"You didn't learn anything?"
Arthur's voice was tense, angry over the phone. Cobb knew that tone from down in the dream, during Inception; that righteous fury that overtook the Point Man when something went awry, or when the Extractor put his team at risk. Arthur was steady, calm, unfailing, reliable; but there were moments when that resolve faded - when his collected exterior broke and a very real, raw rage could possess him. Cobb knew his failure to glean anything from Saito's subconscious would set a fuse to that rage; the Point Man had, undoubtedly, been pouring over dead end after dead end in his research.
"I was able to get Saito talking, and that's a good sign," Cobb said over the public phone, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He was across the street from Saito's hospital, finding it too risky to use the residential telephone in making contact with Arthur. They were still unaware of who had targeted Saito and vulnerable because of it. "Eames and I are going back under in a couple minutes. I'll call you tonight with any new information."
"What am I supposed to do in the meantime?"
"Your job. You find a lead and follow it -"
"I don't have any leads, Cobb, I was counting on you for a direction -"
"Well I don't have one. So work with what you have, alright?"
Arthur rubbed his face and hung up before Cobb could. Work with what you have. The Point Man felt a singular rush of irritation at the Extractor's orders. He trusted Cobb - even after what happened with Mal, even after he began to fall apart (he was still falling apart) - he trusted him. But sometimes it was impossible to follow his orders.
He tried, diligently, to apply himself. He'd been working on a lead involving a dream-agent named Marcus - a forty-something Russian man with a bad underground reputation and two missing teeth. He'd been involved in self-serving Extraction work for the past decade - preying on unsuspecting businessmen and celebrities, discovering passcodes to bank vaults and hidden accounts. He had made a substantial, secret living from draining these funds. It was a poor lead, but it was the best Arthur had - Marcus was regularly visiting Japan in the few months before Saito's Eradication.
He poured through collected articles he'd printed on the Russian. Marcus was investing in the technological industry, a corporation known as FutureStock, that had no apparent ties to Saito. Arthur delved into transactions made by the Russian; ten thousand to a secret account in the Netherlands; fourteen thousand to a mistress in Cairo; a half million to his personal savings. There was one investment he made in FutureStock - an investment he was supposed to green-light the coming weekend. Arthur did a quick background, looked up the man's current whereabouts, his plans, his rumors -
- and the lead turned up empty. Marcus had died a month ago in Singapore, after a run-in with local police.
"Goddamit -"
In one swift motion, he stood, flung the folder wildly to the floor, and kicked the chair across the room. It banged, clattered against the far wall; Arthur ran his fingers through his hair, cursed, kicked again at his desk, tearing a splintered gash in the side.
The Point Man placed both fists on the desk. He stared down at the stack of notes - useless piles of research on empty leads - and felt his body rush with anger, with disappointment, with frustration.
"...Arthur?"
Her voice wavered at seeing him bent over in vexation. She so rarely, rarely saw him as anything other than absolutely composed.
He righted himself, fluidly, easily, sliding his hands into his pockets and standing tall. She knew it was a facade; the straight posture, the masked, unreadable expression - it couldn't veil the disconcerted look that pervaded his eyes.
"...Are you alright?" Ariadne asked, breathlessly. Arthur's eyebrows raised, just slightly.
"Fine. Cobb made contact - they haven't found anything yet."
He reached behind him and began to reassemble the disordered paper on his desk. Ariadne walked further into the room, a nervous smile tugging at her lip.
"Arthur - you need to get out of this office," she said, giving him an insistent look. "It's getting to you."
Arthur knew she was right. He knew, from years of experience, how the deep, consuming hours of brain-wracking research could drive you past the point of impatience; how that forced study could weigh in closer than the very walls, trap you, overwhelm you. But the job was important, this time - their sanity, their minds were at stake, from some phantom foe that preyed on the subconscious. There was a lurking danger beneath this job that he couldn't make himself bring to Ariadne's attention.
"It's just frustrating," he said, still steadily. "I've been working at this for days, and still..."
He trailed off, with just the most subtle shake of his head. Ariadne, seeing the scattered papers on the floor, kneeled down to pick them up. Arthur felt a surge of responsibility, of guilt as he watched her get down to her knees; she seemed terribly small, fragile. Vulnerable. He was aware of how dark her hair seemed against her skin, against the pale teal color of her scarf.
