Lost
"Question reality,
Especially if it contradicts the evidence of your hopes and dreams."
Robert Brault
~"Was Saito the privet firm that got me out?" Ariadne asked the Nurse. The American Nurse looked confused.
"I don't know anyone by that name." She said softly.
She was helping Ariadne dress herself. After two days in the hospital Ariadne finally found herself able to put only some thoughts together.
She still did not feel like herself. Her mind seemed slower somehow. Her usual temper felt stunted. The American Nurse had said it was the drugs she had to take for anxiety and they would pass. She still found it hard to hold thoughts in her mind.
They slipped away like a half remembered dream.
"Well, then who got my out of that basement?" the Architect asked
"A firm called COBAL engineering" came a familiar male voice.
"Sir!" said the American Nurse. "You have to leave! This is a privet room!" Ariadne turned to look at the tall lean man that came into her room.
"I know you." She said slowly as he approached her. She was trying to remember. "You were the one who found me."
"Yes, me and my Team." The man with the voice said with an easy smile. "I was the one who carried you to the ambulance." He smiled and chuckled. "It wasn't hard."
The man with the voice had a nice face with dark hair and warm brown eyes. Handsome. Rugged. Like all the men in her life recently, he was extremely well dressed and professional. He looked like the kind of man people couldn't help but like.
"My name is Jim." He said shaking her hand. "I'm really glad to see you looking better."
Ariadne shook his hand but found her brain was searching. She remembered Cobb and Arthur talking about COBAL. They spoke that name in reverent whispers. As if COBAL were a projection. One they feared no maze would hide them from.
"COBAL? How did COBAL find me?" She asked. Jim turned to the nurse
"Can we have a minute?" He asked. Agnes looked at Ariadne and the Architect nodded. Once they were alone The pair sat at the little table in her privet hospital room.
"I work with a very special Team." Jim began. "It's hard to explain to someone that doesn't understand. But it will be easy, for you to understand." He said.
Ariadne shook her head. Jim smiled.
"I work as an extractor." He said plainly. "I know you know what that is."
Ariadne looked out the window then. Not willing to meet Jim in the eye. The Extractor shrugged and pulled out a briefcase. He shuffled some papers out.
"My work is primarily to catch illegal extraction. Corporate espionage, political influence. All games that can turn the world the hell." He continued undeterred.
He looked up at the Architect and smiled but she continued to stare out the window. Cobb and Arthur had trained her for this. Trained her in what to say.
"I don't understand. I'm a student. I don't even work. I don't know anything about any corporations." She said softly.
Arthur had told her (gently) that if she were ever interrogated by anyone about extraction or inception to pretend to be a "stupid" with no interest in business or anything other then clothes and whatever else regular women cared about.
"Ariadne, I know Cobb and his Team trained you to build their dreams. Mr. Cobb was a very talented architect once. After he killed his wife he bounced around the world taking in odd jobs. He got together with this gentleman here." Jim pulled out a photograph and slid it over to her.
It was a candid shot of Arthur at an airport. The Point Man looked angry. A normal look for him when around the rest of the Team. Never around her.
"Arthur worked for the good guys once. He was in the military for years. How he learned about dream sharing. It became more profitable for him to engage in corporate espionage rather then serve his country." Jim said sadly.
"Ariadne, I know they trained you and used you. I also know that they were responsible for your kidnapping. That Cobb hired men to take you, to hold you and then he gave those men orders to kill you. He did this so you would be silenced. So that you wouldn't blackmail them or their clients." Jim finished trying to catch her eye.
"I don't know anyone named Cobb. I'm sorry" She said softly. Jim nodded.
"I know they trained you to say this. To protect them." He pulled out another photograph.
This one was also candid. It showed her and Arthur walking out of the warehouse. It was taken when she had first started to work with the team. Arthur was holding the door of a cab for her. His eyes on her and a light smile. She remembered that day so well.
It had been raining outside. The streets of Paris were crowded and beautiful. The driver had taken the long way to reach her building. It had been so cozy in that cab, next to Arthur's warm body. She had even nodded off.
