A Closed Circle

Chapter 2

Truth And Lies

He found the private entrance. The private door. The private stairwell. The private elevator. No problem for him. It was in the same place as the one she designed for his dream.

Exhilarating and alarming. All at once. It twisted his stomach and made bile rise in his throat. One glance at one thing. Two reactions. Almost diametrically opposed.

As a team they had taught her to trust no one. To sever herself from them. To live her life only for herself so she wouldn't get caught in theirs. But she must … if it wasn't trust, then she at the very least failed to separate herself. With Saito as her employer, okay, but this was part of him. It could get her killed.

And that caused the alarm.

There was no need for her to use it. Unless there was.

Which brought on the exhilaration.

He arrived at her floor. At her door. Rang the bell as Saito had before him. But he did not call her name through the walls. And she did not hesitate to open her door to him. To verify his identity.

A dangerous thing if she were being followed. A stupid thing.

An exhilarating thing.

Remembrance and … it had to be … Remembrance and trust.

"You're late."

"I said eight hours."

"And I said nine o'clock."

"It was 28 after."

"I still said nine." She waved him in with a cockeyed smirk that mirrored his own. "Want something to drink? Food? I'm sure I can come up with something food-like."

"No thank you. I ate during my wait." He nodded at the walls, "I meant to tell you right off. Before you started in with the nagging. The building is edifying. It's beautiful."

She grinned despite the slight dig. "Ah, thanks. It was so amazing to design. To watch it grow. I couldn't do everything I could do in the dream, of course, but … this has a satisfaction all its own. It didn't form because I wanted it, but because everyone wanted it. It required a great deal of money and time.

"It needed more than an architect and a dreamer, but most of the time the slow unveiling of my vision was equal to that feeling of instant satisfaction. Sometimes even better," she laughed.

She put a hand inches from his elbow to direct him to a chair.

"This is cozy compared to the rest of the place," he commented. Unnecessarily. He wasn't one for small talk. Usually.

"It's something Cobb said about him and Mal. They both wanted a house, but they liked modern style buildings. That in reality they couldn't have both, but that they could create a space for themselves like that in the dream. I thought it was brilliant." She waved a hand for him to get up and led him to what he assumed was the back of the suite. Opened a door.

And showed him a garden.

"It's more like a greenhouse than a real yard. But the grass is real, and so are all the other plants." She brushed her hand on a frond of a dwarf palm, and this smile was soft. "Not sure how long I can be patient enough to take care of it, but for now it's … it makes me happy."

She sat in one of the two chairs in the corner of the garden. It almost felt like falling. His chest constricted when he sat. The walls were solid, almost seamless, glass. He could see the lights of other buildings. The sparkle of cars below. Far below. And it felt like there was nothing between him and that drop.

"Invigorating, right?" She was staring at his profile; he could feel her eyes. But – even for her – he couldn't look away from the view.

"That's one way to put it, sure."

She laughed, and it finally pulled him away from the invisible glass and the feeling of freefall.

"How safe is your suite? Can we talk freely here?" He donned the mask of his business persona.

"In case someone is watching, you mean?"

"Anyone. In case anyone is watching. Even Saito."

She nodded. "The whole suite should be fine. Safe. But this room in particular is completely clear. Except for the windows of course, but we can turn the chairs away and no one will see us talk."

"Even Saito," he repeated through clinched teeth.

"Yeah. I designed the whole thing, but me and a single contractor built this room. And I supervised the entire time. It's clean."

"I need you to be honest with me. Completely honest." This was a place, he knew, that he could say her name. A natural time. To enforce the importance. To drive home his point. But it did not pass his lips. "I can't protect you if you're lying. Saito asked me to deal with the people who are watching you. With the people who abducted you."

"Right..."

"He also told me to deal with you if you were aware of and working with those people."

"I guessed as much."

"You did?"

"Well, it was obvious wasn't it? I would be a weak link in his business. He would have to take some sort of action. I was surprised that action was you, though."

"I'm well known for my work," he explained, "and Saito knows me. Even if he has no reason to trust me. If you helped those people. If you had a part in it, tell me. I'll find a way to get you out."

