Disclaimer: Inception does not belong to me. All readers and reviews appreciated, thank you.
"So you have everything in place?"
"Oh yes, everything."
Fischer smiled and tapped his long fingers on the desk. "Well, I'm hopeful he'll be easy to break."
"What have you been doing with him?"
"Keeping him on a 1000 calories a day."
"That's effectively starvation."
"Greenwood...its effective, trust me."
"It will be. Put him in a room with food in it, and he'll be lost."
"Thats the idea."
The psychiatrist chuckled down the phone, the compression making the sound abrasive. "So your idea is this - get him weak, get him to lose control, get him to go into Browning's head, and then-?"
"He'll give me the information I need to get rid of Browning," Fischer said, smoothly. "After that, he's not my problem. He's yours. Until I need him again."
"What about the others?"
"I don't think we'll have a problem with them." Fischer's tone was dismissive. "They will find him, at your clinic. But then, they'll cease to care."
"How so?"
"Because," Fischer said quietly, "I'm planning a small inception myself. If Dom Cobb can pull off trying to get me to sink my father's empire, I can implant 'I must lose my bulimic, unstable Point Man.'"
Greenwood fell silent for a minute. "How are you going to achieve that?"
"Its very simple. Arthur will be implanting it himself."
"Robert." Greenwood's tone was uneasy. "I've gone along with this, so far. I did with Saito. What are you to trying to achieve."
"The ultimate corporate weapon," Fischer countered, his tone still light and smooth. "Someone who can implant and extract ideas. And who is totally controllable. We use his illness to keep him compliant."
"Anything else?"
Fischer smiled before answering. "I found an old friend of his. She's very willing to help out."
Arthur's eyelids fluttered as he awoke, pulling the covers of the bed closer to him. As he did so, a chill hit his exposed back and legs. Blinking, he began to sit up, and focus.
The room was cold. Shivering, he began to pull the covers back over him, and turned. As he did so, he gently struck something lying in the bed next to him.
A woman.
In the dim light, he began to focus. Swallowing, he turned back, feeling a heavy weight starting to settle in his stomach. He did not remember anything.
She purred, a mane of dark hair spread out on the pillow. Frantically, he reached for his totem, left on the side of the bed.
Perfect weight. Before he could move again, her arm reached out, and grabbed him around his waist, pulling him close. He acquiesced, feeling exhaustion spread through his limbs. Closing his eyes, he leaned against her.
"Ari..." he whispered.
Listening to him, Allie's lips curved in an amused smile. She leaned over and kissed his forehead. "That's right, baby," she whispered.
She shrugged her shoulders. Arthur was too easy. She'd left him lying on the bed asleep, until she'd been called by Fischer.
"How is he?"
"Asleep," she said, nonchalantly. "Thinks he's in heaven." She sat down on the bed.
"Go back, get into bed with him."
"Are you serious?"
"Make him think you've had sex with him." Fischer's voice was low.
She chuckled. "Trust me, I can do that."
Eames looked at Cobb. "Are you sure about this?"
"I need you to do this for me." Cobb's voice sounded calmer than he felt. "Its been over a week. Nothing. I need you to-"
"Infiltrate Fischer's Empire." Eames sighed. "All right, I'll do it." He looked at the Extractor. "Do you think it was this job originally which tipped him over the edge?"
Cobb rubbed his face. "I have no idea, Eames. I don't know if it was the Fischer job, or him getting rejected in College, or not being asked to the Prom. I don't know. Thats whats coming home to me right now - we don't know him. We went into his mind, and implanted thoughts. Implanted thoughts when we didn't know the background to his life. I need you to see where he is."
"And then what?" Eames looked at him. "What do we do then?"
"We take him back." Cobb's voice was firm. "For treatment, for help. But we take him back."