A/N: Surprise! Hey guys.
So I've been working on this story, abandoning it and coming back to it, all summer, and this is the sum of my efforts. I would really, really like to finish this story, and I will try my hardest to do so, regardless of how long it will take… Thanks to all who are reading!
Disclaimer: I don't own Inception. I think you would all know if I did? Hehe…
-Sanded Silk-
Eames feels incredibly insufficient in Trent's large, well-furnished apartment—but that's just what happens when a forger of questionable reputation agrees to meet an accomplished extractor, who has numerous shining success stories to flash in a prospective recruiter's face, at his home.
"We have to plan out this one with a lot more care," Trent was saying. "Goldsmith's seen my face in the first layer of a dream, as you know, and I'm going to need a good amount of time in his dream, talking to this girl—did you say you call her Russ? What for?—and seeing if there is anything else worth taking note of." He looks at Eames for a moment, doubt battling curiosity in his expression. "I'm not sure what I should be looking for, but I'll take a look."
Eames nods in thanks.
Trent gets up from his seat, fairly jumping up, to pace around the room, look out of one of his large windows, frown to himself. Eames has known Trent for long enough to know what this means—some kind of inner conflict, usually between a personal interest and a practical one.
"Look, I know it's not safe," Eames says, suppressing a sigh, "and I know that it doesn't necessarily interest you. But I've got no one else to ask, really. I mean there's Cobb, but he's just got back to being a father and I don't think the most intriguing case of alien projection would interest him. And then there's Arthur, but I don't think I—"
"It's not my lack of interest you have to worry about," Trent says, turning away from the window, one hand reaching up to scratch the back of his neck sheepishly. "I'm actually quite intrigued. If this girl—Russ—is telling the truth in all respects, we could have a very interesting case on our hands. No one is paying us, that's for sure, but I'd go in just to figure out what's going on. You don't need to offer me any money to do that."
"You're certainly not lacking in money."
"A metal box, you said?" Trent continues, ignoring the remark. "One that stings her when she touches it? That means when the other projections are wiped after a dream—well, I don't know for sure if they are completely wiped, but let's just assume that, for now—she remains intact, she remains conscious. She's contained. And when the projections are regenerated at the beginning of a dream, she gets dumped in with them." Trent is pacing again. "That almost sounds like she is a separate human being trapped in someone else's mind."
"Have you heard of such a thing before?"
"Of course not!" Trent frowns as he watches the floor pass by underneath his feet. "I wonder if anyone has?"
"Any ideas on who to ask?"
"Not really. Well, yes, but I'm not exactly on good terms with them."
"Would I be on good terms with them?"
"...You know, I'm not sure. But I don't know much about their experience, so I'm not sure I would even recommend attempting to ask them. They might want to get involved."
Eames feels a visceral repulsion to the idea of involving any more people, and decides to leave it at that. He shifts in his seat, thinking.
"Goldsmith has been canceling more of his trips and appointments than usual," Trent says presently, indicating the modest stack of newspapers and memos on his coffee table. He's been keeping tabs on Goldsmith for a few days. "I think he suspects that his mind was infiltrated on that plane."
Eames puffs out his cheeks. "Well then, what now?"
"Not sure," Trent says, plopping back down in his chair and resting his feet on the supports of the coffee table. "I suppose we wait for an opportunity to approach him again."
-0-0-
Other extraction missions filter in and out of Eames's schedule before an opportunity to revisit Russ reveals itself: Semantics wants another go at Goldsmith. Trent frowns when he receives a message from their contact at Semantics, informing him that his services are needed again.
"I told them that my face was revealed, didn't I?" He asks Eames, frustrated.
"Yeah, you did. But look on the bright side—you get to be there if I find Russ."
Trent eyes Eames for a moment. "Yeah, I guess you're right."
"So when do you we start? Do we have a plan?"
Trent shakes his head. "Not really. How do you get into a room with your target and no one else, when your target hardly leaves the presence of others? He's practically barricaded himself at all times, with official duties if not family or colleagues. I don't know how we can get to him."
"Any ailing family members or friends? We could stage some sort of emergency that demands a visit from him."
Trent looks uneasy at the thought, and Eames remembers that Trent has moral issues with this sort of staging.
"You're an extractor, Trent. You're okay with laying bare a stranger's secrets, but not with slipping a little something-something in another stranger's IV drip? I'm not even talking about killing them or permanently worsening their condition, just a temporary diversion. You know that."
Trent shrugs uneasily. "Well, even if I had no problems with it, it wouldn't be a viable option for us anyway. I didn't find any ailing folks in his ring of acquaintances. He does have an estranged younger sister though, messy story there. Could be useful in the future."