"Without killing me."

"Yeah. Alive and safe. I can do that."

"Why would you?" she asked. More curious than surprised at the offer. She saw through him, as she always managed to see through anything. Like he was the glass that surrounded the room.

So he didn't answer. Because he had no words powerful enough to hide the truth she found in him. The truth that he couldn't do it. That he just couldn't do it.

"Did you know? That's all you have to answer. Were you a part of it?"

She looked him in the eyes, and her tongue darted over her lips. "No. I wasn't. I didn't even know it happened until I came to, lying on the floor of my flat in London. Dried blood in my hair and a large bruise on my cheekbone. Rope burns on my wrists and ankles. If they'd left me whole and put me in my bed I might have never known."

He believed her. A short time on a job together three years ago or not, he would know if she were lying, and she wasn't. "Why were you in London?"

A bit of her humor returned. "I have a building at the beginning of construction there. I like to be at the site for as much of the process as possible."

That took him off point, "A second building so soon?"

"Third," and this time the smile was proud and touched with ego. "I have one in Dubai too."

"I'm impressed. That's quite an accomplishment for someone your age."

"Because that's not patronizing at all. Thanks."

He changed the subject. "Who have you worked with recently? You've been with Saito for all of the three years?" He immediately wished he'd chosen different words. "been with" reminded him of other things. Other fleeting thoughts.

"Only two and a half. He hired me when he offered me the opportunity to design this place. I felt like I couldn't say no. And I guess it helped that I didn't want to say no either. Like you said, 'nothing else like it' … I just couldn't let go. Seeing my vision in reality helps, but I need the dreaming."

"Yeah, that's normal. The following is recent, so it's going to be one of your last jobs that the problem came up. Who was the last job?"

"An assistant at Finnik, Brown, and Obara. A law firm with a lawsuit filed against us from an anonymous plaintiff. Well, it's a civil suit, and there are several plaintiffs, but the whole list is being withheld from our legal team. The judge ruled that they deserved anonymous status based on justifiable fear of reprisal from the company. Which led us to believe they were former employees."

"What was the lawsuit for?"

"Corporate manslaughter. The accusers claim the company participated in, was responsible for, and/or ordered the deaths of 14 people on a train in Germany. Due to a faulty electric system. It was hit by a train traveling perpendicular to the first train's path. The uninhibited train collided with the stalled train. The lines didn't function properly; didn't alert the whole system that there was a problem because the system itself was broken. There were fail safes set by the programmers, in a system we were no way in charge of, but those were unable to operate without power. There were generators, but those too failed."

"Was it purposeful?"

"I deal with the company's extractions only, and I participate in almost none of those except as an architect in the early stages. I know nothing of the other extracurriculars done by other off-the-books employees. But I will say it seems unlikely. The accident itself damaged the company's reputation. Something Saito would not condone. He also goes more often for diversion and altered perceptions than death. Death is suspicious, he said to me once, the quirks of business are everyday." Her expression changed to a bemused frown. "At least I think that's what he said. It was two and a half years ago."

"And the extraction meant to find...?"

"The names of the plaintiffs. If we had those we would know the reason for the accusation."

"Did you succeed?"

"No. The assistant was blocked."

"Blocked?"

She looked at him. Surprised. "You haven't run into it yet? God. We've hit it almost every other job for a year now. But then our marks are usually from law firms or CEOs of known businesses. Makes sense that they'd go for top notch security."

"What's a block?" Another time he could have said her name. To get her back on track. But then he wasn't exactly the epitome of professionalism either. And the name remained unspoken.

"It's like running into a series of brick walls." Her hands moved in vague gestures. "We can get in, but the subject is hidden. His own safe room. A place he or she cannot be touched. Or even found. The projections are mute. They can see, discover, attack, but they can't give up information. And by being mute themselves, the slightest word from us points the whole hoard our direction. None of those jobs have ended in success for us.

"I'm surprised Saito didn't kick me out the door eight months ago."

"The extractor's responsible for the information. You're the architect. It's not your job."

