the coca extraction
.the coca extraction
ariadne calls arthur about a job in cochabamba. eames is there, too. written for this wonderful prompt.
pg13 . 6208 words
Arthur was home for Passover when Ariadne called him. He was helping his mother roll out matzo, and he was wearing an apron covered in flour.
“How do you feel about Cochabamba this time of year?” Ariadne had asked over the phone.
“Bolivia?” Arthur replied after slipping into the bathroom.
“Straightforward extraction. I’ll give you the details when you get here,” Ariadne said. “I want you on point.”
“Is anyone else on board?” Arthur asked.
“Me,” Ariadne said. “I was going to wait until I got you before calling anyone else.”
Arthur ran a hand through his hair. “Well, you got me.”
“Good,” Ariadne said.
“Just give me a week,” Arthur added.
“Sure,” Ariadne said. “I’ll send you flight information when I get it. Should I put the tickets under Franklin James?”
“Of course,” said Arthur, and then he hung up the phone before he could ask if she’d be calling Eames, next.
At dinner his uncles had asked him about his job, and Arthur told them lies about being an actuary, and his aunts asked him about his love life, and Arthur told them truths about not having one at all, because he was too busy (and then back to lies) with his boring job as an actuary.
And now Arthur is in Panama City, sitting on the floor in the airport because his layover is very long, and he’s already eaten what has to be the strangest grilled cheese sandwich ever, and he’s wondering why he didn’t ask Ariadne about Eames, after all.
It’s been three years since the inception job, and since then Arthur and Eames have worked five jobs together. One for Saito. Ariadne’s first extraction, and her second. The second inception job, which they almost botched (rather like the first, that way). And the one in Sydney, where Eames had spent ninety-percent of the job shirtless and had still pulled off the forgery perfectly. Probably because the forge was a surfer, but still.
Thinking about Eames makes Arthur tired, or maybe Arthur was tired already, but he is not going to sleep on the floor of the Panama City airport.
So he thinks about the job. Ariadne had encrypted some information and sent it to him with the plane tickets, so what he knows is this:
They’ve been hired by the Bolivian government’s coca director. The mark is one Alejandro Padilla, whose subconscious may or may not be militarized. Padilla lives in Cochabamba, but owns several coca plantations outside La Paz, and the director suspects that a significant percentage of his product is entering the drug market, but has, thus far, been unable to figure out how.
So, essentially, a simple extraction. On a drug lord.
These are the jobs Arthur likes; this is why Arthur isn’t an actuary. Because math may be a puzzle, but it’s not the kind of stakes, it’s not the sort that incorporates the perfect precision of semi-automatic firearms. And it certainly isn’t the sort of puzzle where anything can happen.
One of the many things encompassed by “anything” happens now.
The thing that happens is a pair of battered brown leather boots, attached to long legs in ill-fitting trousers, attached to, of course, Eames.
“Hello, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, trying to sound as dignified as it is possible to sound while looking up at someone from the floor.
“Arthur,” Eames says, and if his tone were any drier it would dissolve and blow away. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Fancy that,” Arthur says. “Would you like to take a seat?”
“I think I’ll stay where I am, thanks,” Eames says, still looking down at him. Which is exasperating. Eames is exasperating.
“So you’re on the Cochabamba job, then?” Arthur asks, because it is possible Eames is flying through Panama City, on the same day as Arthur, at roughly the same time, but to--elsewhere.
“Of course, darling. We both know you can’t be trusted alone,” Eames replies.
“Ariadne will be there,” Arthur says.
“Yes, how foolish of me,” says Eames. “I am sure she would have taken quite good care of you.”
Arthur lets Eames have the last word, because a very short woman has appeared at the desk and now they can check-in. They both do so in Spanish, and Arthur is pretty sure his is better than Eames’, but he may be being petty, now. Eames brings that out in him, just a little. He thinks he may do the same for Eames, but Arthur has been unable to observe Eames without being physically present with him, so he isn’t sure.
Eames may just be an ass, all the time.
When they get through to their gate they sit down in adjacent chairs, and Eames takes up too much space next to him, and Arthur digs his book out of his carry-on, just to have something to do other than talk to or think about Eames.
“The Bourne Identity?” says Eames from his left, because apparently some people can’t take a hint.
“I’m sorry, Eames. Would you prefer I read Shakespeare in the airport? Would that meet your high standards?”
Eames had done a PhD in psychology at Oxford, after the inception job. Something about having higher education made him particularly insufferable.
“I was just asking a question, Arthur. No need to snipe.”
This is the way their conversations go. They snipe, and then, eventually, one of them acts as if the other has been unreasonable.
Arthur looks at this book again, but doesn’t read it. It will be okay, he thinks, when Ariadne is there and they are properly on the job, when they don’t need to pretend to be concerned about anything other than their respective capabilities as point man and forger; though, because this is an Ariadne job, Arthur imagines he’ll be working with her on the architecture, and Eames will help plan the extraction--still, point man and forger are what they are. Ariadne’s the one who likes to blur lines.
Their flight from Santa Cruz gets delayed, technical difficulties on the tarmac for two hours. After that Arthur goes out to help, gives Eames his suit jacket and rolls up his sleeves. Eames looks at him skeptically, but under his direction the plane is on the runway in thirty minutes.
“I didn’t know you were also an airplane mechanic,” Eames says when he returns the jacket.
“Thank you,” says Arthur. “You’re welcome.”
Arthur had studied engineering at MIT. No one in his family ever understood why he became an actuary.
Ariadne is at the airport when they get to Cochabamba, standing in the midst of a group of Mennonites.
“Arthur,” she says, smiling expansively. “Eames. I’m so glad you’re here.”
The both stoop to hug her by turn, and she leads them out to a car she has apparently bought, a small, rickety thing colored aquamarine.
“I liked it,” she says, to answer both their looks. They fold themselves in, and Ariadne immediately begins talking about the job.
“We’ve rented a gymnasium,” she says. “From a closed school. I’ve brought in a few desks, so it should do. Sometimes kids try to break in and play soccer, though.”
“I can fix that,” Arthur interjects.
“It doesn’t really matter,” she says.
Arthur gives her a look. Everything matters.
But there are two things Arthur likes about working with Ariadne; and the first is that she acts like dreamsharing is just an ordinary career path, with no criminal element whatsoever, and if that introduces an element of carelessness, well, that’s why she works with Arthur.
“Yusuf’s here,” Ariadne adds, after a moment of silence.
“Yusuf, eh?” Eames asks. “Now correct me if I’m wrong, Ariadne my dear, but I don’t believe we need a field chemist for this job.”
“No,” Ariadne says. “We don’t.” She blushes.
