Everything That Is Real (Comes Around)

Part Eight

            Arthur was much calmer now than he had been the night before. It was a different kind of calm though. It was like the calm he felt when he knew something was going to work out the way it was supposed to. It was like the calm he felt when a job was over and all that was left was covering their tracks and collecting his money. This was far from relaxation but more of a feeling that he had work to do and he was going to do it. He got back to the hotel and picked up his car. The drive around LA was more of a way for him to clear his head and come up with an idea than actually going anywhere. Arthur needed to get into Susana's home and not only find out if she even had a panic room but to get some details to Ariadne and the dreamer whoever that was going to be. He had a feeling it was going to be him since Cobb had to extract, Eames was playing the part of the body guard, Yusuf would be the outside contractor and Ariadne—he honestly had no idea if she was going to stick around after the levels were built.

            He stopped in front of her apartment building and looked up. She was on the top floor, of course, and she owned the entire thing. That meant they could actually build a believable maze within her apartment; a maze within a maze. The details, however, were going to be the hard part. Arthur needed to find a way inside those doors and either take tons of picture or record the entire thing. She lived there full time and had no plans to rent it out or take a vacation anytime soon. The only thing he could think of was bribing the maid but that was too risky. There had to be some excuse he could use that would make a paranoid person like Susana Mitchell open her doors and let him walk inside. Even that was too risky; if she saw him before the mission, how were they going to drug her and do the actual extraction when she might recognize him inside the dream?

            Arthur parked his car down the street and contemplated. There had to be some little detail that was going to make this much easier than he thought it was going to be. She had a security system, he knew that, so breaking in was out of the question, plus he liked to think he had a bit more class than that. There was a mention in the notes that she had cameras throughout the entire apartment but even then they would not be the best quality for details and that was what they needed: details. His mind fell back to bribing the maid again but there had to be some other way. He was in the park across the street from her building thinking about it when someone sat down next to him. He tensed for only a moment before he realized it was Cobb. Cobb had been furious the last time Arthur had seen him and for him to just come out like this made little sense. Instinctively Arthur reached for his die.

            “Calm down, it's really me,” Cobb said just as Arthur clenched his fist around his die. “What do you think you're going to do?”

            “I haven't decided yet. I know there is some easy way to get into that building and see her apartment but I just can't figure out what it is,” he said.

            “You'll figure it out,” Cobb said before there was a brief pause. “That wasn't entirely what I was talking about either.”

            “If you're going to hit me just get it over with. I need to think,” Arthur said in a low voice.

            “I'm not going to hit you. I feel like I should but Eames took care of that for me. What you said to her, though, that's cold even for you. How much of it did you actually mean?” Cobb asked.

            “Look, it was happening anyway. The same thing happened with you and Mal, you just never saw it but she did. I don't trust people, I've never trusted anyone and there is only so much half trust someone can take before it's just too much. You never noticed because you were too distracted by Mal and getting home,” Arthur said before standing. “It's done, it's over with, and I don't want to talk about it anymore so unless you have something constructive to say about the job let me get back to my work.”

            “How did you take care of Walter?” Cobb asked after a long pause. In his mind Arthur pictured himself staring down the barrel of a gun, of Walter laughing, the sound of himself basically signing his own death certificate and the overwhelming sensation that he really did not care.

            “I took care of it; that's all you need to know,” he said before he walked away leaving Cobb sitting on the bench in the park. Arthur wondered if he was subconsciously suicidal. Was it noble to walk in front of the firing squad if it meant someone else not getting hurt? Whether it was nobility or stupidity did not really matter. Either way he was not backing down and letting that man hurt anyone else. He was at the base of the apartment building looking up.

            “Pretty impressive building. right?” the doorman said giving Arthur a warm smile.

            “Yeah, I've never seen anything quite like it,” he replied.

            “Some big fish lives here and it's completely worth it. You should see the inside of some of these apartments,” the doorman said.

            “I really would like to,” Arthur said as he looked up at the top of the building again. “Are there any available that I can look around?” The doorman's smile faded.

            “No, there aren't, but you can put in a request for a digital tour,” he said and Arthur creased his eyebrows.

            “What do you mean?” he asked and the doorman shrugged.

