was "for the greater good" and all that – discovering technology for Blue Sun and the Alliance. A few casualties along the way was to be expected, he supposed. That's how it always went through history, and this, he figured, was no different.
"Sir, it's been terminated again."
Jonahs slammed his fist on the console in frustration. It was the fourth time in a row, the ninth time in two days, that a session had to be started over because the subject's projections were getting out of hand. The stronger the mind, he'd found through testing on a variety of the 'verse's brightest and best at the Academy, the stronger and more disruptive the projections.
"Run it again," he commanded. "Up the amount of delcium by 50 cc's."
A compound of his own making, delcium was an extremely powerful chemical that basically gave control of the mind completely over to the headset embedded in the subject's skull. In the most gifted subjects, however, they were proving semi-resistant to the compound. They metabolized it too quickly and their subconscious held on, so the projections were out of the scientists' control. It was proving to be a terribly irritating little speed bump.
The subject in the chair, one Orion Li, had a particularly difficult mind to crack. According to the various professors at the Academy, he tested higher than any of his classmates in practically every single test and had borderline psychic tendencies. Jonahs had been excited to work with him, for though the stronger the mind, the bigger the problems tended to be, the flip side was that the stronger the mind, the more resilient the subject was and the harder Jonahs could push. It was exhilarating.
Li twitched and jolted in the chair, unconsciously fighting the drug.
Jonahs eyes watched all the read-outs on the array of screens before him and then began typing furiously, directly the dream and trying to get some of his suggestions to take hold.
A loud beeping to Jonahs' right warned of the instability of Li's dream.
"Sir, it's collapsing," an assistant reported unnecessarily.
Jonahs held up a finger briefly. "I know, I know,"
The beeping grew more insistent and Li's body jerked against the bindings holding him to the chair.
"Sir - "
"Give him more delcium!"
"Sir, he's had the maximum amount we've safely tested - "
"Now!"
Jonahs' hands flew across the slim keyboard as his assistant complied and injected more delcium into the tube snaking out from the headset embedded in Li.
Safely tested, being the keyword, Jonahs thought. They simply hadn't had to use this much before – though, admittedly, research indicated unfavorable results could occur should too much be used. He was willing to risk it, however, because if it worked, then Li would be the first test subject to learn specific facts and motions while under in a lucid dream as opposed to learning them in real life. It would open up a whole new world of possibilities...
Li's mind, meanwhile, was doing its best to prevent this from happening. The projections were swarming, destroying the ideas and suggestions Jonahs was implanting as fast as he could put them in. He struggled to type faster and get some sort of control.
"More delcium!" he shouted, sweat beginning to bead on his forehead.
If he got this, if this worked...
Images of awards, money, a plaque on the wall...
The projections backed off momentarily while the delcium took hold, though Jonahs knew it would be brief. He whipped up complicated codes and simple ideas and mashed them into the setting of Li's dream, drew up projections of his own to translate...
"Add more, now," Jonahs demanded as the projections fought off the drug's effects.
"Sir..."
Li's body began seizing and alarms from all areas of the lab started going off.
Jonahs swore and tried to do damage control, pull out before they lost the subject – it'd happened to weaker ones before, though he usually could save the subject from terribly permanent damage.
Li's body was convulsing horribly and foam was coming out his mouth. There were flashing alarms and obnoxious beeping warnings everywhere and then all at once, everything went silent except a loud, flat beep – the sound of no heartbeat.
Jonahs slammed both fists on the console this time and swore repeatedly in English and Chinese. He'd lost Li.
His superiors were not going to be happy.
"And what of the projections?" asked the taller man. "Earlier reports from this lab spoke of... complications."
The doctor nodded. "Those have been taken care of. The drug itself wasn't enough, so we tried an experimental surgery on our best subject and the results were... rather outstanding."
"I'm not sure I understand," the woman said, cocking her head slightly to the right. She was the same woman who had, so many years ago, spoken on Jonahs' first day with Blue Sun at his Orientation. He now knew her as Dr. Areida.
"Which part would you like me to elaborate?" said Jonahs.
