Inception: Dreams or Reality? Part 1
A/N: I return with a new chapter and thank you to the ones who have favorite this story and are follow it! Please do leave some reviews to let me know what you think of the story so far. Please?
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Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Inception, Batman, or Doctor Who. I only own the characters that I created.
CHAPTER TWO: "THE DREAM'S COLLASPING!"
Unaware that his friends had been captured, Cobb slipped through the shadows towards a guard that was stationed at the base of a grand staircase, having already taken out the guard near the head of the stairs; moving silently down the stairs, he aimed the gun with one hand and held his other hand above it as he shot the guard in the back of the head, catching the spent shell and pocketing it.
As the guard started to drop Cobb was already there to catch him, sliding on his knees and lowering the guard silently to the floor.
Returning to the dining room, Cobb silently closed the doors behind him, removed his gloves, and then headed over to a concealed door; he slid the door aside, revealing a safe. With much practice, he spun the dial a few times until it clicked, pulled it open, grabbed an envelope from within, and stuffed it into his waistband, where there was already an identical envelope waiting.
Removing it, Cobb unfolded it and was about to place it inside the safe when the lights suddenly came on and he froze. 'Oh shit!'
"Turn around," ordered Saito's voice.
Turning to face the front of the room, Cobb had his gun out, and his heart ached when he saw that Saito wasn't alone, and that Mal was standing next to him, with a gun in her hand. 'Oh for the love of-!'
Mal smiled coldly at her husband as he backed slowly toward the edge of the table, his gun trained on her. "The gun, Dom," she requested, but when he didn't lower it, she nodded slightly toward the entrance behind her, and four guards dragged the struggling Arthur and Emma into the room.
Mal then pointed the gun at Arthur's head, ignoring the glares that both he and Emma were shooting at her. "Please."
Cobb hesitated, glancing at his friends, who were shaking their heads slightly, and then he slowly placed his gun at his end of the long table and pushed it so that it slid along the polished ebony so that it came to rest halfway down the length or the table.
"Now the envelope, Mr. Cobb," Saito ordered.
Cobb held up the envelope in his hand. "Did she tell you?" he asked. "Or have you known all along?" he added while setting down the envelope, slid it across the table, and then he straightened up, his hands raised as he took a step backward.
"That you're here to steal from me?" Saito asked, taking a step forward. "Or that we're actually asleep?"
Hearing this both Arthur and Emma gave Cobb identical "I-told-you-so" looks, and Cobb repressed an sigh, knowing full well that if they got out of this alive, he wasn't going to hear the end of it.
"I want to know who your employer is," Saito demanded and Mal cocked the gun at Arthur's temple, and the couple just kept their expressions blank, refusing to say a word.
"Ah," said Cobb with a knowing smirk. "No point threatening them in a dream. Right, Mal?"
"That depends on what you're threatening," Mal countered as Arthur and Emma exchanged questioning looks of what their friend was trying to do since Mal already knew what would happen to the dream if the dreamer were to die. "Killing them would just wake them up," she agreed as the couple looked coldly back at her, "but pain?"
She then lowered the gun and shot first Arthur and then Emma both in the right legs, making them scream as they nearly collapsed toward the floor, being held up by the guards, and even Cobb winced at the sound. "Pain is in the mind," she continued, walking past the gasping couple while throwing her husband a cold look. "And, judging by the decor, we're in your mind, aren't we, Arthur?" she asked, cocking the gun again. "Or maybe even in your mind, Emma? It's so hard to tell sometimes."
Cobb watched, eyes narrowed as Mal aimed at Arthur's other leg – suddenly he launched himself at the tabletop, skidded along its polished surface, he grabbed his gun, and shot both Arthur and Emma between the eyes; grunting they both dropped and the room started to shudder as it was hit with a massive earthquake.
Leaving his friends dead on the floor, Cobb sprang for the door as the room began collapsing-
Nash jumped when both Arthur and Emma suddenly woke up within seconds of each other, with phantom pain in their legs and heads, and, after taking a few seconds to get their bearings they removed the tubes from their wrists as they stood up.
"What're you doing?!" Nash yelped as Arthur grabbed the briefcase and headed for the bedroom while pulling out more tubing so that he didn't accidentally yank Cobb off the chair too soon, and Emma followed, rolling up their tubing. "It's too soon!" and he followed them, scared.
"I know!" Arthur snapped, heading into the bedroom, where Saito was beginning to stir. "We have to reconnect the loop before they wake up!"
