Beautiful Stranger

Part Two

Eames sat in a chair in the sitting room and looked over the file. He had been in the States for almost a month now and the Cobbs were still as fascinating as he had expected them to be. Much to his surprise Cobb was the architect and Mal was the extractor. As far as he knew there were only a handful of female extractors working in the business and the more he learned about these people the more baffled he became that they were not more well known. The sketches Eames saw of the levels they created and the things she had extracted without leaving a fingerprint behind were impressive. The dynamic between them was just as interesting. Cobb was devoted to Mal in a way Eames had thought was made up by Hollywood. She trusted him unconditionally and he could see the benefits of working with someone who understood you so well. It was almost enough to convince him that having a partner was better than not having a partner but at the end of the day he would rather have no one else to look out for besides himself.

The person Cobb had hired to do their research was terrible. The guy had no idea how to go about getting the crucial details on Arthur and now a month later he still had almost no idea what this kid was like. There were some basics that were not hard to find; he was twenty-one, a graduate of Harvard, born on the East Coast and that was really all they knew. The guy had not found out what Arthur studied, where he was born, or even what his last name was. Either this man was incompetent or Arthur was very good at covering his tracks. Eames stared at the picture and tried to get a feel for the kid just by looking at him but everything was too precise and pampered to really see what was real and what was a facade because who honestly wore suits like that at his age?

The door opened and Mal walked in. She had some food in a bag but she also had a folder tucked under her arm. She kicked the door closed and set the bags on the floor. "These Americans and their cities that are just so modern and boring."

"Where we come from our cities are older than their country so I can't say I'm surprised that we're better designers," Eames replied but his eyes were locked on the papers. "Oh I do hope that is a present for me."

"It's information, or more of it, that will point us in the right direction," Mal said and she handed Eames the folder. "This boy is proving to be a difficult person to track down."

"I agree. I can't decide who I'm going to forge if I can't get a read on him," the forger said and he opened the folder. They had an address, finally, and they were not even in the same city. Eames assumed that they had settled into New York because that was where the job was but now it turned out they needed to go to Boston. "Looks like we get to do some more traveling."

"What do you mean?" Cobb said as he walked in from his bedroom. The architect liked to work in silence and would often shut himself up in the room so he could design mazes.

"This kid lives in Boston," Eames said and he dropped the file on the table. The more they had to call him 'Arthur' the more he wished they had a last name to go on. Calling him by his first name seemed too personal, like they knew him somehow, and that could not be further from the case. Never before had Eames had this much trouble trying to understand someone.

"Then we had best be on our way," Mal replied. The three of them packed up their belongings and headed for the airport. Eames had not told them how little money he had and another plane ticket was just going to make it worse. He secretly hoped that they would decide on a lavish suite again so he had at least a couch to sleep on. The flight was quick but the ticket was atrocious and his bank account was getting dangerously low. Mal seemed perfectly happy to resume their work in another hotel but Cobb pointed out that now they were in the same city as the mark and things needed to be done differently. She was not happy when he brought them to an old apartment building. The glare Cobb received was further proof to Eames that he was not the marrying type.

"I don't see why we can't just work in the hotel," Mal said as they drove from the apartment building to the hotel they were apparently staying in. He really hoped that he had a bed to sleep in tonight.

"Considering the situation I think it would be best if we kept where we sleep as far away from the job as possible," Cobb argued and Mal seemed to accept that. They checked into a nice hotel and Mal asked if he needed somewhere to stay. Eames was suave about it, adding that only if they did not mind, and secured a bed to sleep in. They settled in for the night but the forger had trouble falling asleep. This kid had eluded all attempts at finding any sort of information on him. Eames was beginning to see why the military was so agitated by a guy who could barely drink. Arthur was nothing short of a mystery and the forger wondered how they could possibly get this kid's subconscious to trust them. Someone who left such a hard trail to follow must have trouble trusting people. He had a feeling this kid was going to be one problem after another.

Cobb said he was not comfortable creating a full level without more information on Arthur. Mal agreed and said she would look into it. At some point they needed to find out exactly what they were extracting. The general, who they were communicating with via web cam and online phones, was taking vague to a new level.

"Sir, I don't think you understand how this works," Mal said after the third call. "Just think about how many secrets you have. If I don't know what I'm looking for it could take hours to try to find this information. Time is one thing we don't have in the dream." The general did not have his camera hooked up so they could not see his face and she kept theirs off.

"I am paying you to find out whether this kid knows anything. I just want you to do the job I am paying you for," the general replied and he was beginning to sound annoyed. Eames looked up from his desk; a general in the military willing to work with criminals getting angry was not a good thing.