"Tam is the most sensational, most unique and advanced student we've ever received here. We thought Li was something and this girl... she makes Li look average." Dr. Areida removed her glasses and dangled them by the arm just in front of her on the table. "And you're telling me that you want to attempt a brand new surgery on her – one you thought up last night – and then try Advanced Inception?"
Jonahs was really finding her incredulous and borderline condescending tone quite grating, though he was careful not to show it. Had he not proven himself time and time again? Li was a mistake, of course, but it was one mistake. And of course it sounded semi-ludicrous when she said it in such terms.
"I've been developing the procedure for years," he explained, palms up and out as he spoke. "The only thing I realized last night, was the last piece of the puzzle, as it were. We overdosed Li with too much delcium in order to subdue all of his projections, and it wasn't the delcium that was the issue, it was the amygdala. What I'm proposing is a way to not only subdue the projections, but completely take them over."
"And this surgery will accomplish that?"
He had to fight not to sigh with irritation. He had already gone over it twice.
"Yes, I believe it will. In the brain, the amygdala works in conjunction with emotion and memory. It's effectively the source of the projections as the projections rely heavily on that part of the brain to be formed and react and so on. So stripping it, would essentially remove the... well, in layman's terms, the filter. We should therefore be able to directly manipulate the projections if we need to – or at least remove the factor that leads them to aggressively destroy anything we attempt to input."
Finally Areida appeared more interested than wary. "Would this allow us manipulate other aspects too – perhaps the subject's own memories?"
"In theory," Jonahs nodded. "And not only that, but we ought to be to put anything we want in there – thus the Advanced Inception part of this procedure, do you see?" He paused. "This is a far greater development than what we were doing with Li."
She jotted a few things down and then regarded him critically. "What are the risks – the possible side effects?"
He hesitated, not looking forward to sharing this part for fear he wouldn't get the go ahead.
"Because we would basically be removing her emotional control center, there is the chance of psychological instability, though we won't know how serious or severe until after the operation. With any luck, Tam's psychic tendencies will only be amplified by this procedure. But there is a chance we could... really screw her up. The stripping could cause her to lose sight of which is real, between her dreams and the real world, especially if we are inputting new memories to supplement her own. "
Areida replaced her glasses on her thin face. "I suppose that's a risk we will have to take."
They strapped her to the chair, they slid the probe in. She flinched, she wanted to get away, but there was no getting away. She slipped away to worlds that she had never seen before, saw people she had never met before. It wasn't hers – none of it. They filled her head with their things and it wasn't fair – it wasn't hers, she shouldn't have to carry their things.
"River, it's time to go."
She glanced up, clearly frightened. "I haven't finished my letter."
"It's time," repeated Jonahs, more firmly.
She hurriedly scribbled out a few more words and then stuffed the paper into an envelope. She approached Jonahs like he might abruptly lash out and harm her and handed him the letter gingerly.
"Please make sure my brother gets this." she said quietly.
"Of course," Jonahs smiled. "Don't I always?"
Once she was down the hall with the assistants, he opened the letter to make sure she hadn't spilled anything about what was really going on at the Academy. They couldn't take any chances, after all. Some people out there, he was sure, would feel less than kindly about the medical and technological advances Jonahs and the others were making.
The usual nonsense, Jonahs concluded. It amazed him how for a girl so bright, her letters had been slowly deteriorating in terms of spelling and grammar. He assumed it probably had something to do with the experiments – they were working with her brain, after all – and without another thought, he dropped the letter off at Reception to be delivered to the Tam family.
"Madness, no. Something a good deal more dangerous. Have you looked at this scan carefully? At his face?"
Jonahs hardly wanted to. He didn't exactly love being reminded of his biggest regret and failure. He spent evenings with large bottles of very powerful alcohol, in fact, and pretended he wasn't haggard and hungover the next morning. He pretended that it was no big deal that he'd been demoted, that his old... well, not rival and not friend... that Krick Richardson was now his superior in the oh-so-ground-breaking medical research center for the Alliance.
And he frankly didn't really care what was on the boy's face. It didn't make up for everything that Jonahs had lost.
He sort of shrugged.