"Cobb's close," Emma told Nash. "We just need to give him a little more time." 'Damn you, Mal! Why did you have to show up?!'
Back in the dream world, Cobb shot and killed the guards chasing him, at least the ones that didn't end up being crushed by the crumbling ceiling, and he headed towards the stairs, as all around him the building bucked and heaved.
In the dining room, Saito was clinging to the table, which was now being covered by dust and debris from the crumbling ceiling while Mal walked calmly through the destruction, picked up the envelope, and turned to Saito, handing it to him.
"He was close," she commented softly. "Very close."
Reaching the stairs, Cobb ran up a level, ducked behind the nearest pillar, pulled out the envelope, and he began opening it while the building continued to fall apart.
Back in the dining room, Saito ripped open the envelope, pulled out several sheets of paper, and stared at them, horrified; he looked at Mal, and then he turned to the remaining guards, enraged. "Stop him!" and threw the papers to the floor.
Mal, confused, looked down at the sheets of paper and saw that they were blank; she smiled, amused. 'Very good, Dom, very good.'
On the stairs, Cobb pulled out the papers and began reading them quickly, when the guards caught up and began shooting; firing back with his own gun, killing two of them, he bolted up the stairs, clutching the papers.
Meanwhile, Arthur and Emma both knelt on the floor in front of the bed and he opened the silver case, revealing a complex mechanism of tubes, syringes, dosage controllers, and several timers, two of which were still counting down; while Emma put away their tubing, Arthur's hands flew across the machine's controls as he glanced at Saito's stirring face.
"I'm not going to make it!" he growled and looked over his shoulder at Nash, who was hovering in the doorway. "Wake Cobb!"
"I hope Cobb was able to get the information," Emma muttered, now helping her husband with the controls.
"Same here."
Panicking, Nash turned to Cobb and began shaking him; when that didn't work, he raised his hand and smacked him across the face-
On the stairs in the dream world, Cobb yelped when the force of the smack, now doubled, knocked him down to the ground, just as pieces of the ceiling dropped to the stairs, narrowly missing him, and the two remaining guards that were giving chase, were instantly killed.
In the dining room, Saito was still clinging to the table while Mal just walked toward the doorway, unconcerned by the destruction around her; hearing a loud crackling directly above him, Saito looked up, just as a ton of stone and mortar crashed down, crushing him.
Waking up in the bedroom, Saito saw Arthur and Emma and, silently, reached for something under his pillow, his eyes narrowed to the point that they were slits so that it would continue to look that he was asleep.
In the bathroom, Nash continued trying to wake Cobb up, and then called out to the bedroom, frustrated as he slapped the younger man across the face again. "He won't wake!"
"Give him the kick!" Arthur ordered, still working the controls while unaware that Saito was awake.
`"What?"` Nash asked from the bathroom, clearly not understanding.
"Dunk him!" Emma called over her shoulder.
As she returned her attention to the controls, there was a clicking sound, and both she and Arthur looked up, staring into the barrel of Saito's gun, and the Japanese man put a finger to his own lips, insisting that they be quiet.
They instantly froze. Caught again!
Completely unaware of what was going on in the bedroom, Nash put his hand on Cobb's forehead and pushed him, and both Cobb and the chair started to fall backwards toward the water-filled tub.
Down in the collapsing dream, Cobb picked himself up and resumed reading the remaining papers; when he reached the last page, he stared at it puzzled. 'What on Earth-?'
Almost like it was in slow motion, Cobb and the chair collided with the steaming water inside the tub.
Suddenly becoming aware of a falling sensation, Cobb looked up from the paper as water exploded in through all the windows, flooding the entire hall; bracing himself and squeezing his eyes shut, he was swamped by the water, spun in all directions at once as he was pulled deeper into the depths-
Thrashing about, Cobb grabbed at the sides of the tub and pulled himself up to the surface, gasping for air, and tried to get his bearings.
Sneaking out of the bedroom and coming up behind Nash, Saito smashed the gun into the back of his head, stunning him; catching the older man, he turned around, aiming the gun at Arthur and Emma, who were now in the doorway, their hands raised, and it was clear that they'd hoped to stop him. Seeing all of this, Cobb launched himself out of the tub, tackled Saito to the floor, where they struggled while Nash recovered and elbowed the Japanese man in the face, and he went limp.
"He's out," Cobb announced as Nash grabbed the gun, and they both stood up, breathing hard; they then grabbed the unconscious man, hauled him up, and they carried him back into the bedroom while Arthur and Emma finished packing up the remaining tubing and the machine. They still had work to do.