“So is Yusuf getting a cut?” Eames asks.
“Yusuf’s sharing my cut,” Ariadne replies, and now Arthur is looking between her and Eames, embarrassed for having missed this.
“Well,” Eames says, sounding smug. “Isn’t that interesting. Arthur?”
“Very interesting, Mr. Eames,” Arthur replies, and turns so he’s looking out the window. They are just on the cusp of the dry season, so the mountains that ring the city are still tinged with residual green. There’s a statue of Christ with arms outstretched atop one of them, and Arthur spies it. Now they’re in a neighborhood of white houses with flat red roofs, and then no longer; they’re in what might be the city center or might just be somewhere with taller buildings. Now they’re in a roundabout. Ariadne drives like she knows where she’s going, and soon they pass through the tall buildings and enter another neighborhood of small buildings, and then there is a broad brick wall and a wrought iron gate, chained shut.
“Shotgun gets the gate,” Ariadne says, and shotgun is Eames, so that’s okay. Arthur is a little disappointed when the gate proves to be no trouble, for Eames, but he knows that’s petty.
The school campus is completely vacant, and there are a smattering of buildings that look outwardly okay, but also like they’re on the verge of crumbling down, and twisted vines and small gnarled trees scattered about. Ariadne weaves through the trees and drives the car across the lawn, and parks beside the gymnasium, and Yusuf comes out to greet them.
“So,” Eames says to Yusuf. “You couldn’t have told me about this in Mombasa?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” Yusuf replies, throwing one arm around Ariadne’s shoulders. “I so rarely do. Hey, Arthur.”
“Hey,” Arthur says, studying Yusuf and Ariadne in the same way he can tell Eames is. Having relationships within the team can be volatile, but Ariadne and Yusuf are about as steady as you get. And sometimes it works; like Mal and Cobb, before it didn’t.
They enter the gym through a small side door, and Arthur can tell Yusuf and Ariadne have cannibalized the school for desks; they’re the broad, cheap sort that teachers have, and the chairs are the small metal ones found in high school classrooms. But he’s worked in more uncomfortable chairs since high school, so.
Arthur goes to one the two empty desks and begins to unpack his things; laptop, preliminary files on the Bolivian coca industry and Padilla, notebook. Eames is watching him.
“Maybe I wanted that desk, Arthur darling,” Eames says, somehow managing to make this statement sound reasonable.
“Eames,” Arthur says. “There are two desks. They’re exactly the same. Do you want this one? Because I can switch.”
“No,” Eames says, but he doesn’t look appeased.
“Arthur,” Ariadne says suddenly, from where she and Yusuf have been conferring in the background. “I’ve started some of the architecture. Would you like to take a look?”
At the same time, Yusuf is saying how he converted one of the labs in another building, and Eames should come see. So Arthur goes to the corner of the gymnasium with Ariadne, and Yusuf and Eames disappear out the door.
“Arthur,” Ariadne hisses. “Is it going to be like this for the entire job?”
“Like what?” Arthur asks, though he suspects he may know.
“You and Eames bickering like children,” Ariadne says, looking at him flatly. “Seriously, what is wrong with you guys?”
“There’s a chance,” Arthur says, trying to sound dignified. “It has something to do with Sydney.”
“Was that the job on the beach volleyball Olympian?” Ariadne asks.
“Eames spent every day at the beach,” Arthur says. “I may have questioned his professionalism.”
“Arthur,” Ariadne says. “Wasn’t Eames forging a surfer?”
“Eames may have pointed that out,” Arthur replies.
“And?” Ariadne presses.
“I may have continued to question his professionalism,” Arthur acquiesces. “And skill.”
“Arthur,” Ariadne says sharply.
“We did not depart from Sydney on the best of terms,” Arthur continues. “Because Mr. Eames is capable of making jokes, but apparently not capable of taking them.”
“Arthur,” Ariadne says again. “You know these things. I know you know these things. But Eames is the best. And you are also the best, and I know you know that, too. And I can’t afford to have my forger and my pointman at each other’s throats. This job may be straightforward, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
“Which,” she continues, and her eyes have gone very sharp. “You also know. Do you understand me?”
Arthur sometimes forgets that people other than himself and Eames are good at their jobs, and that Ariadne grew up very fast.
“Okay,” Arthur says.
“Okay,” Ariadne says, and then begins to explain the second level to him. It’s set in a coca plantation, and the maze will be done with rows of bushes, and it is, as is typical of Ariadne, quite clever. Beneath the coca fields there’s a layer of caverns, and the safe where the mark will hopefully place his secrets is there. Arthur notes a few minor problems, and this is his job and it feels very good to be doing it.
When Yusuf and Eames return, Eames settles at the other desk, and Arthur watches out of the corner of his eye.
Ariadne gathers them all together over empanadas that evening, and they talk through the initial stages of the job. Eames will be tailing Padilla, of course, and Arthur will call his contacts to collect more information on possible subconscious militarization, and hopefully infiltrate the drug market to some degree. Arthur may not be as good as Eames at blending in, but he can play a wealthy foreign dumbass as well as the next person.
“Make sure you actually figure out whether the mark is militarized this time, eh darling?” Eames asks. Arthur scowls, but Ariadne looks at him sharply and he manages not to rise to the bait.
Ariadne and Yusuf had set up cots in empty classrooms, and despite the fact that there had to be an endless number of empty classrooms here, they only converted two to sleeping quarters. And of course they were bunking together, which left Arthur with Eames.
“Eames,” Arthur says when they’re lying on their cots in the dark, on opposite sides of the room. “I’m sorry I was rude to you in Sydney.”
“Did Ariadne tell you to apologize?” Eames asks.
“Yes,” Arthur answers, because it’s the truth. “Why?”
“Because Yusuf told me to be nice to you. I’m not going to.”
Arthur rolls over, and listens to the insects outside.
“Do you know what chagas disease is?” Eames asks. “An insect defecates on you after biting you, and you rub it in, and then a parasite enters your bloodstream. Twenty to forty percent of individuals develop chronic, potentially fatal symptoms.”
“I hope a botfly lays eggs in your penis,” Arthur says, and goes to sleep, thinking it really was a pity that Eames didn’t sleep completely nude, to facilitate botfly penis access. Not for any other reason.
So the apology went somewhat less than swimmingly, but Eames and Arthur both make an effort when Ariadne or Yusuf is present, and that seems to be sufficient. It helps that Eames is often off at odd hours tailing Padilla; he’ll come back late at night and crawl into his cot without acknowledging Arthur at all, and then he’ll sleep late in the morning, when Arthur is already over at the gym, discussing the architecture with Ariadne, or making calls.
