A.N./: Hello again, my fellow fanficaholics, I hope you haven't forgotten about me! I know it's been a while, but honestly I've been dwelling with my own conclusion that I'm a failure as a writer, and what could I do to mend it. For a few months I simply read other works, and tried to discover my own style. Then, I read almost any tumblr account on writing tips and helpers, and that gave me a little more confidence in my writing. But ultimately what brought my muse back to life was the idea that I was leaving Eames and Alex story untold, and since there isn't any other out there, it kind of feels like an obligation to continue it. So, without further ado, I present to you chapter seven, and don't forget, feedback is the cherry on top of the cake!
"Why not just interrogate Amanda on the first layer, why take her under again into a second layer?" Alex asked Dom, as the group was reunited by the table after eating lunch. They were talking too loudly for his liking, so Cobb leaned over Alex as he spoke almost as a whisper.
"As you said, Amanda has experience with the games of the mind, so the deeper we go, the more vulnerable to manipulation she'll be."
Although it seemed like she had heard Cobb say this a few times before, Alex still felt the need to hear the words, as the insecurity took a hold on her. She simply nodded at first, but as Cobb straightened himself back to his seat Alex commented lowly, "I'm worried that I might not be up to it, Amanda isn't easy to fool."
Cobb didn't reply for a moment, then a smirk grew on his lips and Alex couldn't help but smile back as he replied. "You're smarter than you give yourself credit for. You're ready."
Alex blinked twice, trying to adjust her sight to the bright light above her, in stark contrast to the darkness surrounding the room. Her arms and legs were handcuffed, making it impossible to move away from the metal chair she was sitting in. She turned her head, and saw that Amanda was by her side, in the same ill-fated conditions.
"Alex!" Amanda called out, confusion written all over her face, as she became more conscious of her current situation. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah. I think so." She pulled her wrists, trying to get loose, the clang of the metal ringing through the dark room. "Can't get free of these things," she sighed, faking the frustration that she would legitimately feel if she were, in fact, captive. "Do you know what they're after?"
"Division has a lot of secrets buried under its walls, influential people would pay great amounts of money to get their hands through them," Amanda replied calmly, as if she had expected an attack to happen sooner or later.
"It's not Division's secrets we're after," Dom's voice filled the room, the sound soothing and lethal at the same time. "It's yours, Amanda."
He approached the two women slowly, followed by two masked men, whom Alex knew to be Arthur and Eames. Arthur walked passed Dom and started to unlock Amanda's cuffs, and although she was trying to fight him of, as soon as Dom started speaking again she stopped and focused on his voice, facing the masked man fiercely.
"Now Amanda, you will tell me where to find the files on Cobol Engineering, or else I will be using some of your trademark stunts on you," Dom said straightforwardly, not intending to prolong their charade any longer than necessary. "I got a hold on your personal torture equipment, and I'm dying to try some of the techniques from your book ."
Arthur pushed her to her knees on the ground and she tried to shake him off, before looking up towards Dom. "The Cobol files are in the Black Box, and unfortunately I'm in possession of none."
Dom looked to Arthur and nodded, and the point-man grabbed Amanda's left arm and roughly held it up. Eames had warned Alex to the possibility of the job turning a bit violent, but the thought of what was to come churned in her stomach regardless. Eames approached the group slowly, holding a trimming scissor and before Alex knew what was happening, Amanda was yelling in agony as blood was splattered from her and onto the floor, her thumb now barely attached. After a few moments the wails became weeps, and as soon as the sobs slowed down Eames picked up the weapon to repeat the action, as Dom asked again. "The Cobol files."
Amanda was covered in sweat, blood and tears, still kneeling on the floor holding her hand against her chest, trying to stop the bleeding, yet she stood defiant and simply replied, "I don't have them."
Eames went to move, "what are you doing? Stop that!" Alex asked out loud, her eyes begging. He stopped quickly and in the next moment he turned and walked out the room. Alex could even hear her heart pounding in her chest as she watched the door closed. Arthur was the first person to react, pulling Amanda's injured arm up again and cuffed it, leaving her restrained on the floor right in front of Alex.
"We'll leave you two alone for a few moments. See if you can talk her into her senses," Arthur spoke directly to Alex, before turning around and following Dom out the room.
"Amanda, just give them what they want," Alex spoke lowly, as she watched the door, trying to understand what had just happened.
"I already told you, I don't have them."
