Inception: The Beginning
A/N: I return with the official first chapter and I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far.
Read, review, and enjoy!
Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Inception, Batman, or Doctor Who. I only own the characters that I created.
CHAPTER ONE: THE RETURN OF THE EX
Over the next few months, Arthur and Emma got used to the somewhat craziness of the dream-sharing program, also known as Project Somnacin, which was also the name of the compound that enabled the whole thing to actually work.
There were a few times when they had dreams collapse on them, which came as a shock each time, but Cobb assured them that they would get the hang of it, and yet he admitted, there was no way to get use to being attacked by the projections when they eventually converged.
The good news was that the credit-thief was caught and turned out to be a student on the verge of failing, and had gotten his hands on one of the PASIV Devices somehow.
"I wonder how he got his hands on the machine?" Emma wondered sipping her white wine; she and Arthur were on a double date with Cobb and Mal at a nice restaurant. "Aren't they locked up when not in use?"
"Normally yes," Cobb confirmed. "But when they did an inventory check after catching that student, they found that nearly a dozen machines are missing from storage."
"A dozen?" Arthur repeated, alarmed. "Whoever took them clearly isn't aware of the side-effects that can develop if you go under too often."
Arthur and other psychology students that have been recruited, had discovered a big side-effect that even the people in charge hadn't been aware of; it was possible for a person to over expose themselves to the dream-sharing, and lose the ability to dream naturally.
However, Arthur theorized that if a person was caught early enough, it would be possible to reverse the damage, allowing the person to recover by cutting off their access to the dream-sharing for a period of time.
"Clearly not," Mal agreed, shaking her head. "I hate to imagine what would happen if the program was used for illegal reasons."
Cobb, Arthur, and Emma all agreed, grimly fearful of a complete stranger breaking into their minds and stealing their ideas without them even realizing it.
"Well, I say we put our fears behind us and enjoy our date," Cobb suggested, holding up his wine glass; his friends agreed, clicked their glasses together for a toast, and they went back to their dinner and non-work-related topics.
Unknown to the group, they were being watched; seated at a table across the room, a man in his late thirties with brown hair, grey eyes, and wore a nice dinner suit, watched them while sipping a Vodka martini that was shaken and not stirred.
'So, love, you've moved on,' he thought, watching Emma, who was smiling and laughing with the handsome young man sitting next to her. 'Good for you, shame that I'll have to take you away from it for a while.'
Finishing his drink, he tossed a few bills on the table, stood, and left with a slight smile. 'See you soon, darling.'
Two weeks later, Emma was at her apartment, getting ready to go to work, and her new roommate, a young Indian woman named Aesha, was getting ready to head out on a date.
`"Emma, have you see my purse?"` Aesha called out from the living room. `"I can't find it!"`
Emma rolled her eyes, putting on a pair of pearl earrings. "Check behind the chair near the window, Aesha," she called back. "You tossed it back there after your hot date last night."
`"You sure?"`
"Positive," Emma responded, now putting on her perfume. "I saw it there earlier."
`"Thank you!"`
Chuckling, Emma went back into her bedroom and stepped into her heels, hearing the front door shutting and locking. 'I'm surprised she's getting good grades in her classes, what with all the partying she does.'
Collecting her coat and purse, Emma headed toward the front door, and she was halfway there when the doorknob started turning, and she froze; she knew that it couldn't possibly be Aesha since she rarely forgot her key, and she'd seen enough suspenseful movies to know that this was never a good sign.
Backing away slowly, Emma reached into her purse for her cellphone when she became aware of someone moving up behind her, and in that moment, she was glad that she was wearing pants and not a skirt. 'Nice try.'
Reacting, she slammed her heel into the knee of the attacker, making him scream as he crumbled to the floor, and she bolted to the kitchen the moment that the front door was kicked in by two additional attackers.
As they charged in, running past the downed attacker, and the first turned the corner-
SLAM!
The attacker went cross-eyed and dropped, thanks to a frying pan to the face; Emma dodged the second attacker's hands and slammed the frying pan into the back of his head.
