On the Wings of an Angel (Part One)
On the Wings of an Angel (Part One)
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On the Wings of an Angel
text by phoenix.writing
illustrations by creepylicious
Part One
Arthur had watched the news broadcast that showed Fischer breaking up his company, and he'd sent the link to everyone else.
Eames had made a snide comment about Arthur not trusting the rest of them, and Arthur had reminded himself that the removal of personal interaction thanks to e-mail meant that he was not going to give in to his first impulse to snap back.
This was probably just as well, really, because it would have made it harder to explain why the two of them were now doing a job together. Why, technically, Arthur had invited Eames to join him on the job. Eames liked to remind him of this fact. Arthur liked to shoot Eames pointed glares and not rise to his bait, just think of really creative ways that he could kill the other man in dreams.
Arthur didn't feel that guilty about Eames; Eames could take care of himself. Ariadne, on the other hand, was still brand new.
But she was her own person, and they'd needed an architect after the last one had up and left. Even with the insanity of the Fischer job-or perhaps because of it-Ariadne had not lost the drive to dream, and Arthur had been pretty sure that she simply would have found a job on her own if they hadn't involved her.
Now, however, he wished that he had cut off all contact with her after the Fischer job and had left her to have her own life, had left her like they had left Dom.
He had briefly thought about calling the man, he had, but it was still too soon after he had been reunited with James and Phillipa, and Arthur had been determined not to mess with that. (Besides, Marie had asked Arthur to stay away for a while, to give the kids a chance to get used to their dad being around and the one they could depend on, and Arthur could respect that. If there was a little part of him that felt as though he was losing his babies, well, it only went to show that he'd gotten too attached. They'd never been his kids.)
Of course, if Dom had been here, they would have made a full team and could have worked out a job on their own.
Instead, they'd teamed up with an unknown extractor and an architect, a fact which hadn't seemed disastrous until this particular moment.
Because now, Eames was missing-not killed but dragged off by subcons-Arthur was bleeding from a shot to the arm where he'd shielded Ariadne, and none of them had the slightest idea what was really going on-apart from the fact that their extractor appeared to have betrayed them, and they were pinned down by militarised subcons.
Arthur spared a brief moment to be mildly impressed with whoever had done their intel; he had been fooled into thinking that this job was straightforward, and he had not found evidence quickly enough that this was not the case.
Arthur shrugged out of his suit jacket and wrapped a long strip of fabric around his wound, tightening it painfully but hopefully enough to stop the bleeding. Ariadne was covering him, and he was rather relieved that he had been giving her that training, though he sort of wished it wasn't necessary.
He knew that there weren't that many years between them, but he couldn't help but still view her as a young adult. She lacked the experience that had honed him-and there were some events in his past that he hoped that she would never have to experience.
He got the suit jacket back on, tested the mobility of his arm and decided that it would have to do.
"We need to find Eames."
"Agreed."
She looked pale but very determined, and he wondered if the lure of the architecture was going to be enough to keep her in the business.
They hadn't had a single job just go right since she had started.
"We're going to have to be quiet and unobtrusive."
She rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Arthur, I might not be the point man, but I get how this is done."
"We're in a militarised subconscious without adequate equipment or weaponry, and if we garner someone's attention before we find Eames, this could be the end of it. I just don't want you to do anything clever."
He thought all he was going to do was offend her, but the hardness in her eyes softened and she reached out to squeeze his good arm.
"We're going to find him, Arthur, don't worry."
Arthur nearly opened his mouth to tell her that that wasn't the point he had been trying to make at all but realised that that would not speed along their progress.
They did need to find Eames, and they had been forced to run for it after Eames had been captured because there had simply been too many projections.
Recon was one of Arthur's especial skills, though, and while Ariadne was nowhere up to his level, she was very bright and quite dedicated once she had settled on a plan.
She crept after him to the best of her abilities, carefully following where he led.
They needed to find Eames, and they needed to get him out of here, and they weren't going to be able to do that if they drew too much attention to themselves.
Fortunately, Arthur was altogether capable of tracking, and the projections weren't being that careful. They'd been militarised, clearly, but definitely not for stealth.
Arthur found his temper rising as he began to spot drops and smears of blood. It made it easier to track, but Arthur was not pleased with what it indicated.
He pushed the worry into a small corner of his mind, compartmentalising and letting the emotion fade away because he needed to concentrate right now.
He was glad that he was creeping forward cautiously; had he been progressing any less prudently, he would have walked right into a line of subcons. They were protecting a warehouse which was large and dark and pretty clearly their destination.
Arthur didn't think he would like any of the reasons why they would be taking Eames into a warehouse, but he wasn't thinking about that, either.
He shushed Ariadne with a finger to her lips when she started to question him-albeit quietly-and then eyed the area, scanning for weaknesses.
Ariadne had designed the level, but they now knew they didn't have enough information about the person who was dreaming it or the changes that he may have made.
At first glance, it was the perfect choice. There were no ladders, doors, or other visible points of entry that were not the main entrance clearly guarded by too many subcons. There was a small chance that they could fight their way through, but they didn't know what they would find inside, and Arthur wasn't about to risk Eames on such a gamble.
They needed to see inside. There were very small windows very high up the building's walls.
He led Ariadne on a carefully silent, twisting route round to the other side of the building and finally found what he was looking for.
He eyed the distance between the two buildings critically, eyed Ariadne, and frowned at his mental calculations.
Well, first thing's first.
He retreated several blocks, looping around to the back of the adjacent building as far away from the guarding subcons as possible. There were patrols, too, and he and Ariadne couldn't be too careful.
This building had a ladder that led to the roof, and Arthur and Ariadne climbed it hurriedly before sneaking across the roof until they were standing as close to the guarded building as possible.
"Are you insane?" Ariadne hissed.
He shook his head in a slight but definite negation, already slipping out of his shoes and socks. While he made some modification to his dress shoes in every dream to ensure that he had especially good traction, he needed to do this as quietly as possible.
"I can look through the window from the roof and assess the situation."
"You can't-"
"Wait here."
He didn't give her further chance to argue, just withdrew far enough to give himself a good running lead and then vaulted from one roof to the other, turning the landing into a roll that broke his impact and kept it as quiet as possible.
Looking back, he could see that Ariadne was gaping at him in absolute shock. He offered her a small wave to show her that he was all right and then climbed over the edge of the building, hanging from the only vantage point that allowed him to see the interior of the building.
(Eames always made snide remarks about his upper body strength; if only he knew. The shot arm ached a bit, but Arthur ignored it. He had other priorities at the moment.)
It was dark, but there was just enough light to be able to see that Eames was there, as well as the extractor, and both of them were attached to a PASIV.
Fuck.
There was only one subcon standing guard, showing that all the effort had been put into protecting the building from the outside.
That was something, at least. Arthur didn't like any of his options, but this was hardly the first time he'd been in that position. Another dream layer meant that Eames had been under there a lot longer than Arthur and Ariadne had been up here, and their situation was hardly going to get less precarious.
He pulled himself back onto the roof.
First off, he needed to get Ariadne over here with the least chance that anyone would notice.
She looked infuriated and incredulous by the time he'd finished miming and then silently producing the pulley that he wanted on his roof and expected her to do the same on hers. The more minor the change, the less it effected; the smaller the distance, the less chance any notice would be taken.
A bridge would have been easiest for her; the rope pulley was clearly not a favourite, and had they been able to risk yelling at one another, he was quite sure that he would have got a comprehensive argument out of her. As it was, they both knew that their time was limited and they couldn't risk being heard, which meant that he pulled her over, hauled her up onto the roof, and got punched in the arm-and then a guilty apology because she'd forgotten that he'd been shot.
"Eames and Collins are attached to a PASIV."
Her eyes flew, startled, to his.
"There isn't supposed to be another level to the dream, is there?"
He shook his head. "And we can be quite sure that Eames didn't suddenly come up with this after being dragged away by subcons, which means that the mark is the one dreaming this level, and we're left with a lot of unknowns, including the stability of the dream we're currently in."
He fastened a silencer to one of his guns and passed it and a grenade to Ariadne, who looked alarmed but not panicked.
"If you position yourself at the corner of the building, you'll have a good view of the entrance and the activity down there. Can you take care of the two of us while I go to get Eames?"
"We'd have a better chance if the two of us were down there."
He shook his head. "Someone needs to look after the bodies on this level."
"It'll be faster with two."
He shook his head. "Look, Ariadne, we'll need to get back up to this level before we're killed in it, and it's only a matter of time until they realise what's happened. The mark is still around somewhere on this level, and we don't know if he's involved or a dupe. Just like anyone else, you shoot him if you see him try to get into the building."
She was frowning. "We're going to have to fight to get into the building, aren't we?"
He shook his head. "I'll go in through the window. You start shooting if anyone tries to get in."
"Why can't I come with you?" she asked. "How much difference do you think I can make here?"
"Once they see you, you can do as much manipulation as you need because they'll already be onto you. Pull out all the stops on the fire power. A minute more here gives us ten more minutes there, Ariadne," he pointed out firmly. "Collins knows us. He'll be on the look out down there. You'll only garner attention."
"And you won't?" she demanded in a fierce whisper.
He offered her his most reassuring smile. "I've been doing this a long time. Don't worry about me."
She looked doubtful, but he made sure to offer her his most assured point man expression, the one that convinced everyone that he'd planned for everything and it was going to be all right.
Finally, she offered a nod.
"I'll set the timer for three minutes your time in one minute, so that's four minutes from now." She set her watch when he eyed her wrist leadingly. "But regardless, when your kick comes, you get out."
She started to protest immediately, but he overrode her.
"We don't know the chemist who supplied us, and we don't know why the second level is stable."
