“Coffee, please,” I told the waiter, closing the menu carefully. I didn’t listen as Dom and Arthur ordered as well. Instead I let my eyes drift around the quaint restaurant. It was all reds and browns and oranges, with a warm atmosphere, and not many people, making for a low noise level.
I touched my jeans, feeling the worn denim of them, fingers brushing across the threads. I tapped my foot against the ground and brought my hand up to my hair, running it through the ponytail.
“So are you going to tell me about this job?”
“Well, I think first it’d be wise to tell you that you’re in a dream,” Dom said plainly. I snorted.
“Yeah, okay.”
“It’s a good test to remember how you got somewhere,” Arthur told me. He leaned across the table, resting on his forearms. I tried not to make a face at him. How had I gotten to the restaurant? I knew how I should’ve gotten there, but…that didn’t seem right.
“What do you mean dream?” I asked. My heart rate picked up. A dream couldn’t be this real. I could feel the threads of my jeans, feel the cool air brushing across my skin. “This isn’t a dream.”
Arthur pointed to outside of the restaurant. I turned and peered out the window. Outside, it was as though there was a hurricane hitting. Papers whirled up and down the streets, chairs flying. But the weirdest part was the people. They were walking as though nothing was going on. My breath caught in my throat.
“Dom – “
“It’s a dream, Alexia. Just relax your mind, relax your heart rate.”
I nodded, trying to do what he said. I couldn’t take my eyes away from what was happening outside. “What’s going on? What do you mean this is a dream? Is that even possible?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” muttered Arthur. He quieted when I sent him a look. Dom took over.
“We gave you a sedative, and now you’re in my dream. When you’re in a dream, it is as though everything is real, but odd things can happen. You’ll notice, but no one else will. It’s important that you keep calm, and don’t change too much, or else they will start to notice. They being the people around. My subconscious. If you change too much at once, they’ll turn on the person changing the dream.”
“Okay, but why do you want to be in a dream?” I questioned. I rubbed my head. I didn’t even want to get into the science of getting into the dream. This was already enough to handle.
Dom accepted his drink from the waiter. “Since we are in the subconscious, this is where the most secret parts of the mind are. That’s why we do. We call it inception. We get in, and we steal secrets.”
I sipped at my coffee, letting the warmth calm me down, bring me into a state where I could think calmly. “Alright, so you do this…inception thing. And you control dreams and steal secrets…why do you need an architect?”
“To build the dreams,” Arthur answered. “Ariadne usually does that for us, but we’ve accepted a new job that needs another architect. Are you interested?”
“So in this job I…” I trailed off, still mesmerized by the dream world. “I build things? Worlds like this?”
“Basically, yes.”
“I accept.”
“Really? Just like that?”
“Well, this is kind of amazing,” I laughed. As an experiment, I focused on the table. Under my will, it twisted into a taco shape. I laughed harder. “This is so amazing. How long do we stay here?”
“Interesting you ask,” Dom said. He pulled a gun out of his jacket, and pointed it right at me. Before I could react, he fired, and I was plunged back into reality, gasping.
“What the heck,” I gasped, heart pounding. I was sitting up, leaning over, coughing. The shock was still there, the gun shot sound vibrating clearly. I turned to Dom furiously. “You shot me? Who even does that!”
“A psycho,” offered Arthur. Dom shot him a look, pulling off the wire attached to his arm. He ripped it away, then pulled the sleeve of his shirt back down.
“Unless your time runs out on the timer, killing yourself is the quickest way to get out of a dream. You kill yourself, you wake up. Pretty simple. Otherwise, you need a kick. Like this.”
To demonstrate, he kicked the back of my chair, sending me flailing backwards. Arthur caught the chair, but only after I had the breath knocked out of me. “You – “
“A kick. You feel like you’re falling, and it wakes you up. You can also use music cues to help time kicks if you’re several layers down,” Arthur added, pushing my chair upright and steadying me as I stood up shakily. My head pounded as I tried to wrap my mind around the whole idea of entering dreams.
“Several layers? You can do…a dream within a dream.”
“Alexia!”
I recognized Ariadne’s soft voice immediately. Grinning, I spun around to find her right before me, arms outstretched. I pulled her into a hug. “Ariadne! It’s been so long!”
“I see you’ve been roped into the dark side,” she joked. “I knew they were getting an architect, but I never guessed it’d be you.”