Eames frowns. "Semantics didn't give us any leads on how to get to him? They must know that he's walled himself from the public eye, right?"
"They do, I'm sure. But you know their policies. One hundred percent hands-off."
Eames grunts. "Then it looks like a straightforward break-in we're going to have to do."
There is a flicker of relief in the tension of Trent's face, as if this idea appeals to him more than drugging an ailing stranger. Eames wonders why this is.
"Looks like it," Trent was agreeing. "I suppose the good thing about his situation is that he's staying put at his home, where pretty much everything he needs to be a functional military official can be found. But we'll be breaking in to a military official's house. Just saying."
"Yeah, security will be tough." Eames runs a hand over his face. "Maybe we could use that estranged daughter thing you were talking about?"
"Sister."
"Right, that. Maybe we could use that somehow? We are lawyers representing her, or something?"
"We could use that..." Trent's mind goes whirring, and Eames listens as an idea begins to spin to life in Trent's mind.
-0-0-
"I don't understand how that worked."
"Paid off the maid."
"Ah."
"Apparently the housekeeping staff here doesn't particularly like Goldsmith, or the country for that matter. It wasn't difficult at all to get to one of them. She knows to turn back the clocks seven minutes, and when Goldsmith goes to sleep she'll turn the clocks forward seven minutes. Hopefully he isn't so incredibly well trained as to notice a 7-minute sleep shortage."
Eames places his briefcase on the table and opens it. Trent places his paper-stuffed briefcase on the floor by his chair, and rolls up Goldsmith's sleeve. The man, aging and with a distinctly paranoid look, but incredibly sharp for his age nonetheless, is fast asleep from his drugged morning tea, his head lolling to one side, the graying roots of his hair exposed. His arm is flopped, awkward and locked straight, over the arm of his chair. He received them in a modestly-furnished sitting room of sorts, and claimed the most comfortable-looking armchair, leaving the visitors to make do with the sofa.
"So what exactly was the deal with his sister?"
Trent looks at Eames for a moment, bemused. "You mean you didn't read the single sheet of paper I gave you?"
"...Did you debrief me on her? Oh."
Trent sighs, shakes his head, resumes setting up. "His sister," he says, "Helen Claire Goldsmith. She's almost thirty years younger than him, which makes her something around 25. Not much on her, because of all the taboo surrounding the very mention of her name, but apparently she tried to commit suicide at some point, which is a huge no-no in their religion. She was caught in the act, put in a mental ward. Locked away, put under constant supervision. But she doesn't seem mentally lost. They say she reads prolifically, and she avoids her family like the plague. Won't let them visit her, and when they take the trouble to see her against her will, she absolutely refuses to look at any of them."
"The reason?"
"The attempted suicide? No one knows for sure, but the general suspicion is the overbearing nature of their family and their lineage. I'm sure that her parents had her life planned out for her before they even considered adoption."
"She's adopted?"
"Yeah. I guess her parents got bitten by the compassionate bug of social service or something."
"Well, that explains the age difference. I was wondering how they managed to have a daughter when they were..."
Trent cuts in. "Anyway, combine an imposed life plan with the spirited rebelliousness of a twenty-something-year-old, and you could get anything. In this case, attempted suicide."
"Not to be insensitive, but you don't think that's...a little extreme? I'm sure she was living quite comfortably under her parents, and I can't imagine what sort of life plan could be feasible in today's world that is so repulsive to her."
"I don't know what kind of person she is, Eames. Maybe she's super-dramatic, end of story. Most likely there is more to the story than is out there. Anyway, the family is really tight-lipped about it. I think only her parents know the whole of the truth."
"I wonder what Goldsmith thought when he heard that we were requesting a meeting with him on her behalf."
"Well," Trent sighs, standing up and drawing the sofa closer to the table, "he let us in. I think that's telling."
"The doting older brother?"
"Maybe. Ready?"
Eames sits down next to Trent, glimpses the paid-off maid peeking at them from the doorway with curiosity.
"You don't think she'll interfere, do you?" He says, lowering his voice.
"Nope. I made sure of that."
"You did? How?"
That uneasiness. "Doesn't matter now, does it? We're losing time here."
"Hey Trent," Eames says just before they go under. "Are their parents still alive?"
Trent's look is inscrutable as he pushes a button in the briefcase, and as unconsciousness creeps over the edges of Eames's vision, steadily devouring his sight.
"No."
-0-0-
Without the help of an architect, the dream is based entirely on the whims of Goldsmith's mind. The dreamscape they enter immediately reminds Eames of a...hospital?