As he crumbled, she ran back into the hallway, jumped over the groaning man on the floor, and was inches from the door-
A hidden fourth attacker rose and grabbed her from behind, clamping a cloth over her house and mouth; Emma struggled in his grip, doing her best not to inhale the sweet-smelling drug, which was most likely chloroform, that was on the cloth.
`"Don't fight it, darling,"` the attacker advised, whispering into her ear as he held her tight. `"Just breathe and go to sleep."`
'Oh God!' Emma recognized the accent and renewed her struggles to break free, but at that exact moment, she accidentally inhaled a bit of the chloroform, and she went limp, her head spinning.
The attacker kept the cloth in place and dragged the young woman to the living room, where he gently laid her on the recliner, and removed the cloth.
The two men in the kitchen came staggering out, just as he removed his mask, and looked at them. "Bring it in, and one of you get that guy out of here now."
They nodded and left, dragging the wounded man with them, and he looked back at Emma's sleeping form. 'I don't want to do this, love, but I got to.'
When the one guy returned with a familiar-looking briefcase and began setting it up on a table between the two recliners, the man, Eames, removed his gloves and repositioned Emma enough so that she was lying in the chair with her head tilted slightly and her hands were resting on the armrests.
"Here," said the man, handing over a set of tubing, which Eames took and strapped onto her left wrist.
Accepting a second set of tubing, Eames settled down in the second recliner, strapped the tubes on, clasped his hands together, and then nodded at his partner, who then pushed the button, releasing the drugs into the tubing.
Within seconds, Eames slipped into a deep sleep, his body going into a relax state; double-checking everything, the man then moved to a different spot to keep watch.
"She's late."
"Emma probably just got stuck in traffic," Cobb suggested, adding the Somnacin to the machine for their next project; the people in charge wanted the dreams to be built like mazes, and they were hoping that complex mazes would help both the dreamer and the sleepers avoid the projections longer.
"No, Emma would've called to let us know if she was going to be late," Arthur pointed out, checking his watch. "Something's wrong."
"He's right, Dom." Mal entered the lab, worry and concern etched across her face. "I've been trying to reach her, but her cell keeps going straight to voicemail, and I can't reach anyone at the apartment."
Arthur and Cobb exchanged uneasy looks. This wasn't good.
"We better head over there," Arthur suggested, grabbing his coat, and Cobb nodded and locked up the machine, putting away the chemicals.
Locking the lab behind them, the trio headed out.
An hour later, they arrived at the campus apartment and hurried up the stairs; reaching apartment 170, Arthur's heart sank when he saw that the door was slightly ajar and the doorframe was cracked.
Exchanging a look with his friends, they pulled out their guns, which came with the job, and they silently entered; in the hallway, they found signs of a struggle, the frying pan, and Emma's purse.
With Mal bringing up the rear, they moved toward the living room, and Arthur turned the corner, only to be tackled by a man dressed in black with a black mask covering his head; they struggled for several seconds until Cobb slammed his gun into the back of the man's head.
The man went limp and Arthur shoved him off; sitting up, he froze at the sight of Emma and a second man, also dressed in black, sleeping in a pair of recliners, and both were hooked up to one of the PASIV Devices. "Emma!"
Jumping up, Arthur ran over to his girlfriend and gently touched her face while Cobb and Mal heaved the downed man into a steel chair, duct-taped his wrists and ankles, and pulled off the mask, revealing that he was sporting a broken nose and two black eyes, thanks to the frying pan earlier.
"Dom, what's going on?" Mal asked, worried.
"I don't know." Cobb went over to the machine and checked the timers. "Two hours, which means they're gonna be in the dream for forty hours."
"Forty?!" Arthur exclaimed, alarmed. "Cobb, we gotta do something."
Cobb nodded, turned to the second man, and froze when he saw his face. "Oh no…"
"What is it?" Arthur asked. "You know this jerk?"
"I do," Cobb confirmed. "This is Eames, Emma's ex-boyfriend."
