I didn't expect to be uploading this, but even a year after I posted this story, people are still asking for more chapters or to at least find out what happens next. So, just to satisfy people a bit, I'm uploading a short second chapter. It's short, I'm sorry. My chapters aren't usually 12K words like the first chapter; they're usually 3K at the least, 5K at the most. But this chapter is just to tell you what was going on in Ariadne's life after Cobol took her away and so on, so it's about 2K words. This'll probably disappoint a lot of you because of the length, but I thought I should just upload it so people know what's going on, since I wanted to break the chapter after this anyways.
Chapter Two
Arthur felt a pull on his chair, tilting it back farther than it already was. He looked up, her brown hair brushing his cheek and forehead. Her big beautiful brown eyes stared into him as he tilted back in the chair. Only her hands were keeping him from falling backwards. She tilted him back even further so that her lips could reach his.
When their lips were but a centimeter apart, she dropped him.
Arthur flew forward out of bed, breathing heavily. He put his hand on his forehead in frustration and noticed he was sweating. He got up and hurried to the bathroom. He turned the 'cold' knob on the sink and splashed the water on his face. He looked into the mirror, his face dripping wet. He turned off the sink and wiped his face, still looking at himself in the mirror. He was shaking and his heart was beating fast.
He needed to stop dreaming about her.
Ariadne woke up late. She had to be at Cobol's office (they had an office at almost every capitol in almost every country) at six in the morning. It was five thirty; she forgot to set the alarm clock last night. She rolled out of bed and walked to the bathroom, splashing water on her face. She wiped it off, almost fully awake now.
She knew Cobol was planning to send her somewhere today; they kept her within France most of the time, but sometimes they sent her to the neighboring countries. When she first started working with Cobol, she taught a group of agents how to incept someone's mind—it wasn't that easy to explain. After about a month of that, they gave her a couple more teammates and they've been given missions for the next four months.
So it had been almost five months since she had seen her real team: Cobb, Eames, Saito, Yusuf, Arthur—it would be five months tomorrow. Arthur's name nagged her all the time. She thought about him, dreamt about him. She was extremely careful with Arthur's totem—he would hate her forever if anything happened to that die.
She picked out a black blazer and a matching skirt—her boss asked her to always look her best when going into the office. Outside the office, he didn't give a damn what she wore. She picked out a nice white blouse, tucked it into the skirt and pulled on the blazer, buttoning the single button. She wore something similar to that almost every visit to the office. She went into the bathroom and threw on some mascara, lip stick and blush. She had planned on straightening her hair, but she woke up too late. She pulled it up into a neat bun.
Ariadne went into the living room and slipped on her knee-high, high heel boots. She grabbed an apple on her way out. When she arrived in France, Cobol took away her cell phone and gave her a new one. She hadn't memorized any of her teammates' numbers, so the only numbers in her new phone were her new teammates and Cobol's office. They also gave her a car and an apartment since she wasn't anywhere near where she lived prior to being taken away by Cobol.
She pulled out her remote control and the car unlocked with a beep. She made her way to the office, expecting to be back to her apartment within a couple of hours to pack for her unknown trip. She was usually sent on missions that lasted two or three days, depending on how long the planning took. Not usually too long. Her new teammates consisted of a Belgian man named Luc and an elderly Cuban man named Castel. Luc was twenty-five years old, a few shades tanner than Ariadne, had black hair, fairly muscular… He was good looking, according to Ariadne, but she wasn't interested in him, like he was in her. Luc often asked to take Ariadne out to eat something after one of their missions, but of course she declined, always saying the same thing: I'm interested in someone else. Luc was the extractor of the group, Ariadne was (of course) the architect, and Castel was the point man. Castel was nice and always made sure of their safety, but whenever Ariadne thought of the words 'point man', she thought of Arthur.
She pulled to a stop at a red light. Her eyes wandered around the road and saw black, slicked back hair standing on the sidewalk. Her heart jumped and she turned her full face in his general direction. She was about ready to jump out of the car and run towards him when she blinked, and Arthur was gone.
She was seeing them again. She had been seeing her teammates' (mostly Cobb and Arthur's) faces. It happened more frequently as time went on. Ariadne slammed her head on the steering wheel. She jumped back when the car honked. She reached for her handbag and picked out the red die, tossing it against a seat. It rolled a two.
When she dreamt lucidly, she was able pull to the red die out of her pocket. But she noticed that, the few times she had dreamt non-lucidly, she would pick her golden bishop out of her pocket instead, not being completely used to the feel of having the die. She found it a little weird that she would dream of her bishop instead of the die when she only had the bishop for a month, and she had the red die for the past five months. But she knew it was because she made the bishop personally for herself, like Arthur made the die personally for himself, Eames made the poker chip personally for himself, and Mal made the top personally for herself.
Walking into the large office, she saw people sitting around the coffee table on couches drinking coffee as always. They most of the people in the entire building were men. Ariadne didn't understand why an equal amount of women weren't hired for these jobs. They stared at the young college student. She ignored them; they always did when she walked into the office.