Her eyes widened. "A sedative?"
"It's at least a distinct possibility, and it's one that I don't really want to test."
She nodded, reaching out to squeeze his arm again. "Be safe."
He nodded and watched as she settled at the corner he'd indicated, gun in hand and grenade sitting next to her. Arthur loved what he did, but there were days where he wished that he'd never even started, that he hadn't helped drag anyone into this life.
Still, he trusted that he'd relocated her to the most useful safest spot until the kick came; he didn't like leaving her alone under the circumstances, but he didn't know what else to do.
It was almost definitely going to be safer than where he was going-and he wasn't really anxious to explain to her how he was going to get there.
She had evidently assumed that he was going to be able to climb down from the window, that there was something other than the sheer drop that had greeted him when he had peered through.
He was sure it was one of the reasons that all but one subcon was waiting outside. If Arthur didn't miss his guess, the lone man was to shoot Eames if he somehow managed to escape from Collins in the next dream level.
Arthur so didn't think so.
It was a minor change to give the windows hinges, carefully oiled, of course; there was no way that he could cleanly and quietly remove and dispose of the large pane of glass in some legitimate way.
As soon as he had a clean shot, the projection was dead. Once he was assured that no alarm had been raised, Arthur slithered in through the window, extended as far as he could hanging onto the windowsill, and let go.
He hit the ground lighter than he would have if this had been reality, gun in hand a scarce second later, but nothing moved.
He hurried over to the PASIV and saw that there were almost five minutes on the timer. That should give him an adequate head start-assuming that the thirty minutes of second-level time he was giving himself was enough to find Eames to begin with.
But he was pretty fucking determined.
He reeled out another line and set himself between Collins and Eames; if something went wrong, if Eames was badly injured, Arthur would need those extra moments to protect him.
He set his own timer and went under.
~*~
The lounge-cum-casino was classy as far as set-ups of its kind went. The lighting was low enough to seem intimate but bright enough to allow everyone to gamble with as much care as they wished.
Servers were discreet, music was a little on the sultry side and loud enough to make it hard to hear from one table to another but not so loud that it became difficult to converse at your own table.
Expecting the unexpected was pretty much a requirement when it came to dream-sharing. As point man, it was his job to plan for various scenarios, which meant that he had lots of different ideas percolating in his brain at any given time.
The most likely scenarios here had been imprisonment, torture, or death with some form of extraction.
Finding Eames and Collins seated at a blackjack table playing cards was a little disconcerting. Eames looked completely unharmed, calm and at ease-in his element, even, because Eames was a gambler. Collins seemed equally unperturbed, and Arthur couldn't prevent the sick feeling that had blossomed in the pit of his stomach.
Why all the subterfuge for this?
Arthur needed to know what was going on, and he needed to find out fast. Did Eames not realise it was a dream? He should recognize Collins, so if he didn't, there was something more dangerous going on. What if it was a new formula that caused short-term amnesia? What if Eames was being threatened in some way?
It was time for Arthur's secret weapon. He'd stayed carefully out of sight of the table, but there was no way that he could hear what was being said from this distance. So he ducked into the ladies' room when no one was looking, and a moment later, a beautiful blonde, curvy in all the right places, emerged.
Arthur was never Hope where others could see him. Not even Dom and Mal had caught a glimpse of her-which made her a highly effective disguise, under the circumstances.
Not questioning why he was willing to break his cardinal rule just now, he sauntered over to the blackjack table, moving slowly enough that it didn't look as though he had an agenda. There were gambling projections everywhere, enough to give him a good cover, although Collins and Eames were the only people apart from the dealer at this particular table.
Collins frowned at Hope's arrival.
"We're busy."
Hope pouted a little. "You looked like you were in need of a bit of fun."
Collins opened his mouth again, but Eames overrode him, staring at Hope with a very clear leer.
"And you look like you could be all sorts of fun, Love." Pointedly, he added, "What does it matter if she stays, Collins?"
So that would be a no on the amnesia or lack of knowledge that they were in a dream.
Collins rolled his eyes but subsided, and Hope cosied up to Eames, smiling at him with sultry promise and tucking her arm through his. Eames winked.
Arthur was trying desperately not to get distracted by the fact that he had never voluntarily gotten this close to Eames before. It shouldn't be normal for the man to be this warm. The fact that Arthur had to fight an impulse to lean into the man and bury his face against Eames's neck was just … wrong.
"So, what do you say?" Collins asked as the dealer resumed the game interrupted by Hope's arrival.
"Hit me," Eames told the dealer, and Collins gave a huff of exasperation.
Arthur wondered how he'd never noticed that there was a small scar behind Eames's right ear. Where had it come from?
"Can I trust you?" Eames asked.
"Of course." Arthur's answer came definitively and without thought, and Hope added a flirtatious smile and traced a pattern on Eames's arm with her finger. "Why would I want you to lose?"
Eames patted the hand that was tucked into his and looked at his cards. He had eighteen now, and Arthur knew he wasn't going to stay.
Collins looked as though he wasn't going to play until Eames answered his question.
Eames stared pointedly at the cards until Collins took another card with a very clear attitude of going through the motions. Arthur could have told Collins that Eames loved to get under people's skin. Calmly playing the game as though it meant nothing to him would have been far more effective-and far less telling.
With a little smirk, Eames motioned for another card and said, "I think you're barking up the wrong tree."
"So you can't provide me with the services I require?"
"Of course I can. But Cobb's out of the business."
Only years of training ensured Arthur gave nothing away. Eames went bust at 26, as Arthur had predicted, and the next hand began, Eames not batting an eyelash at how much money he'd just lost. Arthur had seen the man gamble in the real world, so he knew it wasn't just because this was all a dream.
"He's the best," Collins said, waving for another card only when Eames prompted him again.
"Was the best," Eames corrected with heavy emphasis. "He's been off since his wife offed herself, and he's not coming back. Complete non-entity these days."
Oh, Eames was so lucky Hope was here, because Arthur would have fucking punched Eames's teeth out for that comment. Never mind Arthur's field training; he wondered if Eames had any idea of the things that Mal had taught Arthur and the numerous ways that he could kill Eames without anyone being the wiser.
Eames continued. "The chemist is immaterial, and you've seen Ariadne work. She's a kid."
"She shows some promise."
"She needs years of training-if she lasts that long." Eames's voice eloquently expressed his doubt. "She's in it for the architecture."
They shared a smarmy laugh, and Hope joined in politely if a bit vacantly, a light chime of sound that made Eames's lips twist into a more genuine smile-or least one whose motives Arthur preferred, and it was saying something when a lustful leer from Eames was a good thing.
The game resumed, focus holding for a few seconds before Collins spoke.
"So you're saying Arthur is my only concern."
"He's one of those dangerous creatures who refuses to have simple motives. He's not in it for the money or the architecture or the thrill, which means he's much harder to buy off. He trailed after Cobb like a puppy for years when anyone with an ounce of common sense and self-preservation would have walked away, and yet now here he is again, dreaming once more. He's methodical to a fault and has an unfortunate level of training."
"It sounds as though it would be in my best interest to eliminate him."
Eames laughed. "That would be the easy thing to do-and it'll certainly be your only option once he realises what you've done."
Arthur's blood ran cold.
Collins' lips curled up in triumph. "So you are in."
"You make a compelling monetary argument. And Arthur's not very hard to control once you understand him. He likes competence, rules, order, efficiency."
"That's something I could work out within five minutes of meeting the man. What does that tell us?"
Eames looked impatient. "Apart from the fact that it makes him an information goldmine and it's an easy way to lure him into anything? He stayed with Cobb for years." Collins still didn't get it. Arthur was pretty sure that even Hope playing the dumb blonde got it with all the leading that Eames was doing, but the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach ensured that he wasn't at all tempted to interject. "There were whole years where Cobb wasn't any of the above, where he was imploding from the inside out. And Arthur was right there by his side."
Collins was still waiting for more, and Arthur wasn't sure if he was as dumb as he was acting or if he wanted to ensure that Eames had a whole program in place.
"Win the man's trust, and you're golden. He'll leave aside all his rules and all his regulations for his friends."
Eames said the word mockingly, like it was the biggest weakness in the world.
Of course, just at the moment, Arthur was inclined to agree with him.
"You expect me to believe that you fit that bill, Mr. Eames?" Collins asked, eyes assessing, the fact that he was an extractor more obvious than it had been throughout the rest of the discussion.
"You certainly don't. The cock-up on this job alone is going to ensure he doesn't think much of you. I, on the other hand, have already done all the work. Who invited me onto this job?"
They laughed again, Hope joining in once more; it wasn't hard to sound a little bewildered, as though she hadn't followed most of the conversation.
"I'll need a couple of weeks," Eames continued.
"That long?" Collins sounded surprised. "I was given to understand you were the best."
"I am." Nothing but certainty in the forger's voice. "But we're only going to get the chance to do this once, and that means treading very carefully."
"Very well."
"No contact top-side," Eames continued. "Arthur may be a stick-in-the-mud, but he's not stupid, and his intel-gathering skills are unparalleled."
Collins conceded this with an inclination of his head; Arthur couldn't blame him for looking somewhat doubtful given how much Arthur had screwed this one up.
"He'll be concerned that I was grabbed by the subcons; time to get this show on the road."
Eames raised a gun, and Hope gasped.
Collins reached over to wrap a hand around Eames's wrist in a grip that looked as though it would leave bruises.
"I don't have a lot of use for you if you're in limbo."
The gun disappeared as precipitously as it had arrived, and Eames grimaced faintly.
Collins smiled a very satisfied smile.
