The Fringed Lid

1

It was supposed to be a normal job, or at least as normal as any job Cobb ever did was. Subconscious security was a unique field, but that said, he generally didn't end up turning on his employers or sympathizing with the people who tried to hack into their minds. That had actually only happened once before, in a very unique situation, involving a very unique young extractor known as Arthur Pendragon. Little did Cobb know that it was about to happen again, and what was more, because of the exact same extractor.

Ken Tanaka wasn't a prime target for extractors. He was a wealthy hotel owner with one daughter and no wife. Rich enough to be important, but not important enough for anyone to bother wanting to hack into his mind was what Mal's conclusion of him had been when they were doing their pre-contract research. Why the man thought someone might try to get inside his head was a mystery, since he wasn't particularly aggressive about expanding his hotel chain or increasing his fortune. He didn't seem to be involved in any shady dealings either, and that was something that Cobb and Mal had begun researching more thoroughly before accepting jobs now.

That was why they were on a subway in Tokyo with their sometimes-associate Eames, who was currently working with them on commission. Despite, or perhaps because of the fact that Eames had more than a little experience with extraction, he was a good man to have working for their subconscious security firm.

The train wasn't packed, but there were quite a few people in it. Enough that Cobb couldn't take in everyone on the train at a glance. Enough that he didn't notice when a familiar young man with slicked back hair, wearing a three piece suit got in the same car that he was in, and took a seat several yards to his left.

"You know," commented Eames, "I can't help but feel like we're in the middle of a bloody dream every time I travel to one of these Asian countries. Everyone's always staring at the foreigners like they're projections, making me feel like I should be forging one of their identities to escape detection."

"Feel free to try that," said Cobb, smirking. "May I suggest a school girl in a sailor suit?"

Eames and Mal both chuckled at that, but harsher, louder voices overrode theirs. To Cobb's right there seemed to be a bit of an argument going on, but he couldn't understand what the people were saying. The best that he could tell was that a girl in her late teens was having some sort of disagreement with a boy who was a couple years older than her. Or at least Cobb thought that it was just one boy, but several minutes later, he realized that the girl was arguing with several boys. Four to be exact. And the argument was escalating.

It had started off with sharp words, then the boys had progressed to poking at her and prodding, and the girl started slapping their hands away. But very quickly, it got out of control. The next thing Cobb knew, one of the young boys was holding the girl from behind with her arms pinned to her sides, while one of his friends held her skirt up to waist level and laughed as she struggled.

Cobb scowled and waited for someone who actually spoke the language to warn the punks off. To his surprise, no one did. Some of them watched with open interest. Some ignored it altogether. But no one did anything.

"I don't believe this," muttered Cobb.

Eames gave a theatrical sigh. "Time to be the white knights, I suppose," he said, then smirked at Mal. "Can we count on you to back us up if things go bad, darling? Since we're a bit outnumbered."

Cobb stood up before Mal could respond, but before he could even take a step someone shouldered past him. Someone who was too intent on the altercation to pay attention to who almost got in his way. He didn't even bother to say the Japanese equivalent of "Excuse me," but then, it was doubtful he would have in the first place, since he was muttering curses in English.

Cobb's jaw dropped as recognition hit. He turned to Eames and Mal to see if they'd noticed as well, but they hadn't yet. All they saw was the back of a young man in a suit, with black, slicked down hair, finally stepping forward to do what someone should have done nearly half a minute earlier.

"That kid might need some help," said Eames, seeing what was about to transpire.

"I don't know," said Cobb. He hadn't ever seen the famous Arthur Pendragon in a real fight, but he'd heard the rumors.

"Dom," said Mal, starting to get to her feet as well, "that young man –"

She broke off as the young man dropped the first of the punks with a single punch to the temple. Before shock even had time to enter her expression, Arthur had taken down the boy who was holding the girl, by kicking his legs out from underneath him. One of their friends tried to retaliate, but ended up eating an uppercut, then flying into the last of the punks, who'd tried to run.

After the two punks hit the ground stunned silence filled the train, and the young man known in the world of extractors and subconscious security as Arthur Pendragon straightened his tie, one-handed, as he gave those seated nearby a condescending look. Throughout the entire short brawl he hadn't even dropped his briefcase.

But the silence didn't last long. It barely lasted three seconds before the train doors creaked open and new passengers began streaming in. Arthur started to turn toward the doors, but froze when the girl he'd just helped grabbed him by the back of his jacket. She gave him a very deep bow and hastily uttered a thank-you in her own language, before dashing off the train. For just a split second, there was a softness in Arthur's eyes as he watched her go, but then it was gone, and he was trampling over the fingers of one of the punks as he disembarked the train.

"This . . . is our stop," said Mal, speaking clearly through her shock.

"And that was Arthur Pendragon," said Eames. He stood and quickly followed in Arthur's footsteps, taking care to walk on top of the delinquents that Arthur had flattened so casually. "Let's see if we can catch up with the darling."

