For notes and disclaimer, please see part one.

Previously: Cobb Encapsulates a thought of Arthur's. Coming out of the dream, Eames and Ariadne see how the memories connected to Arthur's watch are gone. Entering the shared dream again, they discover that the Encapsulated thoughts aren't where Ariadne left them. They dive deeper into Arthur's thoughts and memories, winding up at a casino in Las Vegas, where his sister is a poker dealer. Eames gets the clue from Penelope that the watch is in one of the casino's rooms.


The third floor of the casino hotel was sparsely populated. On their search for the proper room, they only passed one projection.

Ariadne figured the projection must've been someone important because Arthur almost immediately turned his head.

"Here we are," Eames announced, standing in front of the door. "Who's got the key?"

Arthur slipped his hands into his pockets. In the right one was his totem. In the left, a card key. Wordlessly, he pulled it out, unlocking the door and leading the way in.

Eames let out a slow breath as he realized they were walking into the same row house they'd been in during the New York portion of the dream. "Is it odd to get déjà vu within a dream?" he asked.

"Ariadne?" Cobb asked.

"This way," she said, leading them toward the kitchen.

When Arthur paused, however, so did Eames. Glancing around, Eames knew why. There was another projection, someone there who hadn't been there before.

It was a haggard woman sitting on the couch. Her thick dark hair was streaked with silver. Her dark eyes were sunken. Angry black circles lingered beneath them, startling against her otherwise pale skin.

"Perhaps we should join the others in the kitchen," Eames said, reaching out toward Arthur.

The woman's head snapped toward them when he spoke. "You! You're not supposed to be home yet."

Arthur stilled, clenching his jaw tightly. "How could you?"

"Arthur, come on," Eames said, tugging the younger man's sleeve.

The point man was standing his ground, unmoving, unwavering, staring at the projection.

"No, Arthur, you shouldn't be here..."

Before Eames could say anything else to try to convince Arthur to move, the woman lunged at Arthur. Eames pulled the point man out of the way, and the woman fell, sprawling on the floor.

"What's happening?" Cobb asked, emerging from the kitchen with the lock box under his arm.

Ariadne was behind him. "Arthur?"

"Nothing to see here, just memories, I think," Eames said. "Rather unpleasant ones. Are we done? How close are we to our five minutes?" he asked, looking at his watch.

The woman laughed, sitting up. It was a startling sound, a creepy, demented kind of chuckle. She casually picked at her fingernails when she spoke: "It doesn't matter anymore. It's too late."

Arthur's expression was blank, empty.

"Definitely time to go," Eames said, pulling his gun from his holster again. He didn't apologize or give any warnings before firing on Ariadne first before shooting himself.


"Dammit, Eames!" Ariadne again felt for the hole in her chest, but there wasn't one. "Would you stop doing that?"

"First time, Cobb said so. Second time... well." He glanced at Arthur. "Fella should have privacy."

"Why didn't you shoot Cobb, too, then?"

"The box was still locked. I'm not about to go traipsing through vintage Las Vegas again, not with that shrew of a woman wandering around." He pulled the IV from his hand.

"What are you two talking about?" asked Yusuf.

"Not to worry," he said, getting to his feet. "Everything will be back to normal in a moment."

Cobb and Arthur woke simultaneously, both gasping for air.

Silence descended upon the group. It was uncomfortable, and it filled the empty warehouse they'd taken as their base of operations.

Arthur yanked out his IV, standing. "My watch, Cobb." He held his hand out expectantly.

Cobb quietly placed it in his hand.

Arthur turned, not looking at any of them, as he walked out of the warehouse, out into the afternoon air.

"We're going to have lots of issues on this job, aren't we?" Yusuf asked.

Cobb glanced at Ariadne, who was torn between staying there and running after Arthur. With a sigh, he began rolling up his IV tube. "Personally-charged missions are always high-stakes."


Arthur took several deep, shaky breaths. He kept telling himself it was worth it, that Ariadne and Eames needed to see what Encapsulation looked like, so they'd recognize it in Penelope. He hadn't expected his mother to show up. He hadn't expected them to see her either.

He'd have to thank Eames again, a thought that both sickened him and made him ease somewhat.

Once Eames and Ariadne had disappeared, he'd pulled his own gun.

Cobb almost hadn't been given enough time to open the case.

One bullet in his mother's head, one in Cobb's, before one in his own.

It was a miracle he'd made it out of their broken home alive, even more so that Penelope had been able to do it almost entirely on her own.

He'd tried to get her to join the military, too, but she had her sights set differently than his. While he just wanted out, she wanted up.