They manage, in this way, to coexist. Arthur has to wonder about Eames, when they’re sitting at their desks. Eames has a small tape recorder he uses for notes, and he spends a lot of time whispering into it, and when Arthur reaches a gap in his work he’ll watch him, for no particular reason. Eames is so focused, with his tape recorder. His desk is almost entirely clear of papers; just tapes in rows and piles, but he looks at that and holds the recorder to his ear and his mouth alternately, and doesn’t seem to notice anyone else in the room at all.
The thing about pushing Eames, Arthur thinks, is that he always gets a response.
Information begins to come together; the puzzle pieces falling into place. Padilla’s subconscious is militarized, and if Arthur is a little smug when he tells the group, well. Arthur schmoozes with drug lords, playing the wide-eyed, wealthy, idiot investor, though he can find no trace of Padilla’s people among them. Padilla has a mistress who he sleeps with a wife whom he loves, according to Eames, and the wife will be the forge, and guilt about the mistress will be the incentive. Ariadne and Arthur design the first level, loosely modelled on the big estate where Padilla lives in the mountains. Yusuf does mysterious things in his make-shift lab, and only seems to be paying attention to the job half the time. But he only gets half a share, so.
They eat a lot of empanadas, and peanut soup. Ariadne brings them cow heart grilled on skewers, and little pockets of bread containing fried egg and salsa and rice and steak, of which Arthur eats three, even though their name literally translates to “heart attack.” Eames eats four, but Arthur is pretty sure that’s just to one-up him.
They’re two days out from the job when everything changes. Eames comes back late at night and shakes Arthur awake, looking harried.
“It’s the wife,” he says.
“What?” Arthur asks, because sleep is still heavy around him.
“The wife,” Eames says. “Pamela. She’s the one funneling coca into the drug market. I thought Padilla was too dumb, but then I thought it might just be a front.”
Arthur sits up, then, and looks directly at Eames.
“Fuck,” he says, because it’s really the only thing left to say.
They wake Ariadne and Yusuf, and father in the gymnasium, and Eames explains the situation.
Pamela Padilla, apparently aware of her husband’s affair, is sleeping with David Botero. Eames looks at Arthur significantly when he says this, and Arthur groans.
“David Botero? With the moustache?”
“David Botero who you’ve been schmoozing with for weeks,” Eames says, and there is a grin teasing the edges of his mouth.
David Botero who Arthur lost a game of poker too, badly, the other night. Arthur took satisfaction in knowing that if he wanted to win, he could have.
“So what now?” Ariadne asks.
“We run the extraction,” Arthur says. “But we need to run it on Pamela.”
Eames nods, “We need more information if they’re going to take them down. Obviously Botero is involved, but I don’t know how much coca they’re taking, or how they’re hiding the dilution in the stuff they sell legally.”
“And I could guess what channels they’re using, if Botero is involved, but that wouldn’t mean I was right,” Arthur adds.
“Do we need another two weeks?” Ariadne asks, looking between Arthur and Eames. Arthur looks at Eames.
“We don’t have another two weeks,” he says. “Pamela gets her hair done twice a month. I have an in with the hair dresser. It will work, but we have three days.”
Arthur knows this shouldn’t make him happy, but it does. This, now is a proper job. He can tell Eames feels it, too; everything’s changed. He sees Ariadne watching them, and he smiles at her.
“This,” he says, “is why I’m not an actuary.”
Ariadne smiles back, and there’s something bright in her eyes.
“I know,” she says. “This is why I’m not a real architect.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, love,” Eames tells her. “You’re as real as it gets.”
Yusuf grins benignly at them all, and it’s late at night and they should be sleeping, but instead they go to work.
“Siesta,” Ariadne says, some time in the late afternoon. Her eyes are heavy. “I unilaterally declare a siesta.”
Arthur nods, even though he doesn’t entirely want to, and they plod over to the sleeping classrooms.
“Arthur,” Eames says from across the room, when they’re lying in their cots. “I think I need you to forge Botero.”
Arthur pushes himself up on his elbows and stares at Eames.
“What?”
“Botero, Arthur,” Eames says, looking at the ceiling. “I’ll do Alejandro Padilla. You do David Botero.”
Eames is falling asleep as he talks, Arthur can tell, and it’s no surprise since he didn’t sleep when the rest of them did the night before. Arthur just stares at him from across the room.
“It’s the best way,” Eames says. “I’ll explain it to you when I wake up.”
“Okay,” Arthur replies, only he’s not sure Eames can hear him.
When they wake up, Arthur and Eames go back to sleep, to practice forging. It makes sense, and being in the dream gives them more time, besides. They’re under for fifteen minutes, in the dream for three hours.
“Arthur,” Eames says, hand on his chin. “Your moustache is wavering.”
“Fuck,” Arthur says.
“Darling,” Eames says, pacing around him, assessing. “You need to be David Botero. You can’t just focus on being him for a moment, because then you’ll lose it as soon as you think about something else. You actually need to live as David Botero. Sit down.”
Arthur looks at him and raises a brow, but obeys. They’re on the roof of a building, and there’s a city spread around them, and no wind in the air.
“See, just there? Your eyebrow went back to being your eyebrow, and the skin around it went white.”
Eames sits down facing Arthur, cross-legged so their knees touch.
“Breathing exercises,” he says. “They help. Now, follow my breathing, and whenever you exhale try to breathe Arthur out. Think about everything you know about David Botero, wholly. Inhale Botero. Exhale Arthur.”
Arthur closes one eye, but keeps the other open. “This sounds suspiciously new age,” he says, then blinks both eyes shut before Eames can protest.
“I know my craft,” Eames says flatly, and there’s not really anything Arthur can say, to that.
The breathing exercises help, a little. Arthur holds Botero for half an hour without flickering, and he and Eames managed to have a stilted conversation.
“I don’t like this as much as my job,” Arthur says, when he shifts back.
“I’m sure I’d say the same about point,” Eames replies easily. “Now forge me.”
Arthur looks at him.
“I know who I am. You have to, in my line of work,” Eames says simply. “I’ll know if you get it right. Sit down.”
They sit down again, knees touching. Eames puts his hands on Arthur’s knees, palms down, and indicates that Arthur should do the same. Arthur is pretty sure he doesn’t know what is happening, and he prides himself on knowing what is happening. He manages to resist making comments about how close to yoga Eames’ craft seems to be.
“Inhale Eames,” Eames says, quietly. “Exhale Arthur.”
When Arthur opens his eyes, he is looking at himself. His brow, on his face, is arched.
“Stand up,” Arthur’s body says, and his accent is American. The way it usually is. Arthur watches his own lips, forming the words, and it’s like looking in the mirror while talking. He can’t look away.
