Ariadne's Limbo
Time Dilation: 3'200,000x
Ariadne woke up and found herself drowning in a sea of icy oil. The sky and liquid were pitch black, and she struggled to stay afloat. She was swallowed, then thrown into the freezing air, and slammed into the thick surface again. Panic consumed her and she went into a desperate frenzy to stay afloat.
Hours later, she found herself washed up on the shores of a desolate beach.
Sapped of her strength, Ariadne struggled as she crawled towards the part of the shore untouched by the ink-black oil. Beyond the shore were the massive sand-built towers. Cold winds blew around her, and the Sunlight offered no warmth.
She was swallowed by a massive black wave as it surged over the shore. When the oily surf receded, it left her lying on the unnatural powdered surface. She struggled to her feet and looked around.
The sky was black as outer space, but there were no stars. The black ocean expanded beyond the horizon. In the opposite direction was the city of crumbling towers.
Ariadne knew this place. It was the limbo deep inside the depths of her subconscious. The prison Mal built inside her brain and tried to keep her in. Now she was back.
She fell to her knees, covered her face with her hands and cried out loud. She was convinced that Mal had her. God knew how long she'd be in here this time. The city of crumbling skyscrapers wasn't even her creation- it was a piece of Cobb's limbo copied into her own mind, and occupied by Mal. No one lived here, just endless square miles of tall skyscrapers- and no one to occupy them. Not even projections of her own came here. There were a few projections, but she thought they were copies of Cobb's controlled by Mal.
Ariadne remembered all the attempted and failed escape attempts she made. It was pointless to go out to sea- she spent 20 years on a kayak trying to go as far as she could but she was in raw infinite subconscious. She made her way to the top of one of the skyscrapers and jumped. The impact on the ground was one of her most painful experiences- and that failed to wake her up. Her entire skeleton was shattered and she was left like that for weeks before she woke up.
Other times she spent trying to kill Mal, but Ariadne knew that Mal had seized control of her subconscious- rendering Ariadne completely useless. She was unable to create and build by imagining things. Oh how she should have easily produced a handgun out of thin air, walked to Mal from behind and shot her down in Cobb's limbo, hundreds of years ago in dreamtime.
But every fight she had with Mal, Mal won. She remembered grabbing a pipe and trying to strike Mal with it. Mal made it melt into glowing hot molten metal that burned the girl's arm and leg as it oozed to the floor.
Another time Ariadne tried to shove Mal off the roof of a building, but Mal overpowered her, spawned a knife, and plunged it in Ariadne's chest, then threw her off instead. All of Ariadne's hundreds of plots to kill the projection were foiled, and Mal tormented her a hundred times worse for it.
Ariadne walked for a few miles along the shore. Buildings crumbled in the distance, and shook the ground as each one came crashing down. She knew it was safer to stay at the beach.
The new team
She squinted as she looked in the direction of the Sun, and saw a group of people in the distance. She ran like hell. The barely visible group of black specs chased her.
As she ran, the group came closer. In ten minutes, they began shooting at her. She tried to hide, hoping they were still thinking she was far head, but it was no use. She heard bootsteps as they surrounded the hiding spot. A smoke bomb sailed through the air and landed in the crag next to her. Before she could run, it exploded, and she was enveloped in a thick cloud of smoke. She came stumbling out and heard over a dozen loud clicks as their guns were cocked. Instinctively she threw her hands up. She was pumped full of lead in limbo before and didn't want to go through that pain again.
She felt the sharp pain as the steel toe of a boot slammed into her upper back, and she hit the ground. The second she was down, the mob swarmed her, and like a police squad, they pinned her down and slapped cuffs on her. She squeezed her eyes shut as she felt the icy barrel of a gun rest against her right temple (Having your head blown to slimy smithereens didn't get you out of limbo either).
"P-please don't shoot me…" she cried.
Without a response from her captors, she was pulled to her feet. Two of them gripped her arms and led her a few feet away from the smoke cloud.
There were eight of them, fully clad in black body armor, and equipped with SA80 assault rifles. They all wore masks to hide their faces. This was the first time Mal sent a SWAT team after her.