"You should try something else,' Ariadne suggested, stacking the papers in front of her. She was aware of Arthur getting down to his own knees, gathering up the remains of the folder. She caught the faintest breathe of his cologne.
"Something else?" he asked, as she handed him the papers and they stood, placing them neatly on the desk.
"Yeah. Like, whenever I get frustrated with a design, or feel like I can't get it right - I leave it for a little while. I go do something else."
"...Such as?" Arthur's eyebrow was raised again. A small, entertained smile broke across the Architect's features.
"Well... maybe we could do the tourist thing. We are in London," she reminded him.
He seemed aware of her intent, almost before she said it. She was half afraid, half thrilled as he looked at her - an angular man assembled like some perfect, logical puzzle. Not emotionless, but not emotional; capable of unbiased action, capable of outburst, and never at risk of forgetting himself. She was struck by an idea of how utterly sophisticated and intelligent he was - and how dangerous. A paradox.
"You want to go sightseeing?" he said, after what seemed an eternity. She prayed he didn't find the idea as silly and school-girlish as it sounded in her head.
"Come on. I've never been to London."
Arthur smiled. She realized she was beginning to recognize it, easily, more and more; a smile written in his eyes.
l-l
Cobb had not returned to Saito's hospital room after hanging up on Arthur's call. A 9mm bullet to his right thigh had cut that intention short.
Thank God for Eames - thank God for a dirty-handed Forger with debt in every country and a price on his head, too - who managed some cover fire with Cobb's handgun. Thank God for Yusuf, for not being present - the inexperienced Chemist that never went into the field, because Chemists that entered dreams often never came out. Thank God for the terrified civilian who willingly gave up their Japanese-model car when Eames demanded it, waving the gun around dramatically.
"What the hell is going on, Cobb?"
Eames was too rushed with adrenaline to realize his question fell on deaf ears. They could not yet tell if they were being followed by the unnamed marksman; gunfire had rained down on them constantly as they fled from the hospital scene, but faded into silence after acquiring the stolen car. There was no guarantee their pursuers had transportation, and no guarantee they did not. Eames took every two seconds to look over his shoulder, glance in his mirrors, and finger the pistol uncertainly.
Cobb was letting out excruciating gasps of pain. His jacket was half-ripped and tied tightly around his bloody thigh, dripping warm and wet on the car seat. His leg throbbed, burned, screamed at the hauntingly clean hole the bullet had torn through his body, the small piece of lead still trapped somewhere in the mangled flesh of his thigh.
"Jesus - Christ -" Cobb couldn't listen to Eames. The Extractor tried his best to focus - to ignore the searing agony erupting in his veins - to concentrate on the situation at hand.
"Yusuf - we left Yusuf -" was the first thing to pop into Cobb's mind. Eames stuttered, desperate to talk to the Extractor.
"Yusuf's been at the airport since six - our flight was at nine - he knows to disappear if we don't show," Eames' tone of voice was not very reassuring. Cobb closed his eyes and leaned sickeningly against the window. He was fighting off a new wave of nausea, sweltering with pain. He leaned back in his seat and focused, focused.
"We need - to get this bullet out. Trace it. Find out - who -"
And then there was the loud, ear-hammering sound of automatic gunfire; Eames swerved across two lanes of traffic, his cursing drowned by the sound of screeching wheels and blaring car horns. Two large, black vans sped down the street in pursuit of their miniscule car; one man hung part way from the passenger window, an automatic rifle raised to his shoulder. He fired, and light blared from the end of the gun, scattered death against the bumper and doors of the car.
Eames swerved again, this time down a large side-road that emptied into a highway. The large-volume truck gave a long, poignant honk, muffled by the continued sound of gunshots. The vans turned, skidded, swam through lines of traffic to reach the small car, the Forger flattening the gas pedal in an attempt to escape their assault.
Cobb's head lolled backwards. The sound of gunfire dulled as his mind absorbed itself in the sweeping agony of his leg. He was aware, distantly, of the shifting movements of the car.
