Starting breakfast in the quiet restaurant before 7am, assuming that Eames and Ariadne were still asleep, Ari certainly needing it by all accounts of how hard she'd been working herself, Arthur sat letting his eyes drift over a newspaper, only partially paying attention to the words on the page. The act gave him the chance to sit undisturbed, think and watch the passers-by in the hotel, which at worst was an interesting pastime and at best worth it to pick up something worthwhile.
After twenty minutes however Arthur noticed something he hadn't expected to at all - Ariadne entering the hotel wheeling a large suitcase behind her. Folding his paper with a disturbed frown, Arthur dropped it heavily onto the table and swiftly rose from his seat, striding over to where the architect now stood with her case, holding his gaze. This was a development he hadn't allowed for and one he wasn't happy in the least about.
"Let's take the elevator" he grimly suggested in a tone that indicated it wasn't up for debate. Leading the way inside the cubicle, Arthur pressed the button for the correct floor, keeping silent as it started to ascend, lost in his thoughts for a moment.
As the lift opened onto their floor, Arthur led the way to his own room, despite Ari still having her case with her, prioritising the job above their personal lives. Swiping the entry card to open the door he held it open for her, following her in with the same blank but foreboding expression on his face, offering her the one chair in the room as he sat on the end of the double bed.
"Ariadne, if someone wanted to end or interfere with this job, and any future work, who do you think they'd target? Who'd be easiest to get to?" Arthur asked suddenly, letting the questions rest for a moment.
From the moment she saw Arthur get up and swiftly approach her, Ari knew that he wasn't happy and that she was undoubtedly going to be on the end of the type of lecture he reserved for Eames. Standing totally still as he approached her, she simply nodded and followed him into the elevator, deciding that now was not the best time to argue. When they reached his room and indicated for her to take a seat in only comfy chair in the room, he sat down at the end of the large bed and started with a question in which Ari knew the answer to, but refused to answer it straight away as she was mentally trying to build a defence for herself.
After leaving the question hanging for a moment, Ari sighed wearily and decided not to be a smart ass as she didn't want to make things worse for herself or Arthur. "Yeah, I know, I get it; I get what you're trying to say, but come on Arthur… This whole thing only really started properly last night when we talked shop over dinner. Besides, I was out of the hotel by six, who the hell would be around at that time? I was totally safe, I got a taxi back to my dorm, packed the rest of my stuff and got a taxi back, and here we both are, with me in one piece. Is there any need to make a big deal out of this?" she asked and instantly regretted it.
Of course it was a big deal to Arthur, everything was when he was on the job. Although he was taking charge of this job he still felt like the point man. He'd been taking the role so long now that it fit like a glove and his first concern was to make sure nothing went wrong, and that included protecting the team.
"I'm glad to see you're in one piece, and you probably are reasonably safe around here" he answered honestly. "but you can't take that for granted. There's a lot you didn't need to know for the 'Fischer' job, especially when you weren't coming into it at first, but it's important now." Arthur took a moment's pause, hoping what he was about to share wouldn't lose the team their architect in itself.
"When Saito offered Cobb that job it was while one of his staff had a gun to the head of Nash, our previous architect. Even though we accepted, they still dragged him off to turn him over to Cobol Engineering, the company we were supposed to extract from Saito for. The same company's agents ran Dom down in Mombasa when he went to get Eames and still have a price on both of us right now. I have to assume if Saito was still holding Nash when we finished the job he'd have let him go but if Cobol got hold of him it explains why we haven't heard back."
"We don't deal with the nicest people, if we did we wouldn't make enough to do this so you need to be careful, at least until you're trained. It may have taken us five people and a plane journey to incept Fischer but if I'd been that taxi driver I could have put you under, extracted anything I wanted about the job, the team you're with, your friends or family and disposed of you in the time it took for anyone to notice you were gone. There's no way you can do this job if you're paranoid about the risk but if you want to keep coming into the dream world your real world isn't going to be as safe as it used to be."
Breaking eye contact, Ari felt as if someone had ripped the very ground out from underneath her and that she was plummeting into a bottomless pit of fear and despair. With a sigh she suddenly stood up and faced the opposite wall as she contemplated everything Arthur had just told her. So that was why Cobb had turned up at the university on the hunt for one of Miles' more gifted students… Because their last architect had disappeared without a trace and they needed a replacement ASAP. She'd entered into this awe inspiring, indescribable world by default?
Then of course there was what Arthur had said about how easy it would be for someone to extract everything they needed to know about the job and Ari herself, and it was then that her mind went into overdrive. What did she take with her that could lead back to the people she cared about? There was her mobile of course, and then all the textbooks she had with her that could easily lead someone to the university and the very few friends she had, as well as Miles. Then there were the handful of knitted jumpers she had that came from her mother's little shop back home… Would they be able to trace it back to them? Would her family be in danger because she hadn't stopped to properly think things through? Arthur was right… This was all stuff she didn't know about when agreeing to the Fischer job, not that anyone had taken the time to take her aside and tell her.
Crossing her arms and tapping her fingers in a steady rhythm as she normally did when nervous, angry or upset, she hovered on the spot a moment longer, wondering if it was all worth it. Was abandoning the final few weeks of her degree to work with people who had been lying to her from the start really worth the risk and all of the worry? She didn't know and she didn't want to think about it at that moment, but there was something she did want to know.
Turning around slowly to face Arthur, she placed her hands on the back of her chair, more for support than anything as she suddenly felt very faint, and returned his intense gaze.
"Did you try and help him?" she asked, her voice so quiet it was practically a whisper. "Nash I mean… Did you even try and help him?"