“Surprise,” I chirped. Ariadne smiled again, lighting up her round face, making her brown eyes laugh. She had always joked half heartedly that she wished she looked like me, but I had always shot her down, saying that she was beautiful, and she shouldn’t be ridiculous. I hugged her again. “I’ve missed you!”
“I’ve missed you too!” Eames crowed, wrapping his arms around the two of us. I laughed, finding the way he was outgoing endearing. “Are you joining our little team, then?”
“She is,” Arthur said before I could respond. “Our new architect. Not that you were doing badly, Ariadne.”
He smiled at her, and I quickly looked at her. She was returning the smile – slightly goofy, slightly flirty. Did they have a thing going on here? Were they dating? I’d have to ask her later. We had a lot to catch up on, evidently. She glanced at me.
“Did they explain to you what’s going to happen?”
“I’ve heard nothing.”
“Alright, let’s go to lunch.”
“I’m going too,” Arthur put in, grabbing a coat off a chair nearby. Dom shrugged, disappearing into one of the side rooms. “The usual café?”
“Of course,” Ariadne replied, pulling me out the door with her.
''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
“Alright so there’s the first level of the dream, which is where you were,” Ariadne told me, sipping her water as she spoke. “That’s basic – easy to get in to, easy to get out of. You just have a kick, or a trigger, or somebody to wake you up.”
“Right. Got it,” I nodded.
“But you can go more layers down,” Arthur added. I flicked my eyes over to him. His calm brown eyes rested on me, even as he discussed such an extraordinary thing. He spoke of the dream world as though it was something that was every day conversation. “We – myself and Eames – have only gone down three levels. Dom and Ariadne have been down to the fourth – Limbo.”
“Limbo,” I repeated. “And limbo is…”
Arthur looked to Ariadne to explain, and she quickly took over. “Limbo is like, uncreated space. If you go down there, you’re basically stuck, unless someone else comes to get you, or you can manage to get four kicks going at once. Which, of course, is near impossible.”
“Alright,” I said, tapping my fingers against the table. “So you can go down there, but it’s very dangerous.”
“So now you know that. But we’ve had a new client – a man named Richard Prince. He’s very interested in inception, and how well ideas stick – “
I held up my hands to stop her. “Wait, wait, you’ve lost me. Ideas stick?”
“Basically, you can break down an idea, and if you go far enough into the dream, and plant the idea throughout the levels, they’ll think it’s theirs, and it’ll stick in reality,” Arthur summarized. “That’s how Dom’s wife died.”
I gaped. Dom had been married? And she had an idea planted in her head? That was horrible. Ariadne touched my hand, seeing my shock. She whispered, “I’ll explain that later.” I only nodded in response. Arthur did not seem to notice.
“Richard Prince – he’s a billionaire. Famous for running a big business. He has a lot of power, and a lot of influence. He’s offered us a substantial amount to see if there’s more than what we thought, and take him with us. We’re going to try and go further than limbo. He wants to see if there’s a fifth level. And no matter what, fourth level or not, we have to plant another idea in Robert Fischer’s head. He’s a very popular man, it seems.”
“Robert Fischer,” I muttered, imagining the man’s face in my mind. That would explain his sudden change of heart with his father’s empire. “Okay. So, if getting out of limbo is almost impossible, this is going to be down right stupid.”
“Basically.”
“You could have warned me about that, you know.”
Arthur grinned. “That would’ve taken the fun out of it. We’ll be prepared. We’re assembling a bigger team.”
“Obviously,” I gestured to myself. “Who else could you possibly need?”
Arthur pondered this. “Well, we’ll get Yusef back up for the sedatives and things like that. Eames will need probably two people to help him, he’s completely hopeless. Ariadne’s got you now, and I’ll try to find another person to help Dom with the extracting. Plus, we’ll have Richard down there. I’m sure we can try and teach him something.”
Possibly three more people. It would be a crowded dream, it seems. I couldn’t help but feel excited to go back into the dream world and explore. But the fact that we were going past Limbo…or attempting it, that made me nervous. If it was so hard to get out of Limbo, it would be insanely difficult below that. I would need more experience.
“So when can we go back into the dreams, then, huh?” I asked teasingly. Ariadne laughed, and Arthur smiled. “Okay, yeah, it’s addictive.”
“Just don’t lose yourself,” Arthur warned. I raised my grey eyes to meet his dark brown orbs, which were focused on me, steady and sure. It took me a moment to respond.
“I won’t.”