A good shot found the back window of the car. It shattered through the glass, scattering shards in the back seat, and exited through the front window. Eames flinched, threw his head down, swerved -
"Bloody hell -"
And Cobb lost consciousness.
l-l
Trafalgar Square was one of the most visited tourist sights of London. It was located squarely in the heart of the city, a flat, open location bordered by bustling London streets and English restaurants. Ariadne was first struck, not by the looming, neck-craning height of Nelson's Column, nor the gorgeous, blossoming sets of fountains, nor even the mass crowds of international origin - but by the pidgeons.
There were hundreds of them. Hundreds of cooing, flapping, flouncing, bobbing pidgeons, moving in groups, floating upwards in waves when they were disturbed, and settling back down in unison like gray-white speckled snow. Despite all of Arthur's assurances that the flock was substantially smaller than usual (the government had introduced a ban on bird-feeding to discourage their presence) she was entranced by them.
She begged him to purchase sunflower seeds from a nearby storefront. He smiled, rolled his eyes, gave her a smug look - it's illegal to feed the birds, Ariadne.
And she nudged him gently with her shoulder, feeling an urge to remain in close proximity with him, beset all around by tourists - like we never do anything illegal, Arthur.
"Alright. But don't say I didn't warn you."
Then Ariadne was only aware of his hand, which had slipped gently to rest on the small of her back. He guided her away from the center of the square in this fashion, applying some pressure to her back; she was struck by how wide and strong his hand felt against her red jacket, against her body.
But before she could contemplate it further, his hand had slipped away, sliding back into his pocket. She was left with a strange, resonating feeling, a half-formed idea. Her skin prickled, glowed where he'd touched her.
l-l
Yusuf dialed the warehouse number again in an attempt to reach Arthur. It rang repeatedly. Ten times. Twenty times. There was no answering machine, and eventually the Chemist hung up.
Tokyo Narita International was always bustling with people. Yusuf was able to blend easily into the gathered crowds of tourists waiting at terminal 14C, loading onto the large, transcontinental aircraft. The flight was: Tokyo to London; Layover in Mumbai, India. Departure: 9:14 pm. Yusuf hesitantly checked his watch; it was 8:58.
He knew he shouldn't have even waited this long - that he should've changed his flight at 8:30, when Eames and Cobb hadn't arrived. But the Chemist was unused to fending for himself under possibly dangerous conditions, and heavily affected by Cobb's account of Saito subconscious. He waited another minute, his heart beating quickly, his eyes glancing towards every idle-looking man in a suit that seemed stationed around him.
Time ticked by. 8:59.
"Come on you two," Yusuf muttered, sitting uncomfortably in the terminal chair, squished between a Japanese business woman and a sleepy German. The German smelled, unpleasantly, of cheep spray-on deodorant.
He willed time to stop. It didn't. 9:00.
The majority of passengers were boarding, and his seating zone was called. He felt cold perspiration trickle down the back of his neck. Yusuf knew he was not the bravest man; it was why he'd only gone one layer deep in Inception. He rarely went into the field. He preferred his study, his mixtures, his elaborate and secret compounds that he developed under microscopes and in test tubes. Dreams were gorgeous, unreal, exciting; but his lab, his home in Mombasa, was safe.
9:01.
He stood, shakily, clutching his boarding pass, the single black duffle black slung over his shoulder. He had the sudden, swift realization that he was alone. Alone in the field with a possible Eradicator after him.
9:02.
"Excuse me? Yes. English?" the Asian woman nodded vigorously at Yusuf, who stood, not very steadily, before the service desk. "Yes, I - I'd like to see if I could exchange my ticket, please. I've had a change in plans."
l-l
"Go away! I'm out!"
Ariadne slipped her scarf off and waved it discouragingly at the flock, but they only fluttered about in agitation and kept up the pursuit. She had run out of birdseen, but the pidgeons were in strict denial of the fact. Arthur, in a brilliant stroke that almost made Ariadne stumble in surprise, let out a real, deep, honest laugh.
Ariadne had heard him laugh only once - only during her first time dreaming with him, when they had stood together on the Penrose Steps. She had mentioned the polite nature of her subconscious, and he laughed knowingly - nobody likes to feel someone else messing around in their mind.
But he was laughing easily now, as he watched her swat away the pidgeons.