Arthur stands up, and he can feel his body is different--bigger, though his height is unchanged. He looks at his hands, and his fingers are squared and blunt, and his arms are thick and ropy. His hair is shorter. He knew all these things were happening--but.
Arthur’s body paces around him, examining.
“Say something,” he says, and there is the American accent again.
“Eames,” Arthur says, and he manages to sound passably British. “I can’t hold this.”
Arthur begins to slip back into his own body, and he watches Eames do the same. He wonders if there’s a moment when they look exactly alike.
“Good,” says Eames, curtly, and he still sounds like Arthur.
“What?” Arthur says, because that didn’t feel good at all.
“If you can hold me for that long,” Eames says, his accent is back to normal, “While looking at yourself, you’ll be alright.”
“I think I’d like to stop, now,” Arthur says.
“You did a good job,” Eames says, gentle. “You know me better than I thought.”
“Of course,” Arthur replies, and jumps off the building.
It’s hard to look at Eames, when they wake up. Arthur throws himself into research, instead, and pretends not to notice when Eames leaves the gymnasium. Ariadne helps him, because she has some connections of her own, and they can still use the same architecture, which is pretty much set.
Pamela’s subconscious is militarized, it turns out. Botero paid for the training. It’s not completely unexpected; most people in illegal professions are militarized, because they’re more likely to encounter others in illegal professions. But the information comes up so quickly, Arthur’s surprised he didn’t find it when he was asking about Alejandro.
The job comes together a second time, and it’s exhilarating. Eames and Arthur practice their forges again, and Arthur holds Botero for an hour while fighting with Eames’ Alejandro over Pamela, and if he and Eames both take pleasure in landing punches on one another--well, it’s for the job. They choreograph it, to ensure minimal injuries, but.
The night before the job, they run through their plan again. A lot is riding on Arthur’s forgery; he needs to convince Pamela, on the first level, that they’re in a dream and need to enter the second level, and on the second level he needs to convince Pamela that Eames’ Alejandro is actually Pamela’s projection of Alejandro, and only exists because she loves Alejandro more than David. And then they’ll fight and, presumably, buy Ariadne time to find the information they need, keeping Pamela focused on relationship issues rather than the cocaine business, so all that will be stored away by her subconscious. Yusuf will stay on the first level, to orchestrate the kick.
Presumably. Everyone is aware that a job never goes like the plan, but the plans are nice in theory. It provides a framework to work from.
They are up early the next morning, driving to the salon in Ariadne’s tiny aquamarine car, setting everything up in a back room. Eames flirts easily with the hairdresser as she drugs her client’s drink, and Arthur has to wonder how Eames can slip so easily into this character, this charming cad, a person who Arthur rarely sees.
When the mark enters the back room everything is ready.
They go to sleep.
The first level goes smoothly, remarkably. Arthur can feel Eames watching him from afar, as he and Pamela wander through the complex estate Ariadne has created.
“See,” Arthur whispers to her in Spanish. “This is not your estate. See how the rooms flow? And the servants are not doing anything they should be doing.”
Pamela is nodding.
“I’m helping you, my heart, because I love you,” Arthur continues, and he can hear the falseness in his words. “We need to go deeper in. It will be safer there.”
Pamela looks at him, a smile teasing at her lips.
“Deeper,” she says. “Of course, my dear. We will sleep together, then?”
Eames is watching Arthur, from across the room.
“Yes,” Arthur says. “We will sleep together.”
After Arthur drugs Pamela, Ariadne and Eames appear, and they all go to the next level together.
“This is a very strange place you have brought me, David,” Pamela says to Arthur when they wake up. “This is not what I had expected.”
“I had thought we might go to the coca fields,” Arthur says. “Because of our special partnership.”
Pamela smiles, now, it cracks slowly across her face, and it is hungry.
“Of course,” she says, catching Arthur’s hand in her own. “Of course.”
And then Pamela’s other hand is on Arthur’s back, or more properly David Botero’s back, and her mouth is on his, pressing hard, and Arthur wonders how she can kiss someone with such an idiotic moustache.
He tries to kiss back, but it mostly makes him uncomfortable. Pamela is old enough to be his mother. Pamela is the same age as his mother. And it is quickly becoming apparent, from the frantic way her hand is pawing at his crotch, that Pamela and David Botero use dreamsharing to have sex, and Arthur is not sure how much longer he can hold the forgery under these conditions. Eames is supposed to be here, by now. Instead, there are projections gathering around them, attracted to the feeling of sex, the outsize emotions.
Arthur needs Eames to be here, now.
Arthur has never been so glad to be punched in the face. He falls to the ground, clutching his bloodied nose, as Alejandro Padilla grasps his wife by the shoulders.
“What is this?” he asks, and it sounds real. If his Spanish was accented in the airport, it isn’t now. “Pamela, you must tell me.”
“Pamela!” Arthur says from the ground.
Pamela looks at them both, like she knows perfectly well what is going on.
“You know what is happening, Alejandro,” Pamela says. “Isn’t this how you like it?”
Eames, being Eames, takes it in stride.
“It is the way I like it,” he says. “But I did not think it was so close to your particular interests.”
“I was simply preparing him,” Pamela says. “We all know who belongs to whom. We mustn’t fight.”
Arthur looks at Alejandro, who is Eames. Eames strides over and kneels down beside him, and Arthur is well aware that they have an hour, but he suddenly understands what is going on, and he wants to kick to come now.
“Arthur,” Eames purrs into his ear, in English. “There were some things I did not tell you.”
“I think I know what they are,” Arthur replies. He has propped himself up on his elbows, and he is looking up at Alejandro, and he sees his eyes flicker lighter, Eames’ eyes beneath Alejandro’s dark ones.
“You’re in charge,” Eames says. “You have both of us.”
Alejandro helps him up, and Arthur exhales shakily. He is not sure why, exactly, Eames decided to exclude this particular piece of information, but the next hour has gotten much, much harder.
He steps between Alejandro and Pamela, and loops his arms around their waists.
“Come along, pets,” he says. “I have a casita prepared for us.”
It all feels terribly sleazy and Arthur wonders why Eames couldn’t play this roll, but--this is his job, right now. He concentrates on that, on whispered endearments and vulgarities.
Some of the comments David Botero made during their poker game make more sense, in light of this.
“David,” Pamela says at one point. “I am worried you and Alejandro have not yet made up from your fight, when he was so slow to join us.”
Arthur turns to Eames, and there is a gap, and then Alejandro nods.
Arthur presses David’s lips against Alejandro’s, chastely.
“You do not seem to have made up,” Pamela says.
