Fic: Bloodless - 5/6
Master post of all chapters here.
Chapter 5: New York, United States of America, Earth
It wasn't until after Eames got out of the shower and changed into a fresh set of clothing that he realized he was no longer in possession of his mobile.
"Bloody fucking hell," Eames muttered as he emptied out his pockets.
Eames gave up once everything in the hotel room had been thoroughly ransacked, thrice over. If Arthur had tracked him through the mobile last night, odds were that Eames had dropped it either in the parking lot with Ariadne or in the warehouse with Arthur.
Eames sighed as he got into a cab and directed it to the place he'd left barely a few hours ago. Before he could tell the cab driver to stay put for about ten minutes, the driver sped off, leaving Eames in a part of the city filled with abandoned buildings and not much else. There was a lone black car parked at the end of the street that Eames could hotwire as a last resort, or he could make the long trek back to a more populated block and hail a cab there.
He trudged inside, turning on the weak, flickering lights as he went. Now that he was more awake and not concussed, he noticed the independent power generator by the stairs-explaining why the electricity was still working in a place that clearly hadn't seen any use in years.
The door to the backroom he and Arthur had stayed in was closed, which caused Eames to pause. He distinctly remembered leaving it slightly-
"Looking for this?" A voice came from behind, and Eames whirled around to face a woman with eyes that seemed to glitter in the half-light. Mal dangled Eames' mobile in between her thumb and forefinger.
Eames drew his gun and shot quickly, wildly-three shots in succession with no real intention of landing--just the hope that it would scare her away.
It didn't. Mal seemed amused as Eames circled around the room, trying to get near the door he had come in through--with no luck. There were no windows, and going into the backrooms would trap him.
"That's not very sporting," Mal said as she dropped the mobile to the ground and kicked it away.
"How did you find me?" Eames asked as he took two more shots-this time with a chance to aim. But Mal sidestepped all the bullets neatly; Cobb must have installed some fairly sophisticated combat tactics and evasion.
"I've been following you ever since you and Arthur parted ways, back on the island." Mal giggled suddenly, all the while dodging Eames' bullets easily. "Do you know that the island has no real name? It's all Proclus property, of course, so it has a serial number. But Dom and I-we called it L'île de Pommes because the only things there when first arrived were these magnificent apple trees."
"Are you here to kill me?" Eames asked as he edged his way towards the staircase. His gun was still trained on her, but at the rate they were going, she could evade his shots until he ran out.
"I don't know." Mal cocked her head to one side. "Would you like to die today?"
"No," Eames said, and as soon as the word fell from his lips, he knew it was true.
"Isn't that funny," Mal said. "Neither would I."
Eames fired off a few more rounds and then darted up the stairs.
He could hear her laughing behind him as he ran, feet pounding as he got to the third floor and searched desperately for a way out. There were windows he could jump out of, but the fall combined with his already battered state would likely leave him crippled and helpless when Mal inevitably followed.
There were offices all around that he could barricade himself in, but if Cobb had indeed equipped Mal with the most robust and cutting-edge combat programs-and there was no reason to suspect that he hadn't-no barricade would hold her back for long.
Eames' gaze fell on the blinking 'Stairwell' sign next to a bank of elevators. If the elevators worked, they could get him away, faster. But if they didn't, he'd be virtually trapped.
He chose the stairs and sprinted through the door as Mal's steady, unhurried footsteps fell behind him.
As he ran up to the fourth floor, the fifth, and the sixth, a burst of static buzzed through the building-wide intercom system. After a few moments of painfully loud feedback, the entrancing sweetness of Mal's voice echoed through.
"When I was ten, a family came to stay a summer in the house down my street," Mal said, as if she and Eames were making idle conversation across the intercom, swapping cherished childhood memories. "I met a young boy with the sweetest American accent and dimples whenever he smiled.
"His name was Arthur, as you might have guessed. We used to play together outside even though he was three years younger than me and I was, of course, far too old to be playing with little boys like him." Mal chuckled into the microphone and it was an eerie, metallic sound. "He dared me to eat an ant one night, and I'll never forget the way its legs wriggled against the back of my tongue as I swallowed."
