IV.
They're flying back to Paris when Arthur's phone rings. He grimaces apologetically at Eames and Ariadne and rummages through his bag.
"Hello. Dom? Is everything – oh, thank God. I didn't give them your number – wait. Well, we're just getting back from a job – okay. No, I haven't yet, it's just not the right time. Dom, she's right next to me. Because you didn't ask! All right, here she is." He holds the phone out to Ariadne. "It's Dom, for you."
"Um." Weird. She takes the slim silver rectangle with unnecessary care. "Hello, Dom, it's Ariadne."
"Hey, Ariadne. Listen, a couple of active dreamers contacted me looking for an architect for a job in Germany. I told them I'm not in the business anymore and they asked me if they had any recommendations. I was hoping for your permission to send them on to you."
She swallows. "That would be fine, thanks. Are they trustworthy?"
"Ask Arthur to check them out for you. I'll send you their info, but I need your number."
"1-478-555-2647."
"All right, thanks. Good-bye."
"Good-bye." She closed the phone and handed it back to Arthur before digging for her own. "He's offering to set me up with another team."
"Abandoning us so casually, Ariadne?" Eames asks. The lightness sounds a touch strained, and she frowns at him.
"It's only a one-off thing, or that's what it sounded like. We don't have anything lined up for a while, and I should take the opportunity, right? Besides, I haven't even talked to them yet." She turns to Arthur. "I'm going to need a background check on the two of them – what are your rates for that kind of thing?"
He blinks once, twice. "Rates? Well, ah, I haven't done that kind of search independently in some time, actually, but I'm sure we can work something out. Forward me whatever I'd assume he's sending you."
Two weeks later, she lets herself into a suite in a small hotel outside Berlin. "Hello?" she calls.
"Ah, Ariadne!" A blond man extracts himself from a squat beige armchair; with some effort, she pulls her eyes away from the bristling moustache consuming his face. "A pleasure to meet you," he continues. "I'm Greg Arynsky, of course. This is my wife, Georgiana." He holds out a hand to help her out of the other chair; she is a lovely Mediterranean woman several inches taller than him. "And the finest point woman I've ever had the pleasure of working with," he continues, still holding her hand.
"Don't get her hopes up, Greg," she admonishes, gazing at him; her accent is straight off the BBC. "I've nothing on her Arthur."
"He isn't my Arthur," Ariadne demurs. "And he said you were quite good."
"Well, that's flattering!" Georgiana chuckles, turning directly to Ariadne for the first time. The younger woman's eyes widen before she can stop herself, and Georgiana lifts a finger to trace the livid scar tissue running from the edge of her hairline straight through one perfectly arched eyebrow and across her cheek. "Yes, it's quite nasty-looking, I know. No, don't apologize, I was prepared for some surprise. You haven't developed a reputation for tact." She smiles.
Ariadne hasn't felt this young since the Fischer job, but she straightens and looks the point woman dead on. "Well, then, what happened?"
"We had some trouble in Beijing a few years ago. Now." She turns and picks up a briefcase. "Normally we wouldn't take you on without certain tests, but if you can work with that crowd for the better part of a year then you're more than good enough for us, especially on relatively short notice. Sit, for God's sake, the both of you." They comply, Ariadne blinking slightly at the rapid transition. "Now, you got the basics of the case, right?"
"Yes, on the way here, but what you asked of me wasn't very specific. I mean, how do you want the mark to feel? Comfortable, starstruck, proud, what are you going for here?"
The Arynskys conduct a rapid dialogue in cocked eyebrows and tilted heads; Ariadne doesn't catch half of what's going on there, but Greg is smiling when he turns to her.
"You're right, we should have addressed that. As it happens, this is going to work a lot better if the mark is uncomfortable, but not suspicious or paranoid. Can you do that, or something close to it?"
"Sure, yeah," she says, mind churning. "I can do it easy. And we're still going with the grandiose party thing, right?