And then Alejandro kisses back, hard. He is pushing David into a coca bush, and Arthur can feel the stiff twigs poking his back, and for a moment he thinks he can feel Eames, who is in Alejandro’s body, who is Alejandro. Their teeth knock together, and Eames’ or Alejandro’s tongue finds its way into David’s or Arthur’s mouth, and Arthur is not sure how much longer he can hold this; how much longer he push down everything and focus on the fact that this is a job, this is Alejandro and not Eames, David and not Arthur. This is a job, and Arthur’s playacting at being a forger, who is playacting at being David Botero. There are projections, ringed thick around them, watching.
They break apart, and Arthur can feel the paper-thin cuts on his arms, from the branches.
“That is better,” Pamela says, and they continue walking, hands intertwined.
Arthur hopes Ariadne is doing alright, with the projections. He hopes Ariadne is doing her job. Maybe Arthur should be with her. Maybe Arthur should be running point in some other way; running point with her.
But the projections are drawn to them, so as long as Pamela does not suspect, Ariadne will be safe.
The forgery can’t slip. Arthur tries not to think about it. Not thinking about it is his job.
He breathes out Arthur, in David. Eames squeezes his hand, and Arthur knows he recognizes the rhythm.
The thing is, there’s a part of Arthur that still likes it--that is enjoying this job gone wildly off the rails. It has been a long time since every moment of a job has felt this hard, required this kind of concentration. It has been a long time since a job felt new, and properly challenging.
There is no casita. Pamela gets impatient.
“We are in a dream,” she says. “You should create us a bed.”
“Dream a little bigger, darling,” Eames whispers, and there is a low hint of laughter in his voice.
“It will be so, so lovely when we get there,” Arthur says, and fondles Pamela’s breast. “You must wait. It will be better.”
Pamela pouts, but David is in charge. They are his. Arthur whispers sweet nothings into her ear and pets her until he thinks he’s going to retch.
Then there is music, low and rising higher like a tide around them, and the kick comes.
The kick comes.
When they wake up, Eames expression is unreadable, and Arthur tries not to look at him.
“I got it,” Ariadne gasps, and they’re paying the hairdresser and leaving, leaving, leaving.
They get back to the school, and Ariadne distributes airplane tickets.
“I’ve staggered our departures,” she says. “Yusuf and I are leaving last. Arthur, you’re tomorrow, and Eames you’re Wednesday. I’ll wire you the money on Monday.”
“Okay,” Arthur says, and his voice sounds stiff. His entire body is stiff with things he doesn’t want to think about.
Ariadne treats them to celebratory drinks that night, and it is maybe because he is drunk that Arthur does what he does when they get back to their classroom, with their cots wedged amongst school desks. Eames is sitting down, pulling off his socks.
“What the fuck was that, Eames?” Arthur says, getting to his feet and striding across the room. “Are you still angry about Sydney? Wanted to prove that I couldn’t do your job? Because I did your job, Eames. I did your fucking job.”
Eames looks up at him from where he’s sitting on the cot, and his face is blank.
“Yes,” Eames says. “Good job, Arthur. You did it.”
“Don’t humor me, Eames,” Arthur spits. “I don’t know what your problem is. So, what, you can mock me and I can’t say anything about you? Is that it? Because you’re so fucking special?”
Eames just looks at him, sitting on his cot without his socks.
It makes Arthur tired, or maybe he was already tired. He sinks down onto the cot next to Eames, though he’s not sure it can hold the weight of both of them.
“You’re good, Eames,” he says, quiet now. “You’re good. But I don’t know what that was all about, and it wasn’t--”
“I know,” Eames says.
“How long did you know?”
“When I found out about David Botero and Pamela--Alejandro was there, too,” Eames says. “That’s why we needed them both. But it was obvious Botero and Pamela were the ones running the coca scheme.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Arthur asks.
“Because,” Eames says.
“Eames.”
“I knew you could do it,” Eames says. “It wasn’t about revenge. It was about getting you in a situation where you had to do it, so you couldn’t back out.”
“I always do my job,” Arthur says.
“I know,” Eames tells him. “Trust me, I know.”
It’s a full moon, and when Arthur looks at Eames now his face is cast in silvery relief. Arthur fingers his totem through his pocket.
“How do you do it?” Arthur asks. “Change skins? Be someone else?”
What he wants to ask is: “How did you kiss me, when I was David, and make it seem real?”
Eames answers the question Arthur didn’t ask, anyway.
“Sometimes I hold the forge apart from myself,” he says. “And sometimes I’m in them.”
“Which was it, tonight?” Arthur asks.
“I was in it,” Eames says.
“I think I was, too,” Arthur replies, “But I need to check.”
He leans over, then, and kisses Eames, pushes him into the cot. And their teeth knock together, and Eames’ tongue finds its way into his mouth. But it’s better--so, so much better. There is nothing between them but themselves. And it makes sense.
After all, they’re the best at their jobs. No one else can ever quite match.
Now Arthur is lying on top of Eames, and he pushes his forehead against Eames’, and their noses touch.
“I like this better,” he says.
“So do I,” Eames replies, and his hands settle at Arthur’s waist.
“Where are you going, after this?” Arthur asks.
“You know,” Eames says. “Ariadne seems to have given me a ticket to New York. Aren’t you an actuary there?”
Arthur smiles, and breathes Eames in.
ariadne calls arthur about a job in cochabamba. eames is there, too. written for this wonderful prompt.
pg13 . 6208 words
Arthur was home for Passover when Ariadne called him. He was helping his mother roll out matzo, and he was wearing an apron covered in flour.
“How do you feel about Cochabamba this time of year?” Ariadne had asked over the phone.
“Bolivia?” Arthur replied after slipping into the bathroom.
“Straightforward extraction. I’ll give you the details when you get here,” Ariadne said. “I want you on point.”
“Is anyone else on board?” Arthur asked.
“Me,” Ariadne said. “I was going to wait until I got you before calling anyone else.”
Arthur ran a hand through his hair. “Well, you got me.”
“Good,” Ariadne said.
“Just give me a week,” Arthur added.
“Sure,” Ariadne said. “I’ll send you flight information when I get it. Should I put the tickets under Franklin James?”
“Of course,” said Arthur, and then he hung up the phone before he could ask if she’d be calling Eames, next.
At dinner his uncles had asked him about his job, and Arthur told them lies about being an actuary, and his aunts asked him about his love life, and Arthur told them truths about not having one at all, because he was too busy (and then back to lies) with his boring job as an actuary.
And now Arthur is in Panama City, sitting on the floor in the airport because his layover is very long, and he’s already eaten what has to be the strangest grilled cheese sandwich ever, and he’s wondering why he didn’t ask Ariadne about Eames, after all.