"Search her," one of them ordered.
She was kicked to the ground and pinned down again by two while a third searched her pockets.
She tensed as she felt the icy barrel of a gun pressing against her right temple.
"Here it is," a man said, reaching into her jeans pocket and removing a blue glass prism. Ariadne got a glimpse of it-
"Keep your eyes down!" another guy said, nudging her back with his own gun.
"She's the dreamer. Get her up," a woman ordered.
Ariadne was yanked to her feet, and the men stopped pointing their guns at her.
"What's your name?" the masked leader demanded.
"A-Ariadne..."
"Close enough. Uncuff her, already."
The handcuffs were removed and she stood rubbing her wrists, nervously waiting for what came next.
"I apologise for the use of force but we had to be sure you were our dreamer and not a mere projection of your own subconscious. Most dream environments produce a considerable amount of one's own copies."
She nodded nervously, and said quickly, "Did Mal send you?"
"No," the female said sternly, "It was Saito. We're here on a search and destroy mission. Our target is your projection, Mal."
"Good luck," Ariadne said sarcastically, "She will rip you to shreds, and then she'll make copies of herself and jam them in your brains."
"We're prepared," the captain said as two others brought over a large bin, set it down and opened it.
"Name's Ausparra. You will refer to me as captain, understand?"
"Y-yes, captain." Ariadne said-
"This is Wing, a dream crafter- a very skilled architect. She specializes in limbo environment modification. She can alter the environment around us provided we are within a 50 foot radius of her. She gets her resources from her own subconscious and memory. She keeps the gravity, air pressure and mix, wind and everything else stable."
The armoured woman with a long pony tail nodded at her, but kept the grip on her gun tight.
"Captain Aus, here's her gear," one of the men said.
"It's for you. Suit up and hurry," Captain Aus ordered.
Ariadne obeyed and with help she was soon wearing the same body armor. As she put the gear on, Captain Aus continued introducing the members.
"Zen, here is a projection master. Simply put, she can identify projections and see what's in their minds, and can quickly dispose of them with mere thoughts. She's dissolved hundreds of powerful and dangerous shades in other people's dreams before. On a good day she can basically identify the shades by the characteristics of the dream space and the projections.
The woman named Zen nodded, peering at Ariadne through the mask of her headgear.
"Zen is good at what she does," Aus was saying, "and when things get difficult for her, we keep with us an actual shade master, who is well trained and equipped to deal with high-level shades. Tuscan!"
A huge African man nodded, "Yes, Captain?"
"I was just explaining to our broken architect here your astounding ability to dissolve powerful and dangerous shades."
"Oh, it's nothing really. I just hope this Mal of hers is a nice piece of ass."
Aus scoffed in disgust, "His skills enable us to tolerate him in general. When he gets his hands on a shade, it best to leave him to it,"
"R-right…"
"And this is Jimbo, our repair man. Using his own mind as a computer, he can identify and repair immediate damage inflicted by projections or shades or changes to the environment. He is essentially the healer of the group. He's an amateur but he suits easy work like this."
Jimbo nodded, although she couldn't see his face.
"And the rest of the team- they are shooters and fighters- well trained in ranged and melee combat. You can kill a projection with what it takes to kill somebody in real life. And for the difficult and dangerous ones, we have Zen and Tuscan. Over there is our navigator Chiko. She obtains data from the computer that we are all connected to, and produces a map of the region. The projection masters can then use the maps and show us the whereabouts of everyone's projections lurking around here."
Chiko, a petite Japanese national, removed her mask, greeted Ariadne with a smile, and then held out her hands as if holding an imaginary object.
"Watch," Aus said.
Out of thin air, a laptop computer spawned in front of Chiko and hovered in the air in front of her. She began typing furiously.
"Whoa…" Ariadne said with her eyes wide open, "She can…we…can we do that?"
"We can, yes," Aus said, "You never knew how to do that?"
Ariadne shook her head.