            “Some of these people like showing off and if you have the right credentials the building makes a digital tour of the apartment. How hard it is to get in depends on who you want to see. It's not exactly something the owners like to showcase but you look like someone who would fit in well here,” the man said before he scoffed. “Aside from the fact that you seem to have manners.”

            “I'll take that as a compliment. In that case I'll look into it; thanks for the information,” Arthur said before he turned and walked away from the building. Credentials were Eames' specialty; it was just a matter of the forger actually agreeing to help. He walked across the road and climbed into his car and for just a moment, shut the rest of the world out. There was nothing around him and nothing expected; all he had to do was whatever he wanted to do. It was liberating and he loved the feeling until he opened his eyes. Arthur reached into his pocket and held his die up to the sun, the beams shinning through the red plastic. This was his only anchor to the real world now. There was no one else that was a constant reminder that this imperfect world was the only one. That the dreams, no matter how calming they may be, did not matter because when the timer ran out he was back in this world. This was the reality he had come to accept with Ariadne expressing the truth: trusting someone in a dream is easy but in real life it's much harder. And he was not willing to work for it.

            Putting the die away Arthur drove the car across the city. He enjoyed being away from the ugly stares of those in his team. He was the bad guy now, the one that would be singled out, and it did not bother him at all. These people meant nothing to him, and once this job was over, he'd simply move from place to place, wherever the work took him, and not look back. The sound of his phone ringing made Arthur blink a few times. It was illegal to talk on the phone and drive in LA so he pulled over to the side of the road. The words 'unknown name unknown number' flashed and he could only assume who it was.

            “Hello?”

            “Fischer wants to meet you for dinner tonight,” Walter said in a low voice. “I'll send you the place and time. He wants to meet more than one of you though so bring some bodies out in the open; I promise I won't shoot.”

            “I know you won't,” Arthur said before he hung up. Moments later a message flashed revealing a restaurant in Santa Monica called JiRaffe. He closed his phone and drove back to the office building. When he opened the door everyone turned and looked at him before instantly looking away. Not wanting to deal with it, Arthur walked over to Cobb but did not keep his voice down. “Walter called. Fischer wants to meet us.” That seemed to get everyone's attention.

            “You're not planning on going to this one alone too, are you?” Eames said his eyes dark. Arthur only glanced at him for a moment before he turned back to Cobb.

            “He asked for both of us by name so I'm assuming he wants to meet both of us,” he said and Cobb nodded.

            “That would make sense. Maybe we should take someone else with us.” He glanced at Eames.

            “Eames has work to do,” Arthur said and he narrowed his eyes.

            “Aside from trying to tail Susana's bodyguard without him knowing?” Eames asked sounding annoyed.

            “Yes. The building where Susana lives is one of the best in the city and they like showing it off without true invasion of privacy. If we can get the right credentials we can get a virtual tour of her home with no risk to us directly,” Arthur said as he caught Eames' gaze and held it. It was just like any other time they didn’t see eye to eye, a staring contest as they sized each other up. They had known each other for years and it still happened every single time there was a disagreement no matter how small.

            “I suppose I have my work cut out for me, don't I?” he said sitting back in his chair. Arthur was a moron when it came to social situations, he was the first to admit it, but even he could feel the tension in the room.

            “Dinner is at seven but the drive to Santa Monica will be long because of traffic. We should leave an hour early if possible,” Arthur said before he walked over to his desk and went back to work. There was an uneasy silence before everyone went back to what they were doing. It was even worse when he asked Ariadne if she could build a maze within a maze. She mumbled something under her breath and he left her alone. There was still so much he had to do and find out. As much as he did not want to admit it, and he was sure Eames did not either, they would have to work together to get close to Susana. Arthur had to find a way to get Eames close and Eames had to stay hidden without drawing any attention to himself but still be close enough to adopt mannerisms. It was going to be a thin line to cross and one he had a feeling he would have to walk with the forger.

            Cobb left early to go home and change because the place they were going to was apparently fairly classy. Arthur knew he did not need to change but went toward the bathroom in the corner anyway to clean himself up a bit. In the mirror he saw the door open and Eames came in, watching him with dead eyes.

            “We're going to have to work together,” he said.

            “I know,” Arthur replied without looking away.

            “I should kick your ass four times to next Wednesday but I suppose that can wait until the job is over,” he said and Arthur smiled to himself as he looked down at the sink.

