Inception: Dreams or Reality? Part 1

A/N: I'm back and there's just one more chapter after this one to round up part one.

Read, review, and enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from Inception, Batman, or Doctor Who. I only own the characters that I created.

CHAPTER SEVEN: RESEARCH

Meanwhile in Paris, Arthur and Emma were in the workshop with Ariadne and were going over some basic maze ideas that she could use in the dream levels, once they knew more about the subject, and now many dream levels since Cobb hadn't given them a clear idea.

"What do you know about him?" she asked, looking through a thick book of mazes.

"The only thing we know is that he's the heir to a financial empire of some kind," Arthur answered, "and that we need to perform inception on him so that he can dissolve the family business instead."

"What's inception?" Ariadne asked.

"It's a way to plant the seed of an idea into a person's mind," Cobb said from the doorway, surprising the trio. "I'm glad to see you, Ariadne," he added, walking over to the table that was covered with books, and was soon followed by Saito, Eames, and Yusuf. "I got the rest of the team: Eames, Yusuf, and Mr. Saito."

Arthur and Emma were surprised to see the Japanese businessman. "What're you doing here, Saito?"

"I'm here to make sure that you get the job done," Saito answered, smiling slightly at their uneasy expressions.

After making the rounds of introductions, a whiteboard was set up, and Cobb passed around files to the team. "The mark is Robert Fischer, heir to the Australian energy conglomerate, Fischer Morrow," he told them and then wrote on the board. "'I will split up my father's empire'." He then faced the team. "An idea Robert Fischer's conscious mind would never accept," he explained. "We have to plant it deep in his subconscious."

"How deep?" Arthur asked.

"Three levels down," Cobb answered.

"A dream within a dream within a dream?" Emma asked, exchanging a look with her husband. "Is that even possible?"

"Yes," Cobb confirmed. "It is." He then nodded to the board. "Now, the subconscious motivates through emotion, not reason, so we have to translate the idea into an emotional concept."

"How do you translate a business strategy into an emotion?" Arthur wondered.

Cobb shrugged. "That's what we have to figure out," he admitted. "Robert and his father have a tense relationship. Worse, even, than the gossip columns have suggested."

"Do you play on that?" Eames suggested. "Suggest breaking up his father's company as a 'screw you' to the old man?"

Cobb shook his head. "No. Positive emotion trumps negative emotion every time," he insisted. "We yearn for people to be reconciled, for catharsis. We need positive emotional logic."

Eames considered their options, eying what was written on the board as he turned his chair side to side, and then he got an idea. "Try this, "my father accepts that I want to create for myself, not follow in his footsteps"," he suggested.

Cobb nodded. "That might work."

"Might?" Arthur repeated, skeptically. "We'll have to do better than that."

Not wanting to pass up a chance to tease the younger man, Eames turned his chair to face him. "Thanks for the contribution, Arthur."

Arthur scowled at him. "Forgive me for wanting a little specificity, Eames."

"Inception's not about specificity," Cobb said, stopping a possible fight. "When we get inside his head, we're going to have to work with what we find."

Eames grinned while Arthur rolled his eyes, annoyed, and then Emma brought up a different problem.

"Cobb, assuming that you're serious about going three levels down, who are the dreamers going to be?" she asked, already figuring that Cobb wasn't going to do it since it meant that Mal would probably show up…again.

"Yusuf is going to be the dreamer for the first level," Cobb answered. "Arthur will be the dreamer for the second level, and for the third level there'll be two dreamers to play it safe: Eames and you, Emma."

"Me?" Emma repeated, alarmed. "Cobb, you know that it's one thing for me to provide ideas for the dreams, but to be a dreamer isn't one of my strongest skills." The few times that she'd ever built a dream, it'd ended up falling down around her ears because of something minor that she'd overlooked.

Eames grinned. "Oh don't worry, sweetie," he teased, "I'll be here to help."

Emma scowled at her ex-boyfriend, not thrilled in the slightest. "Oh joy."

Soon they were all down in the dream world, which looked like a street in a big city, where Ariadne was showing Yusuf aspects of the geography.

"We could split the idea into emotional triggers," Eames suggested, "and use one on each level."

"How do you mean?" Cobb asked.

"On the top level, we open up his relationship with his father," Eames explained. "Say: "I will not follow in my father's footsteps." Next level down, we've accessed his ambition and self "will create something for myself." Then, the bottom level, we bring out the emotional big guns…"

"'My father doesn't want me to be him'," Cobb concluded.

