Author's Note: I hope you enjoy this chapter, it has a bit of a darker feel to it in my opinion. Thank you so much Kitty Quasar, as usual. You're lovely.
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Chapter Eleven
Ariadne hurried back to the front car of the subway, gun trained on the conductor all the way, telling him periodically to speed up. Finally reaching the car, the conductor stared in confusion at the sleepers as she rushed him past them.
"What is this?" he demanded.
"Nothing that concerns you," Ariadne replied, as firmly as she could. She sat him down in the conductor's cubicle and stood just outside the crowded space by the open door for more room. She levelled her gun at his head carefully, trying to control her trembling hands.
"Radio in," she instructed him as he looked up at her with an unimpressed expression. "Tell them that everything is fine; tell them to lift their emergency measures."
He didn't waiver, didn't even consider her. "No."
She blinked, shifting her weight uneasily. "I'll shoot."
"Then shoot me."
She stared at him, taken aback. "This is your last chance."
"Shoot me."
The gun went off with a bang that echoed all the way through the tiny cubicle. The bullet shot through the conductor's shoulder and he screamed out involuntarily. Ariadne lowered the gun, gasping at her actions, then forced herself to raise it again.
"Now!" she yelled over his wheezing. "Tell them now!"
The conductor didn't do anything, didn't even acknowledge her words as he clung to his shoulder, leaning forward in his seat, his eyes squeezed shut.
"I said now!" Ariadne aimed to fire the second bullet into his other shoulder, but instead the bullet hit the man in the chest. This time, it caused him to collapse off his seat and to the ground at the impact.
The ringing of the shot echoed in Ariadne's ears for a second as she stared down at the conductor where he lay, motionless on the floor of the cubicle. Slowly, so slowly, she bent down and rolled him onto his back. She felt her stomach churn the moment she saw the gun-shot wound to his chest. Her eyes gradually crept up from the wound where the bullet had entered the elderly man's heart, up to rest on his blank, unseeing eyes.
She heard, rather than felt herself cry out as she blindly stumbled back from the conductor's body. Her knees gave out as she hit the wall on the opposite side of the aisle from the cubicle, and she slid down the wall to rest on the floor there, her legs spread out in front of her, as the full implications of what she had done hit her.
She had killed projections before in dreams, certainly, but somehow they seemed different. The elderly conductor hadn't been a militarized projection, in fact for all extensive purposes, he'd just been an ordinary man. An ordinary man who hadn't done what she'd wanted, and so who she'd killed unarmed in cold blood. And now, once again, her only plan was destroyed and the dream level was in danger of being demolished as they drew ever nearer to the next subway stop.
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The projections seemed somewhat taken aback to see Cobb, so they were slow in raising their guns. Cobb took this to his advantage, instinctively barrelling through the crowd of men and diving for the emergency stairwell to the side just as the gunfire erupted behind him.
Knowing he only had a few seconds before the projections charged through the doors behind him as he sprinted from it, he grasped the banister beside him with one hand and used his momentum to jump. Swinging his legs up and over the railing in one smooth action, he let go of the banister behind him and felt the familiar rushing sensation. He concentrated hard for the brief fall to fight the sensation of the miniature kick, then felt the pain ricochet up his knees, spine, and the balls of his feet as he hit the cement of the stairs on the level below. He stumbled forward, off balance and nearly fell down the last few stairs before the door marked B. He managed to barge through the door just before he heard the projections above him bang open the door on the main level. Hopefully they hadn't seen if he'd gone up or down the level, and half would go each way.
Shaking off the aching in the balls his feet, he sprinted down the deserted hallway for the change room to the pool. But as he burst through the changing room door, breaking the lock in the process, he already knew he was too late, that Mal was already there.
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Arthur and Fischer had been hiding in a dark, shadowed cranny in the hallway of the medical centre beside a stairwell for the better part of fifteen minutes before Eames finally gave them the all-go. Only a couple of projections had walked past them in the time they had been waiting. Luckily, the projections hadn't spotted them as they had both been immersed in a conversation on their walkie-talkies as they had run past the hiding spot.