"All I need to know is what I'm looking for. If I don't the extraction could fail and rarely can we try this more than once," she said keeping her voice firm.

"Are you trying to blackmail me?" the general asked and now Cobb was interested in the conversation. Mal looked at both of them and shook her head.

"No, I'm just trying to get the job done-"

"I don't care if you need to try more than once. Keep the boy under lock and key and pick his brain over and over again until you find my information. You will know the information if and when you find it," the general interrupted before he severed the connection. Mal rubbed her temples and sighed heavily.

"He doesn't understand how extraction works," Cobb said. "He's been under but that doesn't mean he can even begin to understand what it's like to really try and find specifics."

"He's making me nervous," Mal confessed. "Putting someone under over and over again is not a wise thing."

"I guess we need to make sure it gets done the first time," Eames said. She nodded and the three of them went back to work. The forger looked over his papers before he had had enough of sitting around and stood. He announced he was going out for a drink and the Cobbs waved him off and said to call if he needed a cab. Eames turned on his heels and walked out into the city. The rental that he managed to get at a half decent price got him around the city easily but it was not a bar he was looking for. Instead he found Arthur's apartment building and looked up at it. It was modern and simple looking; there was a door that was always locked unless someone was let in from the inside or buzzed up; the apartments looked like they were more or less the same size. It was extremely blank, a place with no personality, and he thought that spoke volumes about their mark. He counted three floors up and what he guessed was four windows over. The window with the closed blinds and the dim light, he was sure that was Arthur's apartment, and he could see the faint outline of someone moving inside. Judging by the shadows Eames made a guess that there was only one person.

The lights in the apartment went out and the forger wondered if he really wanted sit here for a while. He had to come up with a way to either get into the apartment or find a place so they could get the job done. After that they needed an easy escape route just in case someone saw something. On top of that he still knew nothing about Arthur or what kind of person he was. Eames was running a million things through his head when the door to the apartment building opened and Arthur walked out. This was what he was good at, watching people, getting a handle on them, trying to notice the little things and how he could manipulate parts of themselves that they did not even know existed. From across the street he could see that Arthur was dressed in another one of those suits that probably cost more than Eames wanted to think about. The way he walked was very tall and straight like he was all business all the time. The car the mark climbed in was boring compared to his attire and Arthur started down the road.

The smart thing to do, Eames decided, would be to drive away now. They had not decided that it was time to start watching Arthur directly yet. They needed to make sure they kept their distance for as long as possible so the mark never caught on that he was being profiled. Following at this stage in the game was just not the smart thing to do. They did not have a level built, they were not sure what they were looking for, hell they did not even know what kind of person they were dealing with. For all they knew that kid could pull a gun on them at any moment. He made the military nervous and that, in turn, made the forger nervous as well. There had to be a certain amount of danger to a young man who had people twice his age worried.

In the end he did not do the smart thing at all. Instead his curiosity for this kid, for Arthur, was enough to make him start the car and follow nearly a block and a half behind. Eames drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and pulled into a parking lot a block away when Arthur stopped. The kid climbed out of his car and walked up to what looked like a hole in the wall bar. Eames creased his eyebrows; someone in that attire going into a place like that would stand out. The forger loosened his tie, rolled up his sleeves and walked into the bar. It was a terrible idea going into that bar but he did it anyway. He had a feeling Mal was going to yell at him later.

The first thing Eames noticed was that the place was busy and he was thankful for that. If it was empty there was a good chance that Arthur could have noticed him, committed his face to memory and things would go down hill from there. Instead the forger eased his way through the crowd of people until he saw Arthur standing at the end of the room. The kid was talking to an older man who looked like he might own the bar. The argument did not seem like it was heated or intense in any way. Instead Arthur reached into his jacket and handed the man a folder. Eames raised an eyebrow; the kid had had that hidden away and he had not even noticed. That was something he normally could see but for some reason Arthur managed to give him the slip. The man opened the folder and nodded before he reached into his pocket and handed the kid a stack of bills. They shook hands and Arthur turned to leave. Eames watched him carefully but averted his eyes the moment he thought they were going to make eye contact.

The forger had a good idea about what he thought Arthur did for a living now. He was invisible, he had almost no connections in this world, he seemed financially set judging by his attire and now he was getting paid a vast amount of money for papers. Arthur was the information man, the person people hired when someone needed something found or research done, and that meant he was very astute about his surroundings.. Eames knew the type because he was the same way. He would notice if someone was following him, watching him, and it would not take much to make him realize this. The kid, their mark, reminded the forger all too much of himself and the way he moved throughout the world.

"Just brilliant," Eames muttered and he ordered a drink.