A Closed Circle
Chapter 7
Sleep Perchance to Dream
The absolute black told him he was in a room. Not outside.
His arms were tied behind his back. He lay on his side. The surface under him was hard. Cold. Rough on his cheek.
Cement.
The place felt vast. Huge. But darkness often gave that impression. Still … his thoughts ran to warehouse or garage. Something large. Empty. With little to no outside traffic.
Isolated.
Secure.
Curse words and admonitions cluttered his mind. Uselessly.
He was still dressed in the clothes he was wearing when the flat caught fire.
He couldn't remember … how did he get here …?
Because he was unconscious during the abduction? Or because he was being extracted?
He could feel the bump of the small die in the custom pocket he had sewed into his sweat pants, but no matter how he struggled, his bound hands wouldn't reach. There was no assurance. No way to tell the truth of his situation.
Images of her face flashed in his mind, but this wasn't the time. He couldn't help her if he wasn't free. He filed his concern in one of the future files of his brain and focused instead on his own situation.
His hands were bound tight. No room to even shift his wrists. But his fingers were free. If slightly numb.
His legs were unbound. An odd choice. An odd choice that told him his captors were certain he wouldn't escape.
Stupid. He would expose them for the fools they were.
But then, that confidence and the open emptiness led him to believe he was dreaming. That he'd been trapped in some dark space while his attackers ran amok around his subconscious.
He rose to his feet. Thigh muscles burning. Why? He only remembered running a very short distance before blacking out. He was in good shape. He shouldn't feel -
"Hello, Arthur. It's been a while."
The words popped in the darkness like bubbles of light bursting and illuminating his surroundings. Defining the space around him.
Echos. Large place. Metal. Speaker was about 10 yards in front of him. Speaker was …
"Collin." He managed – barely – to keep the growl from his voice. Barely. "So you're the one she worked with. You're the one playing her. I would never have guessed. I was there at your court martial. You should still be in a small, dark hole somewhere."
"Well … this is a business of criminals, Arthur. You should know that as well as any of us. Traitor that you are."
"Framed," he would have waved the insult away if his hands were free. "Framed, and you know that as well as anyone, don't you? As you were the one responsible. Besides being a traitor yourself."
"Don't think you can insult me with such trivialities."
"It wasn't an insult. It was the truth."
Collin laughed. An ex-military police officer with the USACIDC, he had used extraction to torture suspects (and occasionally witnesses) in order to boost his capture percentages. Get the attention of the higher ups. And, most likely, enhance his income. Using what he learned in the dreamscape, he was often able to manipulate the information to convict individuals who were not guilty into lengthy prison sentences.
Or execution.
In CID, Collin decided that "Do what has to be done" was holy writ. For which Arthur suffered losing his commission. Had his contract aborted. His service record expunged. And as a result he had fled before he was imprisoned.
With the USAS in the state that it was, his warrant wasn't being actively pursued, and he managed a trip state side to visit family about once a year. During which time he managed to enter Collin's tribunal hearing and watch with satisfaction as the bastard got his due. Not that he felt the scales were balanced. Only a fraction of Collin's coerced arrests were overturned. And the warrant for his capture was only being 'overlooked' not revoked.
That would imply that the service had made a mistake. And mistakes in a state-funded operation often led to a lessening of respect and consideration of the program in question. Which led to budget cuts. Which led to cuts in operation funds. And even more damaging … salaries.
Not that he didn't understand the motivations at play. He was willing to put down a large sum of money on the books that Collin was acting under orders and merely took the fall for a person who was too important to convict. Explaining how he escaped custody, no doubt.
But Collin still deserved some of the blame. And it was Collin who stood before him.
Arthur would never forget the person responsible. That he'd screwed her over too …
Well. It looked like he was being offered a chance to right old wrongs as well as new ones.
As long as she was safe, which he couldn't be certain of – but rather suspected she was – he could relax into this series of events with what might perhaps be an inordinate amount of pleasure.
Sitting at a cafe doing surveillance was hardly a Ranger's idea of a good time. But orders were orders.
"I can't remember the last time I did something fun," Collin said from the booth behind him. Almost silent. Though Arthur couldn't see him, he knew the man's lips barely moved. "I never should have transferred out."
"Then is calling me up to partner with you some sort of revenge for intelligence? Because I wasn't dumb enough to leave?"
"No. I know you. You don't like this shit, but you're fucking competent aren't you? You might be a stuck up cunt at times, Arthur, but I can trust you to do the job."
Arthur finished his coffee. Looked at it. Shifted his leg. Felt something … a small bump separate from the weight of his weapon against his thigh. He blinked. His nostrils flared as if scenting … double cross.
Damn.
The traitor.
"The word 'trust' has no meaning coming from you."
"Stuck up cunt," Collin muttered again. By focusing on the brief annoyance and the sound of his own voice, Collin missed the soft sound of Arthur's gun slipping from the holster.
He raised the weapon. The people in the cafe turned as one to glare at the CID officer. The metal of the pistol was warm against his temple. He pulled the trigger.
He woke with no sound or movement. An ingrained choice made for safety in combat zones. Eyes closed, he felt the solid pain of a needle in his wrist. He was still bound, but this time his wrists were tied separately to the arms of a chair.
No. Not tied. Restrained. Nylon. Wide, maybe two or three inches. Chair was metal. He heard it rattle.
A shuffle of foot on concrete at his side.
Arthur clinched his jaw. This was not going to be easy. And he still wasn't sure if this was inside a dream, or in reality. The die was in his pocket, but he couldn't reach it.
Shuffle again. Something cold touched his hand. En. No. Not easy at all.