Outside, the rioters were drawing closer, and one of them jumped onto a car, shouting something in Spanish, and began pounding the roof with his club.
Cobb, wet but composed, was sitting in a chair, and was turning Saito's gun in his hands; Saito was seated in a chair across from him, once again conscious, and was scowling. Both Emma and Arthur were standing near a window, watching the progress of the rioters, and Nash was standing near Cobb with his arms crossed, and was still worried.
"You came prepared," Cobb remarked.
"I bring the gun because not even my head of security knows of this apartment," Saito answered, clearly annoyed. "How did you find it?"
Cobb smirked. "Hard for a man in your position to keep a love nest like this totally secret," he explained, "particularly when there's a married woman involved."
Saito didn't believe him. "She would never-"
"And yet, here we are," Cobb cut in, and Saito fumed. "With a dilemma."
Saito looked away as the shouting and explosions drew closer. "You got what you came for, now leave."
"Not quite," said Cobb, leaning forward slightly. "The key piece of information wasn't there, was it, Mr. Saito?" for back down in the dream, he'd discovered that the last page had large sections of writing blacked out – almost as if it had been deliberately removed.
"They're getting closer, Cobb," Arthur said warningly, and Nash winced at another explosion that was a lot closer then all of the others. They were running out of time-
On a bullet train traveling at a high speed through the Japanese countryside, Nash, deeply asleep, rocked slightly in his seat, and was wearing a faded blue business outfit; sleeping next to him were Arthur and Emma, and across from them, also asleep, were Cobb and Saito, and they were all dressed in the same outfits, only in dark colors, as in what was obviously a second dream, only Saito didn't have his jacket on. Sitting across from Nash was a teenage boy named Todashi, who checked his watch as a second train zoomed past them in the opposite direction, making the car rock again.
Noting the time, Todashi reached into his backpack and pulled out headphones and a MP3 player; leaning forward, he slipped the headphones over Nash's ears, and then knelt down in front of a familiar case; he opened it and checked the timers, which were counting down to thirty seconds.
Down in the dream world, Saito was refusing to reveal what he'd hidden from them, and the rioters were getting even closer.
"You held something back because you knew what we were up to," Cobb pointed out, handling the gun in one hand while Emma and Arthur exchanged uneasy looks. "So why let us in at all?" he asked.
Saito smirked. "An audition."
Cobb, Nash, Emma, and Arthur exchanged confused looks. An audition? "Audition for what?"
"It doesn't matter," Saito stated, disappointed. "You failed."
Cobb shook his head. "I extracted all the information you had in there."
"But your deception was readily apparent," Saito retorted, and Arthur and Emma once again shot "I-told-you-so" looks at Cobb as it became more apparent that the job was a bust and that they were screwed.
Meanwhile, Todashi noted just how much time was left on the timers, turned to Nash as the first counter hit "30", and he hit "play" on the MP3 player; soon the opening bars of Edith Piaf's "Non, je ne regrette rien," began to play, and Nash slowly began to stir.
Down below, Nash's eyes widened slightly as the music began echoing around the room, and it became apparent that Arthur, Emma, and Cobb could hear the music, too as they exchanged brief looks of understanding. They were down to seconds.
Saito was the only one who couldn't hear it, and he was too busy with arguing with Cobb to notice their reactions. "So leave me and go."
Cobb shook his head again, he needed to finish this and fast. "You know the corporation who hired us won't accept failure," he countered. "We won't last two days." 'Especially not against the type of people they can hire…the same ones that brought us to them in the first place.'
Arthur looked out the window and saw the rioters heading inside, and he gestured to Cobb. "Come on, Cobb."
"Hurry up," Emma added as the sounds of the rioters on the stairs could now be heard. 'We are so screwed.'
Nodding, Cobb stood, gripping the gun in his hand. "So now I have to do this the old-fashioned way-" he grabbed Saito, threw him onto the carpet, and aimed the gun at his head. "Tell us what you know!" he shouted. "Tell us now!"
Saito started to push himself up when he realized something about the carpet he was lying on, and laughed instead as he ran his fingers through the fibers, confusing the group. "I've always hated this carpet," he informed them, and Cobb briefly glanced at the carpet, wondering what the Japanese businessman was talking about. "It's stained and frayed in such distinctive ways…"
Cobb now looked at Nash, who shrugged, clearly at a loss as to what the businessman was talking about.
"But very definitely made of wool," Saito explained, still running his fingers through the fibers, examining the texture. "Right now I'm lying on polyester."
