I won't ask you to be kind, even if this is my first attempt at writing Inception, but I've put off all my other loves to watch this movie about 23 times so far. Did this…thing…writing thing- up on extra-strength Aspirin, alcohol, Gravol and eggnog… not exactly in that order but it will explain why this thing is all over the place.
I don't own Inception, never will, but hey, a person can dream can't she?
xxx
It's a personal record (if not a world one) he thinks, taking down not just one, but TWO of the world's major energy conglomerates in the same year.
His mother always did like to tell him to aim high.
He highly doubts this is what she meant though, as his knife slides out of the man's throat in front of him. Idly he notes that he's just ruined another of his favourite shirts, but there will be time to mourn it later as he turns to the last alive man, bound to the chair that was seated beside the freshly dead one. Three, slightly more dead corpses lay off to the side of the building they were in.
Seeing the fear in the older mans eyes makes him feel kind of bad about this…well, not bad enough that he's not going to kill him, but still, bad enough to bend over placing his hands on the knees of his hostage so he can look the engineer dead in the eye one last time. "You know the information I want Dr. Eckelson, so how about it?" he grins showing the right amount of teeth in order to have the man sobbing in fear, spilling words out faster then he can actually talk.
Pushing himself back into a standing position the dark haired man sighs contently. It had been what he suspected from the first. Having verification just made it slightly easier on the psyche he supposed. Wiping the blade off on the doctors white coat he slid it back into the loop of his belt and vaguely noticed the glint of hope in the hostages eyes before he withdrew his gun and that hope turned to desperation.
The pleading began but the younger man just shrugged. "Talking just earns you a bullet instead of a knife." With that he fires, the suppressor quieting any sound as the man's brain turns to pudding inside his head.
It would probably be tacky to start humming the song he has stuck in his head, mostly as he doesn't know any of the words, but he gets the tune right as he moves to pack up his supplies, not a lot, but enough to make it annoyingly tedious. Taking down a corporation from ground level is difficult work.
"Are ya quite finished yet?" a heavy thick brogue sounds at the doorway and brown eyes look over and roll when they see the slightly ill look on the Scott's face.
"Yeah, thanks for letting me use this place Isaac." He smiled sliding his jacket back on to hide the blood stains before grabbing his case.
The red head shrugged, "This makes us square now yeah?" A nod was his only reply as the lithe man made his way to the door and past him. Isaac couldn't help one look back before he snapped after the retreating figure. "Bloody fuck Arthur; what in the name of the sweet Mary did COBOL Engineering ever do to ya?"
Arthur paused halfway down the path back to his rental car. "Me?" he frowned and shook his head. "Nothing."
Isaac felt his stomach churn at the completely sane look in the Pointman's eyes. A chill ran down his spine as the other man walked away calmly, like he hadn't killed five of COBOL's best engineers, like he didn't care what the repercussions were going to be… and maybe, Isaac thought as the tail lights to the little Civic disappeared; maybe Arthur didn't actually care.
The Scott just slid the warehouse doors closed behind him, ignoring the stench of blood and the dead, sliding back into his truck and heading home to his family.
xxx
It was decidedly easier to take down a corporation when you weren't working by yourself, Arthur mused, stretched out on one of the chairs on his hotel balcony. A glass of wine and an empty salad bowl on the table next to him. A copy of the days paper lay open beside his glass blaring out a title of '5 COBOL workers murdered' on the front page.
He had already picked his next target, a group of scientist working on some super secret (which wasn't so secret as it was sadly easy to find information on) project in Kenya. Arthur made a mental note to keep an eye out and avoid Eames at all costs. If he saw the forger all his hard work would be for nothing because as soon as the Brit saw him, he'd know. He'd know Arthur was responsible for the mayhem COBOL had been enduring for the past month and a half. Then he'd want to know why. And Arthur was not ready to disclose that secret just yet.
Pushing himself to his feet the Pointman breathed out a heavy sigh into the cool evening air of Edinburgh's tourist district. People bustled by on the streets below him, unaware, unprepared… Arthur shook his head. He almost envied them in a way. But he had tried the good life after Inception, tried it for all of five days, got incredibly bored, dug out his PASIV and got right back to work.