"Well all we do is imagine and visualize and we get what we need. Her computer is the figment of her subconscious she is using to communicate with the computer connecting us. Chiko can obtain data on time rates, sedative injection rates, activity levels in our brains, and readings from the sensory systems in our bodies in event there's no affect on the dream space. If there's a cold breeze outside, either it's an intensified cold wind here, or she can view the readings on her computer. Because of how time is stretched down here, we can't communicate with the people outside, so she must communicate to the computer.
"Computer," Chiko barked into an extended microphone, "Get me a map and visuals of everything within a 250 mile radius. I want it in holo form."
The laptop vanished, and Chiko produced a glowing hologram that looked like a ball. The ball grew and expanded out in front of her until it looked like a flat layer.
"Captain Aus, I have a map," Chiko announced, enlarging the 3-d holo for everyone to see. Ariadne stared with widened eyes. The glowing map showed the landscape, buildings, and all other features. It was an image that she assumed compiled with immense amounts of data. In real life to produce a map saturated with information required a lot of work. A single communication with this 'computer,' Chiko literally produced this holographic image in seconds.
"The green dots are us. Red dots would represent projections of her subconscious. Blue dots would represent our own projections, which have been blocked by the computer."
"wait…" Ariadne asked slowly, "Who's dream is this? Who's the subject?"
"That way of thinking is obsolete," Aus replied, "It's no longer the classic establishment of the dreamer and the subject. There have been huge advancements of dream sharing technology. To better get into one's own subconscious, We go into their dreams, not the dream of someone else."
"Oh…"
"Don't get me wrong," Aus explained to her, "Of course people still pull subjects' subconscious into foreign dreamspaces- those being the dream of another person in order to carry out suited tasks. Of course, it's considered safer to have someone else host the dream, because then the subject can't alter the environment. But those who make the subject the dreamer as well find it easier to go into their subconscious."
Ariadne rubbed her temple. She was trying to fight a headache.
"Okay so, I'm the dreamer and the subject?"
"No," Wing interrupted, "We're currently in your limbo. Through a specialized computer we were able to gain direct access rather than going in through the dream layer routine. The computer is what connects us in this shared dream. As we cannot go into your brain physically, the computer brings us and our subconscious' together in a shared dream. In real life physical terms, we are inside the hard drive of the computer.
"The old sedating machine made the dreamer the host of the dream and everything in it. Now a computer acts as a host instead of someone's brain."
Ariadne nodded, still confused.
"That's enough chat. We need to go. Chiko, what's the time rate?"
Chiko checked her smartphone, and replied, "The level has been set to 5. Time stretch is 20. We have 16 minutes and 41 seconds in real time. Down here, that calculates to be 101 years and 6 months."
"We're going to be stuck here for that long?" Ariadne nearly shrieked in panic.
"No," Chiko said, "One simple command to the computer, and it stops the somnacin flow, and terminates the SER process, terminating the dream, and inducing unconsciousness until the sedative wears off and we wake up. We finish the task at hand, and we go to sleep until we wake up in the real world. Unless you've been dreaming every sleeping moment your whole life, you should know that because you are unconscious while sleeping, it's virtually a nano-second."
Ariadne nodded. "…okay…"
"You know enough now," Aus said sternly, "Now its time for you to show us where this Mal projection is."
"R-right," Ariadne said nervously.
"Hold out your hands," Aus ordered.
Ariadne did so. Her eyes widened as she saw a handgun appear out of thin air and land in her hands. The metal of the pistol was cold in her hands.
"Desert Eagle. When you fire, keep your grasp tight and arms and hands braced. That gun is known to have a strong kickback."
Ariadne nodded.
"Allright, everybody, move out!"
Hours passed as they traversed into the crumbling city. The team checked every corner, and opening; and kept a sharp eye out for enemy projections. There were none.
Wing always looked at the buildings that towered above them. She briefly said she could identify the stability of the structure and if and when the buildings could come crashing down.
The Sun did not move at all as they hiked through the dead city. Ariadne half expected to feel a sunburn, but felt nothing. After ten long hours of straight walking, they arrived at a familiar location.