Eames nodded. "That could do it."

"How do you produce these emotional triggers?" Arthur asked.

"I forge each emotional concept in the style and manner of Peter Browning, a key figure in Fischer's emotional life," Eames responded.

Just then, two African pedestrians wandered into view, surprising the team, and questioning looks were exchanged. Who had brought in projections?

"Are those yours?" Emma asked Eames, who shook his head.

Frowning, Cobb turned to Yusuf, who was looking instantly guilty. "Yusuf?"

"Yup. Sorry," Yusuf apologized.

"Suppress them," Cobb ordered. "We don't bring our own projections into the dream – we let Fischer's subconscious supply the people."

Ariadne didn't really understand while Cobb was being so insistent about that. "Why?" she asked Emma.

"Think about the first Ghostbusters movie," Emma suggested, "and the scene when the giant Stay-puff Puff-man showed up when they were asked to choose a form for the bad guy, and Ray ended up visualizing a giant marshmallow man of doom."

Ariadne nodded, remembering the movie. "Ok."

"Saito, when do I get to see Browning?" Eames asked, hoping to research the man as soon as possible.

"You fly out to Sydney on Tuesday," Saito told him. "We've arranged for you to spend several days as part of a consulting litigation team working for Browning."

Tuesday morning found Eames, now in a black business suit and cleaned up with his hair slicked back, seated in a crowded office filled with boxes and files, four additional lawyers, and Peter Browning himself; the office was located in Fischer Manor, mainly due to Maurice's declining health. Keeping to himself, Eames quietly studied everything about Browning, including how he acted toward others, and managed to not draw any attention to himself in the process.

"I'm not smelling settlement here," Browning stated, tossing a some papers onto the already crowded desk, "take them down." and he processed to remove his glasses.

'And some poor sap is going to find himself either in jail or on the street,' Eames thought, watching closely the way that Browning handled his glasses.

"Mr. Browning," protested one of the lawyers seated next to a laptop. "Maurice Fischer's policy is always one of avoiding litigation."

Eyebrows raised, Browning turned to face the young lawyer, pocketing his glasses, his face both calm and powerful at the same time. "Shall we relay your concerns directly to Maurice?" he suggested.

The lawyer shifted uneasily in his seat. "I don't think it's necessary."

"No I think we should," said Browning, and he headed over to a pair of double doors, walking directly past Eames, and opened them; on the other side was a large wood-paneled room that'd been converted from being the study to a makeshift hospital room for Maurice Fischer, who was lying sickly and pale in a hospital bed, hooked up to various machines that were being watched over by a nurse in a white uniform.

Browning hesitated for a moment and then moved over to a tall figure standing near the window, this was Robert Fischer, and he was clearly taking his father's illness hard. "How is he?" he asked, referring to Maurice, who was wheezing, and Robert turned to look at him. "I don't want to bother him unnecessarily but I know he-"

Just then Maurice suddenly lashed out with an arm, startling them. "Robert!" he shouted, knocking things off the nightstand, including a silver-framed picture. "I've told you to keep out the damn-" and he continued mumbling while the nurse attended to him, trying to calm him down.

Robert walked over and crouched to retrieve the framed photograph, and he looked at the photo through the broken glass; it was a photo of him as a kid with his father, and he was blowing on a homemade pinwheel that he'd made himself. Glancing at his father, he straightened up with the framed photo in hand.

Browning nodded to the picture. "Must be a cherished memory of his," he commented.

Robert shook his head sadly. "I put it by his bed," he explained. "He hasn't even noticed."

Browning sighed and put an arm around the younger man's shoulders. "Robert, we have to talk about a power of attorney," he insisted. "I know this is hard for you, but it's important that we start to think about the future-"

"Not now, Uncle Peter," said Robert, pulling away and returning to the window, clutching the photograph, and ignoring Browning's disappointed expression; Eames watched all of this from the other room, mentally taking notes on everything that'd happen.

A few days later, Eames returned to Paris to report on everything he'd seen and heard, having worked on the dream-version of Browning he'd planned to use on. "The vultures are circling," he informed the team. "The sicker Maurice Fischer becomes, the stronger Peter Browning becomes, and I've had time to learn Browning's physical presence and mannerisms," he added.

