"It's not going to be easy, Lyrica," Cobb stated after we had moved ourselves over to the chairs and were satting in a triangular formation. The room was clean and tidy unlike the room in the dream which was a hot mess.
"I know it's not gonna be a walk in the park," rolling my eyes at him, I leaned my elbows forward onto my thighs. Sleepily, I cupped my chin in my hands and tried my best to not fall asleep. "But it sounds like a pretty quick job."
"That is if Mr. Saito is willing to comply," Arthur interjected while folding his arms across his chest. Silently, I laughed at how suave he tried to look in his big-shot "suit" and semi-gelled hair. "Nash says he's not the friendliest guy out there."
"And Nash's done all his research?" Still, no matter how hard I fought it, my eyelids were slowly drooping closed. Because of all the Windows, we were almost surrounded in total darkness except for the little lamp on the desk providing us with poor light. I couldn't help myself as I glanced down at my watch and quietly groaned when it read 1:30am.
"Yes," nodding, Cobb picked up a stack of papers from the table next to him and placed them in his lap. "This pile holds every ounce of information about him." Man, that was one huge mountain of research.
"Let me guess: you want me to read it all?"
"No, we want you to memorize it."
At first, I thought Arthur was just using dry sarcasm and I started laughing. When I realized nobody else was, I awkwardly stopped and gaped at them with wide eyes. They had to be kidding!
"Wait, you're serious? You want me to memorize everything about this guy in a few days?" Now, I was awake for sure. "That's not possible."
"It is, Lyrica," standing up, Cobb walked over to me and plopped the stack into my hands. "Try your hardest to memorize key points," suddenly, his voice dropped to a whisper, "you work better when you know your client inside and out."
It's true. I've done a lotta work for Cobb in the past and I had used all of Nash's research to really get to know whose mind we were going into. Since I knew everything about them, I could manipulate the client's mind so we could extract more easily. Just because this guy has more information about him doesn't mean I shouldn't really get to know him.
With a frustrated sigh, I stood up and grabbed my purse off the floor, nearly toppling over from the weight of the papers. "Alright, boys. It's late so I'm heading out. I'll be sure to, uh, memorize this," I motioned with my head to the stack clutched in between my hands.
"Good to work with you again, Lyrica," standing, Cobb nodded at me and I smiled groggily back at him.
"That's not as much as it seems," Arthur gestured to the papers. "All you need to know are the main points."
"Well, it sure does feel like a lot," I began to make my way to the door on the other side of the room and they both walked next to me.
"Don't worry about it. Remember, come here in 4 days and we'll all fly out to Tokyo together. Think you'll be able to manage it all by Tuesday?" Arthur asked as we stopped in front of the door.
"Absolutely," nodding, I grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. "It was nice visiting you two again. I'll see you on Tuesday."
Quickly, I closed the door behind me and tried to balance myself as I made my way down the stairs. If this all had to be memorized by Tuesday, there was no way I would be getting much sleep tonight. I walked briskly back to my apartment and when I was in my room, I tossed the heap onto my desk, turned on the small lamp, and sat down in the creaky chair.
"Where to start?" I yawned to myself as I flipped through the papers. Underneath the first few, I came across a picture of a man. He was tall with black hair, dark brown eyes, a little bit of facial hair, and wearing a business suit. Right away, I knew this was the guy we were tapping into and I set the photo aside in a separate pile for the more important information.
Then, there was an article under that with the title: FISCHER: ONE AWAY FROM ENERGY DOMINATION. Beneath that was a picture of the same man and a caption with his name, Saito, printed next to it. In the black and white photo, Saito was standing perfectly straight and looking off into the distance. He was trying to hid his tension, but it was clear he was upset and distraught over the fact he was about to be out of a job.
"Nash says he's not the friendliest guy out there"…I can see why if he's about to lose such a high position. As I dug a little deeper into the pile, I found more information about his personality. I found articles calling him a deep thinker and a bit hot-headed, but it didn't seem like anything I hadn't worked with before.
By 3:30, I was too tired to even retain any information and decided to save the next ¾ for the next 3 days. Little did I know this man would actually figure us out, and then want something more from us.