A Closed Circle
Chapter 3
Connections
The phone rang in the late hours of the night, early hours of the morning. He was still awake. Still working. The well-furnished guest room had an extension that he could have picked up to save her from waking, but he couldn't announce his presence to anyone.
He heard a door open in another part of the suite and the slow shuffling walk of someone still half a sleep. He was surprised that she didn't have an extension in her bedroom. But then he hadn't seen her bedroom. A phone might disrupt the décor in some way.
Curiosity got the better of him. When the phone stopped ringing and her tired muttering penetrated the walls, he stood up and went to see what was going on.
She stood with her forehead against the wall. Orange, pulsing lights from the roof on the shorter building next door revealed her and hid her in a steady rhythm. "Yeah," she said, her voice slurred. "Yeah mama, I know. Yes. Okay, Yes. Mama, please, I'm tired. It's 3 A.M. here. … Because I'm in Tokyo, remember? That's where I live now."
In the distorted light he couldn't tell the color of her robe. It looked orange, but it could very well be white or some other light color that didn't interfere with the orange of the lights outside. Just as he couldn't tell the color of her robe, he couldn't see the expression on her face. Partially hidden by the wall. Partially hidden by the shadows.
But she sounded … resigned. And a little sad.
"No mama, he's not. He's gone remember? We talked about this. … Sure. Sure." She pressed her fingers to her eyes and lowered herself to sit on the floor. Still against the wall. "Yeah. Of course I am mama. I love you. Please take care of yourself. Tell Mercy I said hi, okay? Of course. Yes. Love you. Bye."
She pressed a button on the phone an lifted the hand over her eyes to massage her temples. She opened her eyes. She gasped. "Jesus! I didn't see you there."
"Sorry. The phone rang. I thought it could be related. I heard ..."
"It was my mom." The set of her chin was defiant.
"I gathered."
The defiance wilted and only the resignation was left behind. "I'm sure you did. She and my dad were in a car accident a few years ago. Dad died. She suffered massive brain trauma. It's like early onset Alzheimer's. Some days she remembers everything. Some days nothing. Usually it's somewhere in between."
He nodded. None of this was new to him. He had done her background check when she first joined. But she didn't need to be told that now. And he was positive she knew it already. She knew what he was.
"I'm sorry. That must be difficult for both of you."
"Not really so difficult if I put her with nurses, even if Mercy is a good nurse, and then ran to the other side of the world," she reprimanded herself. As if he weren't even a part of the conversation. "But then I wouldn't want to get her any more involved in this business than she already is by virtue of being my mom. And by doing this I'm able to easily pay for any treatment she needs. And for her living. We still have some of dad's insurance money, but I used most of it paying my tuition. I knew the only way I could keep her in the nice place she was in was to get a job that could pay for it … so I tried to finish school as fast as I could."
He nodded again. It wasn't really a comment that demanded response. So he remained silent. She sighed. Pushed hard on her temples, and levered herself up from the floor. He might have offered a hand, but she was up before he managed to walk to her side.
"You've been up for hours," she pointed her chin at his rumpled shirt, sleeves turned up. But still tucked in. He had that at least. "I can't imagine you've eaten anything. And I never even offered you anything to drink." She led him down a series of hallways that opened up into a kitchen.
"You did actually," he mentioned, but he didn't think she heard.
"Do you plan on sleeping at some point?" she asked with a yawn. "Or do you need coffee?"
"Coffee. And thank you."
"Find anything yet?" She flipped a switch on a shiny complicated machine and started pouring things into it. Reached over and pulled out two perfect, white mugs. Closed and opened her eyes and grunted. Waking up.
"There are rumors of contacts with other extractors. If they've seen extraction before that would explain their protections against you. It would also help them in backtracking through what was left over of the dream and finding its origins. But then the same thing could be said of your fuel company.
"The law firm is promising, but I can't say for certain yet if they're the cause. I need to know more."
"What more do you need?"
"Ideally I'd like to drop down into your mind. In case your subconscious retains something of your abduction than you, yourself recall."
"We considered that," she told him, "but, for the same reasons he feared what they might have discovered, Saito is reluctant to have anyone go under with me."