"Now, in the dream, I can impersonate Browning and suggest the concepts to Fischer's conscious mind," Eames explained, drawing an diagram on one of the boards. "Then we take Fischer down another level and his own subconscious feeds it right back to him."

"So he gives himself the idea," Arthur guessed, impressed.

"Precisely," Eames agreed. "That's the only way to make it stick. It has to seem self-generated."

Arthur smiled slightly. "Eames, I'm impressed."

"Your condescension, as always, is much appreciated, Arthur," Eames teased, enjoying the younger man's exasperated expression.

Late that night, Ariadne was still at the workshop, and she was working on her totem; using both a micro drill and a small vice, she made some adjustments to a brass chess piece, and smiled when it tipped over the way she wanted to. Just then she heard a noise and she went to investigate.

Following the noise, she soon found Cobb standing in front of a desk and was tinkering with one of the machines. "Are you going under on your own?" she asked, startling him; the only person she'd seen go under without anyone else had been Eames, and he only did this when he wanted to work on the Browning identity.

Cobb flushed slightly and closed the case. "I was just running some tests," he explained, sort of. "I didn't realize anyone was here." 'I better make sure that the place is completely empty, or at least have Yusuf stand guard.'

"Just working on my totem," Ariadne told him, holding up the chess piece.

"Here, let me see," Cobb offered, holding out his hand, but she shook her head, and he smiled. "You're learning."

"It's an elegant solution to keeping track of reality," Ariadne remarked. "Your invention?"

Cobb shook his head, a wistful expression crossing his face. "No. Mal's." he then pulled out the top and rolled it between his fingers. "This one was hers," he explained. "She'd spin it in a dream and it would never topple. Just spin and spin."

Ariadne nodded, thinking of what Arthur and Emma had told her about the late Mal Cobb, who had been a sweet and kind person in real life, and yet they couldn't figure out why her projection was so dark and dangerous. "Arthur and Emma told me she died."

Cobb nodded, putting away the top. "She did. How are the mazes coming?" he asked, having been avoiding the area where models of the three levels were being put together so that they could be explained to the dreamers.

Ariadne led him over to the workspace she'd been using and pointed out the pictures and sketches provided by Emma. "Good. Each level relates to the part of the subject's subconscious we're trying to access," she explained. "I'm making the bottom level a hospital, so that Fischer will bring his father there-"

"Don't tell me," Cobb interrupted. "Remember, you only want the dreamer to know the layout."

"Why's that so important?" Ariadne asked, although she had her suspicions, partly based on what she'd managed to get out of Emma and Arthur, and Cobb's reaction to seeing Yusuf's projections popping up that one time.

"In case one of us brings in part of our subconscious," Cobb explained. "You wouldn't want any projections knowing the layout."

"In case you bring Mal in," Ariadne guessed and he looked away, refusing to answer. "You won't build yourself because if you know the maze, then she knows it. And she'd sabotage the operation. You can't keep her out, can you?" she asked, but he still didn't say anything. "Do the others know?"

"No," Cobb finally answered, although he suspected that Arthur and Emma were starting suspect the truth…or at least some of it.

Ariadne frowned. "You have to warn them if it's getting worse-" she began.

"I didn't say it's getting worse," Cobb interrupted gently. "Look, Ariadne, I need them for this job. I need you for this job. Without your help, I'll never get back to my children. And that's all I can care about right now."

"Why can't you go home, Cobb?" Ariadne asked, wishing that he would giver her a straight answer for once.

Cobb stared at her for several seconds, trying to decide whether to tell her the whole truth or not. "They think I killed her," he finally answered.

"How did she die?" Ariadne asked, surprised.

Cobb thought about the last time he'd seen his wife alive and decided that he'd revealed enough. "Thank you."

"For what?" Ariadne asked, confused.

"Not asking whether I did," Cobb responded and then walked away.

Ariadne watched him go, both frustrated and shaken by what she'd managed to learn, and yet the mystery that was Dom Cobb hadn't been solved just yet, and she was determined to solve it. 'One way or another, I'm going to figure out what it is you're hiding, and just maybe your projection of Mal won't cause anymore trouble for you or anyone else.'