"No, but I'm the face of the team for him. Half the time. More than half the time, he doesn't know anyone on the team but me. Since he went under with us he has a better understanding of the mind's vulnerabilities. What he doesn't know, no one else can take from him."

"Clever."

"Yeah, but limited. And if either of us are taken, we will give the other up. I'm the one he trusts, and he's the one who holds my contract. What he's afraid of in this, I am too. If I gave him up, I condemned myself as well. Not just on the assistant job, but on everything I've done for him. Even Fisher. Even all of you.

"It's only been a few days, Arthur, and we don't know what's happened yet. I was already planning on calling you. All of you. But Saito obviously beat me to it."

His nostrils flared, and his flight instinct kicked in, tensing his calf muscles. Knotting his shoulders. "Do you think you've compromised everything?"

"I don't know. I don't know. But I've worked with Eames three times now. With Yusuf two. With Saito over a dozen. Once with you. Once with Cobb. But with Cobb it was so complicated. We went so deep together, and my mind was so wrapped around his personal madness. I still hear him and Mal in my dreams sometimes. When I still dream. Rarely, but more than any other dream. I hear their whispered promises. The memory of the two of them still lives in me, and it would be easy to find. Any of you would be easy to find.

"The people I work with now are more fleeting. I don't get as involved. The jobs are shorter. Easier. And like I said before, I'm less involved." She turned her eyes. Her whole head. Away from him. Away from his piercing stare. Her lips compressed.

"My instinct. My first desire would be to wrap you up. To hide you. The five of you. To protect you. But by doing that I'm also telling anyone smart enough to get in me that you five are the most important people. My most important secret. The ones they're looking for … even if you weren't on that job."

"We don't know for sure it's that company yet," he reminded her. "That it's that job."

"You're not. And I get that. Your purpose is to find out exactly what's going on, but I work differently. I know it's them. It has to be one of the failed extractions, and they were the most recent. If the others could or wanted to come after me, they would have done it six months ago."

"And that job was?"

"CFO of EPA."

He gave her a slightly blank look. "The environmental protection agency has a CEO?"

She laughed, "No, and it's clever marketing, I'll freely admit. The Equitable Petroleum Alliance. A privately owned company with three owners. That's what makes it an 'alliance'. It's also what makes the CFO and not the CEO the most important person in the company. The CEO deals with three split visions of the company's future. The CFO deals with the profits. We were being hit with a massive price hike and were being stiffed in negotiations for alternate pricing."

"Why have you ruled them out? They would certainly be powerful enough."

She made a face that sent a slight chill down his spine. It was so unlike her. Unlike everything he knew of her that it almost hurt to look at the twist of her skin. "Because they wouldn't let me forget after. Those bastards are ruthless. They wouldn't knock me out and beat me bloody. They'd make sure I didn't forget a thing."

His hands managed not to coil into fists. His face retained its mask.

"There's another reason. The job I missed. Because I was taken. That job was to hit the first chair litigator. Obara. He'd be blocked too, no doubt. If the assistant was blocked there was no question, but we had to try."

"That's good. I'll check everything on the law firm tonight. If I think it's someone else, we'll go through past marks. Is your wifi encrypted?"

"Yes. You can use computer."

"No. I'll use my own. Tell me the password."

She rolled her eyes and pulled a pen from her pocket. She wrote a series of numbers on the palm of his hand. It was the first time he felt her skin in three years. Lightening lit his nerves. Sizzled in his ears.

She was unfazed.

"Well, I'll let you get to work. And try not to suck all the bandwidth. I'll be in my room if you need me. You can use the one through that door," she pointed to a door on the far side of the garden.

He nodded and went back into the hall for his bag. He had to go in the garden to get into his room. He couldn't find the door from anywhere else. Her suite was a maze. It suited her.

Author's Note: It will be A/A. Eventually. I promise. Thank you for the reviews before (I pm'ed you both I think!) and thank you for all those others who read chapter one! I'm glad you came back again! Please read the next chapter when it appears.

And if you can bring yourself to: Please review! Thanks!