"I've got the mark up there dreaming; told him it was a training exercise. No way he could keep it stable enough for a second level. We've got," he checked his watch, "twenty-five minutes left."
Eames was on his feet and had Hope in his arms almost before Arthur could track the motion.
"In that case," Eames said with that bright leer firmly in place once more, "if you'll excuse me, Collins, I have a beautiful woman to dance with."
Hope smiled up at him, altogether satisfied, while Arthur tracked their growing distance from Collins and considered the merits of shooting both of them right now and having done.
He spared a moment to be grateful that the theory of a sedative had occurred to him and to hope that Ariadne was safe.
Still. Shooting people was one thing; turning them into vegetables and leaving them prisoners of their own subconscious was something else. Plus, it was Collins' dream; Arthur couldn't guarantee that he'd get out in time if he shot the man in the head.
And while as far as he was concerned, Eames altogether deserved a bullet between the eyes, the man had been there for him at a time when Arthur had needed it.
He would consider this the marker called due and the slate wiped clean. (If only Eames knew that had he made his opinion of Mal and her death plain, he would already be dead.)
Eames pulled Hope into his arms. It was disconcerting to feel this small against him. Although he was broader and more muscular than Arthur, they were usually about the same height. The current configuration was not comfortable at all, especially under the circumstances.
Eames's fingers felt like a burning brand pressed against the small of Hope's back. He felt warm and smelled male and that indefinable "Eames" that was tying Arthur's stomach in knots that were altogether less pleasant than they usually were-and he'd found them problematic enough previously. Now, though, he felt seriously sick to his stomach and could only be grateful for years of experience to keep him focussed and faking it.
He compartmentalised his feelings, promised himself that he could freak out and maybe shoot Eames later, and then concentrated on the feelings that would ensure that he didn't give the game away. Eames felt warm and steady and strong, and in another life, Arthur would be truly enjoying this. Since this was now the only time this would be happening, he was going to have to live vicariously through Hope and this one moment.
Eames was watching her with eyes that were very bright, a familiar light in them, and Arthur had to suppress the urge to punch the man in the face. It was one thing to know that Eames looked at other people like that. (He looked at lots of people like that, Arthur had met the man.) It was something else again to be on the receiving end of the look when he was one of those other people.
It was not a very pleasant feeling.
"It's a little disconcerting to find you so attractive," Eames murmured.
Arthur allowed Hope's brow to furrow into a little frown. "Why would you say that?"
"This isn't the sort of place where I'd expect to find someone like you. I didn't think Collins had that much imagination."
Projections weren't human. You could interact with them to a degree, but they mostly remained in the periphery of the dream for everyone who wasn't the subject-unless you pissed them off enough that they attacked you. Rather like how everything made sense in a dream, however, if you chose to engage with them and said things that didn't make sense in reality, they had a tendency to get a bit confused or gloss over it just as though you hadn't said it.
Eames's initial comment had definitely caught her attention, though, and Arthur didn't think he could simply ignore it. As it turned out, though, he didn't really need to worry what Hope might have said next because Eames leaned in and covered Hope's lips with his own.
And no matter how many times Arthur had denied it when needled by Eames, he had always been extremely curious. The man's lips were softer and gentler than Arthur had expected, though the kiss was as skilled as he had anticipated it would be. Eames nipped at Hope's bottom lip, and Arthur opened his mouth without thought and quietly and viciously hated himself in that moment.
He could say he'd been trying not to blow his cover, but that would be a lie.
Hope clutched at Eames, fingers curling into the fabric of his horrible shirt, and Eames's hands slid lower than altogether acceptable in polite society. Hope pulled away, and Eames allowed the movement.
His lips were impossibly pink, his breathing accelerated, and the look in his eyes made Arthur want to forget everything for just a minute or two and let Eames do everything he was currently thinking.
That, however, was not an option, and Arthur reined himself in sharply. Hope bit her lip and regarded Eames with wide eyes.
"I need two minutes in the little girls' room, and then I want you to take me somewhere more private."
Eames grinned. "That's a promise, Love. Two minutes?"
"Two minutes," Hope agreed coyly, backing away with a show of reluctance before she turned around and strutted to the bathroom, feeling Eames's burning gaze on her ass.
Arthur nearly punched a hole in the wall when he got inside. He'd come to fucking rescue Eames, he'd never imagined any of this, and it was all so horrible. He was working himself up into something resembling a righteous rage, and it was difficult to subdue it in the need to be rational and not fucking insane.
There was a lot at stake here, however, and there had at least been no real contest about what had to happen now.
Hope locked herself in a stall, just in case, but a little over a minute after she entered the bathroom, the world dissolved, and Arthur opened his eyes in the warehouse.
Even as part of him once again considered the two men lying beside him, the perfect opportunity to shoot them, he was removing his needle, coiling the spare IV, and making sure everything looked just as it had when he arrived.
He scooped the dead projection into his arms, vanished the bloodstain with a minor alteration, and became Hope long enough to launch himself up to those impossibly far away windows.
If he'd thought longer about it, he would probably not have been able to manage getting through the window, changing it back to unhinged, getting the dead projection onto the roof, and climbing up there looking like Arthur, but he didn't really have time to think about it.
Ariadne was running over by the time he'd pulled himself onto the top of the roof, internally swearing up a storm from the gunshot wound on his arm that he'd mostly forgotten about one level down.
"Are you all right?" She was eyeing the dead projection and him with worried eyes.
"We have very little time, and I can't explain right now," he told her urgently. "It's crucial that Eames and Collins don't realise I was down in the second level since they didn't see me down there. So in thirty seconds, I need you to unleash the war to end all wars on the projections below and blast the hell out of those doors so that they don't realise someone was in there."
"What are you going to do?"
"Be somewhere else."
She was frowning fiercely, still eyeing him with concern, and he didn't know if it was because of this new plan or if he'd betrayed himself in some other way. It really didn't matter right now.
"Are you sure about this?" she asked.
"There was a sedative in the line. We'll be all right for the kick in three minutes. Trust no one. Can you do this for me?"
She stared at him for another long moment and then gave an abrupt nod. Arthur wasn't sure what had proved to her that he was in deadly earnest, if it was the warning phrase or the fact that he was telling her the plan involved her staying here for three minutes in the middle of a war zone when she could wind up in limbo. Whatever it was, he would take it.
"Go!" he admonished, and she was running back to the corner of the building and pulling the pin out of the grenade with her teeth as she readied what looked a lot like Eames's grenade launcher from the Fischer job.
Arthur spared a glance to make sure she wasn't looking his way, and then he leapt off the building, shifting into Hope and letting her wings unfurl behind him. He stayed low to the ground long enough to ensure that he was out of all lines of sight where he was close enough to be recognizable, and then he soared higher, getting a bird's-eye view of the city.
Collins wasn't just planning to ransack Arthur's mind. He hadn't simply been planning to attack Arthur's friends. On top of all that, the man had staged this entire mission and treated Arthur like he was an idiot.
Arthur really hated that, and if he wasn't able to shoot the man in the head, he damn well intended to prove that Collins wasn't worth the ground that Nash walked on, the asshole, never mind anyone who made up their actual team.
Collins was apparently capable of a modicum of cunning or this wouldn't have worked at all, but he really wasn't very subtle overall. Arthur's intel had indicated that the mark was afraid of heights, a fact which they had intended to use to their advantage, but it meant that they'd been supposed to look for him at ground level. Since the extractor would want the man to be exactly where they wouldn't look for him, Arthur found the stupidest, most ostentatiously tall building and headed into the penthouse by way of the window, changing back into Arthur so that when the mark saw him, he was impeccably dressed-and inexplicably present.
"Well done, Mr. Forthwright," Arthur said smoothly. "Mr. Collins is quite impressed."
The mark relaxed immediately, and Arthur suppressed an eye roll. Seriously? As easy as that?
He stepped closer, noticing the way the man stayed away from the windows and sight of the impressive view. He handed the man a drink and explained, "Your militarised subconscious elements are pinning down the extraction team as we speak. Collins wishes to reconfirm the integrity of your mind and brainstorm some additional security. Perhaps we could go downstairs to the vault?"
The man was just itching for an excuse to get off the top floor, and Arthur's no-nonsense tone served him well.
The sedative took effect shortly after they entered the vault, and Arthur hurriedly committed the necessary information to memory before it faded off the page in the face of the unconscious mark and the kick pulled him out of the dream.
Arthur had weighed all his options and settled on a gun trained on Collins, who raised an eyebrow. He was a better actor than Arthur would have expected, or he truly thought his secret was safe.
"What's going on?" It was Ariadne who asked.
Arthur didn't look away from Collins. "You militarised the mark against us."
A casual shrug. "Call it an audition."
"That's unprofessional enough to make me not regret shooting you right now. Eames or Ariadne could have been badly injured."
"Are you Superman, then?"
Enough condescension to choke a horse.
"Eames got dragged away by subcons. Ariadne shot her way through them to try to rescue him. I went after the mark."
"Then you know why the extraction failed."
"You mean you know why your training failed."
They all sort of blinked at him, and Arthur spared a moment to be quietly very offended.
"Off shore account numbers and a couple of interesting blackmail schemes." Arthur smiled coldly at Collins, who looked mildly disconcerted for the first time since this had started. "But I'm sure you knew that already." He holstered his gun. "Now, if you'll excuse me, the words 'never again' best express my desire to work with you."
It was remarkably silent as Arthur gathered up his few belongings and left the building. Had his world not just come crashing down around his ears, he'd feel a nice surge of triumph at the moment.
He hadn't made it very far down the block before Eames and Ariadne hurried to join him.
"Darling," Eames said, and he sounded genuinely impressed, "that was a tour de force."
If Arthur could trust the man further than he could throw him, this would affect him in some way.