Indeed, nurses run about, with varying degrees of distress and self-importance showing on their faces, in their gaits. There is something illogical about the whole setting…ah. Eames realizes, as he shakes his head to clear his mind, that the hallways of the hospital are paved with asphalt, painted with white and yellow traffic lines. The apparel of the hospital workers, however, suggest to Eames and Trent that they are in a hospital, or some sort of building similar to a hospital. They step out of the center of the hallway and press themselves against the wall, trying to make sense of their location. Why a hospital?
Before they so much as turn to each other to formulate a plan, a wrecking ball swings through the ceiling, tearing a jagged path through the material. The ball, exaggerated in size, brings down a few walls in its path and scatters odds and ends before it disappears in its upswing. Doors hang half-open, wood and locks splintered. Eames peers into a room, and sees no hospital room, no patient ward, but a simple, rather comfortable living area. Outside the window, which is adorned with surprisingly intricately-embroidered curtains, a shimmering lake lies mirror-like beneath a tranquil blue sky. Trees line the horizon, venturing closer to the building on some occasions before rushing back into the distance once again.
A person is sitting in the bed, reading. A man. He looks up, looks at Eames without really seeing Eames, and mumbles something, gesturing with his book, before continuing reading. His glasses, Eames notices, are upside-down.
"Trent," Eames says as Trent looks into the room as well, "I don't think we're in a hospital."
"More like a psychiatric ward."
"Maybe an elderly living center?"
"I don't think so," Trent says, looking more closely at the man. "He doesn't look that old at all."
Eames does a double take. Indeed, the man in bed, while exceedingly fragile-looking, still has a healthy splash of brown to his graying hair, and his face appears to only recently have begun to wrinkle.
"Psychiatric ward it is, then?"
"Maybe. Let's keep—" Trent is interrupted by the downswing of the wrecking ball, this time at a different angle. Another slash appears in the ceiling and walls of the building. Trent and Eames stumble out of the way, further down the hall, waving their hands in their vain attempts to avoid breathing in the debris. Nurses continue rushing by them, seemingly oblivious to the wrecking ball and the damage in its wake.
"It seems," Trent says, once he is able to speak, "that we are on the top floor of whatever this building is." The blue sky is visible through the gaping holes in the ceiling.
"Shall we search for the stairs then?"
"If we don't want to be killed, yes."
Eames turns away from the destruction of the wrecking ball and heads down the hallway with blind enthusiasm, brushing by nurses and visitors and people dressed like patients. Presently he and Trent reach what looks like an elevator.
"Do you see stairs?" Eames asks, looking around.
"Do you object to the elevator?"
"No, just...it's strange for there to be no stairs, don't you think?"
Before Trent can reply, the wrecking ball races by behind him, carving a path through the material of the building, just a few feet from where he stands. He ducks and rushes forward to slam his fist on the down button of the elevator, and the doors ding open immediately. They pile in without a second thought and the doors close behind them. But before they can push a button, they feel their stomachs rise to their throats as the elevator begins to drop, almost at a free-fall.
"What the—?" Eames runs out of breath before a foul word can escape his mouth, and clings to the handles on the wall of the elevator. The screen above the door of the elevator flashes spasmodically, and as the elevator suddenly slows to a stop, the cables squealing in protest, the screen calmly announces that they have stopped at the basement level.
"Why the basement?" Trent manages as he gets up from the floor, on which he had been sprawled as the elevator was dropping.
"B—" Eames gives up trying to reply before he finishes the first syllable, choosing instead to lean over on his knees and catch his breath.
The doors slide open calmly. Still quite winded, with their hands on their weapons, Eames and Trent exit the elevator into the dim room.
A metal cage, the bars rivaling Eames's calf in thickness, stands in the center of the large, low-ceilinged room, appearing to hold nothing. Trent slips a flashlight out of his boot and flicks it on, flashing it into the corners of the room, up at the ceiling, down at the floor, before finally training its glare on the cage.
As they near the cage, they notice a black bundle lying on the floor in the cage; as they get closer still, the bundle moves and sits up, and they realize that it is in fact a person; and as they stop at the wall of the cage, Eames and Trent both start violently as they recognize the frightened, yet collected, little pale face and the long, russet hair.
"Russ?" Eames exclaims in indignation.
"Helen?" Trent breathes at the same time.
A/N: I think this is a good place to stop for now. I have an idea of what I want to happen next, but I would like to take this story seriously, to plan things out. Which means an update by the end of this year is highly unlikely, but I will strive to get one out anyhow! Uggghhhh. XD
I feel like my style has gotten wordier, which may or may not be desirable, and might even come off as pretentious...please let me in on your thoughts, and if you have other suggestions, please please PLEASE tell me!
Thanks for reading, and please review!
-Sanded Silk-