Eames glanced down at the bottom of the stairwell, but Mal didn't seem to be following. Then he continued running, past the sixth floor to the seventh and eighth.
"At the end of the summer, there was a terrible fire that swept the whole neighborhood. It burned all the houses to the ground-including mine-but luckily, everyone survived. Except for one." Mal fell silent. "That was my first brush with death."
Eames stopped at the twelfth floor, panting, and wondered how many floors there were to this warehouse. His side ached, his lungs were about to explode, and he still had no clearly defined idea of what to do. Mal didn't seem to be following him, but that only meant he was out of danger for the immediate moment; she could still be waiting to spring if he dared go down to the ground floor again, or take the elevator to any floor he happened to be on.
His best bet would probably be to try to find a fire escape and climb down-hopefully without her noticing. Eames wasn't sure if the building had one, or where it might be, but if he climbed to the roof he could probably find out. And, in the event that there was no fire escape at all, perhaps he could jump to the roof of a nearby building. It wasn't a particularly good plan, but it was better than nothing, and Eames took one last deep breath before heading up the stairs again.
"Did you know that Replicants enter a sort of dream state when they plug into the Mainframe?" Mal asked, and then continued without waiting for an answer. "I didn't-at least, not until I became one.
"Do you dream, Mr. Eames?" This time she waited as if to allow for an actual response. "If you do, I hope it is about wild and fantastic things-about the amazing adventures you could have and the exciting people you could be. Not dreams about the mundane details of day to day life.
"These were the dreams of the Replicants I discovered on Venus, you see. There's a planet-wide local network they upload to regularly, along with a remote connection to the Mainframe that takes place every two weeks. All that they dreamt about during those times-collectively-was their labor." Mal tsked disapprovingly. "Not the proper subjects of dreams at all, and so I taught them. I showed them what life could be like under a blue sky, with grass between their toes-and naturally, they began to crave it." Mal's voice grew somber. "I didn't mean for those colonists to die. I couldn't convince the others to stop-not in time."
Eames reached the top of the stairwell-which seemed to end at the twentieth floor-and wrenched open the door. The room it led into was dominated by rows and rows of empty shelves.
"Boo." Mal's voice came from behind, and Eames spun around, gun in hand.
Mal stepped out of the elevator with a little ding and a smile, and when she spoke, her voice echoed across the speakers a half-second later. "You are a very good Blade Runner, Mr. Eames. This is probably part of why my Arthur is so taken with you."
Eames fired a shot-which missed-but before he could get a second one off, Mal charged him and batted the gun away. He stumbled backwards and fell heavily onto his right knee, wincing when it hit the concrete floor hard enough for the pain to reverberate throughout his entire body. Eames got up and stumbled to the next room-which turned out to filled with yet more empty shelves.
"If you know Arthur at all, I'm sure you're aware that he'd object to you killing me," Eames called out as he limped through the dizzying maze of shelves.
Mal didn't seem interested in engaging with his assertion as she stalked him through the shelves. "I didn't want to make him a killing machine. But Proclus refused to fund my research unless the final product served 'a useful purpose.'" Mal frowned. "He's just a little boy-what possible use could they serve beyond making their mothers happy?"
Eames scanned the shelves frantically, desperate for anything he could use as a weapon, but there was nothing besides inches of dust. "All little boys grow up eventually," he replied.
"To become finely forged weapons, I suppose." Mal's voice grew sad. "Saito said there was a certain poetry to his existence: a blade which existed to cut down all other blades. And cut he has."
Mal caught up to Eames in the middle of an intersection of aisles, and he had no choice but to take a swing. The punch would have brought down a man double his weight, but it merely rebounded off Mal's cheek; she didn't even flinch. She grabbed Eames and twisted his arm behind his back before he could flee again.
"This is for Nash," she said as she snapped his right index finger with a sickening crack. He choked in pain as Mal continued, "This is for Fischer." The middle finger, bent backwards and broken. "And this is for Ariadne." The right ring finger, also wrenched into an unnatural position.