Arthur hustled Fisher into the stairwell before him and hurried him up the steps to the tower above them where the vault was.
"We didn't take such an out-in-the-open route last time," Fischer complained to him in a low, panting voice on the way up. "It was a whole lot safer then."
"Yeah, well, not this time it's not," Arthur muttered back, doing his best to hide his growing annoyance.
They reached the top and Arthur stepped out onto the floor first, gun raised as he checked for any projections in the room. Finding it deserted, he motioned Fischer in.
"You remember this?" Arthur asked.
"Yeah," Fischer nodded, looking behind them to where the familiar ventilation grate was situated. He pointed to the sealed door at the end of the grey room. "That's the vault," he said unnecessarily. "And what was originally there is in it this time? Not what Uncle Peter put there?"
"Yeah." Arthur pressed his intercom. "Eames?"
"Ready," came the muffled reply.
Arthur nodded to Fischer. "Okay, go, go. I'm going to set the explosives. You should be safe. The projections shouldn't be able to get in there."
Fischer nodded, and headed slowly for the sealed doors at the end of the room. He hesitated as he reached it, then pressed the numbers he remembered, 528491, into the number lock. With a familiar hiss the doors snapped unlocked and slid open. The same room sat before him, the walls, ceiling, and floor all made up of the same black tiles as before. Once again, a hospital bed sat at the end of the room, a bookshelf behind it, a safe and cabinet beside it. He didn't have to look to know that it was his father lying in the bed.
"Hey, Dad," he whispered softly, stepping forward into the vault.
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Arthur watched from across the grey room as Fischer stepped through the doors. He checked around a final time as the doors to the vault slowly began to hiss shut. His eyes rested on the smashed, floor-length window to the ledge outside where Eames had gotten in. Something seemed... off, and it had immediately raised his guard as he stared at the broken window. Suddenly, a single projection burst through it, gun up and firing at random. Arthur dove behind a metal trolley for cover, fumbling as he attempted to bring his Glock up. The projection didn't focus on him though, his gun raised as he began instead to ceaselessly shoot rounds towards the vault doors as they finished closing.
"Fisher!" Arthur shouted out as the man continued firing at the door, when suddenly a shout rang out from inside the vault.
"No!"
It was Fischer's voice.
His gun finally ready, Arthur popped up over the top of the trolley, nailing the projection with two bullets before he could even attempt a retaliation. The projection fell to the ground at the same time as there doors to the vault finally locked with a dull thud. Arthur stared at the closed vault door blankly, knowing that on the other side of it, at least one of the bullets had hit its target.
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Ariadne gave herself all of five seconds to remain where she was on the floor of the subway before panic struck her again, causing her to scramble hurriedly to her feet. She stumbled into the conductor's cabin once more, moving around the body on the floor, searching for something that might help her. She looked up through the window at the track speeding by in front of her. She could see a bridge approaching at the end of the tunnel they were in, and in the design of her level, directly beyond the bridge was the next subway station. Her searching becoming frantic now, her eyes finally landed on the lever she'd been looking for. Emergency stop.
It was the brake.
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Cobb spotted his wife's figure as he sprinted around the corner to the showers. She was standing above the three dreamers, her berretta trained on Fischer's sleeping form.
"Mal, no!" Cobb yelled as he ran forward, using his momentum to throw himself at his wife before she could shoot either Fischer or him. There was a loud shot as he hit her hard in the ribs and shoulder, sending them both crashing to the slippery tiles. The bullet hit the wall several feet above and to the side of Fischer's head.
Cobb's head smashed against the tiles as he hit the floor, followed by a sickening, numbing pain as his skull registered the impact. Mal landed unharmed on top of him as his vision went suddenly white and clouded from the hit. His thoughts temporarily blocked, he couldn't react as Mal got up off him. He vaguely felt her patting him down, felt her hand inside his suit as she took his weapons, barely registering through the nauseating headache that her gun was trained on him now.
"Get up, Dom," she said softly. She bent down and grasped his upper arm to help him to his feet as his breath crept back slowly along with his vision. A wave of dizziness and nausea hit him as the blood rushed to his head however. It caused him to double over again, a hand going to the back of his head at the place of impact.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"What should have happened a long time ago," she replied.