He scoffed. "Please. The man is an asshole."
Eames laughed. "True. That makes it all the nicer to see someone hand him his arse-which it is entirely likely he couldn't find with two hands and a flashlight."
Ariadne snorted, and Arthur was pleased it was in character to shoot her a glare for encouraging such childish commentary.
Arthur continued seriously, "Putting the team at risk for his own agenda is completely unacceptable."
Eames cleared his throat loudly. "I hate to break this to you, but it's hardly a new experience for you."
Arthur stiffened. "Do you have a particular desire to be shot between the eyes?"
"I'm just saying-" Eames began defensively.
"That was completely different," Arthur declared flatly. "This was an ambush."
Hesitantly, Ariadne started, "Um, I don't want to get in the middle…."
Arthur let out a short huff of breath, feeling his temper fray dangerously.
"Let's agree to disagree, okay? I'm not in the mood for a fight."
Or, to be more accurate, he was just itching for one, but he wasn't quite ready for the consequences.
"You always did give him more latitude than you give anyone else," Eames pointed out in the tone that said that this was his version of "letting it go"-in other words, ensuring that he needled Arthur and hoping that Arthur would bring up the topic he had just resolved to close.
There was no way that Arthur could point out all the ways that the two cases were completely disparate, and he didn't really want to argue the matter in any case. Mal was dead, Dom and James and Phillipa had been reunited, and that was all that mattered. They were selfish and personal goals when it came right down to it, but they were the right sort of selfish and personal goals.
Collins deserved a bullet between the eyes.
"Ariadne," Arthur said very deliberately, "your plane takes off this evening, right?"
"Right," she agreed, a little more slowly than was altogether convincing, but it was going to be pretty obvious that Arthur was chivvying her along regardless.
With a little bit of luck, Eames would simply misunderstand the reasons why.
"There's no way you're leaving before I get a celebratory drink into you," Eames declared, slinging a friendly arm over Arthur's shoulder.
Arthur slipped out of the heavy grasp with a long-suffering sigh, ignoring the way his stomach clenched and his sense memory went into overdrive reminding him of the most recent occasion where they had been that close.
"Unfortunately, my flight isn't until tomorrow morning," Arthur lied.
He needed to get Ariadne safely out of here before he did his own disappearing act. He didn't want anyone to get desperate at this stage in the game.
Eames positively grinned. "Excellent. Drinks it is."
Arthur looked at Ariadne with a very small portion of the desperation that he was feeling.
"Do you need help packing?"
Ariadne laughed. "I think I can manage, thank you, even getting to the airport in a hurry."
At least she'd got that message.
"Text me to let me know you made it onto the flight on time."
She rolled her eyes and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "Worrier."
"I'm the point man. It's my job," he said huffily.
She laughed. "As you say."
They reached the hotel.
"I'll leave you to your drink," she said cheerfully.
He mouthed the word "traitor" at her, but she just laughed again and gave the two of them a jaunty wave as she headed to the elevator.
"Looks like it's just you and me, Darling."
Arthur wondered if Eames had any idea how exponentially more likely this comment made it that he was going to wind up with a bullet in the brain.
"Come on," Eames said fearlessly, "I'll get you anything you like."
Arthur closed his eyes briefly and then opened them to regard the bright eyes staring so intently at him. "Has it occurred to you that I don't want you to buy me a drink?"
"Of course it has," Eames said with that same cheerfulness that made Arthur want to kick him in the teeth. "But I'm certain I'll be able to overcome that faux reticence."
There were so many reasons that Arthur could cheerfully have pulled out his gun and committed murder in that moment. Eames was usually pretty good about picking up on that sort of thing-but then, Arthur didn't suppose that the feeling was anything new. If he was currently hiding how truly homicidal he was feeling, then that was all to the good.
And he needed to give Ariadne time to get safely away.
He sighed and gestured towards the hotel bar.
"Lead on."
Eames beamed at him, and it didn't really do any good to claim that Arthur's stomach had flipped because he was disappointed.
(Really, Arthur needed to work on his ability to lie to himself. He'd probably sleep better at night.)
"After you." Eames gestured expansively.
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Afraid I'm going to make a break for it?"
Eames made a face but led the way. Arthur wasn't giving anyone his back right now-not to mention the fact that he knew that Eames ogled.
It was one thing when they were flirting and dancing around one another. It was altogether another thing when Eames was trying to seduce him for truly nefarious purposes.
They went the predicted rounds when Eames tried to get the drinks and Arthur insisted on being the one to go.
It was just too easy to slip something into someone's drink that way. There was at least a little slight of hand required when you were trying to do it in front of the person-and Arthur was usually very good at catching that sort of thing.
"You look like the sort of person who forgets to mention you ordered doubles," Arthur pointed out.
"Can't handle your liquor?"
"Need help?"
Challenge issued. Arthur knew he was going to regret it-but he'd regretted the entire day almost since the moment it had started, and there were very few ways to truly make it worse.
Eames let him go, of course, and Arthur returned with the unaltered drinks. Clearly, he should start carrying pills with him again, but he'd gotten a little lax in the real world.
Eames toasted him, and Arthur was starting to feel ill-and he hadn't even started drinking.
Part of him wished that he'd done some of this with Eames before so that he'd have an undiluted memory to keep him going after this one imploded. The rest of him thought that it was all to the good that he didn't have anything to help drag him deeper than he'd already gone.
He allowed Eames to think that he was convincing Arthur to drink another drink, and they chatted about everything and nothing, branching out from this screwed up job and the ridiculous things that they had witnessed over the years, though Arthur noted that the other man was careful not to bring up Dom now; it would hardly serve his purpose if Arthur left in a huff.
Two drinks became four even interspersed with water as Arthur had insisted, and this made it all the more plausible when he followed the other man up to his hotel room.
Eames's lips had sealed over Arthur's before his back hit the door as it slammed closed.
Eames tasted like the whisky he'd been drinking, not quite as appealing as he had been in the dream but still warm and very demanding, far more demanding than he had been when Arthur had appeared as Hope.
They were the right height now, and Eames was pinning Arthur against the door with his body, all hard muscles and burning heat.
Arthur hated the fact that Eames had kissed Hope first, hated the way his body responded, the way he arched into the other man's touch, clutched at his shirt with needy fingers and wanted so much he ached.
He curled his free hand into Eames's hair, cradling the base of his skull and relishing the way Eames leaned closer to him.
The moments he had here were going to be the only moments that he ever got, and the knowledge of what was really going on had already tainted them beyond repair.
Arthur should at least have had the self-control to like it less.
But there was the faint scratch of stubble against his cheek, all that heat, and clever hands that were already pulling Arthur out of his suit jacket.
This was going too fast and yet not fast enough because any moment now-
Eames let out a low growl of protest when Arthur pulled away to root through the pile of clothes at his feet-when had he even lost his tie?-to extricate his phone.
Hope you kiss better in real life.
He allowed his lips to tip up in the slightest of smiles at his relief that Ariadne was safe.
Then he turned back to Eames, and he stopped pretending to be slightly drunk.
Worry edged out the lust on the other man's face.
"Is everything all right?"
"I have to go."
Eames's gaze sharpened, assessing, and Arthur couldn't help but note bitterly that he seemed a lot less drunk than he had moments ago, too. Not wanting to end up betrayed and dead was pretty explicable; what was Eames's excuse for the subterfuge?
"Arthur, what's wrong?"
Eames reached for him, and Arthur jerked back, not nearly as suavely as he would have liked, out of the way of the touch.
He liked it too much, had liked it too much even when he knew its cost, and he couldn't allow himself to be that weak again.
He grabbed up his tie and his suit jacket, smoothly rebuttoning his shirt.
"Goodbye, Mr. Eames," Arthur pronounced politely and altogether as coldly as he could manage.
Eames just gaped at him as Arthur closed the door in the other man's face.
He was safely around the corner before he heard Eames calling his name, and he knew that Eames would never find him after that; Arthur was the point man, and he had chosen this hotel after carefully assessing its floor plans.
He hadn't put himself and Eames on the same floor, nor had he revealed his room number. There was nothing he couldn't have lived without, but he preferred to leave a completely invisible trail where possible, and that meant clearing out the room.
He'd brought little, and since this was an extraction with a new team, he'd been ready to leave on even more of a moment's notice than usual.
He felt mildly regretful about reporting someone of Eames's description causing mischief to the hotel staff and the police, but he reminded himself of just what it was that Eames had been paid off to do. It was stupid to be feeling any sort of loyalty to him under the circumstances-and it wasn't as though Eames wasn't going to be able to talk his way out of it. He was good at that.
Fewer than three minutes, and Arthur was out of the hotel. Under ten and phone, PASIV, and recognizable IDs had been destroyed.
He eschewed flying entirely-far too predictable-and went with public transportation and then a bus with a cash payment. He wondered if he was the only member of the team-not that he had a team anymore, he reminded himself viciously-who knew from firsthand experience that there were some excellent places in Buffalo to swim across the border.
No one ever thought to look for people flying out of Canada-not that they would know what to look for anyway, since Arthur had a set of forged passports and IDs that he never used with any team.
They were on hand for when he needed to disappear completely, and while that hadn't happened recently, there was a reason that Arthur was always prepared.
Contacts, a buzz cut and dye job, a change of clothes, a cheerful demeanour and a bright smile, and most people wouldn't recognize him even if he was leaving from somewhere that they actually expected.
Arthur had always been good at running, and he'd had a long time to set up a very good network.
He'd sort of hoped that he wouldn't have to use it, but that had clearly been wishful thinking on his part.
Arthur disappeared.