"Wrong choice Arthur. You should have played out the dream." And something metal and hard slammed into his right forearm.
He felt his tibia and fibula crack. He clinched his teeth against the pain. A grunt. He lost a grunt but no more.
He wanted to scream.
He opened his eyes, and the bar was already on the downswing towards his knee. Time to brace himself, but no time to prepare.
This time he choked. The pain too shocking to let him scream.
And again.
Again.
Again.
Aga...
"Ariadne," Cobb stood on one side of the table. He was facing Cobb. Sitting on a cold chair. In a cold room. Preparing for a job … some job … what job? She was sitting at his side. "This is a stable environment. A test only. We managed three levels. Why not four? It's a question we want answered. From you I want comprehensive and believable worlds, but that are still small. The easier it is for the mark to believe the world, the more stable it will be, despite outside forces."
"The more unstable outside forces the less any design can correct for the outside distraction." Arthur was being rude, and he knew it. "Somethings are too difficult to bother with, Cobb. Sure four levels might be possible in theory. Might even be doable in practice. Key word being practice. But in the field solid planning is more reliable than risking going deeper and landing in limbo. I don't care that you did come back twice."
Cobb didn't argue. He rarely argued for things he believed in, choosing instead to move ahead in spite of other people's feelings, opinions, or objections.
"What do you think, Ariadne?"
She shifted in her chair, and Arthur felt her eyes flick over to catch his expression. "I don't disagree with Arthur. I can't think of any job where the benefits would outweigh the practicalities. It won't hold through the stress. Through any errors that might, and most likely, will occur, so why risk it? As a theory though … a test … I'm interested. Here we can control the risks, counter them. Allow for only say 30 minutes in the first world so that we're not stuck in the 4th level for more years than I care to consider."
"Good," Cobb was wearing that almost proud half grin he got when he approved of something she did. Sometimes, Arthur thought, Cobb treated her more like a daughter than a student. "I'll go get the others," he announced and left Arthur alone with her.
"You really think the lower levels will be stable?" Arthur asked her, turning so he could fully engage her. The chair squeaked and for a brief moment he felt a stab of pain in his temples. Headache. He got those a lot recently.
Did he? He couldn't remember the last one.
"No, of course not. But it's worth the try, don't you think? Exploring something new. Something a little bit dangerous." Her smile was coy. She looked up at him with her chin tilted down. Forcing him to meet her eyes through the veil of her lashes.
The table creaked and shifted next to him.
His mouth was open to answer her, but he shut it and moved his gaze to the table. Was that odd?
"Don't you think, Arthur?" she repeated. Smile unchanged.
"I – no. Dangers are meant to be mitigated."
"Some dangers," her hand was on his thigh. Fingers tripping up the fabric of his pants. He wasn't sure where they were before. He was confused. Confused and aroused. She was still speaking. It was a struggle to pay any kind of attention to her voice when her hand was marching a steady path upward and inward. "... to be conquered. Some dangers are meant to be fun."
He went still and could not answer her. Now her hand was favoring pressure over movement. It was the rest of her that moved.
That invaded his personal space.
That slid into his lap.
Pushing into him with other body parts. Places soft. Places hard.
Her lips were parted. Lifted. He couldn't move.
"You were always partial to brunettes, weren't you Arthur. And she does have a … captivating mouth, does she not? I sure as shit thought so. Very soft. Very talented."
It was no longer her in his lap. It was Collin.
He was laughing, and it was her voice.
And there was a knife in him.
And he was bleeding.
And then he …
"Ugnh," he moaned as his eyes opened to darkness once more.
"I wondered why you took this job. Why you went to her on this. As I said: brunettes. And yet, to fall apart over a woman. Not like you, Arthur. Not like you at all."
He spat blood onto the floor. "Who said I was falling apart over her? Who said I was falling apart at all?"
Laughter again, and it filled the place. "You never saw me. Days of tailing her as you did, and you never saw me." He leaned down to wipe a bit of blood that splattered over his pale gray suit. "You're still trying to be a testament to the Ranger creed. All these years later. Except it's finally slipping. No longer truly elite. No longer quite as mentally alert.
"Away from the battlefield you are less than you could be."
Arthur spat again. There was more blood this time. He coughed. "At least I haven't lost my morals. And you were always shit at taking care of minutia." He pulled at the nylon restraint, and the chair practically fell apart under him.
Raising the broken metal arm with his good hand, Arthur struck. Flat side crushing Collin's windpipe. Sharp side slicing his jugular.
He dropped, seizing with his final moments of life. But Arthur didn't miss the vacancy in his eyes before he went.
Crap.
He pulled the die out, hissing as pain from his right arm nearly overwhelmed him. Falling to his knees, Arthur rolled a one on the concrete floor. One.
Six.
Two.
Five.
One.
Three.
Shit.
He went for Collin's gun, scared as hell. Collin was already awake. Arthur's real body in his control. If he didn't get back, Collin would have him killed before he could exit the dream.
Gun to the temple.
Finger on the trigger.
Sque...
Author's Note: Ah. So. Yes. Maybe you noticed dear Arthur changed clothes from his first warehouse moment in sweatpants, and his final in a suit. Nothing in the movie suggested this was possible (every time they came up they were in the same clothes they went under in, no matter the number of layers) but I'm going with the idea that Collin is pretty damn clever with this shit and Arthur is in a very confused state without a solid surrounding to anchor his subconscious. Collin could manipulate the clothes or possibly Arthur is slipping into them as some form of comfort or barrier against his surroundings. Yet, as it's a dream, he fails to notice the strangeness of it and instead focuses on his totem.
Also I cheated on the A/A lovin'. :D