            “I guess you will,” he said before he smoothed out his hair and brushed by Eames. Ariadne looked up from her work and he met her eyes for only a moment. There was pain behind those eyes, pain that he had caused and that knowledge made him look away because she could not distract him anymore. Not now. Arthur closed the door behind him and went down the stairs to wait outside for Cobb.

***

            Ariadne sat in silence at her work station. She resented Arthur to an extreme extent but there was something behind his eyes that was surprising. They were hard and distant but for half a second she thought she saw something else behind them. It made her chest ache a little and she looked down at her hands trying to calm her breathing. Eames returned to the room and began to look over his own folder in silence. He appeared to be focused which was odd considering how he normally worked. The three of them discussed the job for a little while. Ariadne went over the mazes she was designing with both of them despite the fact that Yusuf would not be going into the dream. She wanted his input though. Now that Mal was under control there was no need to keep people in the dark about the designs. In fact she thought it was better if they all knew the mazes well. Arthur had mentioned a maze within a maze which was an interesting concept she had not thought of. It would be complicated and that was all the more reason for everyone to have it memorized; it would be easy to get lost.

            The three of them went out to dinner early. Yusuf told her stories about his childhood in India and the time he spent in Africa. He had seen parts of the world she had never even considered exploring and the more he described it the more she wanted to go see it. Ariadne made mental notes of all of the different places she was going to explore when this entire thing was behind her. After the job for Fischer she was going to explore the world. She was an architect and she needed to see different places to create new places. After a long dinner Yusuf told her that he hoped she was feeling better before he headed back to the hotel. Eames asked her if she wanted to go back, since he was her ride, but she declined and said she wanted to get more work done. He groaned and when she asked why he said it was because she reminded him of all the work he needed to get done.

            They went back to the office space and Ariadne dove back into her maze. The idea of a maze within a maze was fascinating to her and she wanted to explore it further. She could not figure out why she had not thought about that before. They could do dreams within dreams; what was stopping them from creating a design that could fit essentially two levels into one? She was about halfway through trying to piece it together when Eames cleared his threat. Ariadne looked up from her work.

            “Yes, Eames? What do you need?” she asked and he smiled at her before moving from his desk to hers.

            “I really just wanted see if you were okay, that's all,” he replied and she looked at him, not buying it for even a moment. “All right, all right, I have other motives. I need to run something by you.”

            “All right, shoot,” Ariadne said standing up straight so she was not leaning over her maze anymore.

            “Between you and me we probably have a pretty good grasp on Arthur's mentality, right?” Eames asked and she groaned; she really did not want to talk about him anymore.

            “Can we just drop the topic? I understand you're worried about me but--”

            “It's not you I'm worried about,” he said interrupting her. “Well, that's not entirely true, I am worried about you too, but there are varying degrees of worry. Right now I have nothing to back up my theory but a hunch.”

            “Your hunches are usually pretty on the money,” Ariadne said trying to catch his eyes. “What are you thinking?”

            “Arthur said he 'took care' of the situation with Walter. You've met the man, does he really seem like the type that would just back off?” Eames asked and she shook her head. “Yeah, I feel the same way. I confronted our resident bastard over there to tell him how much I wanted to kick his ass but that it would have to wait until after the job. He didn't flinch or anything but he looked down at his hands and smiled. It wasn't an amused smile or anything; it looked a smile from someone who was already defeated.”

            “You mean he gave up and that made Walter back off?” Ariadne said but Eames shook his head and crossed his arms tightly across his chest.

            “I can't be sure, and I'm going to try and get the truth out of him, believe you me, but I think he didn't really 'give up' but more like 'surrendered.' If Walter backs down from us then after the job Arthur is going to confront him. And he's going to go into that confrontation expecting to die.” The words made her blood run cold. Arthur had shut himself off to all of them in mere hours and seemed to be getting further away by the second. The research he could have easily done from his computer he did outside and in person. “Now, this is just a hunch and believe me there is hardly anyone in the world harder to read than Arthur. I could be completely wrong about this, he's pretty self righteous but hardly suicidal, maybe he just found some leverage over this guy and just didn't want to tell us the details because the situation is so unstable. I don't know but I'm going to get it out of him before we go into the dream. I can promise you that.” Ariadne nodded and probably said something that made Eames pat her shoulder and walk away. That familiar vise clenched her chest and all she could do was repeat to herself over and over again that Arthur was not that stupid.