Arthur felt his insides grow cold; Emma had told him about her ex being British and a con artist, who'd tried to use her to get to the Pepper family fortune, and why she'd been reluctant to start dating again. "Cobb we gotta go under and get Emma out of there."
Cobb agreed and went to get two chairs while Mal programmed the two remaining timers, and Arthur pulled out the tubing; once they were set up and seated in the chairs, Arthur placed his hand on top of Emma's and Cobb nodded at Mal, who pushed the button, sending both men into a deep sleep.
There was a storm raging outside the massive mansion, and Emma was running through the dimly lit halls, terrified; she didn't know how she'd got there or even how long she'd been running, but she knew she had been kidnapped.
'I'm probably being held here until my parents pay a ransom,' she thought sourly. 'Damn you Eames!'
The fact that her ex-boyfriend was involved had her pissed, and when she found him, she was going to strangle him.
BOOM!
Yelping, Emma jumped and ducked behind a potted plant as the thunder exploded outside, and she covered her ears. "Oh God…"
Arthur walked down the hallway with his gun out, searching for some clue that Emma was nearby; turning a corner, he almost ran into Cobb, who had his own gun out, and they both winced at the thunder and lighting.
"Emma must be hiding from the storm," Arthur guessed as they resumed walking. "She hates thunder storms."
"And Eames knows that, too," Cobb agreed, looking around. "Arthur is it just me, or is there something missing?"
"Yeah, I haven't seen any projections," Arthur confirmed. "Emma's the subject, so there should be projections."
Cobb nodded. "Yeah, so where are they?" he'd arrived in a playroom that filled with toys that dated back to the 1880s, and a tall blue police box for some strange reason; that had been in the attic and he'd had to go down a narrow staircase to get to the rest of the mansion.
"No idea," Arthur admitted; he'd found himself in a old-fashion bedroom and had found drawers filled with insect collections, making him wonder what kind of research Eames had done when creating the dream. Leaving the room, he'd thought he'd seen someone, but a quick search hadn't reveal anything.
"Let's find Emma and get out of here," Cobb suggested and Arthur agreed; strange as the dream was, finding their missing friend was more important.
Humming to himself, Eames walked across the grand foyer to the study and then paused when the grandfather clock chimed six times; sensing that something was up, he hid himself behind a drape, and watched as a stern-looking woman in a high-collared black dress entered with a lit candle.
'So there are projections in this place,' he thought, watching as the woman paused in front of the clock for a moment and then faced one of the walls; his jaw dropped when two of the panels slid aside, revealing two aids, and when they stepped out, there were more maids behind them. 'Bloody hell, I don't remember adding that when I designed this place, and I doubt it was in the blueprints I memorized.'
Once they were gone, Eames moved from his hiding place, mildly disturbed by the sight, and slipped into the study; there the walls were covered with insect collections, but he pay no mind to them and went to a bookcase, where he uncovered a hidden safe.
"Here we are," Eames whispered and smiled as he worked on cracking it.
Hearing footsteps heading in their direction, Cobb and Arthur duck behind a suit of armor, and they watched as a line of maids walked past, all with emotionless expressions.
"Looks like we found the projections," said Arthur once they were gone. "But why would Emma have so few and creepy projections?"
"No idea," Cobb admitted, stepping out from the armor, and they resume walking. "It's impossible to predict the type of projections that a subject's subconscious will create, and yet it does explain Emma's reluctance to be a subject."
"Yeah, it does."
Gathering up her courage, Emma stood and was about to step out from behind the plant when she heard footsteps…a lot of footsteps; fearing that it was the kidnappers looking for her, she duck down again, trying to blend in with the shadows, and had her arms wrapped around her knees.
'Please don't let them find me,' Emma silently prayed as the footsteps drew closer. 'Please don't let them find me!' her eyes went wide as a line of maids walked past and her heart sank, for she now knew where she was, and it was a bad place!
Gabriel Chase!
Once the maids were out of sight, Emma came out of hiding, looked around frantically, and then ran; looking for the grand foyer, she turned a corner, and screamed when a pair of strong arms grabbed her.
