So this is an Inception story, although I'd like to add before hand a little...disclaimer if you like and not the usual type. I don't know how often I'll be able to update, I work and I'm a student as well as a bunch of personal stuff which does occasionally stop me from being anywhere near a computer occasionally, this isn't to say that I promise to update. Its not an excuse, because I personally hate them, its just a lovely warning. Also, a quick mention to say the title is of the Smashing Pumpkins song by the same song, although the lyrics don't fit (based on my personal interpretation) I just happened to be listening to that song at that moment.
And for the record, I don't own Inception or Smashing Pumpkins.
Anyway, enjoy! And cheers for reading :)
"We need a neuropsychologist for this job Arthur, we need to make sure everything is straightened out and completely perfect, we can not afford to screw this up."
"I understand but there's no way in hell she'll come back, not after last time."
"That's why I'm sending you to persuade her." Arthur looked away across the warehouse and then back to his mentor.
"She won't listen to me any more than she'll listen to you. You said last time Miles had any contact with her she was a professor, teaching classes in Neuropsychology at her old university. She isn't going to come out of that for a job, not even for you. I need I even remind you the last job we did with her, she was out the door minutes after we took the needle from her wrist."
Cobb sat back in his chair, a smug look on his face. It's true their old friend had her own life now, and a very good one at that. But Cobb had his ways of persuasion. "I'll happily offer her half my share."
"You know it's going to take more than-"
"Yeah but what are we offering here Arthur?" Cobb said cutting him off and sitting forward. "This is Inception, extraction gets a little boring to study independently after a while, can't you imagine? Sitting in your office or classroom after all the students have left, nothing but your thoughts and theories. Extraction is old news to her now; Inception is something she can play with in both the dream world and within the classroom. I assure you she will not pass this offer up. She won't even resist."
"Oh yeah, and what about Eames? She's not going to come back if she gets wind he'll be here"
"She won't. I'll be on the next flight to Cape Town, I'll get her and then Eames...Ariadne will be back, get her building mazes."
Olivine Borden was sat hunched over her desk, piles of paper and books obscuring her view from the office door. Diagrams of specific parts of the brain were propped up against a half glass of water and her glasses were hanging off her nose, she'd barely noticed. The dark brown hair was thrown back into a rubber band, kept long, wavy and messy as always. A light dusting of freckles crossed her nose and a little under her eyes. Dom knocked lightly on the door, startling the woman and gazing at him with her white-blue eyes, he smiled and walked into the office on her invitation.
"What are you doing here?" She asked in English with a tiny bit of French accent, walking round the desk to greet him with a huge hug.
"I was just passing though, couldn't resist the temptation to see an old friend. How are you doing Olive?" She pulled away and gazed at him, realising something was up before he'd even said it.
"Hm, I'm all right. Yourself?" she sat down behind her desk again as Arthur sat in front of it, gazing at the papers on...
"Cognitive Neuropsychology?" He asked in disbelief, "seriously?" He gazed upon another laminated photo of a skull with a metal bar through the top and coming out the cheekbone. He glanced at his female companion, a look of disbelief and grotesque on his face. She smirked.
"I think it's interesting."
"You would."
"Why are you really here?"
Cobb sighed and got himself a little more comfortable in the leather seat, "we need you for a job."
"Nope." She stood up, "not happening. Next question?"
"You haven't even heard what I'm offering, what we're offering."
"We?"
"Please sit back down and talk to me," he asked calmly. She obeyed and sat in her chair the respect for her previous mentor returning, elbow resting on the armrest and her propping her head up. She took her glasses off and stared at him, urging him to continue. "It's Inception."
"Bloody hell."
"You know it's possible."
"Yeah of course, doesn't stop it being difficult and the person," she sat forward staring him straight in the eye. "The person you are doing this to, you know what'll happen to them. This'll be a complete mess."
"And that's why we need you. You understand the brain, emotions, memory, dreams better than anyone else I have ever met, anyone else I could ever hope to employ. Not just the psychology of it but the science of it. We need to know how this idea will effect this man, how and where we need to plant the idea and how deep. This job is not possible without you Olive, and me, I need to go home."
"You can't go ho-"
"The job is for a man named Saito, head of Proclus Global, you've heard of him right?" She nodded "He's a very powerful man, if we get this right I can go home and you can get Cobol off your back."