~*~
On to Interlude
Back to Master Post
Disclaimer and author's note, etc., back in the Master Post
On the Wings of an Angel
text by phoenix.writing
illustrations by creepylicious
Part One
Arthur had watched the news broadcast that showed Fischer breaking up his company, and he'd sent the link to everyone else.
Eames had made a snide comment about Arthur not trusting the rest of them, and Arthur had reminded himself that the removal of personal interaction thanks to e-mail meant that he was not going to give in to his first impulse to snap back.
This was probably just as well, really, because it would have made it harder to explain why the two of them were now doing a job together. Why, technically, Arthur had invited Eames to join him on the job. Eames liked to remind him of this fact. Arthur liked to shoot Eames pointed glares and not rise to his bait, just think of really creative ways that he could kill the other man in dreams.
Arthur didn't feel that guilty about Eames; Eames could take care of himself. Ariadne, on the other hand, was still brand new.
But she was her own person, and they'd needed an architect after the last one had up and left. Even with the insanity of the Fischer job-or perhaps because of it-Ariadne had not lost the drive to dream, and Arthur had been pretty sure that she simply would have found a job on her own if they hadn't involved her.
Now, however, he wished that he had cut off all contact with her after the Fischer job and had left her to have her own life, had left her like they had left Dom.
He had briefly thought about calling the man, he had, but it was still too soon after he had been reunited with James and Phillipa, and Arthur had been determined not to mess with that. (Besides, Marie had asked Arthur to stay away for a while, to give the kids a chance to get used to their dad being around and the one they could depend on, and Arthur could respect that. If there was a little part of him that felt as though he was losing his babies, well, it only went to show that he'd gotten too attached. They'd never been his kids.)
Of course, if Dom had been here, they would have made a full team and could have worked out a job on their own.
Instead, they'd teamed up with an unknown extractor and an architect, a fact which hadn't seemed disastrous until this particular moment.
Because now, Eames was missing-not killed but dragged off by subcons-Arthur was bleeding from a shot to the arm where he'd shielded Ariadne, and none of them had the slightest idea what was really going on-apart from the fact that their extractor appeared to have betrayed them, and they were pinned down by militarised subcons.
Arthur spared a brief moment to be mildly impressed with whoever had done their intel; he had been fooled into thinking that this job was straightforward, and he had not found evidence quickly enough that this was not the case.
Arthur shrugged out of his suit jacket and wrapped a long strip of fabric around his wound, tightening it painfully but hopefully enough to stop the bleeding. Ariadne was covering him, and he was rather relieved that he had been giving her that training, though he sort of wished it wasn't necessary.
He knew that there weren't that many years between them, but he couldn't help but still view her as a young adult. She lacked the experience that had honed him-and there were some events in his past that he hoped that she would never have to experience.
He got the suit jacket back on, tested the mobility of his arm and decided that it would have to do.
"We need to find Eames."
"Agreed."
She looked pale but very determined, and he wondered if the lure of the architecture was going to be enough to keep her in the business.
They hadn't had a single job just go right since she had started.
"We're going to have to be quiet and unobtrusive."
She rolled her eyes. "Seriously, Arthur, I might not be the point man, but I get how this is done."
"We're in a militarised subconscious without adequate equipment or weaponry, and if we garner someone's attention before we find Eames, this could be the end of it. I just don't want you to do anything clever."
He thought all he was going to do was offend her, but the hardness in her eyes softened and she reached out to squeeze his good arm.
"We're going to find him, Arthur, don't worry."
Arthur nearly opened his mouth to tell her that that wasn't the point he had been trying to make at all but realised that that would not speed along their progress.
They did need to find Eames, and they had been forced to run for it after Eames had been captured because there had simply been too many projections.
Recon was one of Arthur's especial skills, though, and while Ariadne was nowhere up to his level, she was very bright and quite dedicated once she had settled on a plan.
She crept after him to the best of her abilities, carefully following where he led.
They needed to find Eames, and they needed to get him out of here, and they weren't going to be able to do that if they drew too much attention to themselves.
Fortunately, Arthur was altogether capable of tracking, and the projections weren't being that careful. They'd been militarised, clearly, but definitely not for stealth.
Arthur found his temper rising as he began to spot drops and smears of blood. It made it easier to track, but Arthur was not pleased with what it indicated.
He pushed the worry into a small corner of his mind, compartmentalising and letting the emotion fade away because he needed to concentrate right now.
He was glad that he was creeping forward cautiously; had he been progressing any less prudently, he would have walked right into a line of subcons. They were protecting a warehouse which was large and dark and pretty clearly their destination.
Arthur didn't think he would like any of the reasons why they would be taking Eames into a warehouse, but he wasn't thinking about that, either.
He shushed Ariadne with a finger to her lips when she started to question him-albeit quietly-and then eyed the area, scanning for weaknesses.
Ariadne had designed the level, but they now knew they didn't have enough information about the person who was dreaming it or the changes that he may have made.
At first glance, it was the perfect choice. There were no ladders, doors, or other visible points of entry that were not the main entrance clearly guarded by too many subcons. There was a small chance that they could fight their way through, but they didn't know what they would find inside, and Arthur wasn't about to risk Eames on such a gamble.
They needed to see inside. There were very small windows very high up the building's walls.
He led Ariadne on a carefully silent, twisting route round to the other side of the building and finally found what he was looking for.
He eyed the distance between the two buildings critically, eyed Ariadne, and frowned at his mental calculations.
Well, first thing's first.
He retreated several blocks, looping around to the back of the adjacent building as far away from the guarding subcons as possible. There were patrols, too, and he and Ariadne couldn't be too careful.
This building had a ladder that led to the roof, and Arthur and Ariadne climbed it hurriedly before sneaking across the roof until they were standing as close to the guarded building as possible.
"Are you insane?" Ariadne hissed.
He shook his head in a slight but definite negation, already slipping out of his shoes and socks. While he made some modification to his dress shoes in every dream to ensure that he had especially good traction, he needed to do this as quietly as possible.
"I can look through the window from the roof and assess the situation."
"You can't-"
"Wait here."
He didn't give her further chance to argue, just withdrew far enough to give himself a good running lead and then vaulted from one roof to the other, turning the landing into a roll that broke his impact and kept it as quiet as possible.
Looking back, he could see that Ariadne was gaping at him in absolute shock. He offered her a small wave to show her that he was all right and then climbed over the edge of the building, hanging from the only vantage point that allowed him to see the interior of the building.
(Eames always made snide remarks about his upper body strength; if only he knew. The shot arm ached a bit, but Arthur ignored it. He had other priorities at the moment.)
It was dark, but there was just enough light to be able to see that Eames was there, as well as the extractor, and both of them were attached to a PASIV.
Fuck.
There was only one subcon standing guard, showing that all the effort had been put into protecting the building from the outside.
That was something, at least. Arthur didn't like any of his options, but this was hardly the first time he'd been in that position. Another dream layer meant that Eames had been under there a lot longer than Arthur and Ariadne had been up here, and their situation was hardly going to get less precarious.
He pulled himself back onto the roof.
First off, he needed to get Ariadne over here with the least chance that anyone would notice.
She looked infuriated and incredulous by the time he'd finished miming and then silently producing the pulley that he wanted on his roof and expected her to do the same on hers. The more minor the change, the less it effected; the smaller the distance, the less chance any notice would be taken.
A bridge would have been easiest for her; the rope pulley was clearly not a favourite, and had they been able to risk yelling at one another, he was quite sure that he would have got a comprehensive argument out of her. As it was, they both knew that their time was limited and they couldn't risk being heard, which meant that he pulled her over, hauled her up onto the roof, and got punched in the arm-and then a guilty apology because she'd forgotten that he'd been shot.
"Eames and Collins are attached to a PASIV."
Her eyes flew, startled, to his.
"There isn't supposed to be another level to the dream, is there?"
He shook his head. "And we can be quite sure that Eames didn't suddenly come up with this after being dragged away by subcons, which means that the mark is the one dreaming this level, and we're left with a lot of unknowns, including the stability of the dream we're currently in."
He fastened a silencer to one of his guns and passed it and a grenade to Ariadne, who looked alarmed but not panicked.
"If you position yourself at the corner of the building, you'll have a good view of the entrance and the activity down there. Can you take care of the two of us while I go to get Eames?"
"We'd have a better chance if the two of us were down there."
He shook his head. "Someone needs to look after the bodies on this level."
"It'll be faster with two."
He shook his head. "Look, Ariadne, we'll need to get back up to this level before we're killed in it, and it's only a matter of time until they realise what's happened. The mark is still around somewhere on this level, and we don't know if he's involved or a dupe. Just like anyone else, you shoot him if you see him try to get into the building."
She was frowning. "We're going to have to fight to get into the building, aren't we?"
He shook his head. "I'll go in through the window. You start shooting if anyone tries to get in."
"Why can't I come with you?" she asked. "How much difference do you think I can make here?"
"Once they see you, you can do as much manipulation as you need because they'll already be onto you. Pull out all the stops on the fire power. A minute more here gives us ten more minutes there, Ariadne," he pointed out firmly. "Collins knows us. He'll be on the look out down there. You'll only garner attention."
"And you won't?" she demanded in a fierce whisper.
He offered her his most reassuring smile. "I've been doing this a long time. Don't worry about me."
She looked doubtful, but he made sure to offer her his most assured point man expression, the one that convinced everyone that he'd planned for everything and it was going to be all right.
Finally, she offered a nod.
"I'll set the timer for three minutes your time in one minute, so that's four minutes from now." She set her watch when he eyed her wrist leadingly. "But regardless, when your kick comes, you get out."
She started to protest immediately, but he overrode her.
"We don't know the chemist who supplied us, and we don't know why the second level is stable."