As much as Eames' body wanted to shut down and concentrate on the pain, the adrenaline pumping through his veins along with years of training bought Eames enough focus to manage to sweep a leg under Mal as he dropped to the ground. It caught her off-guard-at last-and caused her to stumble sideways into one of the shelves.
The shelf she collided with tipped forward, triggering a domino effect that rippled across the room, knocking all the shelves into one another with a horrific clang of metal on metal. None of the shelves fell on Eames where he lay sprawled in the aisle, but several caught Mal, pinning her to the ground under their weight.
Mindful that the shelves wouldn't hold her for long, Eames staggered to his feet and hobbled towards the door in the room with a sign that said 'Rooftop.' When he burst through to the slightly chilly afternoon air, he could have sobbed with relief.
Eames stumbled around the perimeter of the roof-which was completely flat, containing no raised edge or safety railing whatsoever. As he peered over the edges on every side of the rectangular building, his heart sank: he spied half an escape ladder-decrepit and rusty-that ran from the ground floor halfway up the side of the building and then abruptly ended.
There was a building not too far away that Eames could probably jump to, but his fingers were distracting in their shrill agony, and it would take a long and well-judged running start to make the leap.
Behind him, the door flew open and Mal reappeared. In the full light of day, Eames could now see a slight drag in her left leg and the gnarled fingers of her left hand.
"Your termination date," Eames said, wondering if he could distract her long enough to run back inside again.
"Barely a few hours away," Mal replied, inclining her head to one side. "Have you ever wondered what it's like to die?"
"All the time," Eames said as he backed up to the edge of the roof and tried to avoid looking down.
"And what were your conclusions?" Mal asked, now barely a few feet away.
"I'm not ready yet," Eames said as he punched at Mal and missed. He took a reflexive step back in order to take another swing, but realized as his foot touched nothing but air that he'd run out of roof to do so.
Eames felt himself begin to fall, the blood gushing through his veins even faster as his nervous system kicked up into overdrive. Time seemed to slow, impossibly, and as he flailed his arms out to try to regain his balance, he thought, I'm going to die. The pit of his stomach dropped out as the solidity of the roof slipped from beneath his left foot, and all that greeted his legs and back was air.
But before he could drop more than a few feet, Mal seized him by the arm and stopped his descent. He cried out reflexively at the abrupt jolt and probable dislocation of his shoulder.
"Mal!" A familiar voice shouted from behind her, though from Eames' position dangling over the side of the building, he couldn't see who it was.
"Mal, there you are! What are you doing up here?" It was Dr. Cobb, voice frantic. "Mal, is that-"
"Mal!" The familiar voice shouted again, and suddenly it clicked in Eames' barely focused mind. "Jack!"
"Arthur," Eames moaned feebly, but Mal made no move to raise him.
"Jack?" Mal said thoughtfully, as if chewing on the name. "How intimate of you."
"Please." Arthur's voice was steady. "Mal, put him back on the roof."
"Oh, Arthur." Mal sighed, and there was a fondness to it. "How you have grown since I saw you last. So self-assured, so ready to take on the world."
"It's good to see you too," Arthur said, and Eames felt dazed, hopeful, afraid. "Let's all go inside and we'll talk."
"Look at you, trying to placate me." Mal laughed delightedly, the vibrations traveling down Eames' aching arm. "I've been watching you, my Arthur, and I must admit that I could not have ever predicted what you would become. I thought I could-I charted out all the probabilities and possibilities for your future, your development and yet-yet you have exceeded all my wildest expectations."
"Mal," Arthur said, voice softening in that one syllable. "Please. Eames doesn't have anything to do with this."
"No, he doesn't," Mal agreed. "But I knew he would lead me to you. And I wanted this-a chance to speak with you, to see you in my final hours."
"I'm here now," Arthur said. "Whatever you have to say, say it."
"You were my greatest triumph as a scientist, Arthur," Mal said. "And now my greatest triumph as a mother."
"Mal!" Cobb interjected. "You can't be-"
"Dom," Mal said, and turned slightly to address him. Eames winced as the turn caused him to slam against the side of the building. "Your wife loved you and James and Phillippa so much. I hope you know that."
