Regression
"Accept loss forever"
Jack Kerouac
~ As soon as the Team landed in Tokyo, Saito was there to meet them. He looked somewhat disheveled and worried.
"Anything?" The Extractor asked.
"Mr. Cobb..." Saito started but could not finished. Their could be no happy news. Not when words failed an infallible man like Saito.
~ Inside the airport security, Cobb watched a black and white video of Sybil putting James and Phillipa on a plane. The Teenage Girl had run off then, appearing on a series of other cameras.
"We believe that she was diverting the assailants away from the Children. She missed the flight they were on. She boarded another flight to Los Angeles an hour later." Saito explained.
"How did they get to the airport?" Arthur asked.
"She drove them." Saito said in an irritated tone. "In my Lexus."
Cobb heard none of this as he stood with his cell phone to one ear.
"Miles isn't picking up." The Extractor said worriedly.
"Maybe Mal's parents?" Arthur offered. Cobb nodded and left the room to talk to his former in-laws.
"Where's Yori?" Ariadne asked. Saito sighed.
"Cobol's extraction Team, the ones who assaulted us on the plane, are showing marked improvements with an experimental drug Yori has developed. She has gone to Australia to offer help to Mr. Braker and his Team." The Businessman said.
"Really?" Ariadne sounded hopeful.
"It is far to soon to tell anything." Saito reminded her.
"Braker and his people are trained for this kind of thing, Darling." Eames assured her. "If anyone can fight their way out the daze, they can."
"I wouldn't bet on it." Yuseff said sadly. "Trained or no, the Australian team will never be sure what is real or not. I've seen it far to many times."
"Oh! Thank you Yuseff, the life of the party." Eames said in a catty voice usually reserved for the Point Man.
"Mal's parents haven't heard anything." Cobb said coming back into the room.
He looked tired and anxious. Like the days when Mal's projection was haunting him.
"I am attempting to get the security camera's for LAX." Saito offered. "At least we can know they landed safely."
"I'm sure Miles took them somewhere. He is probably in the air right now waiting till it's okay to call." Arthur volunteered. Unusually optimistic.
Cobb nodded.
"Cobb," Saito approached the Extractor. "I am sorry. I have failed you."
"No." Cobb said shortly. "This is on Cobol. They know were onto them."
"We have no reason to think Cobol has Sybil and the kids. She's a smart girl. She eluded them before. We have to continue with our plans assuming their safe. Nothing will get done otherwise." Arthur said.
"So there is a plan?" Saito asked, intrigued.
~ In a warehouse. Far away from the noise of the city, the Team was gathered.
The nostalgia of the old days was not lost on any of them.
"You recall our old friend Peter Browning right?" Eames said passing around files from the Fischer job. "Since Robert Fischer is now dismantling his Father's company, Browning has been buying shares in all sorts of energy commerce. Oil, coal, even green energy."
"Yes," Saito said scathingly. "He is attempting to take over as a leader in energy left by Maurice Fischer."
Eames nodded.
"He is succeeding, Mr. Saito." The Forger admitted politely.
"Now if I were Cobol, Browning would be an perfect target. Always assuming Sybil is right, and we have no reason not to believe that she is wrong, Cobol is looking for powerful people to perform dream manipulation on."
"He who controls the energy controls the world." Arthur finished.
"Exactly." Eames said.
"Cobol's inceptions are sloppy." Ariadne said to the group. "Surely they won't take."
"Your forgetting the drugs." Yuseff added. "The same type of mixture that made you think Cobb was trying to kill you, can make Browning into Cobol's puppet."
"So what do we do?" Saito asked.
"We go in." Cobb answered. "Take Browning into a dream. Perform inception, to make him distrust Cobol."
"Get him before Cobol dose." Eames added.
"Fisher's subconscious was militarized." Arthur said "We have to assume Browning's will be to."
"It took weeks to do Fisher's Inception." Ariadne said. "We don't have that kind of time."
"We know what were doing now." Cobb assured her.
"We just need to get to the simplest version of the idea." Eames said.
"So what if we perform inception on Browning, what about Presidents and Prime Minsters?" Ariadne asked.
"We can't just brainwash every world leader." Arthur agreed.
"No of course not." Eames agreed "But it's not the leaders of the world who lead the world is it?"
"It's big business." Cobb agreed. "With Browning's holdings, as well as Saito's, we can shut down Cobol for good."
~ In a nice hotel that was acting as a safe house, Ariadne was sketching in her room. Like the Fisher Inception, Cobb wanted 3 dream levels. The depth of the plant was necessary for maximum effect. She was working on mazes. She could utilize a great deal form the Fisher Job but she had to create a few differences.
She was expecting him. She was not surprised when she heard a soft knock. Arthur was standing at her door.
"May I come in?" He asked. The Architect smiled and stood aside allowing him entrance.
"I know why your here." She told him. Shutting and locking the door behind him.
"Do you?" He asked with a mischievous smile.
She shook her head. She would not allow him to divert her.
"You don't want me to go into the dream with the rest of you." She told him clearing her bed of her drawings. He sighed.
"No, I don't. It was too dangerous the first time. This time we know what were getting into."
"I have to." She told him.
"No, you don't." He said sharply.
Ariadne looked up at him.
They both felt an argument approaching. Arthur looked frustrated.
"You were not supposed to go with us on the Fischer Inception. Miles told Cobb not to bring you in. I told Cobb not to bring you in. When we found out how dangerous it was..." Arthur couldn't finish.
It was almost a year ago now, but the memory of gun fire, the projections, the fear of not waking up. These were things still fresh in all there minds.
"Like you said, we know what were getting into." Ariadne said defensively. "We know the risks and we will be more careful."
"No. We will be more careful, you will stay outside as our control." Arthur said.
"No. I wont." The Architect said turning her back to the Point Man.
She was not expecting him to grab her and turn her around to face him. She was not afraid exactly. No more afraid of Cobb when he grabbed her in the early days of dreams.
"I said your staying out." Arthur said in his low authoritative voice. "If I have to drug you and lock you in your room, I will."
Her voice was cold.
Her voice was exacting.
She looked her lover in the eye and said:
"This effects me more then anyone else. It was me that Cobol abducted, remember? This is my life to. If you try to keep me out of the fight and tending the home fires... it's over." He knew exactly what she meant by over.
"Ari..." He tried to say her name. His voice became lost. He wanted to kiss her. Hold her. Reason with her. The look in her eyes told him she would have none of this.
"We... uh... that last night in Morocco." He breathed. We didn't... you might be..." He said with difficulty. She rolled her eyes.
"I'm not pregnant, Arthur." She told him harshly.
"How do you know?" He asked. She sighed a frustrated sigh and looked at him.
"When we landed in Japan, I went to a doctor friend of Yori's. She gave me an emergency contraceptive pill." The Architect said. Feeling like it's wasn't the Point Man's business.
"Morning after pill?" He asked. Looking hurt.
"No. It just prevents pregnancy. It's not an abortion pill." She asked giving him an outraged look.
"You and I should have talked about that... before you went... and did..." He said feeling his face flush hot.
"I didn't do anything wrong." She told him. "We were a little over zealous in Morocco and didn't take the right precautions."
"Ariadne." He said his tone pleading. His stomach in knots at the idea.
"Did you want to get me pregnant?" She asked. Her eyes wide. Her breathing speeding up.
He said nothing. Only looked down at his shoes.
With nothing more to plead, bargain, threaten or hold to her with, Arthur took one last look at his Lady and left.