Her eyes widened. "A sedative?"
"It's at least a distinct possibility, and it's one that I don't really want to test."
She nodded, reaching out to squeeze his arm again. "Be safe."
He nodded and watched as she settled at the corner he'd indicated, gun in hand and grenade sitting next to her. Arthur loved what he did, but there were days where he wished that he'd never even started, that he hadn't helped drag anyone into this life.
Still, he trusted that he'd relocated her to the most useful safest spot until the kick came; he didn't like leaving her alone under the circumstances, but he didn't know what else to do.
It was almost definitely going to be safer than where he was going-and he wasn't really anxious to explain to her how he was going to get there.
She had evidently assumed that he was going to be able to climb down from the window, that there was something other than the sheer drop that had greeted him when he had peered through.
He was sure it was one of the reasons that all but one subcon was waiting outside. If Arthur didn't miss his guess, the lone man was to shoot Eames if he somehow managed to escape from Collins in the next dream level.
Arthur so didn't think so.
It was a minor change to give the windows hinges, carefully oiled, of course; there was no way that he could cleanly and quietly remove and dispose of the large pane of glass in some legitimate way.
As soon as he had a clean shot, the projection was dead. Once he was assured that no alarm had been raised, Arthur slithered in through the window, extended as far as he could hanging onto the windowsill, and let go.
He hit the ground lighter than he would have if this had been reality, gun in hand a scarce second later, but nothing moved.
He hurried over to the PASIV and saw that there were almost five minutes on the timer. That should give him an adequate head start-assuming that the thirty minutes of second-level time he was giving himself was enough to find Eames to begin with.
But he was pretty fucking determined.
He reeled out another line and set himself between Collins and Eames; if something went wrong, if Eames was badly injured, Arthur would need those extra moments to protect him.
He set his own timer and went under.
~*~
The lounge-cum-casino was classy as far as set-ups of its kind went. The lighting was low enough to seem intimate but bright enough to allow everyone to gamble with as much care as they wished.
Servers were discreet, music was a little on the sultry side and loud enough to make it hard to hear from one table to another but not so loud that it became difficult to converse at your own table.
Expecting the unexpected was pretty much a requirement when it came to dream-sharing. As point man, it was his job to plan for various scenarios, which meant that he had lots of different ideas percolating in his brain at any given time.
The most likely scenarios here had been imprisonment, torture, or death with some form of extraction.
Finding Eames and Collins seated at a blackjack table playing cards was a little disconcerting. Eames looked completely unharmed, calm and at ease-in his element, even, because Eames was a gambler. Collins seemed equally unperturbed, and Arthur couldn't prevent the sick feeling that had blossomed in the pit of his stomach.
Why all the subterfuge for this?
Arthur needed to know what was going on, and he needed to find out fast. Did Eames not realise it was a dream? He should recognize Collins, so if he didn't, there was something more dangerous going on. What if it was a new formula that caused short-term amnesia? What if Eames was being threatened in some way?
It was time for Arthur's secret weapon. He'd stayed carefully out of sight of the table, but there was no way that he could hear what was being said from this distance. So he ducked into the ladies' room when no one was looking, and a moment later, a beautiful blonde, curvy in all the right places, emerged.
Arthur was never Hope where others could see him. Not even Dom and Mal had caught a glimpse of her-which made her a highly effective disguise, under the circumstances.
Not questioning why he was willing to break his cardinal rule just now, he sauntered over to the blackjack table, moving slowly enough that it didn't look as though he had an agenda. There were gambling projections everywhere, enough to give him a good cover, although Collins and Eames were the only people apart from the dealer at this particular table.
Collins frowned at Hope's arrival.
"We're busy."
Hope pouted a little. "You looked like you were in need of a bit of fun."
Collins opened his mouth again, but Eames overrode him, staring at Hope with a very clear leer.
"And you look like you could be all sorts of fun, Love." Pointedly, he added, "What does it matter if she stays, Collins?"
So that would be a no on the amnesia or lack of knowledge that they were in a dream.
Collins rolled his eyes but subsided, and Hope cosied up to Eames, smiling at him with sultry promise and tucking her arm through his. Eames winked.
Arthur was trying desperately not to get distracted by the fact that he had never voluntarily gotten this close to Eames before. It shouldn't be normal for the man to be this warm. The fact that Arthur had to fight an impulse to lean into the man and bury his face against Eames's neck was just … wrong.
"So, what do you say?" Collins asked as the dealer resumed the game interrupted by Hope's arrival.
"Hit me," Eames told the dealer, and Collins gave a huff of exasperation.
Arthur wondered how he'd never noticed that there was a small scar behind Eames's right ear. Where had it come from?
"Can I trust you?" Eames asked.
"Of course." Arthur's answer came definitively and without thought, and Hope added a flirtatious smile and traced a pattern on Eames's arm with her finger. "Why would I want you to lose?"
Eames patted the hand that was tucked into his and looked at his cards. He had eighteen now, and Arthur knew he wasn't going to stay.
Collins looked as though he wasn't going to play until Eames answered his question.
Eames stared pointedly at the cards until Collins took another card with a very clear attitude of going through the motions. Arthur could have told Collins that Eames loved to get under people's skin. Calmly playing the game as though it meant nothing to him would have been far more effective-and far less telling.
With a little smirk, Eames motioned for another card and said, "I think you're barking up the wrong tree."
"So you can't provide me with the services I require?"
"Of course I can. But Cobb's out of the business."
Only years of training ensured Arthur gave nothing away. Eames went bust at 26, as Arthur had predicted, and the next hand began, Eames not batting an eyelash at how much money he'd just lost. Arthur had seen the man gamble in the real world, so he knew it wasn't just because this was all a dream.
"He's the best," Collins said, waving for another card only when Eames prompted him again.
"Was the best," Eames corrected with heavy emphasis. "He's been off since his wife offed herself, and he's not coming back. Complete non-entity these days."
Oh, Eames was so lucky Hope was here, because Arthur would have fucking punched Eames's teeth out for that comment. Never mind Arthur's field training; he wondered if Eames had any idea of the things that Mal had taught Arthur and the numerous ways that he could kill Eames without anyone being the wiser.
Eames continued. "The chemist is immaterial, and you've seen Ariadne work. She's a kid."
"She shows some promise."
"She needs years of training-if she lasts that long." Eames's voice eloquently expressed his doubt. "She's in it for the architecture."
They shared a smarmy laugh, and Hope joined in politely if a bit vacantly, a light chime of sound that made Eames's lips twist into a more genuine smile-or least one whose motives Arthur preferred, and it was saying something when a lustful leer from Eames was a good thing.
The game resumed, focus holding for a few seconds before Collins spoke.
"So you're saying Arthur is my only concern."
"He's one of those dangerous creatures who refuses to have simple motives. He's not in it for the money or the architecture or the thrill, which means he's much harder to buy off. He trailed after Cobb like a puppy for years when anyone with an ounce of common sense and self-preservation would have walked away, and yet now here he is again, dreaming once more. He's methodical to a fault and has an unfortunate level of training."
"It sounds as though it would be in my best interest to eliminate him."
Eames laughed. "That would be the easy thing to do-and it'll certainly be your only option once he realises what you've done."
Arthur's blood ran cold.
Collins' lips curled up in triumph. "So you are in."
"You make a compelling monetary argument. And Arthur's not very hard to control once you understand him. He likes competence, rules, order, efficiency."
"That's something I could work out within five minutes of meeting the man. What does that tell us?"
Eames looked impatient. "Apart from the fact that it makes him an information goldmine and it's an easy way to lure him into anything? He stayed with Cobb for years." Collins still didn't get it. Arthur was pretty sure that even Hope playing the dumb blonde got it with all the leading that Eames was doing, but the sick feeling in the pit of his stomach ensured that he wasn't at all tempted to interject. "There were whole years where Cobb wasn't any of the above, where he was imploding from the inside out. And Arthur was right there by his side."
Collins was still waiting for more, and Arthur wasn't sure if he was as dumb as he was acting or if he wanted to ensure that Eames had a whole program in place.
"Win the man's trust, and you're golden. He'll leave aside all his rules and all his regulations for his friends."
Eames said the word mockingly, like it was the biggest weakness in the world.
Of course, just at the moment, Arthur was inclined to agree with him.
"You expect me to believe that you fit that bill, Mr. Eames?" Collins asked, eyes assessing, the fact that he was an extractor more obvious than it had been throughout the rest of the discussion.
"You certainly don't. The cock-up on this job alone is going to ensure he doesn't think much of you. I, on the other hand, have already done all the work. Who invited me onto this job?"
They laughed again, Hope joining in once more; it wasn't hard to sound a little bewildered, as though she hadn't followed most of the conversation.
"I'll need a couple of weeks," Eames continued.
"That long?" Collins sounded surprised. "I was given to understand you were the best."
"I am." Nothing but certainty in the forger's voice. "But we're only going to get the chance to do this once, and that means treading very carefully."
"Very well."
"No contact top-side," Eames continued. "Arthur may be a stick-in-the-mud, but he's not stupid, and his intel-gathering skills are unparalleled."
Collins conceded this with an inclination of his head; Arthur couldn't blame him for looking somewhat doubtful given how much Arthur had screwed this one up.
"He'll be concerned that I was grabbed by the subcons; time to get this show on the road."
Eames raised a gun, and Hope gasped.
Collins reached over to wrap a hand around Eames's wrist in a grip that looked as though it would leave bruises.
"I don't have a lot of use for you if you're in limbo."
The gun disappeared as precipitously as it had arrived, and Eames grimaced faintly.
Collins smiled a very satisfied smile.