"Emma! Emma! It's me!" Arthur exclaimed, holding his girlfriend close as she went weak and cried instead. "I got you," he told her, relieved. "I got you."
Finding a door that led to a bedroom, Cobb motioned to his friends and they went inside, where Arthur got Emma to sit down on the bed, and Cobb kept watch.
Emma clung to her boyfriend, trying to calm herself down, but it wasn't easy, and the sooner they got out of there, the better. "Arthur, Cobb, we've got to get out of this place, and soon."
"Emma, do you remember how you got here?" Arthur asked, surprised to see that she was so scared that she was trembling. 'She's terrified. Why?'
Emma shook her head. "No, last thing I remember was being attacked in my apartment, and taking out three of the attackers. But that doesn't matter, getting out of this place does."
Cobb and Arthur exchanged a look, they had to tell her the truth.
"Emma," said Cobb, turning to her, "you're in a dream, and you're still in your apartment, sleeping right now."
"I – I've been pulled into a dream?" Emma asked, alarmed. "Who and why?"
"We don't know the why," Arthur admitted, "but we know that your ex-boyfriend, Eames, is responsible for creating his dream."
Emma's eyes widened. "Eames?" she repeated and got two confirming nods. "Oh, I'm so going to kill him!" she stood and began pacing, her anger overriding her fear for the moment. "Of all the places, he had to choose Gabriel Chase."
"Gabriel Chase?"
Emma sighed, unwanted memories stirring. "This mansion we're currently in, is based on a real Victorian mansion named Gabriel Chase, and it was located in a small town in the English countryside called Perivale," she explained. "And it was considered a haunted house since the former owners, the Pitchards, mysteriously disappeared during the time of Queen Victoria, along with a police inspector named Mackenzie, a hunter named Redvers Fenn-Cooper, and the second owner, Josiah Samuel Smith."
"Emma, you keep saying 'was'," said Cobb. "Did something happen to the mansion?"
"When I was five years old, my family spent the summer in Perivale with relatives, and I spent a lot of time with my cousin Dorothy, who was thirteen in 1984, and she let me call her Dot." Emma smiled wistfully. "Having only brothers, Dot's the closest thing I have to a big sister." 'I should go to Perivale sometime and see how she's doing.'
"What happen to you at the mansion?" Arthur asked gently.
Emma shivered. "I-I went looking for Dot, who'd ran away after learning that her friend Manisha, had been killed after having her flat firebombed by racist white kids; eventually a boy named Midge, plus several other teens that Dot knew from school, found me and dragged me to the fence outside the mansion. They were daring me to spend the night in the place and I didn't want to, but Midge was insisting when Dot found me; she offered to go into m place, but Midge said had to be me or both of us…"
`"'Emma whimpers as she and Dot enters the old mansion, which is full of dust and cobwebs; they jump when the door closes behind them, and they hold onto each other.
"I don't want to do this," Emma cries. "I'm scared."
"I'm scared, too, Em," Dot admits, hugs her close. "But we're gonna find the back door, climb the back fence, and go home, ok?"
"Ok."
They cross the foyer and scream when the ancient grandfather clock starts chiming six times; they run into the depths of the mansion. A evil force chases the girls throughout the mansion, and soon they find the back door and their freedom.'"`
"I don't know what evil was in that place," Emma concluded, once again sitting on the bed with Arthur, who was holding her hands, "but I had horrible nightmares for weeks afterward, and during that time, a fire broke out and burned the entire mansion to the ground. Dot wouldn't admit it, but I knew she was responsible for the fire." 'I did later revisit the place in my dreams, but I'm not about to mention that.'
"So, the projections out there are from your nightmares?" Cobb asked from his position near the door.
'Sort of.' Emma nodded. "Yes, and those are just small fry compared to what's in the basement." And she agreed with her friend's uneasy expressions. "We should really get out of here."