Cobb and Mal followed him, but shared a glance. They knew each other well enough to know they were both thinking the same thing. It couldn't be a coincidence that Arthur was here, at the very same time, and in the very same city as them when they'd just been hired to train a man against extractors.

Arthur could always tell when someone was following him. His heightened sense of awareness had served him well during his years as an extractor. His attention to detail, the speed at which he processed information, and his nearly photographic memory were what made him one of the best extractors in the world, and had saved his life on more than one occasion. So Arthur knew before he even exited the subway that he was being followed.

He wasn't surprised.

Calling up a mental map of the city took no more effort than breathing. Even if Arthur hadn't been walking this city's streets all week, committing every restaurant, shop, over-pass, and alley within a one mile radius to memory, he could still have seen the map he found on the internet in his mind's eye.

He took a sharp right as he left the subway station and picked up his pace. Not too fast. He didn't want to draw the wrong kind of attention. He knew that the people following him wouldn't exactly have a difficult time of tailing him, but that was okay. He knew how to deal with them.

After turning onto a side street and walking a block, he ducked into an alley behind a run-down noodle shop. About fifteen feet up the wall on the left side, there were bricks missing from the wall, where they'd cracked and fallen out. Arthur managed to reach them after jumping off of the dumpster, and so, when his tails hurried into the alley, trying to catch up to him, he was already perched above them, on the wall, like Spider-Man.

There were three of them, he noticed immediately. Two men in their thirties, and a woman, about the same age. He dropped down behind them and kicked at the back of the larger man's knees. A curse ran out in English, with a British accent, as the man fell flat on his face.

"Blood hell, you little runt! Is that any way to greet an old friend?"

Arthur froze, even though his instincts were screaming at him to press his advantage, and take out the woman or the other man before they could both jump him. His mind, with its logic, however, prevailed, and he took a step back, defensively, instead of staying on the offense. Then he blinked, and when he spoke there was confusion in his voice.

"Eames? Cobb? Mrs. Cobb?"

"I told you, it's Mal, Arthur," said Mrs. Cobb. She stepped forward with a warm smile on her face, which Arthur somehow found more disconcerting than a right hook would have been. Instinctively, he took another step back, but Mal was not deterred. She stepped right up to him, put a hand on one of his cheeks, then kissed him on the forehead in a very motherly way. "It's good to see you again," Mal told him. "You look well."

Arthur's hesitation before answering would only have been caught by someone who knew him very well. "Thank you," he said softly. "How's Philippa?"

"Furious with you," laughed Mal. "She had her heart set on us adopting you, so she could have a big brother. How about you come back home with us? I think you'd make a nice souvenier," she teased.

Arthur took another step back, but Cobb stepped forward, seeming to realize how uncomfortable his wife was making Arthur, even though Arthur thought he was doing a fairly decent job of hiding it.

Cobb held out his hand to shake Arthur's, which was well and fine, but then he patted Arthur on the shoulder affectionately. "Good to see you again."

"And you," said Arthur, and to his surprise, he meant it.

The Cobbs and Eames had been a witness to his biggest screw-up in his career as an extractor. He'd been hacking into the minds of people who were rich, powerful, dangerous, or some combination of the three for almost nine years now. He'd been killed almost every way imaginable by projections, and had been captured and tortured by projections on several occasions, in dreams, but only one time in the real world had he ever allowed himself to fall into his enemies' hands. And the one time that it had happened was the time he met the Cobbs.

That had been an interesting role-reversal, when the subconscious security contractors had tried their hand at extracting from an extractor, and it hadn't worked out quite the way anyone thought it would. The Cobbs hadn't known that their client was actually a pedophile who ran a human trafficking ring. Arthur hadn't known that security contractors weren't always assholes.

Eames and the Cobbs found out the truth while delving into Arthur's mind, mainly because Arthur wasn't trying to keep that from them. He hadn't known about their ignorance, only knew that they were supposed to be trying to learn who his contacts were. That was the information he'd protected with every trick he knew and no one had been able to take it from him. All that they found out from him was stuff he'd assumed they knew to begin with. Needless to say, they were properly horrified. They'd helped Arthur escape, and Arthur had gone to their house that night to drop off a check for them, half of his share for the job, because he couldn't stand to owe anyone anything. When he arrived he found out that the Cobbs weren't home, but that their bastard employer had just arrived to pay a visit to their daughter.

So Arthur had shot him in the head, and given the same treatment to four of the bastard's security guards before escaping from the remaining two, taking Philippa with him. He'd also been shot four times, but who was really counting? He hadn't seen them in a couple months, not since disappearing in the middle of the night to escape their attempt at killing him with kindness. So Arthur was surprised to realize that he actually was pleased to see them again, both alive, and well. Eames too, even though he hadn't talked with the other man too much.

"I'd apologize for kicking you," he told Eames, "but I still owed you for trying to hack into my head."