"I've got the mark up there dreaming; told him it was a training exercise. No way he could keep it stable enough for a second level. We've got," he checked his watch, "twenty-five minutes left."
Eames was on his feet and had Hope in his arms almost before Arthur could track the motion.
"In that case," Eames said with that bright leer firmly in place once more, "if you'll excuse me, Collins, I have a beautiful woman to dance with."
Hope smiled up at him, altogether satisfied, while Arthur tracked their growing distance from Collins and considered the merits of shooting both of them right now and having done.
He spared a moment to be grateful that the theory of a sedative had occurred to him and to hope that Ariadne was safe.
Still. Shooting people was one thing; turning them into vegetables and leaving them prisoners of their own subconscious was something else. Plus, it was Collins' dream; Arthur couldn't guarantee that he'd get out in time if he shot the man in the head.
And while as far as he was concerned, Eames altogether deserved a bullet between the eyes, the man had been there for him at a time when Arthur had needed it.
He would consider this the marker called due and the slate wiped clean. (If only Eames knew that had he made his opinion of Mal and her death plain, he would already be dead.)
Eames pulled Hope into his arms. It was disconcerting to feel this small against him. Although he was broader and more muscular than Arthur, they were usually about the same height. The current configuration was not comfortable at all, especially under the circumstances.
Eames's fingers felt like a burning brand pressed against the small of Hope's back. He felt warm and smelled male and that indefinable "Eames" that was tying Arthur's stomach in knots that were altogether less pleasant than they usually were-and he'd found them problematic enough previously. Now, though, he felt seriously sick to his stomach and could only be grateful for years of experience to keep him focussed and faking it.
He compartmentalised his feelings, promised himself that he could freak out and maybe shoot Eames later, and then concentrated on the feelings that would ensure that he didn't give the game away. Eames felt warm and steady and strong, and in another life, Arthur would be truly enjoying this. Since this was now the only time this would be happening, he was going to have to live vicariously through Hope and this one moment.
Eames was watching her with eyes that were very bright, a familiar light in them, and Arthur had to suppress the urge to punch the man in the face. It was one thing to know that Eames looked at other people like that. (He looked at lots of people like that, Arthur had met the man.) It was something else again to be on the receiving end of the look when he was one of those other people.
It was not a very pleasant feeling.
"It's a little disconcerting to find you so attractive," Eames murmured.
Arthur allowed Hope's brow to furrow into a little frown. "Why would you say that?"
"This isn't the sort of place where I'd expect to find someone like you. I didn't think Collins had that much imagination."
Projections weren't human. You could interact with them to a degree, but they mostly remained in the periphery of the dream for everyone who wasn't the subject-unless you pissed them off enough that they attacked you. Rather like how everything made sense in a dream, however, if you chose to engage with them and said things that didn't make sense in reality, they had a tendency to get a bit confused or gloss over it just as though you hadn't said it.
Eames's initial comment had definitely caught her attention, though, and Arthur didn't think he could simply ignore it. As it turned out, though, he didn't really need to worry what Hope might have said next because Eames leaned in and covered Hope's lips with his own.
And no matter how many times Arthur had denied it when needled by Eames, he had always been extremely curious. The man's lips were softer and gentler than Arthur had expected, though the kiss was as skilled as he had anticipated it would be. Eames nipped at Hope's bottom lip, and Arthur opened his mouth without thought and quietly and viciously hated himself in that moment.
He could say he'd been trying not to blow his cover, but that would be a lie.
Hope clutched at Eames, fingers curling into the fabric of his horrible shirt, and Eames's hands slid lower than altogether acceptable in polite society. Hope pulled away, and Eames allowed the movement.
His lips were impossibly pink, his breathing accelerated, and the look in his eyes made Arthur want to forget everything for just a minute or two and let Eames do everything he was currently thinking.
That, however, was not an option, and Arthur reined himself in sharply. Hope bit her lip and regarded Eames with wide eyes.
"I need two minutes in the little girls' room, and then I want you to take me somewhere more private."
Eames grinned. "That's a promise, Love. Two minutes?"
"Two minutes," Hope agreed coyly, backing away with a show of reluctance before she turned around and strutted to the bathroom, feeling Eames's burning gaze on her ass.
Arthur nearly punched a hole in the wall when he got inside. He'd come to fucking rescue Eames, he'd never imagined any of this, and it was all so horrible. He was working himself up into something resembling a righteous rage, and it was difficult to subdue it in the need to be rational and not fucking insane.
There was a lot at stake here, however, and there had at least been no real contest about what had to happen now.
Hope locked herself in a stall, just in case, but a little over a minute after she entered the bathroom, the world dissolved, and Arthur opened his eyes in the warehouse.
Even as part of him once again considered the two men lying beside him, the perfect opportunity to shoot them, he was removing his needle, coiling the spare IV, and making sure everything looked just as it had when he arrived.
He scooped the dead projection into his arms, vanished the bloodstain with a minor alteration, and became Hope long enough to launch himself up to those impossibly far away windows.
If he'd thought longer about it, he would probably not have been able to manage getting through the window, changing it back to unhinged, getting the dead projection onto the roof, and climbing up there looking like Arthur, but he didn't really have time to think about it.
Ariadne was running over by the time he'd pulled himself onto the top of the roof, internally swearing up a storm from the gunshot wound on his arm that he'd mostly forgotten about one level down.
"Are you all right?" She was eyeing the dead projection and him with worried eyes.
"We have very little time, and I can't explain right now," he told her urgently. "It's crucial that Eames and Collins don't realise I was down in the second level since they didn't see me down there. So in thirty seconds, I need you to unleash the war to end all wars on the projections below and blast the hell out of those doors so that they don't realise someone was in there."
"What are you going to do?"
"Be somewhere else."
She was frowning fiercely, still eyeing him with concern, and he didn't know if it was because of this new plan or if he'd betrayed himself in some other way. It really didn't matter right now.
"Are you sure about this?" she asked.
"There was a sedative in the line. We'll be all right for the kick in three minutes. Trust no one. Can you do this for me?"
She stared at him for another long moment and then gave an abrupt nod. Arthur wasn't sure what had proved to her that he was in deadly earnest, if it was the warning phrase or the fact that he was telling her the plan involved her staying here for three minutes in the middle of a war zone when she could wind up in limbo. Whatever it was, he would take it.
"Go!" he admonished, and she was running back to the corner of the building and pulling the pin out of the grenade with her teeth as she readied what looked a lot like Eames's grenade launcher from the Fischer job.
Arthur spared a glance to make sure she wasn't looking his way, and then he leapt off the building, shifting into Hope and letting her wings unfurl behind him. He stayed low to the ground long enough to ensure that he was out of all lines of sight where he was close enough to be recognizable, and then he soared higher, getting a bird's-eye view of the city.
Collins wasn't just planning to ransack Arthur's mind. He hadn't simply been planning to attack Arthur's friends. On top of all that, the man had staged this entire mission and treated Arthur like he was an idiot.
Arthur really hated that, and if he wasn't able to shoot the man in the head, he damn well intended to prove that Collins wasn't worth the ground that Nash walked on, the asshole, never mind anyone who made up their actual team.
Collins was apparently capable of a modicum of cunning or this wouldn't have worked at all, but he really wasn't very subtle overall. Arthur's intel had indicated that the mark was afraid of heights, a fact which they had intended to use to their advantage, but it meant that they'd been supposed to look for him at ground level. Since the extractor would want the man to be exactly where they wouldn't look for him, Arthur found the stupidest, most ostentatiously tall building and headed into the penthouse by way of the window, changing back into Arthur so that when the mark saw him, he was impeccably dressed-and inexplicably present.
"Well done, Mr. Forthwright," Arthur said smoothly. "Mr. Collins is quite impressed."
The mark relaxed immediately, and Arthur suppressed an eye roll. Seriously? As easy as that?
He stepped closer, noticing the way the man stayed away from the windows and sight of the impressive view. He handed the man a drink and explained, "Your militarised subconscious elements are pinning down the extraction team as we speak. Collins wishes to reconfirm the integrity of your mind and brainstorm some additional security. Perhaps we could go downstairs to the vault?"
The man was just itching for an excuse to get off the top floor, and Arthur's no-nonsense tone served him well.
The sedative took effect shortly after they entered the vault, and Arthur hurriedly committed the necessary information to memory before it faded off the page in the face of the unconscious mark and the kick pulled him out of the dream.
Arthur had weighed all his options and settled on a gun trained on Collins, who raised an eyebrow. He was a better actor than Arthur would have expected, or he truly thought his secret was safe.
"What's going on?" It was Ariadne who asked.
Arthur didn't look away from Collins. "You militarised the mark against us."
A casual shrug. "Call it an audition."
"That's unprofessional enough to make me not regret shooting you right now. Eames or Ariadne could have been badly injured."
"Are you Superman, then?"
Enough condescension to choke a horse.
"Eames got dragged away by subcons. Ariadne shot her way through them to try to rescue him. I went after the mark."
"Then you know why the extraction failed."
"You mean you know why your training failed."
They all sort of blinked at him, and Arthur spared a moment to be quietly very offended.
"Off shore account numbers and a couple of interesting blackmail schemes." Arthur smiled coldly at Collins, who looked mildly disconcerted for the first time since this had started. "But I'm sure you knew that already." He holstered his gun. "Now, if you'll excuse me, the words 'never again' best express my desire to work with you."
It was remarkably silent as Arthur gathered up his few belongings and left the building. Had his world not just come crashing down around his ears, he'd feel a nice surge of triumph at the moment.
He hadn't made it very far down the block before Eames and Ariadne hurried to join him.
"Darling," Eames said, and he sounded genuinely impressed, "that was a tour de force."
If Arthur could trust the man further than he could throw him, this would affect him in some way.