After his brief tenure with the Marines, she'd been the one to turn him onto the prospect of shared-dreaming. He'd heard about it in the military, about the training aspects of the procedure. If he'd stuck around for more than his initial tour, he might've asked to try.

Arthur had always kept an ear to the ground, always mindful of what was around him, of what possibilities were out there. He'd met the Cobbs first, Mal and Dom, little Phillipa and tiny James.

It was an interesting idea, a family brought together by dream-sharing. It had made him believe that there could be more to his own life than his self-imposed isolation. He'd introduced them to Penelope, and Mal had introduced them to the concept of the totem.

He reached into his pocket, fingering the loaded die again.

Its mate, the one that only rolled to the number two in the waking world, was in his sister's pocket.


The next few weeks were intense. The preparation of the job was more than any of them had imagined possible.

Arthur devoured the time lines, spreading out over the floor of the warehouse, trying to pinpoint the overlaps between his sister's perfectly regimented schedule and that of the less-than-honorable Encapsulators. There were only a few instances where it would've been easy to perform an Encapsulation. There were plenty where it might've been more difficult but still doable.

It made his head hurt.

Ariadne worked on the five separate levels of the dream. The first level would be a gala party. Something that was not related to Penelope or Arthur in any way. After all, their mark was supposed to be on a mission to help them help someone else, not to dive within her own subconscious.

The first level would be an easy Mr. Charles gambit. With Eames in on the trick, his job was to willingly submit to Arthur's portrayal of dream security.

The second level would be more difficult. Something familiar to Penelope, as it would be the location of her Encapsulation, once Arthur determined it. The level was currently generic enough to be any city, any location. Once Arthur figured it out, she'd make last-minute adjustments.

The third and fourth levels would dive into Penelope's past, perhaps even her shared past with Arthur. The fifth level would be her lab. Ariadne had a feeling that Penelope would need to be surrounded by images of her work, in order to find what it was she'd been studying.

Cobb had agreed.

Cobb and Yusuf had some traveling to do, gathering the exact, expensive components necessary to make the tailored sedatives to keep the shared-dreamers within their deepest sleeps. Yusuf also had to work on adjusting the times spent on each level. The compounding didn't need to be quite so extensive.

Eames studied his mark. While he wasn't forging his appearance in the dream, he had to be able to keep Penelope's attention. He studied her job history, her personal history. He picked Arthur's brain to the point of utter annoyance.

Ariadne, tired of hearing Arthur's increasingly irate answers, finally jumped into the conversation. "Eames?"

"Yes, dear?" he asked, turning toward her.

"What's your favorite color?"

He tilted his head at her curiously. "Favorite color?"

"You do have one, don't you?" she asked, a smile tugging at her lips.

"I suppose," he said, easing back in his chair and propping his feet up. "Something naturally occurring. Earth tones, I guess, might be the best way to describe it."

"So, you're not a screaming yellow kind of a guy?"

He made a face.

"No neon oranges or pinks?"

"While neon may be a naturally occurring element, I'm not fond of the colors it lends its name to, no," he said. "Was that of absolute pertinence?"

Arthur glanced at Ariadne. "Actually, it was," he said, pulling the leather-bound notebook from the back pocket of his dark slacks.

"What on earth are you up to?" Eames asked.

"We've been getting ready for the deeper aspects of the dream. I haven't even begun to prepare the documentation we'll need to convince Penelope to join the team, to dive into your mind."

"You're going to make something up? Wouldn't that be more my area of expertise?"

"Not necessarily," Arthur said, his pen dancing furiously across the pages.

"I'm not sure I approve of this," Eames said, sitting up again and craning his neck in the hopes of catching a glimpse of what was being written.

"Not sure you get a say in it," Arthur shot back darkly.

"I'm volunteering, aren't I? This is a special case, isn't it? I can create my background, you can continue to figure out where it is, exactly, your sister's brain got a little edited."

Ariadne almost wished Cobb hadn't left with Yusuf. Or, if he had, that he hadn't left her behind either. "Guys..."

"Your job is to keep my sister occupied while I look for her Encapsulated thoughts. And, as you've already pointed out all day today, I'm the one who knows her best. I'm the one who's going to know how her brain works, how her thoughts flow... and why she might like trying to help you."

"I'm a perfectly likable gent."

"You're a perfectly annoying pr-"

"Arthur," Ariadne cut off warningly.

"Oh, darling, please," Eames said, glancing at the architect. "This is nothing new. This is downright typical of Arthur's condescension. Those who can, extract. Those who can't, point."