"And find Eames," Cobb added, earning two confused looks. "Look, it's obvious that he has no idea what he'd gotten himself into, and he'll be torn apart by the projections unless we get to him first."
"Serves him right," Emma muttered, standing up and accepted the gun offered by her boyfriend. "Alright, let's go. Eames will most likely be in the study downstairs."
Making sure that the coast was clear, they headed out together.
Taking longer then he expected, Eames finally got the safe open, revealing a stack of papers that were neatly tied together, and he took it out with a grin; slipping the papers into his coat, he turned to go, and found himself staring into the barrel of a gun.
"Hello, sweetie," Emma growled, her eyes flashing with anger. "Found what you were looking for?"
"In a manner of speaking," said Eames vaguely and protested when Cobb patted him down, finding the papers. "Oie! You mind, Cobb?"
"Not at all," Cobb retorted and handed the papers to Emma. "So, Eames, what're you doing exactly with the PASIV Device?"
Eames shrugged. "Oh, just trying to finish what I started months ago, and I figure I could extract the information."
"Extract information?" Arthur scoffed. "You've no idea what you're doing with the dream do you?"
Eames smirked. "Oh, I'm sure that I know more then you realize, mate, and you are?"
"Arthur, her boyfriend," Arthur snapped, eyes narrowed. "And I'm resisting the urge to plant a bullet in your head."
This threat made Eames uneasy, especially with Arthur's cold expression, and that was enough to convince him that this guy was serious with his threat.
Cobb moved over to Emma, who was looking through the papers. "What was he trying to extract you're your mind?" he asked.
"Access codes to my accounts," Emma answered, retying the papers. "And information about the family business." She then lowered her voice. "Dom, I think someone hired Eames and gave him basic instructions of how to build a dream, 'cause this is beyond his skills."
Cobb nodded, having suspected the same thing. "We better get out of here before your projections start converging."
Emma nodded. "Agreed." And she stuffed the papers into the pockets of her pants, gesturing to Eames. "Let's go."
Leaving the study, they were halfway across the foyer when an army of maids suddenly surrounded them, blocking their access to the front door, and now there was a man with longish brown hair, brown beard, and dark eyes, dressed like a Victorian gentleman.
"Going somewhere?" the man asked, stepping forward with a clod smile. "With a storm raging outside?"
Emma cringed at the thunder, but she didn't lower her gun either. "Eames, tell me that you have an exit plan." 'I can't control my subconscious, but maybe I can get us out of here.'
"Um." Eames swallowed. "Well…"
"You created all of this and forgot to plan an escape route?" Cobb asked, alarmed. "What were you thinking?"
Eames shrugged. "Wait for the timer to run out?"
Arthur rolled his eyes. "That's a stupid plan; you set the timer for two hours, and that means forty hours down here in the dream."
"Really?" Eames asked, surprised.
Emma groaned and then looked up at the chandelier directly above their heads; spotting the rope holding it up, and saw a perfect target. "You're a git, Eames, and it's time that we wake up." And she fired at the rope.
Realizing what Emma was doing, Arthur and Cobb braced themselves, and Eames was confused; firing a second time, the rope began fraying, and Emma grabbed Arthur's hand and squeezed her eyes shut.
The rope snapped and a ton of crystal and metal dropped onto the quartet before the projections could attack.
Gasping, Emma snapped awake and groaned at the pain in her head, wishing now that she'd used a different way, and became aware of Arthur holding her hand, which was a pleasant distraction.
The sounds of grunting and struggling prompted the couple to turn to the sight of Cobb wresting Eames to the floor, and Mal was covering the British man with her gun.
"Stay here," Arthur instructed, removing the tubes from their wrists, and went to help Cobb with the con artist.
An hour later, security came and took Eames, his partner, and the PASIV Device away, and two men remain behind to repair the doorframe and the lock; Emma was now on the couch and was wrapped up in a blanket, still a bit shaken by the experience.
Arthur joined her with two mugs of peppermint tea. "Here, Mal figured you need some," he said, sitting down next to her.
