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Chapter 7.

It wasn't until they were at the airport that Arthur noticed that Gia was visibly nervous. Her eyes were even wider than usual as she stared and stared at everything around her. The crowds of holidaymakers pressed in on the group from all sides and Gia seemed to cringe away from all touch, sandwiched as she was between her two companions.

"Have you ever been on a plane before?" Arthur asked.

She shook her head, "not like this, not that I can remember."

Both men were getting used to nodding and smiling as though they had the faintest idea what she was talking about.

After check-in the trio lingered in Starbucks before going through security, Gia took one look at how the security patted people down before shooting off into the bathroom for twenty minutes. She only returned when Arthur was seriously considering going in and getting her.

"Time to go" said Eames, draining the last of the coffee from his cup.

Arthur grunted in agreement before standing. Gia trailed after them miserably, she'd already gotten funny looks from the woman at the check-in counter for not having any luggage and wasn't looking forward to further scrutiny.

Eames went first, nonchalantly placing his briefcase on the conveyer belt and strolling through the metal detector arch. Such was his confidence that even when he was patted down by the security guard she failed to notice the Glock he had in the holster under his jacket. Arthur wondered privately whether he even bothered to turn the safety off.

Arthur had purposely put Gia ahead of him in the line, afraid that if she wasn't being watched that she'd vanish off again and they'd never find her. She had a small plastic bag of clothes that she set down only with immense trepidation, glancing back at it as though afraid that it would be stolen.

She didn't set the metal detector off on the way though and so joined Eames safely on the other side. Arthur caught up with them moments after that, and they sped through duty-free to the gate.

Eames took the isle seat on the plane with Arthur in the middle and Gia staring avidly out of the window. The comely flight assistant for the first class section winked at Eames as she went through the flight safety demonstrations. He smiled wolfishly at her; it had been far too long since he'd been a part of the mile-high club. Arthur kicked him hissing, "we're working!"

Eames laughed, "Jealous Artie?"

Arthur shook his head in disbelief, taking a glass of wine when the attendant offered one and not missing the opportunity to look straight down her impressive cleavage.

"You're just as bad as each other. "Gia said quietly from her seat. Both men's head whipped around to stare at her.

"Sorry." Said Arthur, suitably abashed.

"Don't be sorry on my account." Replied Gia, a small smile quirking the edges of her lips, "but you will have to fight over her, there's only one flight attendant in this cabin."

Eames looked around and saw that this was true, "arm wrestle for it Artie?"

Arthur shook his head, "game of poker."

"You're on."

For the next two hours Gia stared and stared out of the window as the ground fell away from them and London shrank into miniature before being obscured completely by the clouds. Above the clouds the sky was as blue as a sunny day with streaks of ice-clouds high up in the stratosphere. It was so beautiful that she forgot to feel frightened about the height of the plane and settled into her seat comfortably. The men were engrossed in their poker game, Arthur had unearthed a set from nowhere and the rattle of chips and the sound of cards being shuffled made a soothing background to the rumble of the plane.

The flight attendant, clearly very pleased to have become the object of such bourgeoisie gladiatorial combat was being extra solicitous. It might have helped that they were the only passengers in the fist class cabin, she served them lunch early and Gia found herself digging into the pasta with surprising enthusiasm.

"Enjoying that are you?" asked Eames.

Gia nodded, swallowing, "It's the nicest food I've had in ages."

"Really?" asked Arthur who didn't think much of plane food on the whole.

"Definitely." She replied, tucking in again. Arthur was pleased to see her enjoying it, she needed every pound she could put on.

After eating Gia fell asleep or at least Arthur assumed that she was asleep, you could never be sure. He and Eames were at a stalemate in their match, both loosing and wining hands alternately. Eames had completely cracked Arthur's poker face but his lack of sleep was telling in his decisions, making him rash and inconstant.

"So who's meeting us at JFK?" asked Arthur, raising Eames 100 dollars.