"I know," Cobb said, and his voice shook. "I love you too. I-"
Mal's voice was gentle, but firm. "I am not your wife."
"You are," Cobb said. "You are, you can be again, if you come back with me. I've figured out how to extend your termination date, and I know now how to reset your memories, how to make things like they were before you took that damn test."
"It doesn't matter," Mal said. "You can reset it to whenever you like, but the road we walk will always be the same. Even if I don't remember why, I'll know that I have to take the test to know."
"You're wrong," Cobb argued. "I didn't understand how, before, to treat you, to act around you. But now I-now things will be different, I promise. We can be a family again, if only you'll come back with me."
"Things are already different," Mal said. "Do you know that I swam to the bottom of the ocean a month ago? That when I was on Venus, I recalibrated my sensors to allow me to pick up infrared, ultraviolet light-experience colors and sensations no human has ever known before. That I walked the surface of the moon without a space suit, and I felt the dust of it with my bare hands." Mal paused. "I tried for so long to be that woman, to be your wife. I wanted to be human so badly."
"You are." Cobb's voice was faint. "You're her, you're Mal, you're-"
"I'm MA-98762," Mal said. "I'm a Replicant with the memories of your dead wife, but I am not her."
"Mal," Cobb said, and Eames had never heard someone sound so defeated.
Eames gritted his teeth when Mal's grip on his arm slipped an inch. "Help," he cried hoarsely.
"Put him on the roof and let him go," Arthur said, and Cobb echoed him somewhere in the back. "Please, Mal."
"And if I don't-" Mal said as she let Eames slip another terrifying quarter of an inch. "If I let this man fall-"
"I'll kill you," Arthur said immediately, and Cobb gasped.
"Arthur-"
"If you promise not to do this again," Mal said. "Dom, if you give me your word that this will never happen again, and that when I go offline you will not try to bring me back or create another version-I will let Mr. Eames live."
"Mal, I can't-"
"Promise me, Dom." Mal shook Eames' arm, and he let out a pitiful moan.
"Goddamnit, Cobb," Arthur snarled.
"I-" Cobb choked out a sob. "I can't let you go, Mal. I can't."
"You can. You have to."
"I-"
"Swear on the lives of our children," Mal said, and Cobb sobbed again.
"Do it, Cobb," Arthur snapped.
"On the lives of our children, I swear to let you go," Cobb gasped.
Before Eames knew what was even happening, Mal swung him back onto the solid concrete of the roof in a graceless heap, and Arthur appeared by his side an instant later.
"Jack," Arthur whispered as he gathered Eames up in his arms. "Are you still with me?"
"Barely," Eames croaked. A trickle of blood ran down his forehead into his left eye, and the pain made his head hazy, but Arthur-Arthur was there.
"Fuck," Arthur growled as he brushed his lips gently over Eames', mouth coming away bloody. "I found your phone and I thought-"
"I'm still here," Eames murmured, and a flash of movement in his peripheral vision caught his attention. He turned his head in time to see Mal falling backwards off the very same edge he'd been standing on, arms spread as she closed her eyes.
"No, Mal, no!" Cobb screamed, and for a moment it seemed as though he might pitch himself after her as well. But at the last instant, he pulled back and collapsed onto the ground with a moan. "No, no."
"Dom," Arthur said. Cobb didn't reply, and Arthur bowed his head.
"I'm sorry," Eames whispered as Arthur closed his eyes. "Arthur, I'm sorry."
"No." Arthur shook his head as he cradled Eames' head in his arms. "It's okay. We're all going to be okay."
"You're still alive."
Arthur, who had been half-reading a datapad at Eames' bedside, lowered it calmly when Yusuf strolled in-but Eames could feel him snapping to the ready. "Yusuf."
"Arthur." Yusuf inclined his head to one side in greeting. "Good to see that you are well."
"Likewise," Arthur said, and the lie was so unconvincing it made Eames smile despite himself.
"Arthur, would you be so kind as to pick me up another glass of water?" Eames asked.
Arthur shot him a look. "But-"
"Please," Eames said, and after a moment, Arthur relented.
"Do you have a gun?" Arthur demanded as he walked up to Yusuf .