It’s been three years since the inception job, and since then Arthur and Eames have worked five jobs together. One for Saito. Ariadne’s first extraction, and her second. The second inception job, which they almost botched (rather like the first, that way). And the one in Sydney, where Eames had spent ninety-percent of the job shirtless and had still pulled off the forgery perfectly. Probably because the forge was a surfer, but still.
Thinking about Eames makes Arthur tired, or maybe Arthur was tired already, but he is not going to sleep on the floor of the Panama City airport.
So he thinks about the job. Ariadne had encrypted some information and sent it to him with the plane tickets, so what he knows is this:
They’ve been hired by the Bolivian government’s coca director. The mark is one Alejandro Padilla, whose subconscious may or may not be militarized. Padilla lives in Cochabamba, but owns several coca plantations outside La Paz, and the director suspects that a significant percentage of his product is entering the drug market, but has, thus far, been unable to figure out how.
So, essentially, a simple extraction. On a drug lord.
These are the jobs Arthur likes; this is why Arthur isn’t an actuary. Because math may be a puzzle, but it’s not the kind of stakes, it’s not the sort that incorporates the perfect precision of semi-automatic firearms. And it certainly isn’t the sort of puzzle where anything can happen.
One of the many things encompassed by “anything” happens now.
The thing that happens is a pair of battered brown leather boots, attached to long legs in ill-fitting trousers, attached to, of course, Eames.
“Hello, Mr. Eames,” Arthur says, trying to sound as dignified as it is possible to sound while looking up at someone from the floor.
“Arthur,” Eames says, and if his tone were any drier it would dissolve and blow away. “Fancy meeting you here.”
“Fancy that,” Arthur says. “Would you like to take a seat?”
“I think I’ll stay where I am, thanks,” Eames says, still looking down at him. Which is exasperating. Eames is exasperating.
“So you’re on the Cochabamba job, then?” Arthur asks, because it is possible Eames is flying through Panama City, on the same day as Arthur, at roughly the same time, but to--elsewhere.
“Of course, darling. We both know you can’t be trusted alone,” Eames replies.
“Ariadne will be there,” Arthur says.
“Yes, how foolish of me,” says Eames. “I am sure she would have taken quite good care of you.”
Arthur lets Eames have the last word, because a very short woman has appeared at the desk and now they can check-in. They both do so in Spanish, and Arthur is pretty sure his is better than Eames’, but he may be being petty, now. Eames brings that out in him, just a little. He thinks he may do the same for Eames, but Arthur has been unable to observe Eames without being physically present with him, so he isn’t sure.
Eames may just be an ass, all the time.
When they get through to their gate they sit down in adjacent chairs, and Eames takes up too much space next to him, and Arthur digs his book out of his carry-on, just to have something to do other than talk to or think about Eames.
“The Bourne Identity?” says Eames from his left, because apparently some people can’t take a hint.
“I’m sorry, Eames. Would you prefer I read Shakespeare in the airport? Would that meet your high standards?”
Eames had done a PhD in psychology at Oxford, after the inception job. Something about having higher education made him particularly insufferable.
“I was just asking a question, Arthur. No need to snipe.”
This is the way their conversations go. They snipe, and then, eventually, one of them acts as if the other has been unreasonable.
Arthur looks at this book again, but doesn’t read it. It will be okay, he thinks, when Ariadne is there and they are properly on the job, when they don’t need to pretend to be concerned about anything other than their respective capabilities as point man and forger; though, because this is an Ariadne job, Arthur imagines he’ll be working with her on the architecture, and Eames will help plan the extraction--still, point man and forger are what they are. Ariadne’s the one who likes to blur lines.
Their flight from Santa Cruz gets delayed, technical difficulties on the tarmac for two hours. After that Arthur goes out to help, gives Eames his suit jacket and rolls up his sleeves. Eames looks at him skeptically, but under his direction the plane is on the runway in thirty minutes.
“I didn’t know you were also an airplane mechanic,” Eames says when he returns the jacket.
“Thank you,” says Arthur. “You’re welcome.”
Arthur had studied engineering at MIT. No one in his family ever understood why he became an actuary.
Ariadne is at the airport when they get to Cochabamba, standing in the midst of a group of Mennonites.
“Arthur,” she says, smiling expansively. “Eames. I’m so glad you’re here.”
The both stoop to hug her by turn, and she leads them out to a car she has apparently bought, a small, rickety thing colored aquamarine.
“I liked it,” she says, to answer both their looks. They fold themselves in, and Ariadne immediately begins talking about the job.
“We’ve rented a gymnasium,” she says. “From a closed school. I’ve brought in a few desks, so it should do. Sometimes kids try to break in and play soccer, though.”
“I can fix that,” Arthur interjects.
“It doesn’t really matter,” she says.
Arthur gives her a look. Everything matters.
But there are two things Arthur likes about working with Ariadne; and the first is that she acts like dreamsharing is just an ordinary career path, with no criminal element whatsoever, and if that introduces an element of carelessness, well, that’s why she works with Arthur.
“Yusuf’s here,” Ariadne adds, after a moment of silence.
“Yusuf, eh?” Eames asks. “Now correct me if I’m wrong, Ariadne my dear, but I don’t believe we need a field chemist for this job.”
“No,” Ariadne says. “We don’t.” She blushes.
“So is Yusuf getting a cut?” Eames asks.
“Yusuf’s sharing my cut,” Ariadne replies, and now Arthur is looking between her and Eames, embarrassed for having missed this.
“Well,” Eames says, sounding smug. “Isn’t that interesting. Arthur?”
“Very interesting, Mr. Eames,” Arthur replies, and turns so he’s looking out the window. They are just on the cusp of the dry season, so the mountains that ring the city are still tinged with residual green. There’s a statue of Christ with arms outstretched atop one of them, and Arthur spies it. Now they’re in a neighborhood of white houses with flat red roofs, and then no longer; they’re in what might be the city center or might just be somewhere with taller buildings. Now they’re in a roundabout. Ariadne drives like she knows where she’s going, and soon they pass through the tall buildings and enter another neighborhood of small buildings, and then there is a broad brick wall and a wrought iron gate, chained shut.
“Shotgun gets the gate,” Ariadne says, and shotgun is Eames, so that’s okay. Arthur is a little disappointed when the gate proves to be no trouble, for Eames, but he knows that’s petty.
The school campus is completely vacant, and there are a smattering of buildings that look outwardly okay, but also like they’re on the verge of crumbling down, and twisted vines and small gnarled trees scattered about. Ariadne weaves through the trees and drives the car across the lawn, and parks beside the gymnasium, and Yusuf comes out to greet them.
“So,” Eames says to Yusuf. “You couldn’t have told me about this in Mombasa?”
