"mes chagrins, mes plaisirs, je n'ai plus besoin d'eux"
31. Masquerade
Like the others on Dominic Cobb's crew, Eames was the best in his field. He could be anyone – man, woman, child, aristocrat, slum-dweller, mob boss, grandmother, businessman… or, in this case, architect.
It was years after the Inception job. He was working on his own – contract work, the best kind. Healthy, decent. His name was famous in the right circles, and even the wrong circles had some idea of who he was. It was a good situation to be in, and a bad one at the same time – good in that the right kind of people sought him out to pay a hell of a lot of money upfront for him to do what he did best; bad in that there were a lot of very rich men out there who wanted him dead because of those very same abilities.
So far, they had been mildly unsuccessful. One assassin had gotten a little too close for comfort some years back and, as a result, took part of his ear as a souvenir. Once it healed, Eames didn't mind. It was a battle scar.
The ladies were fascinated by battle scars and they were a signal to potential opponents that he was a survivor.
Win-win.
However, this new job certainly stretched what little moral code he had. He liked it – it was a challenge. A mental, physical and ethical challenge.
He was working for the other team now. His target?
Arthur.
His disguise?
Ariadne.
What a lark – to infiltrate his former colleague's mind in the shape of another former colleague, particularly one who was romantically attached to that first former colleague. Eames almost turned the job down out of respect for the pair, but it was too good of an opportunity to pass up. He was being well paid. He'd be rich enough to retire comfortably. Besides, part of his job was already complete: he knew about two third of what he needed to know, which was miles away from what he usually worked with at the start of each job. Arthur would be easy to trick, especially if he got Ariadne's mannerisms down correctly.
Easy enough. The girl was Canadian. They were a particularly unsubtle nation.
And so, Eames relished the job. He hadn't seen Arthur in years; nor had he seen Ariadne. If he was discovered during the dream, he would certainly be stuck in an interesting position.
"Not to worry, darling," he muttered as he scanned his files on the pair and gulped back a beer. "It's all in the name of business."
32. Wallop
Mal's death hit him like a knife to the gut – and that was a reliable simile to use, as Miles had experienced it more than once within a dream.
Dom had told him of the issues he and Mal were working through, but the last time Miles had seen his daughter, she seemed to be getting better. He should have known better. She had always been a tremendous actor. She could convince whomever she wanted to believe what she wanted them to believe.
The afternoon after Mal took her leap of faith, Miles arrived at the morgue with his ex-wife. Marie slapped him when they met outside the building, but the sting was nothing compared to the accusatory look in her eyes.
C'est ta faute!
He could only stand there, allowing her to scream her fury at him, pummelling his chest with her hands.
Tout ça c'est de ta faute!
In his mind, he agreed with her. He should have tried harder. He should have realised there was something wrong. Dom always said that Mal had never been the same. Miles could remember with painful clarity the evening Dom had called, telling him that Mal had sliced her hand open with a knife – the results would have been much worse had he not caught her in time. He had taken her directly to the hospital and trusted the staff there to make sure no sharp objects came within reach.
After several psychological exams, they never believed him when he said she did it to herself. Throughout the entire ordeal, Mal never said a word – not in accusation, not in defence. Dom said she merely sat there, watching, listening, a pained, hurt look in her eyes.
In the moments between Marie's flurry of stinging words and the identification of their daughter's ruined body, Miles came to a realisation.
Il n'y a rien que je pouvais faire. C'était son choix.
There had truthfully been nothing he could have done.
Marie did not believe him.
He hung his head, not in shame, but in defeat.
Let her think what she would. He had no hope of convincing her otherwise and it was futile to try.
C'était son choix.
33. Belfry
The tower was a thing of majesty. On the outside, the detailing was intense, deep, filled with an artistry that challenged even the greatest cathedrals of history. On the inside, it surpassed anything even the likes of Notre-Dame had to offer. Stained glass of hues that could never be achieved, gargoyles that were both terrifying and beautiful all at once, details that would take years of precision and talent to sculpt.
Like the gargoyles, it was a beautiful and terrifying place at the same time.
"You've really outdone yourself," Arthur said as they walked up the spiralling stone steps of the bell tower. Above them hung a heavy set of bells, standing at attention should someone pull the ropes to ring them. Even they were perfectly shaped – but they were never to be rung.
"Thanks," Ariadne said. "There's something about cathedrals. I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's how peaceful they can be, but at the same time they're magnificent monsters."
Arthur stopped walking. "Magnificent monsters?" he asked.