"Cobb is sending Ariadne, he still doesn't like that airport much. Call." Eames turned over his cards to show a full house.

"And then were?" Arthur turned his over with chagrin to show only two of a kind.

"Back to Cobb's place for a few days, get Gia settled in before getting into the next bit of work we've got lined up." Eames cracked a small smile as he raked in the pile of chips. Arthur sighed, at this rate he'd never join the mile-high club.

"He's got something new?"

Eames nodded, shuffling cards like a pro, Arthur knew that it had been foolish to try and beat him at his own game but his naturally competitive nature didn't let him step away from a challenge. "Yes," Eames replied at length, glancing over at Gia momentarily, "something big."

After loosing the game of poker in spectacular style Arthur decided to get some rest, he'd need his wits about him for the next day if Cobb had another big job up his sleeve. The man had many fine qualities but patience wasn't really one of them, if he had a job on hand then everyone in the team had better be prepared to work.

The team that had worked the Cobal Engineering job had stayed together after their remarkable success with inception. Despite their best efforts, word had gotten out about their break-though and a steady stream of offers had been coming across Arthur's desk ever since. Most of these jobs were still extractions, some serious and some not. Arthur vetted all the jobs before he even though about giving them to the team- you couldn't be too careful after all. However Arthur's separate inception in-box had been growing relentlessly, he knew that many of the requests were hopeless but there were a few that seemed within the realms of possibility.

The problem with inception still remained in the execution. During the intervening year between the Cobal job and leaving for England, Arthur must have made a thousand trips to the second dream level in an attempt to reach the third. The third level, Cobb was convinced, was where the magic happened; only in this dream level were the intruders so deeply embedded in the subject's subconscious that they could effect a fundamental change.

Unfortunately, building a third dream level without exposing themselves to the likelihood of falling into limbo was proving very difficult and the team was getting tired of being crushed in collapsing dream levels if the dreamer so much as twitched in his sleep.

After the Cobal job the team had been glued to the financial pages of the newspaper every morning, holed up in their various safe houses around the world. Almost exactly one month of waiting later and the news broke about Robert Fisher breaking up his father's empire to focus instead on groundbreaking green energy schemes.

Arthur could still remember the wave of relief that rushed over him that morning, in the small Tokyo flat where he'd been hiding out for the past months. Without hesitation he'd packed his bags and flown straight back to the States to be picked up by Cobb. The team had been together ever since and were starting to receive more jobs than they could really take on. Arthur's mind went back to the conversation he'd had with Eames about Gia maybe being the extra pair of hands that Saito had provided during inception. He dismissed the thought, that couldn't be the only reason Cobb was willing to go to so much trouble to find her.

The sun was shining into Arthur's face as the "fasten seatbelts" sign switched on, waking him from sleep. Gia was curled up next to him, arms around her knees, Arthur gently lifted the blanket that had fallen off her shoulder and tucked it more securely around her. She smiled, eyes still closed and he knew he'd woken her.

The plane was pitching downwards, getting ready to land. Just as the landing gear disengaged noisily from the wing Eames hurried out of the bathroom and back to his seat, grinning wickedly and tucking in his shirt.

"You really did it then?" asked Arthur, somewhat enviously.

"Oh yes." Replied Eames with another wicked grin, "it really reminded me why I love poker so much."

"Remind me never to play you at your own game." Grumbled Arthur.

"I'll hold you to that." Eames said. "Is she awake?" he asked, nodding at Gia.

"I'm awake." Came the muffled reply. Gia sat up, running both hands though her hair, trying to sort out the tangles, it was a hopeless case however so she gave up with a huff.

"Sleep well?" asked Eames gingerly.

"Yes." Then she turned to the two men, "can you tell me who we're staying with?" she asked. Both men were taken aback, had they even told her that they were staying with anyone?

Arthur broke the awkward moment. "Two people, Dom Cobb and Ariadne Sinclair."

"Ariadne, that's a pretty name."

"Yeah, it is… she's nice, you'll like her."