"But you know where they are. How, or where, can we access one of the Black Boxes? You've got to have a backup plan; you're always prepared for anything!"
Amanda smirked. "Cobol is one of our most valuable clients, I may have a copy of the data hidden around here somewhere."
"Great, give it to them!"
"No! Under no circumstances will I surrender that information! What you think will happen to us after they get their hands on the files, you think they'll just let us walk away?" Amanda yelled enraged, her voice decreasing its volume as she spoke next. "They'll kill us, just like any Division Agent would."
You reap what you sow, Alex thought, but spoke something more reassuring instead. "They'll kill us anyway, so how would you rather die? Slowly and very painfully or maybe quickly?" She looked Amanda straight in her eyes, although the other woman tried to dodge her stare. "We might have a chance to get out of this, but you need to tell them where you keep the files."
The metal door creaked open, and Dom stepped inside alone.
"One last time: where are the Cobol files?"
Amanda sat straight, as she would if she was in her desk, never loosing composure, her voice serene. "In the safest room in Division. Percy's Cell."
Alex and Amanda were dragged out of the room and into the main corridor, with their hands handcuffed behind their backs, their captors behind them forcing them to walk quickly. The entire job was starting to become a bit annoying, not to mention physically painful. Amanda was nowhere near of breaking, and as far as Alex knew she could be lying about the files whereabouts. Alex could guess the time was running short.
They were dragged inside the cell, and thrust roughly to the cold floor. Aside from them, the cell was empty, no sight of Percy anywhere, something which Amanda didn't let go unnoticed.
"Where's Percy?"
Dom stood straight in front of her, but it was Eames who answered from the corner of the cell. "Your former partner has been liberated from his sentence. Now, the files if you please."
Amanda sighed. "Under the rug."
Arthur rolled the thick carpet aside, and underneath it was a safety-vault at built into the floor, a simple door with nothing but a small black screen the size of a hand.
Dom took off Amanda's cuffs and pulled her by her arm to the safe, pulling her right hand to the screen, her prints activating it. A mechanical female voice filled the room, "password Required." The screen turned bright blue, with numeric digits showing a timer set at 90 seconds.
"What happens when the timer reaches zero?" Dom asked Amanda, who stood absently watching the timer. She turned to face him, with a small grin playing in her lips. She had won.
"The vault will implode, destroying its contents." The grin was now gone, leaving behind a steel stare, as she hissed, "you can torture me all you want, I won't give you the code. After all, if I die I'll just wake up somewhere off road, if I'm not mistaken. Or did you forget that I was already performing extraction and inceptions long before you three started in the dream-sharing business, and I don't need a machine either."
Alex felt her breath stop for a moment, as she leaned against a glass wall of the cell. The timer was now on 37, decreasing steadily. Alex knew Amanda would never break. All she wanted was to destroy the files. She would die, and they would fail. Even as a captive, she held the control, she'd won.
Suddenly, Alex felt a pair of hands pulling and turning her around, setting her hands free from the handcuffs. As she gained balance, he stood staring her intensely, the deep gray eyes she was starting to know too well focusing on hers alone. She looked down at his hands holding her shoulders as they started roaming down the length of her arms, until they were holding hands, as he gently rubbed with his thumbs the red marks of the bondages. Only his voice brought her attention back, as he spoke lowly. "Alex, listen to me. We studied Amanda, but you lived under her roof for years, you know her better than anyone. Think."
Alex felt something hit her. Amanda had performed some kind of inception on her, and on Nikita too. Where she confided her darkest secret, and the moment she'd felt proud of herself for the first time. Could Amanda be that twisted?"
"Try 1987."
Alex knew she had spoken out loud when she felt Amanda's cold stare on her.
"I thought you were a projection of my subconscious," Amanda said, her voice filled with venom. "I tried to help you, to save you. You could be running your father's empire, yet you choose to continue living as a mercenary. And do you know why?" she continued, as Alex shortened the distance between them. "You, and your friend Nikita as well, you all fought against it, but in the end you turned out to be the person you swore you'd never become. Nothing but senseless murderers, broken vessels walking around with only your pain to fill the emptiness."
Alex knew Amanda was trying to mess with her head, but everything she said was true. Every person that walked into Division either got killed or lived to be hallow and broken beyond repair. But Amanda was different; she was messed up before Division. And now that she had defeated Amanda, she wasn't satisfied. She wanted to destroy her.