Extractors, he noted, weren't as successful as Cobb, Architects weren't as detailed or as clever as Ariadne, Forgers missed the details more times then he could count compared to Eames, and one Chemist had him on the ground with crippling headaches unlike Yusef's more calm concoctions. But he did it anyway, because what was Extraction without risks? But he missed the thrill of having a dangerous mark. Then COBOL had come along and-
The wrought iron railing dug into his palms as Arthur's grip tightened. His phone going off in his pocket brought him back to reality and the Pointman flipped it open, answering with a tight 'go ahead'. The angry lines around his eyes faded at Henrietta's heavy French accent relaying the message from her Kenyan source. Scratching the time and place on his moleskin notepad Arthur thanked her, got a snort of condensation in return followed quickly with a dial tone. Sliding the phone back into his pocket Arthur scooped up his paper, grabbed his messenger bag from the bed, slid his Glocks into the silver PASIV case and was out the door, the only indication he left of ever having been there at all were the dishes he left outside.
xxx
A week later found Arthur wondering if murdering every COBOL employee he ran across was really his best choice of action. He scratched the side of his head with the muzzle of his Glock thoughtfully. He had been in Kenya a week, murdered five scientists, eighteen bodyguards, one manger and three doctors; he had left most of the bodies in clear places, even bold enough to leave the first one on COBOL's front step… literally on their front step. That had been a headline worth reading, if he ever bothered to pick up a Kenyan newspaper.
He turned to look at the dark skinned man sitting next to him, another person who had owed him a favour he had called in. It seemed he was going to be out of owed favours by the time he was done. "I can't think of a better way to do this."
The man raised an eyebrow, his own Swahili accent as thick as Henrietta's French. "Maybe need different approach."
Arthur rolled his eyes resting his elbows on his knees staring at the dead bodyguard by his feet. Nineteen bodyguards he corrected mentally. "Like what is my point Akili?"
The Kenyan shrugged. "It is big company no? Do big; Global."
Brown eyes narrowed as Arthur furrowed his brow in thought. Global? Thoughts and ideas shifted through his head like sand, rejecting this one, thinking about another, one too crude, one impossible, another possible but too time consuming, he needed a quick reaction. He only had six months left of the year after all and he wanted to meet his new record. His brain ground to a halt and Akili slid a bit away subconsciously at the evil glint in the mans eyes. "Yes. That's perfect." Arthur turned to the man next to him shooting to his feet, careful to step over the mess of limbs in front of him. "A big company like that, they're going to have some global issues." The Pointman grinned, just the right side of cunning and the wrong side of maniacal. "Global issues like say, environmental? Their stocks may be too concrete to attack right now, but if we expose things about them, things like that footprint thing people keep going on about we can attack them that way. Protests will start, other companies will feel obligated to take their hands out of COBOL's pockets for publicity purposed and then we can go in for the kill."
Akili blinked, having no idea what the man was going on about, but it didn't seem to matter as Arthur rushed out of the apartment building. Sighing, the Kenyan scrubbed a hand over his face and looked at the dead grunt by his feet. "Some people, I will not ever understand." He motioned to the doorway, "Him, I feel I do not want to."
xxx
As it turned out there was already a big environmental battle going on with COBOL. So it was nothing for Arthur to find several already sore spots (and maybe a few more or good measure) where the energy conglomerate was harming said environment. He had no trouble hiring one of those photographers that did shoots for magazines like National Geographic, he adored those articles as a kid, sneak said man into several top secret locations and get those incriminating photos.
He found it kind of exhilarating actually. He had done protests in university, trying to be the good conscious person he never turned out to be. But now, he could feel the end result coming closer as he and the photographer exchanged glances with each other from their spots crouched behind a desk…or that could just be the adrenaline. The photographers name, he found out minutes earlier was Josh, and was apparently very good at sneaking around.
"Comes with the job." He whispered as he shrugged.
"Yeah mine too." Arthur grinned as they climbed out of their hiding spots to get more photo's further down the sewage line that led right to a marshland.
Josh raised an eyebrow. "So what have you got against COBOL?" he asked his shutter flying like lighting. Arthur gave him a confused look and the photographer motioned to the area around them. "You've obviously got something against them, otherwise we wouldn't be here. I've never seen you at any rally's before, and trust me I'd remember you if I did, and now you've somehow gotten me here to get evidence of major environmental harm that will have the US EPA, EEA and man, probably fucking NATO up COBOL's ass for the next millennia."
Arthur just shrugged ruefully; he didn't even know what those first two acronyms stood for. "Just don't like them?" he offered but by the looks of it Josh wasn't buying it. However it appeared the photographer wasn't going to push as the blonde patted his camera fondly.