"You know that much?" Surely not. She was a contracted employee, not …
"I know enough."
"Well," he said with a sneer, "what Saito doesn't know won't hurt him. The case is in my room. An hour should be enough since you know me and know what I'm doing. No one will come here in the next five minutes?"
"Not at this time at night. Not unless it's an emergency."
"Saito has a key for the floor," he reminded her.
"He gave that to you. And he's never had a key for the door." That statement reassured him. And not only about the extraction.
"Meet me in your garden," he told her as he stood up to walk to his room.
"What about the coffee," he heard her grumble as he left. "Dammit Arthur..."
He liked it when she said his name. Even in frustration. Maybe especially when in frustration. Her eyes filled with fire. Even when not in front of her, he could still see them. Unseen himself, he allowed a grin as he opened the door and pulled the case from where he stored it underneath the bed.
There were two mugs of coffee in her hands when she came in the door. He was kneeling by the small cafe table. Activating the device. Readying the IVs. He heard the chirp of a button as she crossed the threshold and watched as curtains slid to cover the windows that exposed the room.
"Useful," he commented.
"I come in at night sometimes. Not always decent. The curtains are better than having to get dressed to go to a room in my own home."
Not something he should think about. Not now. Now was work.
"Sit." He took one of the mugs and downed half of it in a gulp. It was hot, strong, and cleared his vision in one instant. "Ready?" She gave him a sharp nod. He pressed the button.
The last thing he thought before the sleep took him was that it had been a while since he was in her mind.
00000000000000000
Creation wasn't his strong point, but he was experienced enough that he could build a world when he had to. And in this case, he used a level they had shared before. He led her past the infinite staircase, and up a true set of stairs to reach the elevator.
There was a faint chuckle from behind him. "My subconscious is still polite."
"For now. It'll be different when we get to the top."
"The top?"
"Yeah. There's a safe room in the penthouse."
Her steps moved faster. She caught up with him. Passed him. Beat him to the elevator. "Floor 'P'..."
"Yes."
"So creative. 'P' for penthouse. Not even a hint of misdirection."
"Shouldn't be necessary here. No reason to alarm your projections if you feel no alarm yourself. And if I don't do anything overt to stir them up."
"So, taking my innermost secrets isn't overt?"
He went still. Turned to her. "I'll only read the parts about the attack," a place he could say her name. For reassurance. For connection. "You can find the right page. I won't see anything you don't want me to see."
A failed opportunity. Once again.
"If I'm blocking out the attack, naturally I don't want anyone to see that either."
"Yes but that's something I need to see. The whole reason I'm here. That I have to have to do my job. And for you to do yours too."
"You know," she started, shooting a look at him over her shoulder, "I'm surprised you came. I was surprised to see Eames too the first time. I thought the plan was to stay as far apart as possible. I never expected to see any of you again. Even after Saito hired me."
He shrugged. Thought nothing of the fact that she had effectively erased him from her life. "It's a small business. We're bound to run into each other at some point. And it's good to know who else is out there. But," he added, "there was no guarantee you would stay with the work. There are plenty of legitimate ways to use a skill like yours. With the military or any other branch of the government. Of any government. And plenty of private industries make use of shared dreaming as well. Lots of hospitals. Psychiatric facilities.
"Safer for all of us to lay low after that one."
A smirk as she walked. "No way I could leave this behind." The hallway led to a door. She put a hand against it. Pressed. But it would not open. Her mind, but his world.
He lifted her hand from the door. Held it for maybe a fraction of a second longer than necessary. "Even if you could break it, that would draw attention we don't need." A smile just touched his mouth. He pulled a key card from his jacket pocket. Slid it into the reader.
The door opened with a click. A sound of unsealing.
The penthouse was one open room with a small closet in the center. The closet door was framed in reenforced steel. There was a hand-print scanner to the right. "Your hand," he told her.
This door unclicked a half dozen times. And the sound of sealed air escaping was twice as loud. A safe sat on a table in the middle of the room. She touched the box itself. Stroked the key pad. Entered a series of ten numbers. Opened it.
The stack of papers inside was an inch thick. Did she really have that much she wanted to hide?
