Beautiful Stranger
Part Three
Eames was not surprised when he returned back to their suite and Mal screamed at him for following Arthur. She lectured him for all of five minutes until he told her what he learned about Arthur. Then she sat down and fell completely silent. Cobb did as well because they knew the type as much as Eames did. This was going to complicate things even more now. On top of not knowing what they were looking for in Arthur's mind now they knew that the kid was the type of person who would notice being followed. The three of them sat in silence for a long time. The forger wondered if they were going to pull out of the job. Logically it made the most sense. Considering the person they were working for, the information they were trying to find and the mark there were so many things that could go wrong. Mal chewed on the tip of her thumb as if she was deep in thought before she nodded and stood.
"We need to press forward but we need to make sure we do this right," she said. "Eames managed to get some us some insight on Arthur and we need to go from there. We design the level, we get the information, and we get the job done." There was silent agreement between the three of them and they got back to work. Eames could not shake the feeling that something was going to go oh so wrong with this job. He guessed it had something to do with Arthur himself and less about what could be going on in his head. The forger could not shake this obsession of wanting to know everything he could about this kid. He was fascinating in some way that Eames could not place. That was why, despite what the Cobbs both told him, Eames went out and watched Arthur as often as he could. In the back of his mind the words 'creepy' and 'weird' popped up but he shushed them by saying that he needed to get this kid to trust him and there was no way of doing that without finding out everything about him that he could.
That was one of the reasons that he felt a little nervous when he sat with Mal as they watched Arthur talk with someone quietly. Her eyes were locked on the mark like a predator and it was almost eerie to watch her watch Arthur like that. Eames took a drink of his whiskey and looked at the details. Arthur rarely broke eye contact with someone if they were discussing business but rarely made it with those around him. His clothes were always perfectly pressed to the point that the forger was beginning to think that he had some sort of personal tailor. He accepted cash only and, as far as Eames could tell, had a respectable bank account but more than likely had others that no one knew about. He moved in a way that made Eames think that he could have been trained to fight in some way and maybe even had a military background. He had his front door double locked at all times. He caught the attention of men and women but did not seem to notice, or care, either way. He seemed both memorable in every sense of the word but at the same time easily forgotten.
"What do you think?" Mal asked and Eames realized he was staring a bit too intently.
"I think we might have a good handle on him," Eames replied. "Getting him to a place where we could get the job done is going to be difficult. This kid knows that he sometimes pisses people off and makes sure he never has his back exposed. We're going to have to either break into his apartment or take him by force."
"Do you think either of those will work?" she asked but he was not sure. This was not the way he normally did things. Usually they would find some place where they could make the mark think that they had just dozed off. No matter what they did afterward Arthur was going to know someone had done something to him. How he would react to that they really had no idea. "That isn't how I like to do things."
"I agree. It seems a little too much even for what we do but there isn't any other option. That kid is going to know one way or another and there isn't anything we can do to prevent that," Eames said and he tilted his head to the side. Then something happened that was completely new. Then something happened that he had never expected and never thought would happen. Then Arthur looked up from the conversation he had just finished with a client and looked directly into Eames' eyes. There was a sense of panic that set into his chest like nothing he had felt before. He knew, the kid knew, that he was being watched. His brown eyes were blank as they stared across the room and the forger could barely hear Mal say something, he hardly felt her take his arm and pull him away, and he was not even aware they were outside until the cool air hit his skin.
"He looked right at you," she said and she pulled him along like he was some sort of child. "He looked right at you as if he knew who you were."
"Maybe he caught on," Eames said though he knew there was no need to put a 'maybe' before it. Arthur knew he was being followed.
"We need to do the job as soon as possible before he makes a run for it," Mal said and they got into the car. Arthur making a run for it was not something he saw the kid doing. He was not fearless by any stretch of the word, Eames had seen that in the altercation he saw with the bodyguards of one of his clients, but he was confident and strong. If he thought someone was gunning for him this was not the kind of person to walk away and the forger was not sure if that was a good thing.
They decided to do the job the following night but not before Mal talked to the general one last time. Now she was angry that information was being withheld from them.
"I am going into that kid's head and I have to know what to look for. At this point I'm not going to ask or dance around the question; if you want the job done you have to tell me, right now, what I'm looking for or you can find someone else to do the job for you," she said and Cobb looked up from his designs. The look on his face suggested that this was not a good state to have Mal in and Eames seemed to agree. Her shoulders were too tense and she was staring daggers into a screen that could not see the look.
"Fine," the voice of their employer said. "Two months ago suspected terrorists were being moved from one location to another. That is not entirely the truth though. The people we were moving resisted arrest and we had to gun them down. One of the soldiers reported that they were not resisting enough to merit that type of violence and if that gets out to the public we would be in trouble to say the least. That was when we got wind that someone was walking by that night and saw the entire thing or might have seen it. We managed to trace it down to this Arthur boy but we have no way of knowing if he saw what happened. We cannot risk a lie and we cannot fix the problem if we don't know one way or another. We just want to know if he saw anything so we can work something out with him so this doesn't get out. Does that cover all of the information that you need?" The general sounded annoyed but this was a lot bigger than Eames thought it was. Those people had had families and there was no telling what they could do if they found out what the military had done.