Now Cobb was glaring at Nash, who shook his head, refusing to admit that he'd screwed up on such a simple detail.
Saito pushed himself up onto his elbow, realization dawning on his face. "Which means I'm not lying on my carpet, in my apartment…" he smiled. "You've lived up to your reputation, Mr. Cobb…I'm still dreaming."
On the train, Todashi watched as one of the counters hit zero, triggering an alarm, and he glanced at Arthur, who was now stirring-
Down in the dream world, Cobb glanced toward the window and saw that Arthur had disappeared, and Emma was glaring at Nash as the sounds of the rioters on the stairs drew closer and closer. They were definitely out of time.
Arthur's eyes flickered open as he woke up and quickly removed the tubes from his wrist.
"How'd it go?" Todashi asked, as Arthur stood up, moving with the motion of the train.
"Not good," Arthur answered, annoyed as he nudged the teen out of the way and crouched down next to the case to check the remaining three countdowns as the second counter hit zero, and Emma woke up, wincing slightly as she removed the tubes, handing them to her husband, as the third counter moved closer to zero and the alarm continued beeping.
Back in the dream world, Saito got to his feet, looking admiringly at Cobb. "A dream within a dream," he commented, "I'm impressed."
Defeated and aware that Emma had disappeared, Cobb lowered the gun as the music continued playing and the rioters were now pounding on the door, trying to get inside.
"But in my dream, we really ought to be playing by my rules," Saito pointed out, no longer smiling.
Nash suddenly smirked. "Ah, yes, but you see, Mr. Saito-" and Saito turned to him, curious.
"We're not in your dream-" Cobb added, and Saito turned back in his direction, only to see that he too had vanished.
"We're in mine," Nash concluded and Saito faced him, stunned as the door was smashed open and the rioters swarmed in surrounding and grabbing Nash.
In the real world, Cobb opened his eyes, blinked, and then pinched the bridge of his nose, also wincing a bit as the alarm beeped faster now.
Down in the dream, Saito could only watched as the rioters tore at Nash, who yelled before disappearing right before the Japanese businessman's eyes, and the dream started to fade.
Nash snapped awake and yanked the headphones off his head, shaken by all that'd happen down in the dream.
"Asshole!" Arthur snapped as Emma helped him with the machine. "How could you get the carpet wrong?!"
"It wasn't my fault," Nash protested, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair.
"You're the architect," Arthur growled.
"And as the architect, you never skimp on the details if you expect the subject to not realize that they're in a dream!" Emma snapped, furious.
"I didn't know he was going to rub his damn cheek on it!" Nash shot back, glaring at the couple.
"Let it go," Cobb ordered as he checked Saito's pulse, hoping that they could get out of there before the sedative wore off and the businessman woke up.
Arthur glared up at his friend. "And you, what the hell was all that?"
"I had it under control," Cobb muttered.
Arthur and Emma exchanged skeptical looks. "I'd hate to see out of control."
"There's no time for this," Cobb grumbled angrily, removing the tubes from his wrist and handing them to Emma. "I'm getting off at Kyoto." And stood up, reaching for his bag that was on the baggage rack.
"Why?" Arthur asked, surprised. "He's not gonna search every compartment."
Cobb shrugged and pulled his bag down. "I can't stand trains."
Shaking his head, Arthur turned a dial on the machine. "I can keep him under for at least three more minutes." And he pushed a button, causing a plunger to depressurize, sending a fresh dosage of sedative through the tubes and into the Japanese man's wrist, keeping him asleep a bit longer.
Ripping off the tape, Cobb removed and rolled up the tubes, handing them to Emma, who put them into the silver case, and Arthur shut the lid, locking it up as Emma retrieved their bags and Nash snatched up his own bag.
Cobb pulled out a thick roll of cash as Todashi pulled open the door and tossed it to the teen. "Every man for himself." And then headed out into the corridor; shoving the case into one of the bags, Arthur and Emma exited the compartment next, heading in the opposite direction, and Nash left, slipping into a car halfway down the train.
A few minutes later, Saito slowly woke up and noted that the car was empty saved for himself and Todashi, who was reading a comic book and was looking for all the world that nothing strange had been going on around him; he looked down at his wrist, moving to sleeve slightly to reveal a small mark.
Smiling slightly, he settled back in his seat as the train continued speeding through the countryside. 'Yes, Mr. Cobb does live up to his reputation indeed.' And he began planning his next move to find the young man and his friends again, knowing that they were the ones who could get what he wanted done.
A/N: And this ends the chapter until next time. R&R everyone!