The Next Level

"There are twelve hours in the day, and about fifty in the night."

Rabutun- Chantal

~The work with Jim and his Team was very much like the work with Cobb. Jim had a good report with their own Point Man and Forger.

The Point Man, Fedor, was Russian and was nothing but professional. He didn't like working with Ariadne because she was a woman and said so often. But he was impressed enough by her talents in building.

The Forger was Australian and rarely said anything to anyone. Braker, was a little older then Ariadne. Like Jim he was handsome, but lacked the same style of dress her first Team possessed. He was the type to work better in jeans and T-shirt. Braker, like the Russian Point Man, kept their distance from the Architect.

Ariadne didn't mind. She was always lost in her own thoughts. Her own memories.

~ "It's like something from Escher." She had said as she and Arthur carefully exited the penrose steps. The Point Man was teaching her the basic's of paradoxes that were only achieved in the dream world. Arthur had smiled and nodded.

"Exactly." He said. "So a closed loop like that will help you disguise the boundaries of the dream you create." He said as they returned to the ground floor. They talked briefly of Cobb and she had learned about his late wife. She had been surprised that she had died. Mal had seemed a fearsome thing. She had her doubts when Arthur had said she had been 'lovely'.

"How long have you and Cobb worked together?" Ariadne asked. Arthur sighed deeply.

"About five years now. We meet through Miles. I was working in the military. Training soldiers. Cobb's work was more interesting. He and Mal were... brilliant together. They designed amazing dreams."

Ariadne nodded. She wondered if she could ever hope to compare to the Shade as far as skill in the dreams. It was just so much she had to learn. Arthur seemed to sense her thoughts.

"Don't worry." He said "You'll get it. Cobb said he never saw anyone pick it up as quickly as you did." She smiled.

"How do I make a paradox?" She asked. He smiled and nodded.

"The trick is to trap the projections, not the dreamer." He started.

Arthur's teaching were easy. He used his skills for training soldiers to teach her. He never grew tired of her questions, and ravenous curiosity. His smile getting wider as she grasped the dream world and all it's complexities.

He was so kind to her. He spoke to her so gently. How could that just be an act? ~

~ No one on her new Team talked about the lives they lived outside their new work. Ariadne went through the motions of designing mazes and taking the dreamer, always Jim, through each level. But her heart was not in the work.

Before, she had been eager to explore the dream world with Arthur and the Team.

During the day, she worked on her mazes. At night she returned to her new apartment. It was still in Paris and much larger and nicer then her old place. The American Nurse stayed with her. She would cook and keep her company. It had been 3 months since she last saw Arthur or the Team.

She felt every second of that time.

She was under strict house arrest except for when the Team arrived in her building and used an empty apartment there for their work.

On her off time she slept and dreamed the same old nightmare. Arthur, the same as he always was. Then the phone call. The attack. Her death. She woke in a sweat and would stare out her window for hours at the streets and buildings below.

She imagined she was lost in Limbo and entertained thoughts that perhaps, she never left Limbo and this was all still a dream. That she would wake up on that plane arriving in L.A. That she would let Arthur into her hotel room. That was a reality she visioned for herself.

She had lost her totem after the kidnapping. After staring out at the city for hours those nights she had the nightmares, she thought about what it would take to wake herself up. That this world was not real. There was only one escape.

~"That's her right?" Said the shifty Mole Man.

Arthur, Cobb, Eames and Saito crowed around a grainy black photograph that was unmistakably their Architect.

"That's her." Arthur said loudly. "She's been in Paris this whole time?" The Mole Man backed away from the Point Man's anger.

"No! Not the whole time. We only found her because we were looking for someone else." The Mole Man explained hurriedly.

"It just so happens, that there is an Australian Forger that was taken almost 6 months ago. His Team hired some people to find him. They found him and your lady Architect as well. We have been staked out at the building across from her for a month now. She almost always sits by the window after the end of her... treatments."

"What treatments!" Arthur barked.

Cobb pulled another grainy photo lose and his scowl grew deeper. It showed a plump nurse hooking up the sleeping Architect to a PASIV device.

"Why are they doing this?" Saito asked.

"To control her." Cobb said

"Bloody Hell, their doing a little inception of their own." Eames added "And with our girl."

"At least we know she's alive." Cobb said.