"Do you all work together?" Gia asked, looking back and forth between the two men.

"Yes, and we're sort of all living together for the time-being as well, at Dom's house. He has two kids."

"Two kids and all of you? Must be a big house then." Gia's eyes widened as she tried to imagine it.

"Yeah, there's plenty of room."

"And I'm going to live there too?" she asked.

"If that's ok with you darling." Replied Eames gently, not wanting her to feel forced into anything.

Gia nodded, seeming to run out of words and looked out of the window until the plane touched down.

Eames spotted Cobb first, he was waiting for them just outside customs with a welcome home sign and a worried frown. He waved jovially and Cobb spotted him, waiving back. Eames noticed that Cobb hadn't brought his children with him as he usually would to welcome the team at the airport; he knew that was probably because he wanted to see what Gia was like before taking her home. This made Eames wonder again what Cobb knew about this girl that he wasn't telling them. Gia herself popped up at his shoulder with Arthur right behind her. She had her plastic bag of clothes clutched in both hands as she scanned the crowd nervously.

"Come on darlin'." Eames started forward and let the other two follow him though passport control.

"Eames, how you doing?" asked Cobb clapping him on the back, Eames reciprocated. The two men had grown much closer after the inception job, over coming a slight mutual distrust that had always existed between them. Dom's children adored Eames who was equally enchanted with them and always brought back exotic gifts for them when he went off to work jobs overseas.

"Right as rain Dom, helluv a chore you've sent us on here." Before Cobb could reply, Arthur caught up with them, he'd put on his business jacket and was looking more like his usual sharp self.

"Dom, hi. This is Gia."

A collective hush fell over the group as Gia stepped out from behind Arthur, still clutching her plastic bag; she stared at Cobb for a long moment before speaking.

"Hello." She didn't offer a hand to shake.

"Nice to finally meet you Gia, I'm Dominic Cobb, you can call me Dom."

Gia nodded, not saying a word and Arthur caught Cobb's eye as if to tell him to wrap it up. Cobb shrugged, "Let's get out of here shall we?"

The four of them battled through the crowd of the front hall of JFK and into the parking lot. No one said a word until they were safely inside Cobb's black sedan and well onto the highway.

Surprisingly it was Gia who broke the silence. She was sitting in the back with Eames, when she suddenly piped up. "Where do you live Mr. Cobb?" she asked.

"Outside New York, Oyster Bay"

"Huh…" she didn't speak again. The air in the car buzzed with unanswered questions. Both Arthur and Eames were on their last nerve with Cobb already for sending them off on this truly insane quest. As soon as the three of them could reach his office there would be some explaining to do.

In fact Arthur and Eames only had to wait another hour and a half to find out their answers. As soon as the car pulled up at the house Ariadne appeared at the front door. She'd obviously been in the middle of drawing up some new plans as her hands were almost black with ink stains. She hugged first Eames and then Arthur, teasing him on how young he looked with out a suit on. If Ariadne was taken aback by Gia's appearance she worked hard to hide it. She introduced herself as a friend of Cobb's, not knowing that Gia knew they all worked together. Gia offered her a rare smile when Ariadne complimented her on the Dora the Explorer t-shirt and allowed Ariadne to take her off upstairs and show her where she would be sleeping.

"You'd better come into the office," muttered Cobb, shucking off his jacket and hanging it up.

Arthur and Eames followed him, neither knowing what to expect.

"Well, I can't thank you enough." Cobb began, "you have no idea."

"No we don't." said Arthur, reaching into his pocket and drawing out a packet of Marlborough cigarettes. He lit it whilst waiting for Cobb to continue.

"What's she like?" Cobb asked at length, as usual declining the cigarette that Arthur offers him.

"Quiet, scared of everything, possibly psycho." Replied Eames.

"Psycho?" asked Cobb, evidently worried about having her in the house. Eames smiled, serves him right for getting us to do his dirty work he thought. He still hadn't forgotten the climb down the outside of the Council high-rise.