Ariadne remembered this part- the squared lakes, and the fenced off area where the old houses sat crumbling. But things were a lot different now; The houses were hardly recognizable and looked like lumps of sand or whatever they were made from. There was no water to be seen. The deep pits gaped hundreds of feet down- the houses held by stilts.
There was no grass, weeds or vines to be seen. Nothing grew here. The air was heavy with dust.
"What is this place?" Aus demanded.
"This is Cobb's place. It got copied into my mind," Ariadne replied, "Cobb showed me around here."
"Did he show you where Mal was?"
"Was, yeah."
"Then show us, I'm getting bored," Aus said impatiently.
Ariadne knew the route. The better-kept part of Limbo City was better-kept no more. When Cobb led her through here, all the buildings and streets were pristine and clean. Now everything was crumbling. She showed them to the glass highrise tower. The elevator didn't work so they had to walk up over 20 floors. Like in real life, the hike was hard.
Aus, Zen, and Chiko came to the door. It was locked.
Wing pushed past them and looked at the knob. As if using telekinesis, she moved the mechanisms inside the lock with her mind-
Click! The door was now unlocked.
"Why didn't you just melt it off?"
"We like to keep a low profile. The Shade would easily pick up on modifications made to the environment. You first."
Ariadne hesitated, but Captain Aus' stern look gave her no hope. She pushed the door open.
The interior of the house looked the same, tidy, and well kept. Her gun up, Ariadne slowly entered. But Captain Aus' team covered her, and checked every corner and fanned out.
She entered the living room. No one at the table- just a plate of freshly sliced tomatoes and the knife with tomato juice still on it resting on the edge of the plate. She held her gun up, expecting Mal to pounce. She took a few more steps and found the projection lying on the floor of the living room, weeping.
"What the…" Ariadne breathed, "Hey, guys, she's over here," she called. They surrounded Mal and pointed their guns at her. Zen, a daring one, leaned over and checked Mal- like a paramedic checked an injured casualty. Mal, still wearing that damn dress, cried in broken quiet sobs, coughed and sounded like she was struggling to breathe.
"What's going on?" Ariadne asked as she unlocked the safety switch of her gun and aimed it carefully at Mal's head.
"Don't shoot," Wing hissed.
"She's broken," Zen answered.
"Broken?"
"Yes, like a broken machine or a toy," Zen replied as she rolled Mal onto her back. The projection offered no resistance.
"The memory she is made of was destroyed. She is but a fragment now, and struggling to survive."
Ariadne did not understand, "Well then screw it, let's just kill her."
"Not yet," Aus barked, "We like to take our time and examine things."
For several minutes, they looked at her and exchanged words.
"Okay, so she's no longer a threat?" Wing was asking, after confirming Mal no longer had control of Ariadne's subconscious.
"No. She can hardly even move, much less do anything more."
Suddenly, the projection spoke. "Ariadne…"
"Fuck you," Ariadne spat bitterly, but the projection stared at her.
"You said we'd be to-together again…"
"That was Cobb, not me." Ariadne said, raising her gun again.
"Please…come back…"
Mal suddenly struggled to reach out her hand-
Full of rage at the mere sight of this monster, Ariadne squeezed the trigger several times. The gunshots were deafening. Ariadne continued shooting until the projection lay lifeless on the floor.
"Is she dead?" Ariadne asked.
"She will be soon enough. Zen, finish it off."
Zen walked up and placed a hand on Mal's head for several minutes, and then Mal's body started to disintegrate. But there was no rotting of flesh- instead the projection's body was reduced to a pile of dust within minutes.
"The projection's destroyed," Chiko replied, "The data is deleted."
"So that's it, no more Mal?"
"Yes! Chiko, beam us up." Aus ordered.
Chiko spoke into her phone.
"Computer, beam us up. Stop all somnacin injections, and terminate all REM processes."
"Finally some sleep," Aus sighed, sitting on the couch. But they still remained there.
"Now what?" Ariadne asked.
"We wait for the computer. It will be a while. It's really fast but we'll be a few hours at the most."
But only an hour passed and suddenly Ariadne blacked out. Her last thought was:
"Is this finally the end of the nightmare?"