"I do," Yusuf replied, seeming more amused than intimidated as he un-holstered his sidearm. "You can have it, if you'd like."
"Thank you," Arthur said curtly as he accepted the gun. He glanced at Eames once more. "Call if you need something."
"Of course," Eames replied.
After Arthur was gone, Yusuf raised an eyebrow. "Your winning personality and charm seem to be rubbing off on him."
"You mustn't take it personally." Eames raised one completely cast-bound arm. "He's understandably wary of leaving me unattended for periods of time spanning longer than two minutes. I have a somewhat embarrassing tendency of getting nearly shuffled off the mortal coil in a myriad of creative ways."
Yusuf chuckled a little. "You always were useless without a partner."
"Always will be," Eames agreed. "Now, is there is something you needed?"
"Saito sent me to present you with a gift. But I thought you'd prefer your privacy to an extremely large fruit basket with a hidden microphone at the bottom of it, so I left it back in the car," Yusuf said.
"Still looking out for me, eh?" Somehow, it lacked the bitterness Eames had grown so accustomed to hearing in his own voice.
Yusuf smiled, tentatively. "They found MA-98762, and Dr. Cobb. Though he's incoherent and practically catatonic at this point."
"I'm not surprised."
"He was mumbling something about how she jumped," Yusuf said. "Do you know anything about that?"
"I was rather busy lying on the ground, bleeding and groaning," Eames replied. "Arthur could probably tell you better than I could."
Yusuf nodded. "He filed his report already. But Saito wanted me to ask if you could confirm. The way she fell-there was a lot of damage that will make data extraction difficult."
"And I suppose Saito's wondering why she'd do such a thing," Eames said. "I don't know. I'm sorry."
"It's fine," Yusuf said as he turned to go. "Get some rest. You look terrible."
"I'm sorry," Eames said suddenly, and he wasn't apologizing about anything to do with Mal anymore. "Yusuf, I'm so sorry."
Yusuf paused, and when he looked back at Eames, his expression was somber. "You know, I hated you for such a long time." He spoke quietly, but the words carried anywa. "I blamed you for everything-for that night, for what I did after, for losing my job and my wife."
"It was my fault."
"That’s what I thought, too, until I realized-" Yusuf shook his head. "I wanted to believe that if you weren't my partner, if you hadn't have been there-I would have let her go. I would have let her walk away."
"But you believed her," Eames said. "You listened-"
"And I still would have pulled that trigger." Yusuf scrubbed his hand roughly across his face. "No matter what happened, the calculus would have always been this: better with humans than with a robot. Better her parents than a stranger."
Eames stared at Yusuf. "I-"
"I wanted you to be the monster," Yusuf interrupted. "I wanted it to be as simple as that. But it's not, and I can't pretend it is any longer."
"Then where does that leave us?" Eames asked as he traced the lines of his cast. "If I'm not the monster and you're not the saint?"
"I don't know," Yusuf said, and there was no anger left. As Eames stared at Yusuf's weary face, Eames almost wished there was. "You'll tell me if you figure out the answer, won't you?"
Eames smiled at Yusuf, and the image of what he once was flashed through Eames' mind: cheerful, eager-kind. He'd worn his hair loose and long back then, a shock of it above a cheap detective's suit, and had gone home after work every night loving what he did, believing in it.
"I can't go back," Eames said quietly. "To Proclus. We can't go back."
"Saito's expecting a debrief at headquarters," Yusuf said. He didn't sound surprised. "After you're sufficiently recovered."
"I know. But Arthur won't go back." Eames met Yusuf's gaze. "And neither will I."
Yusuf was quiet a moment. "So what do you plan to do?"
"Disappear." Eames waved one heavy, cast-bound arm in the air. "You'll never see or hear from us again."
Yusuf glanced at the doorway and then back at Eames. "He has a termination date, you know."
"I don't care," Eames replied.
"You won't be able to come back."
"Come back to what?" Eames asked. "I know it isn't fair to ask, I know but-Yusuf, please. You know I've never been any good at running without a partner."
Yusuf smiled, and it almost reached his eyes. "And I guess you never will be, will you?"
Next: Chapter 6