He swallowed, staring up at her. "You didn't change after all. Despite everything you said, everything you did."
She narrowed her eyes. "Of course I didn't change. You just wanted to think I did. How could I let everything that happened go so easily?"
She took his arm again and led him back into the main changing area and sat him down on a bench, her fingers lingering briefly on his own hands before she stepped back. She stayed standing in front of him, the gun trained on him once more.
"It was your projections that have been trying to ruin this job," Cobb said. "Not just Fischer's. That little French girl and her father, the similarities between those two and me and Philippa wasn't a coincidence. The projection that shot Arthur in the knee, the similarity there between that shot and the one you fired during the Saito extraction. That wasn't a coincidence either."
"Of course it wasn't. Neither of them were. But they're weren't my projections, Dom, they were your's. I'm still fighting you, which means that one part of your subconscious is still fighting you as well. That one part of your mind still wants this job to fail."
Cobb leant forward, gripping his hair, and let out an uncontrolled, muffled yell of frustration from between his teeth. "But why the charade?" he demanded at last, his head snapping up again despite the pounding in it. "Why all of this until now?"
"Because this is the only chance I have to talk to you," Mal said, sitting down beside him on the bench, one hand going to his cheek, the other still firmly holding the berretta on the other side of her. "I need you to understand, darling."
"I thought you finally understood."
"I understood perfectly; I still do. But it's not me we're talking about anymore. It's James and Philippa."
There was a pause as Cobb stared at her. "What?" he whispered.
"You left them. How could you do that? You left them once. You left them by themselves. You left them where they may have never seen their mother or father again. And then when you finally came back, you deserted them. You left our children again."
"None of that was my choice, you know that!" Cobb snapped. "How can you blame me for that? What was I supposed to do? What was I ever supposed to do?"
"More than what you did!" Mal yelled. "More than what you ever even tried to do!"
"Well then what the hell do you want me to do?" Cobb shouted, standing up, ignoring the gun Mal had levelled at him. "What the hell are you trying to fix right now? What's your plan? Why don't you want me to go back to our kids? What the hell is the matter with you?"
"You don't deserve them," Mal whispered softly. "You don't deserve to even see our children again. Not after what you did, what you're doing right now. How could you go back to dream sharing again, after everything that happened? And how can you expect James and Philippa not to follow your lead if they grow up around you? Our children aren't going to go into the same profession we did, Dom."
"I don't want that any more than you," Cobb replied, lowering his voice as well with difficulty. "I never wanted that."
"It doesn't matter," Mal said. "They're growing up, and already that world is all they know. And that's because of you and me."
"If I don't complete this job they'll take our kids from their future anyway."
"I don't want you to only fail though," Mal said. "I want you to stay here with me. There's no point in Fischer-Morrow punishing you if you aren't there to take the punishment. James and Philippa will be fine so long as you don't wake up. They'll grow up with their grandparents, while you and I will be down below, together. That's how it was always meant to be."
"Your dad is no better than me."
"My dad is a damn side better than you are right now!" Mal yelled, his eyes reddening.
Cobb paced away from her angrily, needing to move despite insistent throbbing of his head. "You're just my subconscious," he muttered, half to himself and half to his wife. "You're just telling me what you know I'm scared of, feeding on my worries."
Mal shook her head slowly at him. "No, Dom. I'm your wife. I'm the part of her that's still alive inside of you." She stood up and made her way over to him, tucking the berretta into her belt and taking his hands gently in her's. "I'm the only part of your wife that's still alive."
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The subway took a good while to stop as the brakes screeched, fighting the train as it was forced to unceremoniously stop. Finally, the subway ceased moving near the end of the bridge, and for the first time in what felt like hours, but probably hadn't even been forty-five minutes, the whirring of the train stopped in Ariadne's ears. The sudden silence seemed abnormal, eery, and she didn't like it. Peering through the glass window that displayed the track in front of them, Ariadne could make out the station at the entrance of the tunnel directly beyond the bridge. There were projections pouring out of it, making their way down the track towards the stationary subway train.