Over the next week, Ariadne worked on completing the mazes and taught them to the respective dreamers: with Yusuf, they constructed the first level of the dream to be in extensive city that would make Robert think he was in New York; with Arthur, they built a fancy hotel, and with Eames and Emma, after some extensive, and heated, debate over the type and design, a military-like hospital was created for the third level of the dream world. During all of this, Ariadne noted that, despite the seriousness of the job, the team still found ways to tease and prank each other, and it became fairly clear that the main victims of the jokes were usually Arthur, Emma, or both of them at the same time, and the one responsible was typically Eames.

She'd been going over the maze design with Yusuf when there was a crashing of metal and a splashing of water, followed by a yell and a startled cry; running into the main area, they discovered that a large pail of cold water had been placed on the edge of the doorframe, and the moment that Arthur and Emma had entered, they'd gotten soaked. Now Arthur was chasing Eames around the workshop, vowing to kill him, Cobb was laughing, Emma was furious, and Saito was looking like an exasperated parent having to deal with rough-housing children.

During one of the team's briefing sessions, Arthur brought up an issue concerning the three dream levels.

"My question is how we go down three layers with enough stability?" he asked. "Even with two dreamers on the third level, the whole thing is stilling going to be unstable. Three layers down a little turbulence is gonna translate into an earthquake. The dreams are gonna collapse with the slightest disturbance."

"He's right," Emma agreed. "It's hard enough to keep two dream levels stable, but three?"

Cobb had expected this to be brought up and so he nodded to Yusuf, who returned the nod.

"Sedation," he explained. "For sleep stable enough to create three layers of dreaming, will have to combine it with an extremely powerful sedative."

"How powerful?" Emma asked.

"Come over here and I'll show you," Yusuf requested and led them over to the makeshift lab that he'd set up in one part of the workshop. "I'll need an volunteer."

"Arthur," said Cobb and Eames at the same time, earning several surprised expressions, and a mild protest from Arthur himself.

"Why me?"

Instead of answering his question, Eames and Cobb made Arthur sit down in a chair next to a table holding one of the machines, and Yusuf strapped the tubes to his wrist; he then depressed the plunger, and they watched as the sedative flowed through the tubing and into Arthur, who instantly dropped off to sleep.

After a few minutes had passed, Yusuf reached out and slapped Arthur across the face… hard, and didn't get a reaction. "See?"

"Answers my question," Emma muttered, having winced at the sight of her husband being slapped so hard.

After waking back up and rubbing his sore cheek, Arthur and the rest of the team were back in the main area, where Yusuf continued explaining how the compound in the sedative would affect them in the dream world.

"The compound we'll be using to share the dream is an advanced Somnacin derivative," he explained. "It creates a very clear connection between dreamers, whilst actually accelerating brain function."

"Buying us more time in each level," Cobb added for Ariadne since she had a confused expression on her face.

Yusuf nodded. "Brain function in the dream will be about twenty times normal," he explained. "And when you go into a dream within that dream the effect is compounded."

"How much time?" Ariadne asked, recalling that five minutes in the dream world equaled an hour.

"Three dreams," Yusuf answered, "that's ten hours, times twenty, times twenty, times twenty-"

"Math was never my strong suit," Eames interrupted, feeling a headache developing and both Emma and Arthur exchanged small smiles at his expense.

While Yusuf scowled, Cobb explained in less complex technical terms. "It's basically a week one layer down, six months two layers down-"

"And ten years in the third level," Ariadne realized, shocked. "Who wants to spend ten years in a dream?"

Yusuf shrugged. "Depends on the dream."

Eames noted the young woman's uneasy expression, and decided to reassure her. "It's not going to take us long to crack Fischer open once we get going," he pointed out. "We'll be out in a couple days, max."

Ariadne didn't look too convinced, but she didn't push the issue of how long it would take them to do the job, in both real time and dream time.

"How do we get out once we've made the plant?" Arthur asked Cobb, tilting back in his chair slightly. "I hope you've got something a little more elegant in mind than shooting me and Emma in the head like last time."

Cobb didn't want a repeat of last time either, and had already had a basic idea of how to pull them out of all three dreams in one go…hopefully. "A kick."

"What's a kick?" Ariadne asked.

"This, Ariadne," said Eames, slipping his foot under one of the legs under Arthur's chair and pushed it up just enough, forcing Arthur to react in order to keep from falling backwards, "would be a kick." And smiled at the annoying look that the younger man was shooting at him.

"That feeling of falling which snaps you awake," Cobb explained, snapping his fingers. "We use that to jolt ourselves awake once we're done."