She crossed her arms. "What?"
"Nothing," he said, continuing up the stairs. "Just…" He stopped again. "Magnificent monsters?" he said again, turning around.
Ariadne shrugged. "If you have a problem with the way I describe stuff, then you better get used to it. I've done the calculations three times now and we're stuck here for forty-eight hours thanks to our useless friends."
Arthur winced. "Let's just hope that no projections programmed to kill come and find us here."
"That's the other good thing about cathedrals these days," Ariadne said. "No one expects you to hide out in them. Especially the bell tower."
"We're not exactly in the ordinary world, Ariadne. Dreams work by different worlds."
"Sure, but isn't the trick to make the target think that the dream world works by the same laws as the real world?"
Arthur shook his head and took several more steps. "I can't win."
"Nope," Ariadne said cheerfully.
They continued on up the spiralling steps, climbing higher and higher until they were among the bells. As soon as he passed a window, Arthur stopped and looked out to make sure there were no projections gathering at the base of the cathedral.
Ariadne leaned against the wall, waiting for him. "Arthur?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm bored," she said. "Compliment my architecture again, would you?"
He turned around and eyed her darkly. "You're a right pain in the ass when you want to be, you know that?"
"Absolutely."
34. Nimble
Much of Mal's talent came from the ability to be quick of movement and of mind. She was like a cat – always landing on her feet, always absorbing in the finest details. As her experience grew, so did her abilities to sense the way dreams flowed. She became a navigator, able to dissect exactly how a specific target's mind would work and thus be capable of infiltrating even its deepest hid secrets as quickly and efficiently as possible.
It was one of the things he loved about her. Her talent, her stubborn persistence to get it right each time, and her insistence that she fix it each time she got it wrong. Her love of the ebb and flow of dreams, the way she saw the beauty within even the darkest nightmares.
Of course, it was one of the things he remembered so clearly about her. After her death, her memory emulated that personality, those talents, that stubbornness. His mind became a danger to himself, as thanks to his memories, Mal's projection was double the navigator the real Mal ever was.
And she continued to trip him up. To catch him. To bring him down before his enemies.
To execute him with her very own image, with the same question lingering hauntingly on her lips.
She was the ghost he could never kill. The ghost who would never leave him. The ghost who would continue her torturous question of "why – why – why?" even when he already knew that he could not give her an answer.
Not yet. He wasn't ready.
He would never be as ready as she had been in real life.
35. Astute
The girl an extraordinarily fast learner. She was very talented and gifted in this art, even going so far as to surpass anything Miles himself had created – or even Ariadne, his most gifted student. Phillipa was rapidly approached the area that had seduced Dom and Mal into further experimentation and exploration; Miles could only hope he could keep her out of it.
She was headstrong. She took many, many risks.
He hadn't had a student with this much potential and this much nerve since Ariadne, but at least Ariadne had understood the dangers. She had witnessed them herself when she worked alongside Dom.
Phillipa could not understand them. She had only trained – and trained extensively – but she truly needed to begin field work to keep her from going over the edge. Field work humbled the architect's mind; without it, an architect would believe anything to be possible. They would not see the dangers associated with their line of work.
Miles was torn. He didn't want to send his only granddaughter off to do unscrupulous work, but he also knew that she was in even graver danger if he did not.
After much deliberation, he picked up the phone and dialled a number.
"Arthur? Yes. I need your assistance as soon as possible – but with one stipulation. You must not, under any circumstances, allow Dom to know the identity of your new architect."
On the other end of the line, Miles heard Arthur's "huh" of understanding and – he hoped – agreement.
Events could quickly spiral out of control if not handled correctly. It was the usual consequence when any of Miles' relatives entered the field.
36. Étude
Ariadne did not want to wake up.
She knew she would eventually, but this was one dream in which she wished she could stay forever – partly for the joy and the pleasure, partly because she dreaded the embarrassment she would feel once she did wake.
She had sworn to herself that she would never become addicted to Somnacin and dream-sharing, as her colleagues had. She had joined this line of work to craft and design, not to become lost in the emotional knots that could be created and shared through the very same device.
Damn, damn, damn, damn, damn.
She always knew it had been a bad decision to allow Arthur to kiss her once, in a dream. It had been the start of something – a memory of something that did not happen, but had happened, opening up a stream of possibilities for incorporeal events that, if they ever went wrong, could be argued never happened.
Damn it!