"It's love, in point of fact." replied the Operative when he received no reply. "He loved his sister and he knew she was in pain. So he took her somewhere safe."
Jonahs cocked his head slightly. "Why are you here?"
"I'm here because the situation is even less simple than you think."
"See, most of our best work is done when they're asleep. We can monitor and direct their subconscious, implant suggestions... It's a little startling to see at first, but the results are spectacular. Especially in this case. River Tam is our star pupil."
The Inspector was stiff and emotionless, reminding Jonahs very strongly of the two Blue Sun representatives who had overseen his sector of the facility for a few months several years ago. The Inspector didn't seem quite so... hostile and unnerving, but he was still of an enormously high rank and therefore threatening. If he didn't like what he saw, there was a good chance Jonahs' funding could be cut, or worse, his program completely disbanded.
"I've heard that," said the Inspector flatly.
Jonahs continued, "Her mental capacity is extraordinary. She'll be ideal for defense deployment, even with the side effects."
"Tell me about them."
"Well, obviously she's unstable." He felt like he was explaining the whole thing to Areida all over again, though that particular meeting had been more than six months ago now. "The neural stripping does tend to fragment their own reality matrix. It manifests as borderline schizophrenia."
The Inspector looked at him with a touch of disdain. "What use do we have for a psychic if she's insane?"
"I don't have to tell you the security potential of someone who can read minds. And she has her lucid periods. We hope to improve on the..." Jonahs trailed off, regarding the Inspector uneasily.
Something wasn't sitting right with him, though he couldn't figure out what. He'd had plenty of inspections of his procedures and practices the past few months, why yet another one? And why a surprise one, at that? Not that he hadn't had surprise inspections before, but it just seemed like a lot. He knew for a fact how amazingly advanced his research was, how far he'd come and how much his experiments had grown. Inspection after inspection seemed awfully redundant and unnecessary.
"I'm sorry, sir, I have to ask – is there some reason for this inspection?"
The Inspector turned his head just so, and his features implied the hint of smile. "Am I making you nervous?"
Jonahs gave his head a little irritated shake. Nerves weren't the problem. "Key members of Parliament have personally observed this subject. I was told their support for the project was unanimous."
Not to mention the money only increased after I showed them what I can now do with Inception, Jonahs thought with an internal self-satisfied smirk.
"The demonstration of her power - "
"How is she physically?" The Inspector interrupted, clearly uninterested in what those before him had thought. Jonahs couldn't blame him – he'd likely feel the same way in the Inspector's position.
"Like nothing we've seen," he smiled a little. "All of our subjects are conditioned for combat, but River... she's a creature of extraordinary grace."
Jonahs likely wouldn't admit it, but as much as he had enjoyed working on Li all that time ago, and making advancements with him, it was far more rewarding with River, who was truly amazing. She was so full of potential and possibilities, that it reminded Jonahs why he had entered the science field in the first place, and why he had answered the ad for "brilliant minds" to work on "exciting, breakthroughs in dreamscape science" for Blue Sun and the military.
"Yes," said the Inspector. "She always did love to dance."
Jonahs only had a split moment to register confusion and the small possibility that maybe the Inspector wasn't exactly who he appeared to be, when he was knocked to the floor.
"Do you know what your sin is, doctor?" the Operative regarded him almost sadly. "Pride."
When Areida entered the room, she wasn't terribly surprised to see the body on the ground in the pool of blood. The thing that did surprise her, was the manner in which he'd died – sword through the gut, apparently, according to the hysterical assistant. The only thing that showed her surprise, however, was the slight lift and tilt of a very carefully sculpted eyebrow.
The Operative was long gone, but waiting in his place was another high-ranking Alliance official who technically didn't exist, just like her, like this facility and all its subjects and employees. And now just like Jonahs Mathias.
She pressed a package full to bursting with credits into the waiting man's hands. He would be taking care of the clean-up and erasing the Operative's barely-there trail. He gave her a nod and she gave him a cold little smile and a tiny bow.
"Blue Sun thanks you."
-end-
A/n: It went a little long, but hopefully it was still enjoyable and didn't come off like the big information dump that my earlier drafts were. Thanks for reading and reviews welcome (and wanted)! :D