"It must have been hard, being the freak caged in the basement by your own father, while your sister watched and did nothing. But then you escaped and killed them both, in 1987, taking over your sister's identity and pretending you were normal, but that wasn't enough. You wanted to get even with the world for screwing up with you."
Amanda smiled, "and you were my prize for that suffering, my own personal punching bag, my sweet little vendetta. And I'll happily spend my life in jail knowing I have destroyed everything that made you who you are."
Before she could think what she was doing Alex brought her hunting knife up and cut off the strap to Eames' rifle, catching the gun before it fell, and then twirling around in her feet, she faced Amanda with a blank expression.
"You don't deserve to live that long."
And she pulled the trigger.
The sound of a gun shot being fired pulled the team out of their conversation and into its source, right at the moment Amanda fell on the floor lifeless and Alex was still holding the gun up.
"What have you done?!" Dom demanded, but before Alex could reply smoke grenades were thrown to their feet.
"Get down!" Alex yelled, as she held the weapon against her chest and kneeled as low as she could. Their position was vulnerable to a good shooter, and they were firing mercilessly.
"They must be Amanda's subconscious security team." Eames voice sounded croaky, low and rough against her ear, and he must have sat by her side without her noticing. "The dream will collapse soon, all we have to do is to hold on for a little while longer-" a bullet passed a few inches away from his face, lodging against the bulletproof glass wall. "They're gaining upon us fast," he commented out loud to Alex, as he pulled up a handgun and called out to Dom, "close the cell doors, we'll cover you!"
Alex nodded in approval and they got up at the same time, firing against the enemy, giving Dom and Arthur enough time to shut and secure the door. After a few shots and both their friends were safe out of range, Eames checked out his weapon. "How many shots you've got left?"
Alex mouth turned into a small grin. "Two or three. Or maybe just one." He smirked back and he threw his empty gun aside and grabbed one grenade he held on his belt.
"Lucky girl" he pointed at the cell entrance, where Dom and Arthur tried to shoot down the agents that were the closest to them. "Now, listen to me. We're going to open that door and I will throw this grenade and once it goes off you'll run to the entrance, I'll be right behind you." He pressed a hand against Alex' back, and once it exploded he gave Alex a little push forward, forcing her to make a run from the cell.
Alex saw the entire upcoming moment as if in slow motion. As they were about to step inside, a loose agent was coming forward towards them, his weapon up and ready to fire. With reflexes she didn't know the possessed, Alex pushed roughly the oblivious Eames inside the cell and shot down the agent, but instantly a sharp pain in her abdomen rose.
The plan is working, Eames thought, as he and Alex were making to the entrance of the cell. Just a few feet away, and we'll live. A couple more steps… And all the sudden Alex shoved Eames through the entrance and shot down a man he hadn't noticed approaching, but not before being pierced by a bullet in her abdomen, a bullet that was meant for him, if she hadn't pushed him out of harm's way.
Eames instantly jumped to his feet, taking hold of her body as her limbs lost their strength. He pulled her inside as Dom and Arthur gave them coverage, dragging her body as he leaned against the desk, her back against his chest. He then ripped off a sleeve of his jacket and tried to cover the wound with it, but the blood emerging from the hole soaked right through. Still, he held it on place with his left hand and brushed Alex hair off her face. He wanted to see her.
Her face had barely any colour left, she was white pale and her eyes were losing their usual brightness.
"I don't think I can hold on much longer," she said simply in between heavy breaths, her tone hoarse as she spoke now, letting out a laugh. "I can't believe I'll be spending the rest of my life with Amanda in limbo."
He chuckled behind her as a smirk played in his lips. "No you won't, and you know why? Because you are the most stubborn woman I've ever met." She was smiling back at him, and he couldn't help but ask, "what were you thinking, Alex, jumping in front of a bullet meant for me?"
"I didn't want you to die," she replied promptly, her eyes closed now, her chest moving up and down as her heartbeats became more erratic.
"The problem, love," he started as he pulled her closer to him, trying to make her stay conscious, "is that if you die I'll be forced to drag you out of limbo myself." Alex was staring at him, her big soft eyes centered in his and her luxurious mouth partly open as breathing became an almost impossible task. "You see, a debt would annoy me beyond measure."
Eames could feel her life slipping away, so he pulled his arm up and watched the timer. Just a few more seconds…
He tried to feel her pulse, but there was no beat. "C'mon Alex, stay with me! C'mon now, hold on" he commanded, he demanded, and desperately he plead, "stay with me."