He scoffed. "Please. The man is an asshole."
Eames laughed. "True. That makes it all the nicer to see someone hand him his arse-which it is entirely likely he couldn't find with two hands and a flashlight."
Ariadne snorted, and Arthur was pleased it was in character to shoot her a glare for encouraging such childish commentary.
Arthur continued seriously, "Putting the team at risk for his own agenda is completely unacceptable."
Eames cleared his throat loudly. "I hate to break this to you, but it's hardly a new experience for you."
Arthur stiffened. "Do you have a particular desire to be shot between the eyes?"
"I'm just saying-" Eames began defensively.
"That was completely different," Arthur declared flatly. "This was an ambush."
Hesitantly, Ariadne started, "Um, I don't want to get in the middle…."
Arthur let out a short huff of breath, feeling his temper fray dangerously.
"Let's agree to disagree, okay? I'm not in the mood for a fight."
Or, to be more accurate, he was just itching for one, but he wasn't quite ready for the consequences.
"You always did give him more latitude than you give anyone else," Eames pointed out in the tone that said that this was his version of "letting it go"-in other words, ensuring that he needled Arthur and hoping that Arthur would bring up the topic he had just resolved to close.
There was no way that Arthur could point out all the ways that the two cases were completely disparate, and he didn't really want to argue the matter in any case. Mal was dead, Dom and James and Phillipa had been reunited, and that was all that mattered. They were selfish and personal goals when it came right down to it, but they were the right sort of selfish and personal goals.
Collins deserved a bullet between the eyes.
"Ariadne," Arthur said very deliberately, "your plane takes off this evening, right?"
"Right," she agreed, a little more slowly than was altogether convincing, but it was going to be pretty obvious that Arthur was chivvying her along regardless.
With a little bit of luck, Eames would simply misunderstand the reasons why.
"There's no way you're leaving before I get a celebratory drink into you," Eames declared, slinging a friendly arm over Arthur's shoulder.
Arthur slipped out of the heavy grasp with a long-suffering sigh, ignoring the way his stomach clenched and his sense memory went into overdrive reminding him of the most recent occasion where they had been that close.
"Unfortunately, my flight isn't until tomorrow morning," Arthur lied.
He needed to get Ariadne safely out of here before he did his own disappearing act. He didn't want anyone to get desperate at this stage in the game.
Eames positively grinned. "Excellent. Drinks it is."
Arthur looked at Ariadne with a very small portion of the desperation that he was feeling.
"Do you need help packing?"
Ariadne laughed. "I think I can manage, thank you, even getting to the airport in a hurry."
At least she'd got that message.
"Text me to let me know you made it onto the flight on time."
She rolled her eyes and leaned over to kiss him on the cheek. "Worrier."
"I'm the point man. It's my job," he said huffily.
She laughed. "As you say."
They reached the hotel.
"I'll leave you to your drink," she said cheerfully.
He mouthed the word "traitor" at her, but she just laughed again and gave the two of them a jaunty wave as she headed to the elevator.
"Looks like it's just you and me, Darling."
Arthur wondered if Eames had any idea how exponentially more likely this comment made it that he was going to wind up with a bullet in the brain.
"Come on," Eames said fearlessly, "I'll get you anything you like."
Arthur closed his eyes briefly and then opened them to regard the bright eyes staring so intently at him. "Has it occurred to you that I don't want you to buy me a drink?"
"Of course it has," Eames said with that same cheerfulness that made Arthur want to kick him in the teeth. "But I'm certain I'll be able to overcome that faux reticence."
There were so many reasons that Arthur could cheerfully have pulled out his gun and committed murder in that moment. Eames was usually pretty good about picking up on that sort of thing-but then, Arthur didn't suppose that the feeling was anything new. If he was currently hiding how truly homicidal he was feeling, then that was all to the good.
And he needed to give Ariadne time to get safely away.
He sighed and gestured towards the hotel bar.
"Lead on."
Eames beamed at him, and it didn't really do any good to claim that Arthur's stomach had flipped because he was disappointed.
(Really, Arthur needed to work on his ability to lie to himself. He'd probably sleep better at night.)
"After you." Eames gestured expansively.
Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Afraid I'm going to make a break for it?"
Eames made a face but led the way. Arthur wasn't giving anyone his back right now-not to mention the fact that he knew that Eames ogled.
It was one thing when they were flirting and dancing around one another. It was altogether another thing when Eames was trying to seduce him for truly nefarious purposes.
They went the predicted rounds when Eames tried to get the drinks and Arthur insisted on being the one to go.
It was just too easy to slip something into someone's drink that way. There was at least a little slight of hand required when you were trying to do it in front of the person-and Arthur was usually very good at catching that sort of thing.
"You look like the sort of person who forgets to mention you ordered doubles," Arthur pointed out.
"Can't handle your liquor?"
"Need help?"
Challenge issued. Arthur knew he was going to regret it-but he'd regretted the entire day almost since the moment it had started, and there were very few ways to truly make it worse.
Eames let him go, of course, and Arthur returned with the unaltered drinks. Clearly, he should start carrying pills with him again, but he'd gotten a little lax in the real world.
Eames toasted him, and Arthur was starting to feel ill-and he hadn't even started drinking.
Part of him wished that he'd done some of this with Eames before so that he'd have an undiluted memory to keep him going after this one imploded. The rest of him thought that it was all to the good that he didn't have anything to help drag him deeper than he'd already gone.
He allowed Eames to think that he was convincing Arthur to drink another drink, and they chatted about everything and nothing, branching out from this screwed up job and the ridiculous things that they had witnessed over the years, though Arthur noted that the other man was careful not to bring up Dom now; it would hardly serve his purpose if Arthur left in a huff.
Two drinks became four even interspersed with water as Arthur had insisted, and this made it all the more plausible when he followed the other man up to his hotel room.
Eames's lips had sealed over Arthur's before his back hit the door as it slammed closed.
Eames tasted like the whisky he'd been drinking, not quite as appealing as he had been in the dream but still warm and very demanding, far more demanding than he had been when Arthur had appeared as Hope.
They were the right height now, and Eames was pinning Arthur against the door with his body, all hard muscles and burning heat.
Arthur hated the fact that Eames had kissed Hope first, hated the way his body responded, the way he arched into the other man's touch, clutched at his shirt with needy fingers and wanted so much he ached.
He curled his free hand into Eames's hair, cradling the base of his skull and relishing the way Eames leaned closer to him.
The moments he had here were going to be the only moments that he ever got, and the knowledge of what was really going on had already tainted them beyond repair.
Arthur should at least have had the self-control to like it less.
But there was the faint scratch of stubble against his cheek, all that heat, and clever hands that were already pulling Arthur out of his suit jacket.
This was going too fast and yet not fast enough because any moment now-
Eames let out a low growl of protest when Arthur pulled away to root through the pile of clothes at his feet-when had he even lost his tie?-to extricate his phone.
Hope you kiss better in real life.
He allowed his lips to tip up in the slightest of smiles at his relief that Ariadne was safe.
Then he turned back to Eames, and he stopped pretending to be slightly drunk.
Worry edged out the lust on the other man's face.
"Is everything all right?"
"I have to go."
Eames's gaze sharpened, assessing, and Arthur couldn't help but note bitterly that he seemed a lot less drunk than he had moments ago, too. Not wanting to end up betrayed and dead was pretty explicable; what was Eames's excuse for the subterfuge?
"Arthur, what's wrong?"
Eames reached for him, and Arthur jerked back, not nearly as suavely as he would have liked, out of the way of the touch.
He liked it too much, had liked it too much even when he knew its cost, and he couldn't allow himself to be that weak again.
He grabbed up his tie and his suit jacket, smoothly rebuttoning his shirt.
"Goodbye, Mr. Eames," Arthur pronounced politely and altogether as coldly as he could manage.
Eames just gaped at him as Arthur closed the door in the other man's face.
He was safely around the corner before he heard Eames calling his name, and he knew that Eames would never find him after that; Arthur was the point man, and he had chosen this hotel after carefully assessing its floor plans.
He hadn't put himself and Eames on the same floor, nor had he revealed his room number. There was nothing he couldn't have lived without, but he preferred to leave a completely invisible trail where possible, and that meant clearing out the room.
He'd brought little, and since this was an extraction with a new team, he'd been ready to leave on even more of a moment's notice than usual.
He felt mildly regretful about reporting someone of Eames's description causing mischief to the hotel staff and the police, but he reminded himself of just what it was that Eames had been paid off to do. It was stupid to be feeling any sort of loyalty to him under the circumstances-and it wasn't as though Eames wasn't going to be able to talk his way out of it. He was good at that.
Fewer than three minutes, and Arthur was out of the hotel. Under ten and phone, PASIV, and recognizable IDs had been destroyed.
He eschewed flying entirely-far too predictable-and went with public transportation and then a bus with a cash payment. He wondered if he was the only member of the team-not that he had a team anymore, he reminded himself viciously-who knew from firsthand experience that there were some excellent places in Buffalo to swim across the border.
No one ever thought to look for people flying out of Canada-not that they would know what to look for anyway, since Arthur had a set of forged passports and IDs that he never used with any team.
They were on hand for when he needed to disappear completely, and while that hadn't happened recently, there was a reason that Arthur was always prepared.
Contacts, a buzz cut and dye job, a change of clothes, a cheerful demeanour and a bright smile, and most people wouldn't recognize him even if he was leaving from somewhere that they actually expected.
Arthur had always been good at running, and he'd had a long time to set up a very good network.
He'd sort of hoped that he wouldn't have to use it, but that had clearly been wishful thinking on his part.
Arthur disappeared.
~*~
On to Interlude