Emma and Arthur exchanged a look that said that they weren't convinced that a kick could work with the powerful sedative. "But how are we going to feel that through the sedation?"

Yusuf smiled and the couple realized that they were going to the ones to be demonstrated on. "That's the clever part. I customize the sedative to leave inner ear function unimpaired. That way, however deep the sleep, the sleeper will still feel falling…or tipping."

Minutes later, and a lot of pleading and protesting, both Arthur and Emma were hooked up to the machine and were asleep in two chairs; as Cobb, Saito, Ariadne, and Eames watched, Yusuf approached Arthur and, with a wicked grin, he pushed on both his chest and the chair backward. As the chair tipped backwards, Arthur snapped away and yelped as he crashed to the floor, and Eames chuckled at the younger man's sprawled form.

While Arthur grumbled and struggled to sit up, Yusuf went over to Emma and, with the same gleeful smile, he leaned her chair to one side; as the chair toppled, Emma woke up and she landed on the floor with a crash and a groan.

"Cobb, next time you get to be tested on," Arthur growled as he and Emma freed themselves of the tubing, both feeling sore and embarrassed as the team returned to the main area.

Cobb just grinned, having learned early on not to take Arthur and Emma's threats too seriously, and then Emma pointed out something important, hoping that she and Arthur weren't going to be volunteered…again.

"Okay, so we know that it can work, but even that won't cut through three layers of deep sleep."

"That's true," Cobb agreed, having been thinking of different ways to make the kick work on all three levels. "The trick is to devise a kick for each level, then synchronize them to get a snap that penetrates all three layers."

Arthur thought about that and realized what Cobb had in mind, and he knew how to make it work. "We can use the musical countdown to synchronize the different kicks."

"Musical countdown?" Ariadne repeated.

"One of the ways we can usually let each other know that time is nearly up in the real world is to put headphones on the head of the dreamer and play music," Emma explained. "And that also gives us a hint as to much time we have left, too."

Ariadne nodded. "I can see how that could work." And when she next went back into the dreams with the dreamers, they added in additional items that they would be able to use in order to trigger the kicks when the time was right, and while they did this, a new problem developed that they had to deal with.

Time.

While Ariadne and Arthur were busy working on a last few details for the hotel, the others were standing around the lobby, debating of how to get Robert Fischer under long enough so that they could make the plant.

"He's not scheduled for surgery, no dental, nothing," Eames reported, having just checked on Robert's upcoming schedule.

"I thought he had some knee thing?" Cobb asked.

"It's a minor fix up," Emma told him and Eames agreed.

"Nothing they'd put him under for," he added. "Besides, we need at least a good ten hours."

"Sydney to Los Angeles," said Saito, and they looked at him. "Twelve hours and forty minutes – one of the longest flights in the world," he explained. "He makes it every two weeks."

At an private airfield, Robert got out of his limo and walked across the tarmac towards a dark gray Gulf Stream jet, accompanied by two aides.

`"Surely he flies private?"` Cobb asked.

`"Not if there were unexpected maintenance with his plane,"` Saito said slyly as a distraught flight officer met Robert at the steps and reported to him about the engine; disappointed, Robert nodded and turned away, heading back to his car with his aides on his heels.

Cobb considered this option when Arthur and Ariadne, having just completed the hotel, joined them.

"It'd have to be a 747," Arthur informed them.

"Why?" Cobb asked.

"On a 747 the pilots are up above, first class is in the nose so nobody walks through the cabin," Arthur explained. "We'd have to buyout the whole cabin, and the first class flight attendant-"

"I bought the airline," Saito announced and they all looked at him, surprised. "It seemed…neater."

"Neater, huh?" Cobb was impressed. "Well, now we have ten uninterrupted hours." He then nodded to Ariadne. "Nice lobby, by the way." And she smiled in response.

Later that same night in the real world, the workshop was empty, saved for Ariadne, who'd been cleaning up her work area, and she was heading out when she heard the hiss of the machine going and went to investigate; she wasn't surprised to see that Cobb was sleeping in a chair, hooked up to the machine, especially since she'd seen this going on for a while, and Yusuf had been there every time, too.

Realizing that there was no sign of the chemist, Ariadne walked over to the desk, set down her bag and coat, and sat down in the empty chair; pulling out some tubing, she checked the dials and then strapped the tubes to her wrist, dozing off instantly.

A/N: What will Ariadne find when she goes under? Just wait and see. R&R everyone!