"She killed a man then disguised the body by blowing up his meth lab."

"Who?" asked Cobb, perplexed.

"The man we were meant to buy her from, Wheeler." Arthur pushed the silver briefcase into the center of the room. Cobb goggled at it.

"Seriously. Is she dangerous?"

"No." said Eames with finality "he deserved it." Cobb nodded a worried frown still creasing his forehead.

"You're probably wondering what the hell is on." asked Cobb.

Eames gave him a very unimpressed look, "spit it out Dom"

Cobb sighed, "This girl, Gia, she's the next step, the next level of dream sharing technology."

"What do you mean?" asked Arthur.

"After the PASIV was created dream sharing was mostly used for military simulations right?" the two men nodded. "Well after that came the illegal stuff, the extractions and the portable PASIVE devices and that's when dream sharing went underground." Everyone nodded again, Arthur privately wondering why they were rehashing common knowledge.

Cobb continued, "Just because dream work became illegal that doesn't mean that the technology wasn't being developed. Think about it, anyone can buy a new PASIV, someone is obviously still making them… the people who created the PASIV didn't stop at creating a device; they created their ideal user. A person whose mind can harness the true capabilities of the technology."

There was a pause. "They created her, so you're saying she's a robot or something? Because I could believe that-" Arthur asked.

"No not at all. What I'm saying is that her mind was opened so to speak, from a young age so that her subconscious is fully under her own conscious control."

"That's not possible." Countered Arthur.

"Your lack of imagination Artie… never ceases to delight." Eames piped up and Arthur glared at him before taking another long drag of his cigarette.

"So you say that she can use the PASIV in ways that we can't?" asked Eames.

"Yes." Said Cobb.

Eames leaned back in his seat on the couch… his thoughts were jumbled in his mind at this paradigm shift in his world-view. One thought in particular was bothering him and not able to help himself, he asked the question.

"This ideal user business, it didn't work did it? Or otherwise there'd be loads of people like her, able to do things we can't in the dream- we'd be out of a job."

"You're right." Agreed Arthur, looking sharply up at Cobb.

"You are." Said Cobb, frown deepening, "no one really knows what went wrong but from the lab reports that still exist from the few places that actually did these kinds of experiments… there were side-effects, lots of cases where the drugs they used drove the children insane."

"Children?" asked Eames, head snapping up.

"Yes, most test subjects were about five to ten years old- entering the stage where higher learning is just starting to develop."

"Great. That explains a lot then…" Eames sighed, motioning for Arthur to give him a cigarette.

"Gia is the last known test subject- after her apparently the whole dream-share project was abandoned."

Arthur stood up suddenly, rounding on Cobb "And you never wondered why that might be? You never thought of the danger before you came up with the great plan to spend thirty-thousand dollars buying a mentally unstable, abused twenty-year old child from a low-life trafficking ring and not only was this a death trap but you send us in blind." Arthur was not usually a man to raise his voice but when he was finished speaking he realized that he'd been shouting at Cobb leaning into the other man's face aggressively.

Cobb raised his hands in a supplicating gesture, trying to calm his irate point-man. "Arthur, if I'd told you where you were going and what I wanted you to do, would you have done it?"

Arthur scowled, "No, especially now you've told us what she's really here for. You want her for the team don't you so that we can do these inception jobs."

Eames looked up sharply.

"No. Not for the jobs, if she helps us with that then it's a bonus but you know me Arthur, I just wanted to know how far we could go." Cobb's voice was sincere but Arthur's fists remained clenched at his side.

"What, like you did with Mal?" asked a voice from the door. It was Ariadne, who'd obviously been listening since almost the beginning. She was paler than usual, freckles standing out against her cheeks. Everyone whipped around to look at her, Eames spilling cigarette ash onto the cream carpet.

"Where's Gia?" asked Arthur.

"Upstairs." Replied Ariadne, her eyes never leaving Cobb's. "What the hell were you thinking Cobb?"

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