"Well, whatever your reason is, I've got enough photo's here to cover every front page of every newspaper in the world. We should probably get out of here before we're found out."
The Pointman nodded and quickly led the younger man out of the concrete building…only stopping to put several rounds into the mechanism that controlled the sewage line effectively cutting it off. Josh was looking at him warily but Arthur just shrugged. "I promised to shut it down in exchange for getting your number off your wife."
Josh threw his head back with a laugh and the two disappeared into the rush of workers fleeing the area at the sound of alarms.
xxx
One downside to Arthur's plan he hadn't thought of beforehand had been the TV. Everywhere, COBOL's CEO and publicists were frantically trying to salvage their reputations against the spread of photo's Josh had taken. As he had suspected companies were withdrawing from COBOL Energy faster then as if the company had been lit on fire. In a way it kind of had been and it was all people were talking about.
Cobb had even called him, flabbergasted at the turn of events against the company that had hired him. Arthur had had to turn away from Josh for a moment trying not to sound too pleased. It was harder then he thought to act surprised, and vaguely he wondered how Eames always managed to switch emotions like a mother fucking menstruating woman. Gagging internally at the image Arthur had quickly fended Cobb off saying he was busy before turning back to the enviro-couple that were working on more pictures.
But, back to the more pressing issue Arthur hadn't counted on. He was lying in bed in a hotel room in the states…which state he wasn't sure of, having been dead tired when he had made his flight reservation. However, now he was more than awake and desperately flipping through the channels on the hotel TV. But There. Was. Nothing. Fucking. On! Nothing but court cases and allegations and Josh's photo's. Groaning at his stupidity Arthur flipped the screen off, threw the remote across the room, and checked to make sure his Glock was fully loaded under his pillow before flopping back over to sleep. If he couldn't do anything else he was going to catch up on some shut eye before he had to head back to Texas and the useful, friendly, eco-couple.
xxx
Arthur was waiting at the counter of the local Gun World, testing the weight of a new PP7 the clerk was showing him. It was good, small, easily concealed, "I'll take it." The woman nodded taking the gun back to put it into its complementary carrying case, and god, Arthur loved Texas. "I also need rounds for a Remington shotgun and rounds for my XM2010 SWS."
"I'll go see if we have any out back, that's specialty military ammo, we don't carry it out front." Arthur watched her disappear and reappear moments later holding a large box. "How many do you need?"
Need? Arthur raised an eyebrow, "How many is in that box?"
"Twenty or so."
"I'll just take that then," Arthur leaned back to glance further down the glass case in front of him. "You guys have in that new grip for the Glock?"
The clerk set her box down and looked at the man in front of her. "Which one?"
"Nineteen?"
"Sold out this morning."
Arthur pouted petulantly. How was he supposed have fun taking down COBOL if he couldn't have the 'shiny toys' as Eames liked to tease him. He shrugged however and looked back at the attendant, now just seeing the name tag attached to her too tight shirt. "Well, I guess that's all for today Amber."
The girl snorted and set about ringing him in. She was halfway through when a familiar voice calling his name caught his attention. He looked over his shoulder to see Josh trotting towards him looking annoyed but froze however when he saw the small arsenal in front of Arthur.
"Um, did I come at a bad time?" Josh questioned looking between Arthur and Amber.
The Pointman shook his head offering over one of his fake credit cards. "Nope, just finishing."
"Rightttt." The photographer was sure his eye was twitching as he looked at his strange accomplice. "Anyways, I need your help as you seem pretty knowledgeable about these things. You know those pictures I took," of course Arthur knew, he was there and they were also responsible for the lack of good TV lately. "Well somehow my name got leaked!"
Arthur raised an eyebrow and waited for Josh to continue. When he didn't the dark haired man cocked his head to the side. "Okay, so?"
"So now COBOL's lawyers are coming after me saying I photo shopped those images!" he shouted indignantly drawing the gazes of the other customers.
"Oh." Now he saw the problem. At the very least they could charge the man with trespassing and at most, have him arrested or killed… Hmm… now there was an idea. Brown eyes looked at Josh twinkling with amusement. Grabbing his bags off the counter Arthur grinned at the Photographer. "How do you feel about dying?"
xxx
OOC Arthur is so much fun XD! I'm such a horrible person, I swear this won't be long!