Eames regained his feet and gave Arthur a dour look. "Lovely to see you again too, darling."

"What are you doing here?" asked Arthur. He looked at them suspiciously. "Why were you following me?"

"We saw you on the subway," Cobb told him. "If you'd waited about four seconds we would have backed you up."

"What were you doing on the subway?" asked Arthur, not to be distracted.

"We're here on business," Mal told him. "What about you?"

"Pleasure," lied Arthur with a straight face. Maybe too straight a face, because Eames snorted, and Cobb looked like he was trying not to laugh.

"Right," said Eames. "You just thought you'd come here, drink some sake, eat some sushi, and visit a hot-springs, is that it? Because you really seem like the type."

"On behalf of the Japanese people, I find your summarization of their culture stereo-typical and offensive," Arthur told him.

"And I find your hair offensive."

"Eames," Cobb warned him off before the verbal jabs could escalate. Then he smiled at Arthur, and Arthur had to admit that the man looked genuinely pleased to see him. He'd saved Arthur's life, then Arthur had saved his daughter's life. That had forged some sort of bond whether they wanted it or not. Arthur wasn't sure, for his part, but he could tell Cobb didn't mind.

It figures, thought Arthur, trying not to feel jealous. He seems like the kind of guy who gets together with his friends every Sunday to watch football and drink beer, and still takes a yearly fishing trip with all his college buddies. Things Arthur would never experience.

"I'm glad to see you're well," said Cobb, slapping Arthur's shoulder again. "I was worried about you disappearing like that."

"And by disappearing, he means jumping out a second story window at night," said Mal. "That was dangerous in your condition, young man."

"Young man?" asked Arthur incredulously, before he could help himself. He had a sudden strong urge to jump from someplace high again, and make sure this wasn't a dream, because no one had taken that tone with him and called him 'young man' since before his mother remarried. Not only that, but he was now repeating after someone, incredulously, instead of yelling at them for treating him like a kid.

"You need to take better care of yourself," Mal told him.

Arthur wanted to scowl, because behind Mal, Eames was pointing and laughing, but somehow he heard himself promise, "Okay, I will."

Then he realized that despite his best efforts, they were derailing his determination again.

"But what are you three doing here?" he asked. "You have a contract with someone?"

"Yes," Cobb told him, smiling a bit sheepishly. "Probably the same person you're here to extract from."

"I told you, I'm not here on business."

"And we don't believe you, you know that, darling?" said Eames.

"Stop calling me darling."

"Shall I call you Artie instead?"

Arthur scowled. "If you have a contract to teach then you should probably go meet him. Anyone who's self-important enough to think someone would want to break into their overly-inflated head is too pompous to be kept waiting." He retrieved his brief case from where he'd stashed it, between the alley wall and the dumpster. "Besides, I have a friend to meet."

"Sure you do," jeered Eames.

"You don't think I have friends?" demanded Arthur. He hoped his voice didn't sound as stung as he felt.

"We know you have friends," said Cobb quickly. "We actually hope that you count us among them. We just wanted to say hi, and let you know we were in the area. We'll keep an eye out for you, since I have the feeling our paths are going to cross again."

Arthur allowed his lips to be pulled into a smirk at that. He knew a loaded phrase when he heard one. "It is quite a coincidence," he conceded. "But then, our world is quite small."

Something flickered in the eyes of all three contractors and Arthur was pretty sure that the same glint was in his own eyes. Now they all knew where they stood, and the gauntlet had been thrown. Now the fun would start. Despite the difficulties that his 'friends' could present, Arthur couldn't help but feel a slight thrill. He loved a challenge.

They said their good-byes and threw out the idea of getting a drink once they were all finished with the business that had brought them to the city, but no contact information was exchanged. Arthur already had all three of their phone numbers (and social security numbers and credit card numbers) but none of them was really serious about that invitation.

Once they were gone and Arthur was back on one of the main streets, and his instincts told him he was no longer being followed, he took out his cellphone and dialed a number.

"It's me," he said when he heard the person on the other end pick up. "I just made contact with the Cobbs and their business partner Eames. Permission to commence with Phase 2?"

There was an affectionate chuckle on the other end, and then the older man answered. "So you failed to convince them you were here for pleasure?"

"Of course I failed," said Arthur. "It was our plan for me to fail."

"And a good thing too."

Arthur held back a sigh. "I need confirmation, Penrose. Do I have permission to commence with Phase 2?"

"Yes," said his mentor, Penrose. "Permission granted. I'll see you soon, Pendragon."

AN: I've been meaning to type up this fic forever, so sorry to the people who've been waiting for it. But yeah, this fic is a sequel to an earlier Inception fic I wrote, Obscure and Lonely. It will be shorter than its predecessor though, only about three chapters, I think. I'll get the next chapter typed up and posted as soon as I can. Also, I've never been to Japan. All my knowledge of Tokyo comes from anime and an old travel guide, so I'm sorry if there's some glaring error about the city in here.