Four years. It had taken four years, but they eventually did cross each other's paths again. They eventually reunited on the same team – he, still working as a point man, she as the architect – and a flood of memories had brought them back to where they had previously been… directly on the cusp of something.
Ariadne had a pretty good idea what that something was, but it was all mixed up in this dream stuff.
Now it was even more mixed up.
She didn't know what they had done. No… she did know what they had done. She just couldn't tell what it meant. Was it real? Was it not real? Did it count? She had… they had… it was now all so confusing.
And part of her stubbornly said that she shouldn't mind. It had, after all, been exciting. And very pleasurable and very, very good. And many, many other things for which she couldn't think of the right adjectives for.
She felt herself going red.
Stop it! Snap out of it!
She sat still, wrapping Arthur's pinstriped shirt around her for modesty's sake because it was closer to her than her own clothes.
The bathroom door opened.
She turned around, catching his eye.
"You're wearing my shirt," he said.
Ariadne blinked. "That's all you have to say?"
He cocked his head. "Well, no, but that's the first thing that comes to mind."
Her eyes narrowed.
He paled. "Oops. Sorry, um…" He smacked a palm against his forehead. "That's not what I meant, not at all, sorry. I meant you look good in my… in my shirt! Yes, pinstripes suit you. Pun not intended," he added, looking to where the other discarded pieces of his suit lay on the floor.
Ariadne sighed, shaking her head, the flush finally leaving her cheeks. He was so… she didn't know. She was going to say adorable, but she knew from experience that no man ever took lightly to being called 'adorable'.
She stood up. "What happens when we wake up?" she asked.
He leaned against the doorframe, making a face. "Can I ask you out for coffee?" he said, his voice turning up in a wistful tone at the end of the question.
She stared flatly at him. "No."
"Damn. That's always my backup plan."
"You got us into this mess."
"I'm not sure if it's a mess—"
"Hell, it is a mess!" Ariadne interrupted. "Arthur, we had sex in a dream. Sex. In. A. Dream. In a shared dream. You look me in the eye and tell me that is not messed up—"
He suddenly crossed the room and kissed her. She stopped talking, melting into his arms, her heart pounding rapidly. Her body trembled and she kissed him back, pulling him close, her hands running down the length of his back, her fingers tingling at the touch of his smooth skin—
"No," she said, pulling back just enough to speak, "I don't think—"
"Sorry," he said, releasing her. He ran a hand through his hair. "I didn't mean—" he started.
"Well, I didn't mean, either—" she said at the same time.
"Sorry, you go first, I can wait—"
"No, no, I just—"
"No, Ariadne, you go first, I—"
"Oh, shut up, Arthur," she said finally, stopping the influx of interrupted sentences. She kissed him again, pressing her lips to his with an ardour she couldn't believe could exist anywhere but in a dream. "You are being too adorable for your own good."
He paused. "Adorable?" he murmured against her lips.
"Absolutely," she said, pulling him close once more.
She couldn't help herself. Once they woke, she decided, they would deal with the consequences of this very, very bizarre arrangement.
37. Vein
Marie would never be able to trust him again. He understood; he bore her no ill for that sentiment. But what he could not stand for was her insistence that he give custody of the children over to her.
He had been cleared of all charges. He had his life returned to him. He could see Phillipa and James again – freely. No more phone calls late at night, no more gifts sent via their grandfather. He could be in their lives again, and he intended to fulfill his duties to them as a father.
Marie had other things in mind.
She was prepared to take him to court over their disagreement; if it came to that, he was going to fight tooth and nail to keep his children with him. But then Miles flew to America to act as an intermediary between his ex-wife and his son-in-law – his words stung both of them as he told them he did not think Mal would want to see her husband and her mother fighting over her own children.
Marie had a few choice words for Miles, including ones that vehemently stated that she did not believe Miles had the right to speak for Mallorie.
However, Miles said he did. Mal was their daughter, but he had taught her from the beginning. He was the reason she had met Dom; and perhaps, yes, he was also at the beginning of the reason she had taken her own life, as Marie believed. But that meant that he understood her unlike no one else, save perhaps Dom.
He asked Marie one simple question – did she truly believe that Mal wanted her children to grow up without their father?
In the end, Marie gave in.
Dom was forever thankful for Miles' words. He owed the man so much more than Miles probably ever knew. However, Dom had also made a decision – he would not be the same father to Phillipa and James as Miles had been to Mal. He would keep his children away from his work, at all costs.
The dream world was one that he did not want his children falling to, after the pain it had caused their family.