Ariadne took the elevator up to her boss' floor and walked into the office while her heels made a clop sound. The one of the walls was made up entirely of transparent glass so you could see the city. The office was neat, refined, modern, and large. As she walked into the office, she saw her two partners standing around the shiny black table, waiting for her. Her boss was reading a newspaper and drinking a cup of coffee—which reminded her: she really wanted some.
When Ariadne realized that he wouldn't notice her if she didn't do anything, she closed the door abnormally loudly. His eyes flew up to meet hers and he put his paper down.
"Ariadne." He said, smiling. She hated the way he said her name. She hated anybody this high up in Cobol. "You're a tad late."
"I know." She said in a soft voice.
His face suddenly turned serious, and he stood up from his desk. "You three need your new assignment. You three will be traveling to Tours for the next two or three days." He took a folder off of his desk and handed it to Castel who immediately opened it and began reading. "It contains your tickets, the description of the man you'll be extracting, what you're extracting, everything."
Ariadne took a step closer to Castel and looked over his arm so she could read as well. The first things she noticed were the plane tickets. The plane would leave in about four and a half hours. Not much more explaining was done by their boss before they had to leave to pack and get to the airport. Ariadne drove herself to a nearby Starbucks and got a latte.
Ariadne immediately changed into more comfortable clothes—jeans, a blouse, bandana scarf, jacket—but put two sets of business attire into the suitcase for when they were extracting. She pulled her hair out of the bun as well. She made sure to put the red dye in her pocket.
While waiting to board the plane, Castel was doing more research on the guy they were going to obtain information from and took notes vigorously, while Ariadne sketched out a new maze and Luc had gone to get something to eat. Ariadne wanted to do the same.
She put her sketch pad into her bag. "I'm going to the food court," she told Castel, who replied with a mere "Okay."
When she got to the food court, she decided that Subway then frozen yogurt sounded like a satisfying meal. As she headed over to the Subway line, Ariadne felt a hand grab her right shoulder and swing her around. It was so sudden she almost screamed. But she forced it down her throat when she saw his face.
"Cobb!" She swung her arms around his neck. His hands tightened around her back. She felt so excited she would hyperventilate. "What are you doing here?" She asked in hysterics as when she finally let go of him.
"I heard you were here—In Paris." He said. He was just excited to see Ariadne as she was to see him; he just wasn't a man to show his emotions. "I thought I'd come look for you since Cobol gave me a few days off. I didn't think I'd find you this quickly. Where are you going?"
"I'm supposed to be going to Tours for a mission." She explained.
"No," Cobb said. "You're not going to Tours." He handed her a fat envelope with some lumps in it. "I know where Arthur is."
Ariadne's gaze shot back up to meet Cobb's. "Where?"
"England."
She couldn't believe how close they had stationed him to her. She was expecting him to be in the Philippines or New Zealand or something. She opened the envelope. There was a cell phone, enough Euros for a one-way plane ticket, and fifteen thousand pounds. Ariadne's jaw dropped. "This is a lot of money. And what if Cobol finds me?"
"Cobol won't be traveling by train. And trains don't cost that much. And they won't know you in England."
Ariadne began to understand what he was saying. She would practically live on the trains, hiding from Cobol. She looked at the plane ticket; she had a few hours before it left.
"I shouldn't activate the phone," he said. He handed Ariadne a slip of paper with a number on it. "Here's my number; call me when you're alone and safe. Don't put my name in it though."
She felt so happy inside. She was that much closer to finding Arthur. But Cobb was making it sound like Cobol would find her. Going out in the world by herself, she felt like she had no sense of security.
"One of the workers told me that he heard Arthur was more inland."
Ariadne almost squealed she was so happy. She jumped up and hugged Cobb again. "Thank you—thanks so much, Cobb! You have no idea what this means to me…"
She heard someone say her name. "Ariadne…" But it wasn't Cobb's. Five feet behind Cobb was Luc, looking at her. She let go of Cobb, who turned around to face the tan male. "Who's this?"
Her heart began to pound. "…This is Cobb. He's an old friend of mine." Ariadne said. "Cobb, this is Luc, one of my teammates."
Cobb looked at Ariadne, then back at Luc. They each gave one another a polite smile and shook hands.
"What're you holding?" Luc asked Ariadne, looking at the objects in her hand.
"Hey! So…" Cobb turned Luc to face him more while Ariadne began to inch away from the men. "You extract information right? That means you go into people's dreams, right?"
By that point, Ariadne was running as quietly and fast as she could, not sure whether or not Luc had noticed she was gone. When she was a good ways away from the food court, she looked back and saw Cobb holding Luc back. She ran to where Castel was, wanting one last thing before she left.
As she got close to Castel, he still didn't notice her presence. She slowly inched her hand toward the silver briefcase, toward its handle. Amazingly, she had gotten as far as contact with the handle before he noticed her, but when the object was grasped in her palm, he saw Ariadne's hand and looked up at her. He looked confused at her. "What—?"
Ariadne ran before he could ask her what she was doing. She just ran toward the front of the airport. She passed by Cobb and Luc—they both saw her. A security team was holding them both down.
She had to drive herself to a different airport if she wanted to get to England as quickly as possible. She wanted to find Arthur—she wanted to find all her teammates, but Arthur was her first priority.