6.
~ The feeling of safety was short lived for the Architect. Nightmares tore her awake after a few hours.
She woke and found she was in a strange room with no memory of how she got there. Wandering the halls only led her to feeling more confused as she was greeted with an impossible and unfamiliar skyline at an impressive window.
"Ariadne?" Came a voice behind her.
She jumped and turned to see Saito standing there. The businessman looking pristine as always even though it was obviously early morning.
"Mr. Saito?" She whispered. "What are you doing here?"
"This is my home in Tokyo. You asked me to come and get you last night." He explained. "Are you hungry? I've had my cook prepare you something to eat."
"Where am I? Why did you come and get me?" She asked feeling confused.
Saito sighed deeply.
"Please have something to eat. You will feel better." He said.
~ Saito was accommodating to his guest. He had his cook prepare her a traditional French breakfast of strong coffee and a light pastry dish with fruit. Ariadne savored the warm bread as her nerves calmed down.
"What happened?" She asked the businessman as he drank black coffee.
"You were convinced you were in danger." Saito said blandly. He looked over his news paper and seemed rather bored.
"Danger?" Ariadne asked.
"Yes. You called me up and were convinced Mr. Cobb and his associates were attempting to kill you." Saito told her.
Ariadne nodded. A vague memory, like a small spark of light went off in her mind. Then like a single candle, the memory roared into a fire.
"Saito! Cobb killed Mal! He did it! I saw in his memory he killed her. When I told Arthur, he blew up my apartment! I know things about him and Eames to. Their dangerous." Ariadne pleaded suddenly.
"They are dangerous. That is true. But they are not dangerous to you." Saito told her lazily.
He waived a hand to his butler. The uncomfortable looking man came to stand by him and presented Saito with a stylish laptop computer.
The businessman engaged a program and a video appeared on screen.
Saito barked at the video in his native language. A man appeared on screen. Saito barked at the man again and a French news paper was help up to the camera for Saito and Ariadne to see.
"This is a live feed from Paris. My associate is in your neighborhood. See the date?" Saito told her.
Ariadne looked at the paper and saw the date was correct.
Saito barked at the man on camera again.
"This is you apartment. The one you said was blown up." Saito told her.
Ariadne watched in disbelief as the camera rolled over her neighborhood and up to her loft apartment. Her windows were not blown out, no evidence of a fire was there. The building looked perfect in every detail.
"I don't understand. I saw the explosion." Ariadne whispered.
"Arthur has suggested you were hallucinating." Saito told her as he cut off the video feed.
"You talked to Arthur?" She breathed. Her eyes widening.
"He called me, yes." Saito told her.
"I know what I saw!" Ariadne cried. "I didn't imagine it!"
"Then explain how your apartment is still there." Saito told her.
She thought back. Her memories and thinking; slow and stupid.
"I... I can't." She admitted. "But I saw Cobb murder his wife. I was in his mind and I saw it!" She insisted.
Saito didn't argue. He didn't need to. He opened a program on his computer and played a security video.
"I own the building opposite where her suicide happened. My security cameras captured this. It's what I used as evidence to clear Mr. Cobb's name." The businessman said.
Ariadne watched a grainy rooftop video of a woman sitting out of a window. She was perched carelessly close to the edge of a very steep and unforgiving drop.
After a few seconds, Cobb appeared. There was no audio and she watched them talking for a few moments before Cobb was waving his hands and obviously yelling. Mal's face looked serene and perfectly calm before she let herself fall off the ledge.
"Oh!" Ariadne gasped at the horror of it. The camera capturing her hitting the ground below as Cobb was visibly upset and crying.
"Video does not lie." Saito said softly. "It is not like memories. It does not fade or change with time."
"No. I don't understand." Ariadne whimpered.
"Arthur seems to think you were exposed to a high dosage of the hallucinogen in the compound. It caused you to imagine things that were not real."
"It was real!" Ariadne shouted and stood up.
She was feeling panicked now.
Saito seemed unimpressed.
"Pleas sit down." he said calmly.
"I know he killed her. I saw it!" She protested.
"The mind can play powerful ticks on an person. In your line of work, you know that better then anyone." Saito insisted.
"No!" Ariadne almost shouted.
The butler came back into the dinning room and whispered in Saito's ear. The businessman nodded and spoke back in Japanese as Ariadne stood there.
Saito stood and offered his arm to his guest.
"Please, come with me. I have more to show you." He said.
~ Trustingly, Ariadne allowed Saito to take her to a small, elegant parlor room. There, stood a man in a white coat. An obvious doctor. Beside him, stood Arthur, Cobb and Eames.