“I wanted to surprise you,” Yusuf replies, throwing one arm around Ariadne’s shoulders. “I so rarely do. Hey, Arthur.”
“Hey,” Arthur says, studying Yusuf and Ariadne in the same way he can tell Eames is. Having relationships within the team can be volatile, but Ariadne and Yusuf are about as steady as you get. And sometimes it works; like Mal and Cobb, before it didn’t.
They enter the gym through a small side door, and Arthur can tell Yusuf and Ariadne have cannibalized the school for desks; they’re the broad, cheap sort that teachers have, and the chairs are the small metal ones found in high school classrooms. But he’s worked in more uncomfortable chairs since high school, so.
Arthur goes to one the two empty desks and begins to unpack his things; laptop, preliminary files on the Bolivian coca industry and Padilla, notebook. Eames is watching him.
“Maybe I wanted that desk, Arthur darling,” Eames says, somehow managing to make this statement sound reasonable.
“Eames,” Arthur says. “There are two desks. They’re exactly the same. Do you want this one? Because I can switch.”
“No,” Eames says, but he doesn’t look appeased.
“Arthur,” Ariadne says suddenly, from where she and Yusuf have been conferring in the background. “I’ve started some of the architecture. Would you like to take a look?”
At the same time, Yusuf is saying how he converted one of the labs in another building, and Eames should come see. So Arthur goes to the corner of the gymnasium with Ariadne, and Yusuf and Eames disappear out the door.
“Arthur,” Ariadne hisses. “Is it going to be like this for the entire job?”
“Like what?” Arthur asks, though he suspects he may know.
“You and Eames bickering like children,” Ariadne says, looking at him flatly. “Seriously, what is wrong with you guys?”
“There’s a chance,” Arthur says, trying to sound dignified. “It has something to do with Sydney.”
“Was that the job on the beach volleyball Olympian?” Ariadne asks.
“Eames spent every day at the beach,” Arthur says. “I may have questioned his professionalism.”
“Arthur,” Ariadne says. “Wasn’t Eames forging a surfer?”
“Eames may have pointed that out,” Arthur replies.
“And?” Ariadne presses.
“I may have continued to question his professionalism,” Arthur acquiesces. “And skill.”
“Arthur,” Ariadne says sharply.
“We did not depart from Sydney on the best of terms,” Arthur continues. “Because Mr. Eames is capable of making jokes, but apparently not capable of taking them.”
“Arthur,” Ariadne says again. “You know these things. I know you know these things. But Eames is the best. And you are also the best, and I know you know that, too. And I can’t afford to have my forger and my pointman at each other’s throats. This job may be straightforward, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
“Which,” she continues, and her eyes have gone very sharp. “You also know. Do you understand me?”
Arthur sometimes forgets that people other than himself and Eames are good at their jobs, and that Ariadne grew up very fast.
“Okay,” Arthur says.
“Okay,” Ariadne says, and then begins to explain the second level to him. It’s set in a coca plantation, and the maze will be done with rows of bushes, and it is, as is typical of Ariadne, quite clever. Beneath the coca fields there’s a layer of caverns, and the safe where the mark will hopefully place his secrets is there. Arthur notes a few minor problems, and this is his job and it feels very good to be doing it.
When Yusuf and Eames return, Eames settles at the other desk, and Arthur watches out of the corner of his eye.
Ariadne gathers them all together over empanadas that evening, and they talk through the initial stages of the job. Eames will be tailing Padilla, of course, and Arthur will call his contacts to collect more information on possible subconscious militarization, and hopefully infiltrate the drug market to some degree. Arthur may not be as good as Eames at blending in, but he can play a wealthy foreign dumbass as well as the next person.
“Make sure you actually figure out whether the mark is militarized this time, eh darling?” Eames asks. Arthur scowls, but Ariadne looks at him sharply and he manages not to rise to the bait.
Ariadne and Yusuf had set up cots in empty classrooms, and despite the fact that there had to be an endless number of empty classrooms here, they only converted two to sleeping quarters. And of course they were bunking together, which left Arthur with Eames.
“Eames,” Arthur says when they’re lying on their cots in the dark, on opposite sides of the room. “I’m sorry I was rude to you in Sydney.”
“Did Ariadne tell you to apologize?” Eames asks.
“Yes,” Arthur answers, because it’s the truth. “Why?”
“Because Yusuf told me to be nice to you. I’m not going to.”
Arthur rolls over, and listens to the insects outside.
“Do you know what chagas disease is?” Eames asks. “An insect defecates on you after biting you, and you rub it in, and then a parasite enters your bloodstream. Twenty to forty percent of individuals develop chronic, potentially fatal symptoms.”
“I hope a botfly lays eggs in your penis,” Arthur says, and goes to sleep, thinking it really was a pity that Eames didn’t sleep completely nude, to facilitate botfly penis access. Not for any other reason.
So the apology went somewhat less than swimmingly, but Eames and Arthur both make an effort when Ariadne or Yusuf is present, and that seems to be sufficient. It helps that Eames is often off at odd hours tailing Padilla; he’ll come back late at night and crawl into his cot without acknowledging Arthur at all, and then he’ll sleep late in the morning, when Arthur is already over at the gym, discussing the architecture with Ariadne, or making calls.
They manage, in this way, to coexist. Arthur has to wonder about Eames, when they’re sitting at their desks. Eames has a small tape recorder he uses for notes, and he spends a lot of time whispering into it, and when Arthur reaches a gap in his work he’ll watch him, for no particular reason. Eames is so focused, with his tape recorder. His desk is almost entirely clear of papers; just tapes in rows and piles, but he looks at that and holds the recorder to his ear and his mouth alternately, and doesn’t seem to notice anyone else in the room at all.
The thing about pushing Eames, Arthur thinks, is that he always gets a response.
Information begins to come together; the puzzle pieces falling into place. Padilla’s subconscious is militarized, and if Arthur is a little smug when he tells the group, well. Arthur schmoozes with drug lords, playing the wide-eyed, wealthy, idiot investor, though he can find no trace of Padilla’s people among them. Padilla has a mistress who he sleeps with a wife whom he loves, according to Eames, and the wife will be the forge, and guilt about the mistress will be the incentive. Ariadne and Arthur design the first level, loosely modelled on the big estate where Padilla lives in the mountains. Yusuf does mysterious things in his make-shift lab, and only seems to be paying attention to the job half the time. But he only gets half a share, so.
They eat a lot of empanadas, and peanut soup. Ariadne brings them cow heart grilled on skewers, and little pockets of bread containing fried egg and salsa and rice and steak, of which Arthur eats three, even though their name literally translates to “heart attack.” Eames eats four, but Arthur is pretty sure that’s just to one-up him.