"Those who lie, forge," Arthur taunted.

Eames actually smiled. "With pride."

Frustrated, Arthur stood, stalking off.

"It's just too easy," Eames commented, giving Ariadne a light shrug.

"You could try to be nice."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"It would be a challenge for you, wouldn't it?" she asked before following Arthur out of the warehouse.

Eames considered that for a moment. "Huh."


Cobb stopped at the red light, watching the traffic roll past in front of him.

Yusuf prattled on about the particular compounds needed for the Encapsulation. "I've been reading up on it. There isn't much documentation out there. In fact, most of what I've read, it was written by our mark. That's not odd, is it?"

Cobb was lost in thought, thinking of his children. The children he'd fought to get home to. The daughter who barely tolerated him. The son who adored him.

"Cobb?" Yusuf frowned.

Only the honking of the cars behind him in line brought Cobb back to attention, to the fact that he'd been sitting through the light after it had turned green.

"I was wondering if I'd lost you," Yusuf said.

Cobb shook his head. "I'm here."

"Did you hear what I said?"

Cobb cleared his throat. "About what?"

"About our mark, about how she's the one with the most written and published about Encapsulation."

"Penelope?"

Yusuf nodded.

"What's she written about?"

The chemist sorted through the papers in his lap. "Most of the basic information came from her, in fact. The compounds that make it possible, what can suspend the brain's ability to think clearly, what assists in the hypnotic elements of an Encapsulation." Yusuf glanced over in time to see the lines deepen in Cobb's forehead. "This is bad, isn't it?"

"I don't know yet," he admitted. When he pulled up outside the warehouse, he saw Arthur on the steel grated landing a floor up, leaning against the railing, staring off into space. Ariadne was behind him, a hand supportively on his arm.

Cobb knew intimately well how difficult it could be, being distracted by family, needing desperately to accomplish something for a loved one. He knew better than any of them, in fact. While he might've played a little fast and loose with the rules, he wasn't about to let the others risk their lives, not even for Arthur's sister, who Cobb himself had known going on six years.

"Do me a favor," Cobb said as he parked the car.

"What's that?" Yusuf asked.

"Take Ariadne inside. Tell her you need to ask her something."

"What am I asking her?"

"Doesn't matter," Cobb said. "I just need a minute with our point man."

Yusuf nodded slowly before climbing out of the car. He grabbed all his parcels and bags from the backseat, juggling them in his arms to ascend the staircase. "Ariadne, would you be so kind?" he asked.

Arthur moved out of the way as Ariadne took half Yusuf's collection and followed him into the warehouse proper.

"Arthur?"

"Yeah?" he asked, looking at Cobb.

"Looks like you haven't slept in a while," he commented idly.

The dark haired man smiled tightly. "You know how this job gets."

"Speaking of this job," Cobb said, segueing as nicely as he could onto other topics, "Yusuf had an interesting thought on the drive back here."

"What's that?" Arthur asked, standing a little straighter.

Cobb could tell that the point man was ready to process whatever it was, whatever new technique, whatever new idea. "That your sister seems to be the only expert in Encapsulation."

He shook his head.

"I've seen her scholarly papers, Arthur. She seems to be the leading authority."

Arthur narrowed his eyes, knowing well that Cobb was trying to impugn his sister's character. "Her initial research was into Encapsulation as trauma treatment. Victims of horrendous acts of violence, witnesses to murders, the like."

"So, what happened? What made her change her field of study?"

"She realized that the technology could be used for criminal purposes. It's worse than anything we could ever Extract. Extraction, you still have the secret. Encapsulation? It's gone. All of the genesis, all of the process..." He could tell he was losing Cobb. "Say you come up with the next great invention, something that's going to make you millions of dollars. Say you tell somebody your idea, but not all the details. Just enough to make them realize what a goldmine you're sitting on. That person hires an Encapsulator. He steals your idea as well as your knowledge of the idea. They make that invention, put their name on it... You never see a penny, never realize you should have seen a penny."

"It's not fool-proof. The potential is there for you to realize that something's gone," Cobb said.

"We've been working on this job three weeks now," Arthur returned. "You telling me we've wasted our time, energy, resources? You telling me you're not going to help my sister?"

Cobb shook his head. "That's not what I'm saying. What I am trying to say is that... can't you jog her memory? See if there's anything visible to her in this plane of existence."

"You don't think I haven't tried? I've had lunch with her twice a week since we started this. She doesn't remember a damn thing. Every time I try to bring it up, she changes the conversation."