"That covers it. We will have your information by dawn the day after tomorrow," Mal said and she closed the laptop.
"So how are we going to get this kid?" Cobb asked.
"I could snatch him up if you like but it might not be pretty," Eames said and he really wished that was not the case.
"We don't have a choice. Bring him here tomorrow night and we'll get the job done," Mal said. They all nodded and went back to the apartment. The Cobbs went to bed but Eames nursed a bottle of whiskey as he looked over the file. Aside from the people he did business with Arthur came up completely clean. Never before had he had a conflict of interestt but the way the general referred to 'fixing' the problem made him nervous. What the military thought of as 'fixing' a problem and what it meant to the rest of the world were two different things. He had seen people take things a step too far when he was in the service not that long ago. In the back of his mind the forger almost hoped this kid knew nothing.
They spent the rest of the day preparing the apartment for the job. They set aside some chairs and a mat on the floor with the PASIV in the middle. Mal adjusted the dosages and made sure everything was ready before she handed Eames a rag and chloroform. The forger hated the stuff, it tended to make people more than a little loopy afterward, but anything else needed a needle or water to dissolve in. Considering how he was planning on picking up the boy neither option would work. Arthur would not let water Eames had touched anywhere near him and a needle was too risky as far as putting an eye out or getting stabbed himself. The sun had just gone down when the forger pulled up in front of Arthur's apartment. The kid knew someone was coming so Eames just leaned against his car and looked up until he saw the curtain move. Then he moved off to the side of the building and blended into the shadows. The doors to the apartment opened and Arthur took a step out. Those dark eyes looked around because they both were aware the other was there.
"I know you're out there and I know you've been following me," Arthur said. "I have to say I'm impressed that you managed to keep yourself hidden so I couldn't tail you." The forger did not move and was trying to find a way to get this kid alone when a group of people walked by. Arthur was smart; there was no way he was going to try and fight in the open with a gun. Instead, the kid shoved his hands in his pockets and walked down the sidewalk toward Eames. He was thankful that the shadows kept him hidden so perfectly because Arthur walked right by him without even seeing him. "You won't come out unless we have some privacy," he said and Arthur walked down a nearby ally. Eames emerged from the shadows and walked out blocking the only escape route. The mark, Arthur, stared him down all of ten feet away.
"So you noticed me," Eames said. "I must be getting sloppy if you managed to spot me."
"You were trying to be discreet but you're really terrible at it. You stare at the person you're following enough and they'll eventually notice you," Arthur replied. "Why are you following me?"
"Oh no darling, I'm sorry, you asking the questions is just not how this works," the forger said and he heaved a dramatic sigh. "I'd ask if you'd come quietly but you won't."
"Good to know that quality is something that even an amateur can see," the kid replied and for some reason that hit a nerve. A kid, a baby, who could barely drink legally was calling him an amateur and that was not something he could let stand. So instead of dignifying the kid with some sort of response Eames rushed and threw a punch which Arthur easily dodged. Arthur retorted and landed a hard punch to the forger's ribs which hurt a lot more than he thought it would; their mark was strong. Instead of letting it bother him Eames followed with a series of face strikes most of which connected. He heard Arthur's teeth clash together and the kid took a step back. He rubbed his jaw and wiped away the bit of blood from his nose. Then something happened that Eames was not expecting; Arthur grinned at him. The kid then proceeded to rush forward with speed that took the forger completely by surprise, deflected a punch and smashed his fists into Eames' cheekbone hard enough to make his head snap painfully back. Arthur wasted no time before he landed a sharp strike right into Eames' stomach enough to knock the wind out of him.
Instead of giving Arthur a chance to counter Eames tackled the kid to the ground and cracked him across the temple hard enough to draw blood. Arthur kicked him off and now blood ran freely from a deep cut on his head. The kid rushed forward and slammed his fist into Eames' shoulder hard enough to make him stagger and then kicked the forger against the brick of the alley. Arthur came at him with the intensity of someone fighting for his life and Eames only managed to take another crack across the jaw before he grabbed Arthur by the shirt and slammed him against the brick hard enough that he knocked the wind out of the kid. Arthur was still dazed when Eames put him in a tight headlock and pressed the rag to his mouth. The kid elbowed the forger in the ribs hard but Eames held on until the mark, Arthur, fell still. He bound Arthur's hands and threw the kid over his shoulder.
Eames was thankful that Arthur was still out cold when he got back to the apartment. When he opened the door both of the Cobbs looked like their eyes were going to pop out of their sockets.
"What the hell happened?" Mal asked as Cobb took Arthur from Eames.
"Our friend here wouldn't come easily," Eames replied frankly and that seemed to be explanation enough for her.
"We need to do this now," Cobb said and his wife nodded. The pounding pain in his nose was enough to distract Eames from the sting of the needle as it went into a vein. Mal pushed the button and he felt the chemicals surge through his body. As the world began to fade Eames looked down at the person whose mind they were about to invade. Arthur was much more dangerous than he thought and the forger took note that he would be wise to never underestimate this kid again.