"And if you get it wrong? Cobol will still be after all of us. It's taken me years to square a deal with them, I swore to them I wasn't going back into Dream-Sharing and they agreed to let me go with my life. If I come back, they'll know and this time they won't hesitate to kill me. They won't hesitate to kill all of us. I'm too much of a danger, a risk for you to let me back."
"Cobol are after us anyway, we did another job, it failed and they gave us a second chance, that failed too. Saito has promised that he can fix this, you won't need to worry about it anymore."
"Dom, there's a man here at this University, he works for Cobol, he keeps an eye on me, if he sees you...if he sees us." She paused, "you understand that the moment I leave here I'll be followed. There's no chance of me escaping to go back to work. I know too much about their dirty little secrets for them to let me just waltz out of Africa. If I come with you, and trust me I am tempted, you're going to need to make sure your Mr Saito has everything controlled down to the last little penny."
"I guess it's good that he keeps an eye out for us then isn't it?" A knock on the door brought both peaked their attention.
"Don't turn round; don't let him see your face." She murmured as she got up and walked to the door pulling it open with force. "I thought I asked you not to disturb me when I'm with students-"
"Watch your mouth. As I recall it was part of your agreement for us to check up on you-" Cobb twisted his head slightly at the harsh tones of the man's voice; anyone who spoke to his cousin-in law-like that angered him.
"Yes and it was part of my wish not for you to disturb me," she cut back; Olive was rarely one to play victim. She glared at the man in front of her, "I'll speak to you in 10 minutes, yeah?" She slammed the door and went back round her desk, grabbing a few prised possessions and papers off it. "You know I'm not one for blaming others, but you've blown this for me." She walked back round the desk and glared at him, "get up."
"Excuse me?"
"I need the chair." He got up and stood behind her as she pushed it to the other side of the room, clambered on top of it and started shoving things off the shelves into her leather messenger bag. "By the looks of things I won't be coming back here any time soon." She jumped off the chair and effortlessly landed, reminding him way too much of Arthur.
"So I guess this is a yes then?"
"You haven't given me much choice Dom; Cobol will have figured you were here. We need to get back to my apartment and get some stuff fast and if we have any possibility of getting out the country alive we need to leave on the next flight to..."
"Paris, Saito has everything sorted for us" he finished for her. "I need to make a detour to Mombasa."
"Walking into Cobol's backyard? I thought you had more sense." She walked over to the window, opened it and looked down at the drop. They were on the second story. "How do you fancy a drop?" He followed her and looked down.
"Done worse."
"Suppose. Well, let's not wait for the grass to grow." Before Cobb could offer to lower her down, she was out the window and doing one of the lovely stylish jump-rolls, another trick picked up from their Point-Man. She grinned up at him mockingly as he lowered himself with his arms and then dropped. She shook her head, "afraid to fall?"
"I'm just being sensible."
"Hmmmm, right. I don't trust the taxi services. Not too far of a walk anyway, assuming we stay out of sight." They began walking down the backstreet's, checking every corner and every movement from the house windows above them. Before Cobb knew it he was on a familiar street and before he could do a double take Olive was taking a pistol out of her bag and flicking the safety off.
"Here give me the keys," he said taking them from her as she positioned herself at the side of the door, ready to at least threaten or if worst came to worst, fire the gun. "3...2...1" He shoved the door open and Olive threw the gun around the corner shielding herself with the door frame.
"Nothing." She flicked the safety back, "we're safe." She walked into the ditsy, rundown apartment and grabbed a bag from a cupboard. She caught Cobb looking at the cracks in the walls and she glared. "I gave my left-over's to Cobol, remember? I don't have enough money to be able to afford anything more." He nodded and murmured a sorry.
"They make you give them your money?"
"A good way of making sure I don't run off. Dom?" Her softer tone caught his attention as she stopped throwing clothes into the suitcase. "You know why they're trapping me don't you?"
He hesitated in replying, "you...you never told me the whole story." She looked at him.
"That job we did for them before I quit the team, the Russian man, Ikrov asked to extract information on Cobol about their plans for the Oil Rigs right?" He nodded, "you remember that things went downhill after we got into the second level of Samuel Pine's mind?"
"I asked you to find the safe while we held the projections off, you knew your way around his mind, and you knew exactly where to find it."
"I found more than Extension Plans in there Dom. I know exactly the type of activity that Cobol have done, classified, private you name it. If I ever told it would cause uproar, a bureaucratic nightmare."
"That's why you ran."
"That's why I ran."