Saito, a man who ran an international company and who had multiple affairs with 'unavailable' women, only sealed a small envelope. She had a book.
"What was limbo like?" his voice was even.
She was rifling through papers. "I couldn't begin to describe it to you." She put the top half of the stack back into the safe. Then another chunk. She was holding maybe 50 pages. Her eyes widened. Her lips parted in surprise. Her fingers clinched in what was similar to fear.
His mouth opened. To say her name. To bring her back from whatever hole her thoughts had dropped her into.
"Jesus," she whispered before he got the chance. "I didn't need to see that printed on paper." She threw what looked like ten pages at least into the safe as if they were something disgusting. If they hurt her to touch.
"Here," she beckoned him over. He stood behind her. Reading over shoulder.
There wasn't much, not compared to the large stack returned to the safe, but they looked through the five pages of documents left. After the second page she handed him the stack and pushed her way past him. Leaving the closet.
The reason why was somewhat obvious. She'd gotten only a glimpse of the people who took her. And recognized none of them. But she came to for a brief moment between unconsciousness and the sleeping brought on by extraction. She recognized a man. The voice. The touch of his hands on her wrist.
An extractor from the job on the assistant. And a man she'd had a brief affair with during that time.
He heard something slamming into the wall outside. Her foot maybe. He heard low ranting. A few words laced with danger and violence. Turned back to the pages.
All this lent more credibility to the law firm theory.
The extraction against her failed. Good news. Extractors themselves were notoriously difficult when someone attempted an extraction against them. There were the totems for one. And for another they were all understandably suspicious of any encounter.
Her subconscious logged four foreign beings in her mind at the time of extraction. All of them male, but the physical descriptions were limited. Too generic. Four males, all white, all of average height, somewhere between late twenties and late thirties. All speaking English. Two had darker hair, between brown and black. Two had lighter hair, between brown and blond. On the surface it was useless information, but the depth of the descriptions of what she did know. Her impressions. She surprised him.
And helped explain the large stack of papers. What some people only vaguely remembered, few facts and even fewer details, she remembered in exquisite detail. Her mind was organized and trained to absorb what she saw and heard.
The only clear information she recorded of that event was the description of the head extractor. The one she had slept with, no matter how briefly. One small notation at the bottom of the fourth page mentioned how it wasn't surprising that he failed to take information from her. That he always thought he was better than he actually was.
He held back laughter. That spoke volumes. Even if the emphasis was his. It released some of the pressure that had built up since his eyes scanned over the word 'affair'.
The fifth page. He wasn't sure he'd tell her about the fifth page. What she didn't remember wouldn't hurt her like it would if she did.
He finished reading. Put the papers back. Shut the safe. Left the room. Shut that door. Finally turned to her. "We have something like 20 minutes left. Maybe you should take a walk." Her eyes were narrow. Her face was flush with anger. Her mouth moved over silent curses, and he wondered at what they contained.
Her only acknowledgment of his suggestion was to stomp outside and lock him in.
Well. It would keep her projections away from him. And no doubt they were as riled as she was. It would keep him from asking uncomfortable questions. At least until they woke.
He thought back over the contents of her subconscious memory. He came to a few conclusions.
The law firm was responsible.
The previous job had been a set up.
The set up had been preplanned even before she found a team for the job. There was probably more than one person she would have recognized who went to Finnik, Brown, and Obara with information.
He'd have to suggest in a way that did not alarm her, doing something to increase protection for her mother.
He was going to have words with the man who betrayed her.
Not that their relationship had been anything other than casual. He hadn't gone back to read those parts of her. It was too invasive. She might not forgive him. And there were no notations of the depth of their relationship in the section he had access to.
Casual or not. The whole thing was a betrayal and a deception. An everyday occurrence in their business. The very foundation of their business, in fact. Something that didn't ordinarily necessitate death, but in this case …
He was willing to be flexible.
The drug was wearing off. He felt the beginnings of waking. As the dream faded around him, he wondered at all those other secrets in her safe. All those other things she felt she needed to hide.
Author's Note: Again thank you for the reviews. And to all those not reviewing ... why aren't you! :D I hope you all enjoyed chapter 3. And seriously. It does get more A/A later on ... and there are other characters too.