"Right, so lets go in." Arthur said recklessly. The Point Man had spent the past few months filled with worry. It was making his careful planning sloppy.

"We have to be careful about this, Arthur." Cobb said softly. "We need to find out who these people are and why their doing this."

"I thought that was pretty obvious." Eames said with a snort. "Their assembling there own Extraction Team. They need there own Team who can extract information and is loyal. They kidnapped Ariadne because she was trained by the best and she is very good at building the dreams. I can assume the Australian Forger is top of his game as well?"

"His people are paying a good reward to get him back, so I can imagine so." The Mole Man said shuffling his photos into his ratty back pack.

~"Were going after Cobb." Jim said one night over dinner. Ariadne looked up in amazement. "You found them?" she asked. A spark of curiosity flashed in her eyes. Jim nodded.

"Yes, we believe he and the Team have a new Architect and their in Paris. They mean to extract information from a rival oil and engineering firm." He said simply.

She nodded and felt a slight pain at the thought of a new Architect. She wondered if the new Team member was a woman. If Arthur liked her. She pushed those thoughts away.

Since the kidnapping, her mind worked slower. The American Nurse told her the work would bring her mind back to normal after a while, but Ariadne found it hard to grasp new ideas. The thought that she would help catch her old Team felt awful. It felt like a cold stone was embedded in her and twisting.

"All right" She said sadly.

~"You know we don't belong here, Gorgeous." The Australian Forger told her. They were all in the dream built by Ariadne and dreamed by Jim.

There dream was a fun house of paradoxes and mazes designed so no one could get out. Jim assured them it was they only way to elude Arthur's Team. He rarely gave them any time alone together to speak in private.

He was distracted at the moment by the Russian Point Man. Ariadne had the feeling this convenient diversion was all planed just for her. The Australian Forger was casual enough in his body language. Someone out of ear shot would never know they were talking.

Braker was always relaxed and seemed to be a full member of her new Team.

"Don't believe anything Jim or that Nurse of yours tell you." He whispered. "They work for COBAL engineering. COBAL was the one who kidnapped you. Not your own people." Ariadne stared at Jim and Fedor. Her heart starting to race. Her expression, blank.

"The American Nurse is a Chemist." Braker continued. "She has been hooking you up to a PASIV device each night. You've been dreaming right? Same old nightmare?" She nodded.

"They lie to you. My Team, and Fedor's are working right now to get all of us out. We need you to create a paradox to trap Jim. He is always the dreamer. He doesn't trust us to control the dream."

Ariadne said nothing. She looked ahead and remained motionless.

"Tell me you understand, Gorgeous ." Braker said softly.

"I understand." She said sadly. The Australian Forger nodded and sighed.

"Don't lose yourself. Stay focused on your life before. On the people in your life. Don't trust the dreams you have here. Don't eat any food or drinks the nurse give you" He added before walking away.

~"Cobb, we need to consider that when we get our girl out she may be very seriously affected by the dreams she was forced to have." Eames said.

Arthur stopped his research on the computer and turned around to look at the Forger.

"Who knows what she has been manipulated into believing? We need to be prepared." Eames added. The Team had all gathered in a new warehouse in Paris to plan Ariadne's rescue.

The Australian Forger's Team was flying in but would not land for a few hours. Yuseff had just arrived in France.

"Well, if I wanted to keep someone under control I would use a mixture of a latent relaxant and a drug very similar to LSD. It makes the subject feel very helpless and they tend to believe anything you tell them. Enough of that everyday, you would try to fly if I told you that you could." Yuseff said. "The problem is, that it takes a long time to leave the body and it can cause permanent madness. The subject has difficulty telling reality from what the drugs made them believe."

"Right, so when we get to our girl..." Eames started

"She might be so confused she runs from us." Cobb finished

"Also there is the detox to think about." Yuseff said

"I have staff on call at a privet hospital in Japan." Saito said "A Doctor Yori there is highly recommended in working with victims of these dream manipulations."

"So after we leave here, we make a 13 hour flight to Japan?" Arthur asked. "What if she needs medical attention right away?" He asked, ever the pessimist.

"We can't give her anything to calm her because it will only increase the hold of the mixture." Yuseff said sadly.

"We just have to help her with detox the hard way Darlings" Eames sighed.