Everything That Is Real (Comes Around)

Part Fifteen

            The sound of a gunshot going off made Ariadne jump. This was not like the other gunshots because the projections were outside. Arthur's eyes were wide and she turned to see Cobb on the ground clutching his leg. The projection that was managing the desk of the apartment building had changed right before their eyes. Eames fired a shot and the man went down. There was no way Cobb was going to be able to move from that spot let alone run through the second maze. Eames shouted that they needed to keep moving and went for the elevators. There was a darkness in Arthur's eyes and he did not move. Ariadne rushed over and knelt in front of the extractor.

            “Eames and Arthur both know how to do this but you need to help them,” he said as he pushed the gun into her hands. “Will you wake me up, Ariadne?” This was the first time anyone had asked her to wake them up like this. Arthur had shot her in the head plenty of times but there was never a time when she had had to shoot him. Now a gun was in her hands and Cobb was asking her to put him out of his misery because once the projections broke through there was no telling what they would do to him. She had to pull the trigger and wake him up, she had to, and her finger was hovering over the trigger when there was a single shot and Cobb fell to the ground lifeless. Ariadne looked over her shoulder and saw Arthur lowering his gun slowly.

            “Come on,” he said and she followed quickly, clutching the gun in her hands as they rode the elevator up. Arthur and Eames exited first and kept their backs to each other with their guns raised. Ariadne took Susana by the arm and they began to make their way through the maze. The projections were closing in again and they had to make it through the apartment maze. There were loops that would make it seem like they were not going as far as they thought they were. Susana seemed to be less tense here than anywhere else.

            “We need to get to that panic room. They're going to gain on us eventually,” Arthur said and she could see his eyes dart around the maze looking for any movement. This maze was different from the one in the city, it was more like the hotel that she had designed for the inception job. It was confined and felt small without a lot of room to move around in although it was really quite big.

            “How do I know you're not going to just turn on me when we get in there?” Susana asked and there was the paranoia kicking in. Arthur turned and looked at her with narrowed eyes.

            “I took a bullet trying to get you out alive. Do you really think I'd do that and then turn around and kill you?” His voice was intense, hard, and Eames cocked an eyebrow. “If you want we can leave now and we'll see how many your boy here can fight off alone.” There was an uneasy silence as Susana stared him down but Arthur did not waver.

            “Fine but don't expect anything when this is over. The way I see it, I'm doing you a favor,” she said and Ariadne could hardly contain her surprise. It made no sense that Susana was doing them as a favor as they risked their lives to protect her but Ariadne did not dwell on that.. There was no time to think on that because the door burst open and there was the sound of the projections piling in.

            “We need to get to the panic room,” Eames said to Susana. She nodded and they continued through the maze. Something did not feel right though. Ariadne was not sure what it was but something in this maze felt very wrong. She tried to catch Arthur's eye to see if he felt it too, but he was too distracted trying to keep them alive. Instead she kept her eyes open for anything that would give away what she was feeling. A swarm of projections came around the corner and the gunfire started again. Eames and Arthur took front and center as they picked away at them one by one and Ariadne fired the gun a few times, surprised by how easy it really was to hold. She guessed it had something to do with being in the dream world but when she took out a projection or two it really did not matter. Susana came to the wall that concealed the panic room, punched the code in andthe doors opened. She raced in and Ariadne followed suit as Arthur and Eames backed up slowly, trying to keep the projections at bay. A bullet pierced Eames' stomach and it sent him to the ground. Susana made a noise that sounded like surprise and Arthur knelt down in front of him.

            “Go, you idiot,” Eames said in his own voice. The doors to the panic room closed and there was a single shot outside. There were no screams and Ariadne knew that Eames must have managed to wake himself up without any problems. Now it was just the three of them in the panic room she had designed. It was about the size of a large bedroom, ten by ten, with a small bed in a corner with a phone. Ariadne noticed a small safe under the bed and her heart soared. Cobb had said that Susana would hide her secrets here because it was a safe place.

            “What are we going to do now?” Susana asked and she sounded out of breath. Ariadne glanced at Arthur and saw that he had noticed the safe as well.

            “We need something that will fend them off for now,” he said as he met Susana's eyes. Ariadne was worried; his wound was still bleeding and he looked far too pale.

            “Like what?” Susana asked and that same feeling that something was wrong settled in Ariadne's stomach.

            “Do you have something hidden that we could use? Something secret? Something that we could use against them to make them give up and go away?” Arthur asked and she nodded a few times. Susana walked over and knelt in front of the safe. She opened it easily and reached in and handed Arthur a folder.

