Chapter 1

They entered the plane and stowed away the luggage. Robert Fischer passed. Dom Cobb watched him taking a seat and switching off his cell phone. He took his identity card, opened it. He read what he already knew: Robert Michael Fischer, Australian, born 17 Sept 73 in Sydney.

The plane started to fly. The 'fasten your seatbelt'-sign disappeared and Cobb leaned forward. 'Excuse me, I think this is yours', he said to Fischer and showed him the identity card. He took it surprised, controlled it, and said 'thanks'. 'I'm sorry, I looked into it. You are not coincidentally relative to Maurice Fischer, are you?' 'Yes, yeah, he…was my father', he said a bit distracted. 'Oh, my deepest sympathy.' He gave him a glass of water the stewardess had brought, not before pouring him something into, to make him sleep. Fischer looked out of the window and drank. He was sleeping very soon. Cobb and the others made themselves ready for dreaming, him too.

It was raining. He did not know how he came there exactly but he knew where he wanted to go. He called a taxi, it stopped. He stepped into it, at the same moment as somebody else. He wanted to complain but before he could say a word a man from the front passenger's seat turned around and pointed a gun toward him. 'Great', he said. He cursed himself. How could something like this happen to him? Something hit the taxi. They all ducked down. It was a bullet that had touched the car. Men were getting out of silver vans. Fischer and the man next to him ducked down, trying to protect their heads with their arms. There were people shooting at him. The taxi driver tried to drive away, hitting other cars, trying to avoid being shot. The men were firing, no machine guns, the bullets were too far away from each other, something else. It did not interest him, it interested him to get away from here. He just heard the shooting, trying to cover himself. He suddenly understood.

They got away. Finally. Fischer did not know how they managed it. He looked up again. Someone put a bag over his head so that he could not see anything. He felt the taxi stopping, then driving somewhere inside. Someone pulled him out of the car, it was not raining anymore. They were somewhere inside. The shooters, he heard his hijackers talking about them.

He was stronger than they thought. They did not know anything about him and that was his strength. He just had to play along until his protection grew strong enough to finish them all. He was trained. As they were, too. But they underestimated him.

He was brought somewhere, sat down. He waited. He waited until someone came in and pulled the bag from his head. He looked up to them. Two men with masks were staring at him. 'In the office of your father under his desk, there's his private safe. We need the combination', one of the men said. Robert sighed. 'I don't know anything about a safe', he said, not sounding nervous or weak. 'Doesn't mean you don't know the combination', the other man said and squatted in front of him. 'Tell us.' 'I don't know', Robert said. The man went away. 'A very safe source told us you knew', the other man said. 'What safe source?', Robert laughed. There was a scream. The man looked down to him. 'What's that?', Robert said, not impressed. 'Our source.' The screams repeated. Robert got nervous. 'Tell him to stop.' The man did not move. 'Let me talk to him. When he says I knew the code, I can find it out while talking to him.' Robert did not want Browning to be harmed. Browning was brought in, tied to the sink. The men went away again.

'Everything okay?', Robert asked concerned. 'They've been trying to open the safe for two days now. They somehow got access. I don't know the combination.' 'Then we're already two', Robert said worried. 'What? Maurice told me that after his death you'd be the only one to know? Perhaps he told you without telling you that it was the combination.'

They were talking. Cobb was concerned about Saito. He did not look well.

'I shall destroy my heritage?' He has gotten Robert so far. 'Why shall he propose something like that to me?' 'I don't know.' He had planted the first idea.

'The further we go into Fischer's subconscious, the further we go into yours', she said. He did not want to listen. He told her. She did not want to know.

They did not get what they wanted. They had to get further. They put a bag over his head again and put him into the van.

Now the journey could even begin.

Robert dozed off, all of sudden. They had given him something to sleep, that was his last thought.

They started to drive. 'Drive carefully. When we're down there, it's gonna be even more instable.' Yusuf nodded. All the others prepared themselves.

They were ready to enter the dream in the dream. The dream which was going to be more dangerous than before.

They fell asleep.