As they grew older, Dom began to realise that Phillipa would never have listened to him anyway. She was far too headstrong and stubborn to believe the influx of warnings her father gave her whenever she asked about the secrets of dreaming.
38. Mortality
Saito had discovered death.
He knew what it was to fear it, to taste it, to feel life seeping away from a broken, bleeding body. Even though it had happened within a dream, he could remember the plunging bullet and the pain and the numbness that followed as clearly as any memory from the waking world.
Death was not the greatest thing he feared.
Old age was. He was scarred from his trip within the multi-levelled dream world – scarred for the rest of his life. He had been trapped within limbo for years, growing forever older, but unable to die, surrounded by fabrications of his own mind until one man pushed in deep enough to pull him out.
It was the last time he would ever take such a journey – he swore it. He had seen enough of the horrors men employed on each other to pursue their enemies' deepest secrets. He had experienced enough of the dangers.
Every day when he looked in the mirror and saw his aging face, he remembered those moments lost in a spiral of eternal old age and decay. He hoped to never confront such a thing again.
He would rather die before it came for him.
He did not fear death. All men were mortal. All men could be broken. Riches and money protected none; they were all one and the same, when the end chose to come for them.
39. Narcissist
"I have a hypothesis for you," Arthur said, leaning back in his chair and taking a swig of beer.
"Oh, really?" Eames said, not looking up from his files. "And what kind of hypothesis would that be?"
"I know… why you'ra forgger," Arthur said. His words were becoming slurred. Eames smiled, his eyes flickering to his friend. Arthur was always a lot more fun once he became drunk.
"To tell."
"You'ra pretty man, Eames," Arthur said, tilting his head back for more beer. "Pretty men like teh look at themselves in teh mirror."
"Is that right?" Eames said. "I am a pretty man."
"Yesh… you awr!" He stood up and accidentally tripped over his chair, catapulting face-first onto the floor.
"But if your hypothesis were true, my friend," Eames continued, "then why would I ever trade this oh-so-very chiselled jaw of mine for the squat face and grey hair of Peter Browning, hm?" He downed part of his own glass, smacking his lips.
Arthur tried to stand up, but fell over. He raised a shaking finger and pointed at Eames. "'Cause yawr mind don't work right," he said, placing the same shaking finger to his own temple.
Arthur promptly passed out.
Eames chuckled.
The door opened. Ariadne entered; her earphones were in and she was humming to herself. She stopped halfway across the room and took note of the unconscious Arthur and the now madly laughing Eames.
"All right," she said, pulling out her earphones and fixing Eames with a glare. "What did you give him this time?"
"A little something I mixed up myself," Eames said, reaching for another file. "Why, would you like to try it?"
"I think I'll pass," she said.
"Fine by me," Eames said before bursting into another round of raucous laughter.
40. Ghoul
When Phillipa went under into her first dream, she thought she saw her mother.
She only knew her mother from pictures, of course, but she had heard stories of what she had been like. Dad always had the strangest look on his face whenever he talked about her. Grandfather was the same. Grandmother only looked sad.
And so, Phillipa could not figure out why Mum would try to infiltrate her dreams. But there she was, clear as day, mixed in with the milling projections. Whenever she walked along a street or over a bridge or through a garden, Mum was there, silently watching for a moment before turning away.
Once, Phillipa tried to follow her, but she lost her in the crowd. Other times, she tried to speak to her, but Mum would always leave before she could get close.
It was just her imagination, nothing more. Phillipa knew that. Her imagination was playing games on her, because she secretly wished that she had had a proper conversation with her mother. A childhood had been denied to her because of her parents' decisions.
She wanted some of that back.
So, she continued to follow her mother within her dreams, even though she knew it was a dangerous game to play, one that could easily snap back on her, as it had her father. Phillipa spoke of it to no one – not Dad (he didn't know she was studying and would be appalled to find out she was), not Grandfather (who would take away her privileges if he knew), not anyone (who else could she talk to? She knew no one in the field).
Her heart hoped that she would find her mother, find that missing part of her she so sorely longed to see… but at the same time, her mind feared what she would find if she ever got close enough. Would it truly be Mum, or would it merely be a mad, fanatic impression of her, as Dad had found within his own mind?
It was difficult to say. Dreams were so fickle, they could play along just as rapidly as they could turn on you.
Phillipa crossed her fingers every night that she would stay on the right side of the danger, though the darkest part of her secretly hoped to find out what happened when you encountered those mysterious spirits that inhabited the deepest sections of your mind.