            “Here is something about the person I think is attacking us. He is someone who wants me silenced,” she said as he took the folder.

            “Who is that?” Arthur asked.

            “Robert Fischer,” she said and he nodded as he kept that same blank face.

            “I need to watch the door; I'll let her look it over,” Arthur said and handed the folder off to Ariadne. As soon as she opened it, she committed every word she read to memory. Arthur was right; there were locations to where bodies were buried as well as other things Susana had on Fischer. It traced back to a dirty deal Browning had done just before Maurice Fischer died, a link that would ruin Robert Fischer’s new empire before it ever got off the ground.

            “Like what you see?” Susana asked and Ariadne looked up to see the barrel of a gun. Her heart skipped a few beats. “Drop your weapon, both of you.” Arthur set his gun down and raised his hands in surrender. Susana snatched the folder back and the look in her eyes was terrifying. “I had my doubts but now I'm positive.”

            “Positive about what?” Ariadne asked as she raised her own hands, surprised that she was even able to speak. Susana smirked.

            “That this is a dream and you're here to extract information from me,” she said and something happened to Arthur's posture. His jaw clenched and his muscles went rigid. “Ah, well, it doesn't matter. I'm assuming that the timer is not due to go off yet so I'll just have to improvise. My projections can't get in here, I'm sure you made it safe for a reason, so that gives me all the time in the world.”

            “To do what?” Arthur asked and his voice was low and deadly.

            “To hurt you so badly that you forget everything you read, of course,” Susana said and her smile was far too happy, far too excited, for someone who had just admitted that she was going to perform torture. Ariadne tried to hide her fear the best she could but she knew that, deep down, she did not have the resolve for the type of things that this woman was capable of. She looked up and met Arthur's eyes; he was stone cold and his face revealed nothing. She wondered if maybe he had not meant what he had said about keeping her safe, about making sure that this woman did not torture any of them, that he was going back on his word. In the blink of an eye he moved fast enough that he kicked Susana's feet from underneath her and sent the woman to the ground. He dove to the ground, picked up one of the guns and time seemed to slow down again, like when the projection had almost killed him, as he raised the gun to point at her. Ariadne wanted to scream, she wanted to tell him to stop, because anything he did would just cause this woman's rage to turn on him and he had no way of waking himself up. Arthur gave her a half smile and pulled the trigger.

            Ariadne woke with a start as she tried to slow her breathing. Eames was next to her with a hand on her arm. He said things to try and calm her down but it was the latent effect of being shot that left her breathless.

            “What happened?” Cobb asked and he glanced over at the machine that Susana and Arthur were both still hooked up to. “Why is Arthur still in there?”

            “She knew, she knew why we were there, she knew she was dreaming. I got all of the information and she said she was going to torture me so I would forget all of it,” Ariadne said as she tried to catch her breath. “Arthur, he managed to get the gun away from her to wake me up but now, now he's stuck in there alone with her.” The silence in the car was deafening before Eames rushed over and shook Arthur a few times before the motions became more violent. He seemed to be getting more and more frustrated as the point man failed to wake up before Eames slapped Arthur across the face, hard. There was a level of desperation in his movements that she had never seen in him before.

            “We have to pull the line,” Eames said as he reached for the needle in Arthur's arm but Yusuf stopped him.

            “He's the dreamer; if you do that you could drop him into limbo or worse,” the chemist said. Eames ripped his arm free.

            “I'm sure he'd rather be dead than stuck in there with a sociopath for however many hours are left on the clock. Why can't we get a kick to work?” his voice was loud now and Cobb took him by the shirt.

            “Because we had to add a relaxation component to keep Susana's subconscious from getting completely out of hand. You know that,” Cobb said. “I get that you care about him, we all do, but we can't pull the line and he's too relaxed for a kick.”

            “So he's stuck in there?” Ariadne asked as she watched Arthur sleep. His eyebrows were creased like he was in deep thought but he did not move.

            “There's an hour and twenty minutes left on the clock, how long is that in the dream?” Eames asked and no one answered. “How long?”

            “Sixteen hours,” Cobb said finally. “There are sixteen hours left in the dream before the timer goes off.” There was an uneasy silence as Eames stared down at Arthur with an intense expression on his face. Ariadne could only stare as the timer on the PASIV slowly counted down.

***

            Susana landed a sharp kick to Arthur's wounded shoulder and it was enough to knock the gun from his hands. Ariadne’s body was still on the ground and he knew that she had woken up. It was comfort enough that everyone had managed to get out without any problems. He was okay with that despite the aching in his shoulder. She knelt down next to him and tilted her head to the side as if she was confused by his actions.