"She does?"

Arthur nodded.

The questions returned to Cobb's face.

"What?"

"Is it possible that the subconscious can protect the Encapsulation even in her waking state?"

"That would be a question for Penelope. She is the leading expert on the dream-like state. If only she remembered that," he said flatly.

"How close are we to being ready?"

"Maze levels are mostly done. Eames has studied her forwards and backwards. The only things left are for us to finalize the fake mission, and get Yusuf's drugs completed."

Cobb nodded slowly. "Set up a meet with your sister. Dinner tomorrow."

"We're not going to be ready by tomorrow."

"We'll be ready to talk to her about a spot on the team by then, won't we?"

Arthur nodded.

"Dinner reservations." Cobb clapped Arthur's shoulder. "Somewhere nice. You, me, and Penelope."


He'd forgotten how her smile could light up the room. Cobb stood as Penelope approached. "How've you been?"

"Dom!" She hugged him tightly. "When Arthur said he was inviting a friend to have dinner with us, I never imagined it was you. Figured you'd be off, y'know, play date with the kids or something."

A flicker of pain entered Cobb's features but only for a fleeting moment. "There's family time and there's work time. Did Arthur tell you this was a business dinner?"

"No, actually, he didn't," she said, glancing at her brother, who was pulling her chair out for her.

"I was afraid you wouldn't come," he admitted, glancing at her.

"Well, I'm not sure how much help I can be to you two," she said as she eased into the seat. "But, I can surely try."

"That's all we need you to do, Penelope." Cobb offered her a file folder. "We have a tricky issue... and we need somewhat of a specialist."

She immediately opened the folder, her dark eyes speed-reading the information. "A Mr. Eames, huh?"

"He's had some problems with memory, indicative of Encapsulation," Cobb said quietly. He watched as her eyes stilled. "It's my understanding you're pretty good with that tech."

She looked up at him, shaking her head. She closed the file. "You heard wrong. I'm sorry."

"Penelope," began Arthur, "trust me. He knows."

She sighed heavily. "I haven't... I haven't worked on that program, on that kind of research, not in a long time, Dom. The advancements that have been made since I worked on it last... If this was a recent Encapsulation, there's... there's no way."

"We're a man down on the team, Penelope. And if there was any other way, any other option... But there isn't. We don't have a lot of time. This Mr. Eames fellow, he's a British diplomat," explained Cobb. "And he's got a flight back to London next week. We have to move fast to undo the damage that's been done."

"I'm not an extractor, I'm not a point man," she said, looking at Cobb and Arthur in turn. "I'm not even an architect."

"Don't worry about that," Arthur said. "You remember me telling you about Ariadne?"

She nodded.

"She's our architect. And we have a chemist."

"Then... what do you need me for?" she asked, looking thoroughly confused at her brother.

"Encapsulations these days," began Cobb, "have an advanced form of dream security. We have to employ a certain gambit which can be troublesome. It involves informing the mark that he's dreaming. If we can distract him, keep his subconscious occupied on several different levels, it'll make it easier to bring the memories back. Now, Eames, here, has a weak spot for beautiful women like you."

Penelope blushed slightly.

"In addition to your vast knowledge about Encapsulation, you are exactly his type." Cobb reached over, flipping a few pages in the folder, landing on the headshot of Eames as well as a brief description of his past romances and various preferences, right down to his favorite color. "Your job is to keep him off-center enough so that his subconscious doesn't come chasing after us, at least long enough for us to try to accomplish this job."

"I don't know, guys," she said, glancing from Cobb to Arthur.

"You'll be protected," Arthur promised. "I wouldn't be asking for your help if I thought it was too dangerous."

She glanced back at the folder, looking at Eames again, at the knowledge in his blue-green eyes, at the stubble across his cheeks. "If there's no other way to do this, if you need me," she said, hesitantly returning her attention to her big brother. She watched as relief visibly washed over him. "When do we start?" she asked resolutely.

"Soon. We're finishing up prep. But first? I'm famished," Cobb said, picking up his menu.


Coming attractions...

Lines from the next installment:

As she began to discuss the pros and cons of the next chemical component Yusuf would be mixing, Cobb leaned over to Arthur. "I forgot how much of an egghead she could be sometimes," he whispered.

Arthur nodded slowly. "That's why I'm not so sure how well this is going to go over. I'm not sure Eames can reach her."

"Eames is a con man. As smart as your sister is... she has her weaknesses, and Eames can find them, exploit them."

Arthur's jaw tightened. "That's what I'm afraid of."