"Did you think you were the only Architect Cobb enlisted? Did you think you were the first girl Arthur seduced?" Jim asked.
Suddenly Ariadne looked up at him. He was no longer handsome and kind. He had intruded on something sacred. "He uses those careful manners of his to gain the trust of many girls."
"Leave." She said
"Dose he still dress nicely?" Jim asked
"Get out!" Ariadne said sharply. Agnes was suddenly there.
"Sir, you need to leave now!" She said in a huff. Her tone was clear and in charge. Jim sighed and closed his briefcase.
"All right." He said. "I'll go. I'm sorry about what they put you through." He said sincerely. Jim was almost to the door when he turned around.
"I have to ask, did Cobb tell you he had children? That he had to do this 'job' to get back to his children?" Ariadne looked at him with a fire in her eyes. "Hmm." Jim mused "Cobb and his wife were childless."
"Leave sir." The American Nurse said. Jim finally left and the Nurse was quick to close the door. "Dear, you don't ever have to speak to that man again." she said gently brushing back Ariadne's hair. The Architect looked at the photographs Jim had left behind.
'Can't be true.' she thought looking at Arthur. They way Arthur acted with her. Cobb's need to go home. They all felt real.
Eames's friendship seemed real to.
"I need a phone." She said softly. The American Nurse smiled at her with affection and said.
"Of course Dear."
~Arthur and Cobb didn't give her any contact numbers. Miles number got no pick up. She even tried to call Japan. Saito knew who she was. But the process was confusing. Saito was not easy to reach, even with the right contacts.
The American Nurse was helpful. She wanted to find someone to help the Architect. Ariadne thought briefly about calling some classmates. But the nagging fear that she might put them in danger gave her pause. She also worried about how she would explain the situation to them. She had spent the past few months engrossed in the dream building, with almost no contact except the Team.
At night, she dreamed.
The American Nurse told her it was the anxiety medication that caused them. They were dreams of Arthur. Of her and Arthur talking, laughing at Eames's clothes. Of Eames's accusing her of being in love with him. Of Ariadne laughing. Then Arthur would take a phone call and Cobb would be on the other end, telling the Point Man to kill the Architect.
She dreamed Arthur changed suddenly. That he used his strong body to choke her, to kill her. To have no pity over her. She dreamed of Eames saying,
'We'll need a new Architect mates.' She always woke up safe in the hospital bed with the American Nurse close by.
~The day of her release came by and with it a lawyer. He was a nice looking older man. He had flown in from New York.
"I'm your attorney." He said politely. "I'm here to represent you regarding your actions during the illegal drugging and dream manipulation of one, Robert Fischer."
"I don't know what you mean." She said. She looked at the American Nurse for help. She was sitting at the table with her.
"Just listen to him, Dear. He is here to help you." She said tucking a stray lock of hair under her ear.
"Now, I don't want you to say anything to anyone but me, understand?" The Lawyer said plainly. "Truth is, the French Government have been collecting evidence on Mr. Cobb and his Team ever since they came to Paris. They bugged the warehouse, watched all of you. We know what happened. We have enough to put all of them in prison forever. When we catch them"
The Lawyer sighed softly and folded his hands together.
"It's over for them Ariadne. As soon as we catch them, and we will, they will be in prison for the rest of there lives. But the French government doesn't know what to do with you. You are just as liable as the rest of the team. But unlike them, you have never done dream extraction or inception. You have no criminal record and we think we can get a pardon for you if..." He trailed off and looked at his hands.
"If?" Ariadne asked. Real fear of what was going to become of her spread over her body.
"The government would like to use your talents to work for them. Specifically, in the same unit that helped to find you. They want you to design dreams to catch theses illegal extractors and put them away. This is the only way we can grant you your freedom." The lawyer said softly.
"I'm here to look after you best interest. This is the deal. Take this deal." he said with compassion.
Ariadne felt her eyes well up. The gravity of what these people were saying was very heavy. The Lawyer sighed. "You can say no. Keep quite like Cobb told you to. Like the men who payed thugs to kill you told you to. You can do all of that right into a prison cell. For life."
Tears landed on Ariadne's hands.