She wondered for a moment which would hit them first: the projections, the emergency operators wherever they were, or the impact of another train running into them from behind. Regardless, she had to move fast.
Running back to the dreamers, she checked them all over quickly, worrying as she found Arthur's knee still bleeding rather sluggishly. She paused to wipe the sweat gently from his forehead once more, then pulled the headphones out and placed them carefully over Cobb's ears, hitting play. She could make out the music starting through the headphones, the volume up as it blasted into Cobb's ears. It was now or never.
She hurried over to the back door of the subway car that joined them to the next, and after struggling a moment, opened it once more. Leaving the door open, she hurried back and grabbed Eames under the arms. Tiny as she was, she was going to have to be capable of accomplishing this one task. It took her just under thirty seconds to drag Eames, Cobb, Arthur, and Mal all the short distance to the door of the subway car. She pulled the PASIV along behind them, then made her way down carefully through the gap between the cars and onto the track below her, sweating and already short of breath from dragging the others that short distance.
Scared the train was suddenly going to start moving, she was quick to pull Cobb, Arthur, and Eames down onto the track after her, bringing the PASIV with them. She didn't bother with Mal, simply allowing the IV line connected to her wrist to unwind and lengthen itself automatically as the distance between the suitcase and Mal grew.
Ariadne could see the projections on the track getting closer now, and her panic mounted as she realized she was nearly within their range. She didn't bother being gentle now as she frantically pulled each of the three men over to the edge of the bridge, only feeling some regret as she jostled Arthur's knee in particular, dragging them all one-by-one a good several metres away from the track. She looked down for a moment at the drop once they were all there, feeling suddenly sick as she stared down at the busy highway seventy feet below them. It would have to work as a kick.
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Eames couldn't breathe. All he could feel was pain. His chest was on fire, and as he struggled to breathe through the panic hitting him, he found that he still couldn't do it after several long seconds. He didn't have a medical degree, but he didn't need to have one to know that something was seriously wrong with his right lung. The bullet had make contact in his upper chest, and he had felt it as it had entered his rib cage, ricocheting inside him, puncturing his lung in the process. The only way he could describe the pain was that it the pain of dying. It seemed abnormal, unreal almost, as he lay there on the bed. He was dying and he knew it.
He was aware of Robert Fischer kneeling beside him, a hand on his arm, shaking him frantically and desperately. "Dad!" Fischer was calling to him. "Dad, please, please no. Hold on, just hold on."
Eames realized he was still projecting Maurice. He had broken his way into Fischer's vault earlier having already known the number combination, killed Fischer's real projection of his father, then dragged the body hastily from the vault and quickly concealed it outside. Lying there, in Maurice's place in the bed inside the deepest part of his son's mind, Eames wondered vaguely whether this was what it had felt like for Saito when he had been shot. Had it been this surreal, this disembodying?
"Dad," Fischer pleaded. "Come on, hold on. Talk to me."
Eames managed to focus his eyes on Fischer's as he felt darkness creeping into the corner of his eyes. He stared at him for a moment, mouth open, trying to form words and trying to draw breath at the same time.
"What is it, Dad?"
Finally, finally, Eames managed to force some oxygen into his lungs. "I'm so proud of you," he struggled to spit out the words of the script, his only thoughts on his little sister and what would happen to her if he didn't complete the job.
Fischer shook his head. "Please, no, Dad. I still need you."
"You have the corporation, son. Our company to remember me." Eames struggled to take in more oxygen, but he couldn't do it. He was battling, and he didn't know if he'd be able to hold on until the end of their conversation as he felt a dark curtain pressing on the edge of his vision.
"No, I can't do it. I need to build something for myself, remember? You wanted me to be my own man."
Eames choked, forcing a small shake of his head as he finally lost his focus. He managed to cough out the last few breaths. "You don't have to prove anything to anyone. Least of all to me."
And then he finally gave in and let the darkness take him.
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Whew, another chapter up and done! We're getting pretty near the end now. Hope you enjoyed reading. I'd love to hear from you!
~kat