Back in her own hotel room, Ariadne sprawls back in her desk chair and stares at the ceiling, tapping a pencil against her lips. Glamorous yet sickening, decadent and distasteful… hm. Well, the second part is probably a matter of twisting proportions, setting the angles two degrees off perfect and the colors three shades too bright. The problem is, she hasn't really been to any parties with that kind of excessive scale. She could probably ask Saito – they've kept up, in what she imagines to be the mind-crime equivalent of a Christmas-card relationship – but she would really prefer not to ask for help.
She tugs open her suitcase and starts flicking through the books she brought. She barely glances at the covers, discarding battered red and creased green and a leather copy of Wuthering Heights that three successive roommates have mistaken for a King James Bible, and she stops at a cover that's all faded blue and distant gold and ancient-looking eyes.
Perfect.
On the night of the heist, as planned, they enter the dream at the end of the manor's driveway. Greg and Georgiana begin the dream hand in hand again. Ariadne is a few feet away, closer to the gaping iron gates. Every tree and window in the house is lit up with a fantastically garish glow; the party's perfectly constructed cacophony is quite audible even half a mile down the drive, all mad beats and drunken shrieks.
"Everybody ready?" Georgiana asks briskly, still clinging to her husband's hand. "Good," and they make their way up the streamer-strewn gravel drive with no further review or discussion.
The projections are staggering vaguely across the lawn, clinging to each other and laughing; between jewelry and eyeshadow, ornate dresses and sequined suits, every last one of them glitters. Ariadne thinks, with some satisfaction, that it looks like an unholy cross between the Oscars and a prom after-party. A giggling blonde in green nearly stumbles into her as they push into the crowd, sloshing champagne onto the architect's feet; Ariadne wrinkles her nose and continues on.
"Time to split, you guys," Greg says, feeding himself and Georgiana through the throngs. Ariadne nods unnecessarily; they all know the plan.
"All got our phones?" she asks. They make her twitch, but after all, this dream isn't actually a representation of the twenties. It's fine.
"Of course," Georgiana chuckles over her shoulder. "Diversions planned?"
"Yeah."
Georgiana folds herself and her husband together and into the dance effortlessly; Ariadne wanders vaguely towards the thoroughly-mobbed buffet table, less out of hunger than because it's on the far side of this carnival. She isn't halfway there before she's attracted the attention of a projection, but he doesn't seem to be looking for a dreamer. Flirting should not ever be conducted at that volume, she thinks, ducking irritably away from him.
At this point, all she has to do for the evening is stay away from the Arynskys. If they run into trouble with projections, it's on her to start breaking physics until she has the full attention of every fragment of subconscious, and then keep herself alive for as long as possible; however, it's more than likely that her job is essentially done. And, she thinks with some satisfaction, done well.
She spends more than an hour exploring her handiwork, making sure it is indeed standing up to the job, but she's built this place to make skin crawl. By the time she gives in and ducks down to the beach behind the house, a migraine is pulsing in time with every flash of light.
The noise reaches right to the edge of the dream, but by the water it's a bit muffled, and the simple presence of darkness and fresh salty air is like an anesthetic. Down here is more soothing; the light is far prettier reflected off the waves, and she can actually see the stars, which do in fact bear a slight resemblance to a summer sky in Long Island.
She's a little amused and a little bit disappointed in herself when she realizes she's subconsciously added a green light across the water, too. It's enough of a surprise to make her stop walking for a moment – there's nothing like working with Dom Cobb to make you very careful about accidental manifestations – and the pause makes her realize that even in dreams, she absolutely hates stiletto heels. She drops into the sand, enjoying the feel of the damp grit settling over the theoretically expensive silk of her skirt, and wonders idly if Greg and Georgiana have noticed the connections to The Great Gatsby.
She wonders if either Arthur or Eames has ever read it. Arthur would probably hate it; Gatsby's obsession with his past, his desperation to regain Daisy Buchanan, all of it would drive Arthur to a complete rage. As for Eames... Ariadne runs the characters over in her mind again, thinking about the construction of Jay Gatsby from James Gatz, the varied façades of Jordan Baker, the artificial personas of, in fact, almost everyone. Eames, she thinks, would probably find it interesting, but she doubts he'd exactly enjoy it.
She stays by the shore, planning out the genius loci of palaces, until the projections show up. Then she starts bringing in the storms.