"You won't be laughing when they eat me alive!" Ariadne rushed to Arthur's side as the pidgeons followed. He caught her, easily, still laughing; with a fluid motion he placed her behind him and swatted outwards toward the persistent flock. She clutched to his coat as he fought off her avian attackers - and she found she was laughing too.
The birds scattered against Arthur's shooing, having no reason to believe that he had anything of value on him to peck; besides, there was a little girl on the other side of the square, scattering bread crumbs. As they dispersed, Ariadne loosed her hold on Arthur's coat. It was a Cleavon Osgoode overcoat, slick and gray and simple, a perfect compliment to his form. She was wearing a somewhat thicker peacoat, with her scarf draped lazily around her neck.
"I did warn you, Ariadne," Arthur's voice was still tainted with humor.
She felt his hand slide onto her arm as he turned, as she let go of his coat. He didn't leave it there; his fingers slid down the length of her forearm, the cold, bare skin of their hands touching briefly before they separated again.
She felt rushed. She had become painfully aware of each and every moment they were in physical contact - his hand on her back, on her arm, the back of his fingers brushing hers. Such brief, brief moments that shouldn't seem to matter, but did matter, because -
A brief moment, and his lips like fire.
How half a second could seem so important. Could slow down, as though they walked in a dream.
Barely a touch. Barely a kiss.
"What would you like to do next?" Arthur's words did their best to bring her back to reality. Ariadne felt a willingness arise in her to achieve more.
More than barely. More than brief.
Playfully, casually, she grabbed his hand.
"I say we behave really English, and find some afternoon tea," she tried to remain coy, aloof, keeping her distance form the Point Man - even though she could feel his fingers around hers, large and calloused, like a reminder that he wasn't just a desk-man - but a field-man, a soldier.
She intended to pull away her hand, as soon as she followed. To make him feel that rush that came with brief touches and kisses.
But his hand was larger than hers, and it closed around her grip instinctively. She could feel heat glowing from his skin. She wondered if it was her presence that was making him so warm, or if he naturally ran hot.
She risked a glance in his direction. His face was unreadable, but she could feel it - see it, in those dark, endless, expressive eyes.
He wanted more than barely. More than brief.
A dangerous, beautiful, half-formed idea.
l-l
Later that night, after the sun had vanished in the west, they walked the runways of the airport. They sky was clear, dark, and crisp, the air all heavy with shadow. It would be a cold, clear night, Ariadne felt.
She could feel Arthur, strolling beside her in the gathered dark. The airport was quiet and still; planes were stationed at terminal gates, but the runways were cleared. Even the guiding flares that lined each lane had been extinguished, and the city lights seemed dim and far away.
"You aren't planning on finishing school, are you?" Arthur's question seemed strangely stiff, but melodic, though she knew his tone was as even as ever.
"...I don't know. But I don't think I can ever really adjust to that life again."
"It might have been better for you. You wouldn't be at risk."
He was opening the conversation to the job. He was bringing her back to the vague, haunting idea: that there was someone out there, possibly, possibly capable of destroying them - not just physically, but mentally, spiritually.
"Arthur, do you... really think there's an Eradicator?"
"Yes. Why? Are you afraid?"
She felt disconcerted. She had a distinct feeling like something wasn't right. She hadn't expected Arthur to say yes, but she couldn't remember why.
"...Maybe. I'm just... worried."
"Worried?" Arthur's voice seemed to possess a general, obvious note of concern, and it made Ariadne feel warm. She turned her head to look at him, but found it was too dark to clearly see his face. She could only discern the line of his jaw - straight and strong.
"Yeah. I don't... I don't want any of us to end up like Saito. Cobb has children waiting for him. And you... well, I guess you wouldn't be afraid, though."
"What makes you say that?"
She was aware she'd wrapped her arm around his as they walked. It was quiet. No roar of airplanes overhead. No distant thunder of London streets. Just two dream-agents, walking the smooth paved runway lanes.
"Well... you never seem afraid. But... I guess... with everything you've done - all that government hacking in the military. Training people. I guess you don't have much to be afraid of anymore."
She believed she felt him smile, in the dark. She walked half an inch closer to him, trying to get the subtle scent of his cologne; but the cool, midnight wind must have carried it away from her.