            “Why would you do that? Now you're the only one I can play with,” she said and the hurt in her voice mimicked that of a child confused as to why their favorite toy was taken away. Arthur did not say a word because he knew she was going to try and get some information out of him. If he told her a few things then it might come back to her later when she was awake and there was no way he was going to risk anyone's safety just because she was going to hurt him. Susana used her foot to roll him over and stared down at him with a blank expression. “Why aren't you fighting me? Why aren't you begging?”

            “Would it do any good if I did?” Arthur asked and she grinned.

            “It's more fun that way.” Susana knelt down and looked at the wound on his shoulder. “My goodness, that does look like it hurts. You've probably lost quite a bit of blood now, haven't you?” He only stared back at her; he would not give her the pleasure of any kind of reaction. She did not seem to like this approach because she put a hand on his shoulder and leaned over him putting her entire weight on the wound. The pain that shot through his arm and down his spine was enough to take his breath away but even then he bit his tongue and tried to keep his face as blank as possible. Susana grinned as she looked down at him. “I can see in your eyes that this hurts oh so bad. I also see that you are going to try and keep silent for me. You do know what happens when you deny a lady something?” She leaned in close and the stars danced in front of his eyes from the pain. “She takes it by force.”

            “You can take whatever you want,” Arthur spit back. “But you're not getting any information out of me.”

            “Who said anything about information? I'll find out who you are up above, no problem, and I'll take care of you then. As for now, the only thing I want from you is a scream,” Susana said and he was 100% sure that this woman was serious. She was going to do whatever it took to make him scream in pain. A gun was just out of arms reach and if he could just get to it he could pull the trigger and wake up. He knew that they were trying to figure out a way to wake him up in the real world but there were few options. The relaxation medication they had added to the chemicals made it hard to get a kick and removing the needle directly came with the chance that he could fall into limbo or die. The job so far had taken them roughly eight hours and they were set to be in the dream for twenty-four. He either had to find a way to wake himself up or she was going to torture him for sixteen hours straight. Despite the blood loss and blinding pain Arthur shoved Susana aside and scrambled for one of the guns. All he needed was one second and he could be done with this. His hand was inches away when he heard the sound of another gun cocking into place behind him. “Clever, but if you even move, I'll put one in your kneecap.” He went still, the knowledge of how much that hurt a clear memory in his mind thanks to Mal. Instead of shooting him she kicked him hard in the ribs and there was the loud crack of snapping bones. She kicked him again and Arthur told himself over and over that this was okay, this was worth it, because when he finally woke up the job would be over. He was the one who had failed to cover their tracks so he had to be the one to pay the price. Not them, not any of them, because this was his fault.

            The third kick was hard enough that he coughed up a bit of blood. Arthur looked up and he could see Susana looking down at him with the gun raised, her eyes wide, and a wicked grin on her lips. She was loving every second of this and he knew she was just getting started. There were only so many options for what he could do now. He could take another bullet and try to get another gun or he could try to fight her directly. He was a trained fighter but he had no idea what to expect from her. He was also wounded so she had the upper hand no matter what he did. His shoulder ached, it hurt to breathe now, and never before in his life had he wanted to die this badly. Susana was screaming, mocking him, laughing about how there was nothing he could do. She said she was going to make him beg to be woken up and that she would not grant that request.

            He finally decided that he would not sit back and let this woman taunt him anymore. While she was busy trying to get a reaction out of him, Arthur scrambled over to one of the other guns in the room. There was a shot and the pain that hit his back was almost enough to make him black out. She had shot him, and he hesitated to give Susana the satisfaction of knowing that she had stopped him before he grabbed the gun, turned, and shot her in the stomach. Blood began to pour from the wound and she looked at him in complete shock. She clenched the wound on her stomach before she unloaded her entire round into his knees, his shoulder, anywhere she could and this time Arthur was unable to hold back the screams of pain. It was worse than anything he had ever felt before. He was bleeding to death, that was how he was going to wake up, he realized, he was going to bleed to death.

            “I'm not letting you get out of here easily,” Susana spit at him as she took both of the other pistols and locked them in her safe. She showed him that the gun she held had one bullet left. “See? I can end my pain but now you have to die slowly.” With those words she pulled the trigger and fell to the ground. The dream began to collapse around him but Arthur could not move. He tried so he could find some way of getting out before the ceiling collapsed on him. In the end, he decided it really did not matter if the dream fell apart because everything was going numb, he could not feel anything but pain, and Arthur wondered if this was what death was really like.