"Thanks." Emma accepted the tea and blew on it a few times before sipping the mint-scented liquid. "Arthur, what you and Cobb saw in the dream, what I told you-"
"It's fine, honey," Arthur cut in, touching her face. "We all have baggage that we have to deal with, and you got us out of there because you knew where to go."
"True," Emma agreed, "and I guess being crushed by a chandelier is better then being torn apart by demonic projections."
Arthur nodded, smiling. "Definitely better, and now I know why you drink English brand tea," he added, making his girlfriend flush. "You gonna be alright? Maybe I should spend the night."
"I'll be fine," Emma assured him. "Mal's gonna stick around tonight and security will have a care stationed outside."
"Actually we should all stay," Cobb suggested. "Just to be sure," he added, overriding Emma's protests. "Whoever hired Eames might try again."
Emma sighed, but was secretly glad. "Fine. So you know, there's one empty bedroom and Aesha will probably come back late, so I'll leave the sleeping arrangements up to you guys."
"I get the bedroom," Mal announced and Emma almost choked on her tea at Cobb and Arthur's indigent expressions.
"Mal!"
That night, after changing into a white tank top and sweatpants, which were Emma's PJs of choice, she went to her closest, knelt down, and pulled out of the back an iron box that was padlocked; using a key, she unlocked the box, opened it, and took out a small stack of aged papers.
Sitting cross-legged, Emma carefully sorted through the papers, which had drawings on them, and thought back to the attempted extraction. 'Whoever hired Eames, that person wanted more then access to the family fortune, they wanted my sketches. But why?'
Spotting the drawings she'd done over the years, Emma had nearly panicked, and now that fear was returning; for as long as she could remember, she'd had dreams about a strange and amazing man, whose appearances changed from time to time, various traveling companions, which had included her cousin Dot, and a magical blue box that traveled to the most amazing and impossible places.
These dreams both scared and excited Emma, and in just about every dream, the strange man would greet her by name, calling her his dream child; as she got older and older, the dreams came less often, and then, when she was thirteen years old, the dreams of the man just stopped.
That had left her sad and she eventually forgot about the dreams until a few years ago, and then the dreams returned with new adventures, companions, the strange man, and the magical box.
'Why would anyone want my drawings?' Emma wondered, carefully putting away the drawings, shut and locked the box, and shoved it into the back of the closest; deciding to worry about it later, she got up, closed the closest, and she went to bed.
The moment Emma shut her eyes, she entered one of the amazing and scary dreams with the man, a blonde-haired companion, and the magical box.
On a roof across from the apartment, a dark figure watched and waited until the lights were out, proof that the inhabitants were asleep; moving silently, the figure disappeared form the roof, using a zip-line to get onto the balcony outside Emma's apartment.
Gaining entrance, the figure stood in the living room, where Arthur was sleeping on the couch, and Cobb was sleeping in one of the recliners; the figure moved silently through the hallway and into Emma's bedroom, where he went straight to the closest.
He opened the door, reached inside, and retrieved the box; working quietly and quickly, he opened the box and pulled out the drawings. Sorting through them, he selected two, put the rest away, returned the box to its' proper place, and then left.
Elsewhere, the brown-haired man was examining the framed drawing when the figure entered the study and bowed.
"Sire, Eames failed to extract the drawings from the dream child's mind," the figure reported, "but I was able to retrieve these from her belongings." And he handed over the two drawings.
The man took the drawings and nodded with approval. "Very good, and what of Mr. Eames?"
"He has been taken by the security of the dream-share program," the figure reported. "And they're looking for his partners. What should we do about him should he talk?"
"He won't," said the man confidently, framing the two drawings. "Eames knows better then to reveal who it was that hired him; for now keep tabs on him for it's likely that he will be of use in the future."
"Yes, sire."
A/N: For those of who aren't familiar with the classic Doctor Who era of the series, I was referencing an Seventh Doctor episode called Ghost Light, where Ace, also known as Dorothy or Dot, had to face the evil she encountered as a child and learns that it's really an alien entry that was calling itself Light. R&R everyone!