They’re two days out from the job when everything changes. Eames comes back late at night and shakes Arthur awake, looking harried.
“It’s the wife,” he says.
“What?” Arthur asks, because sleep is still heavy around him.
“The wife,” Eames says. “Pamela. She’s the one funneling coca into the drug market. I thought Padilla was too dumb, but then I thought it might just be a front.”
Arthur sits up, then, and looks directly at Eames.
“Fuck,” he says, because it’s really the only thing left to say.
They wake Ariadne and Yusuf, and father in the gymnasium, and Eames explains the situation.
Pamela Padilla, apparently aware of her husband’s affair, is sleeping with David Botero. Eames looks at Arthur significantly when he says this, and Arthur groans.
“David Botero? With the moustache?”
“David Botero who you’ve been schmoozing with for weeks,” Eames says, and there is a grin teasing the edges of his mouth.
David Botero who Arthur lost a game of poker too, badly, the other night. Arthur took satisfaction in knowing that if he wanted to win, he could have.
“So what now?” Ariadne asks.
“We run the extraction,” Arthur says. “But we need to run it on Pamela.”
Eames nods, “We need more information if they’re going to take them down. Obviously Botero is involved, but I don’t know how much coca they’re taking, or how they’re hiding the dilution in the stuff they sell legally.”
“And I could guess what channels they’re using, if Botero is involved, but that wouldn’t mean I was right,” Arthur adds.
“Do we need another two weeks?” Ariadne asks, looking between Arthur and Eames. Arthur looks at Eames.
“We don’t have another two weeks,” he says. “Pamela gets her hair done twice a month. I have an in with the hair dresser. It will work, but we have three days.”
Arthur knows this shouldn’t make him happy, but it does. This, now is a proper job. He can tell Eames feels it, too; everything’s changed. He sees Ariadne watching them, and he smiles at her.
“This,” he says, “is why I’m not an actuary.”
Ariadne smiles back, and there’s something bright in her eyes.
“I know,” she says. “This is why I’m not a real architect.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, love,” Eames tells her. “You’re as real as it gets.”
Yusuf grins benignly at them all, and it’s late at night and they should be sleeping, but instead they go to work.
“Siesta,” Ariadne says, some time in the late afternoon. Her eyes are heavy. “I unilaterally declare a siesta.”
Arthur nods, even though he doesn’t entirely want to, and they plod over to the sleeping classrooms.
“Arthur,” Eames says from across the room, when they’re lying in their cots. “I think I need you to forge Botero.”
Arthur pushes himself up on his elbows and stares at Eames.
“What?”
“Botero, Arthur,” Eames says, looking at the ceiling. “I’ll do Alejandro Padilla. You do David Botero.”
Eames is falling asleep as he talks, Arthur can tell, and it’s no surprise since he didn’t sleep when the rest of them did the night before. Arthur just stares at him from across the room.
“It’s the best way,” Eames says. “I’ll explain it to you when I wake up.”
“Okay,” Arthur replies, only he’s not sure Eames can hear him.
When they wake up, Arthur and Eames go back to sleep, to practice forging. It makes sense, and being in the dream gives them more time, besides. They’re under for fifteen minutes, in the dream for three hours.
“Arthur,” Eames says, hand on his chin. “Your moustache is wavering.”
“Fuck,” Arthur says.
“Darling,” Eames says, pacing around him, assessing. “You need to be David Botero. You can’t just focus on being him for a moment, because then you’ll lose it as soon as you think about something else. You actually need to live as David Botero. Sit down.”
Arthur looks at him and raises a brow, but obeys. They’re on the roof of a building, and there’s a city spread around them, and no wind in the air.
“See, just there? Your eyebrow went back to being your eyebrow, and the skin around it went white.”
Eames sits down facing Arthur, cross-legged so their knees touch.
“Breathing exercises,” he says. “They help. Now, follow my breathing, and whenever you exhale try to breathe Arthur out. Think about everything you know about David Botero, wholly. Inhale Botero. Exhale Arthur.”
Arthur closes one eye, but keeps the other open. “This sounds suspiciously new age,” he says, then blinks both eyes shut before Eames can protest.
“I know my craft,” Eames says flatly, and there’s not really anything Arthur can say, to that.
The breathing exercises help, a little. Arthur holds Botero for half an hour without flickering, and he and Eames managed to have a stilted conversation.
“I don’t like this as much as my job,” Arthur says, when he shifts back.
“I’m sure I’d say the same about point,” Eames replies easily. “Now forge me.”
Arthur looks at him.
“I know who I am. You have to, in my line of work,” Eames says simply. “I’ll know if you get it right. Sit down.”
They sit down again, knees touching. Eames puts his hands on Arthur’s knees, palms down, and indicates that Arthur should do the same. Arthur is pretty sure he doesn’t know what is happening, and he prides himself on knowing what is happening. He manages to resist making comments about how close to yoga Eames’ craft seems to be.
“Inhale Eames,” Eames says, quietly. “Exhale Arthur.”
When Arthur opens his eyes, he is looking at himself. His brow, on his face, is arched.
“Stand up,” Arthur’s body says, and his accent is American. The way it usually is. Arthur watches his own lips, forming the words, and it’s like looking in the mirror while talking. He can’t look away.
Arthur stands up, and he can feel his body is different--bigger, though his height is unchanged. He looks at his hands, and his fingers are squared and blunt, and his arms are thick and ropy. His hair is shorter. He knew all these things were happening--but.
Arthur’s body paces around him, examining.
“Say something,” he says, and there is the American accent again.
“Eames,” Arthur says, and he manages to sound passably British. “I can’t hold this.”
Arthur begins to slip back into his own body, and he watches Eames do the same. He wonders if there’s a moment when they look exactly alike.
“Good,” says Eames, curtly, and he still sounds like Arthur.
“What?” Arthur says, because that didn’t feel good at all.
“If you can hold me for that long,” Eames says, his accent is back to normal, “While looking at yourself, you’ll be alright.”
“I think I’d like to stop, now,” Arthur says.
“You did a good job,” Eames says, gentle. “You know me better than I thought.”
“Of course,” Arthur replies, and jumps off the building.
It’s hard to look at Eames, when they wake up. Arthur throws himself into research, instead, and pretends not to notice when Eames leaves the gymnasium. Ariadne helps him, because she has some connections of her own, and they can still use the same architecture, which is pretty much set.
Pamela’s subconscious is militarized, it turns out. Botero paid for the training. It’s not completely unexpected; most people in illegal professions are militarized, because they’re more likely to encounter others in illegal professions. But the information comes up so quickly, Arthur’s surprised he didn’t find it when he was asking about Alejandro.
The job comes together a second time, and it’s exhilarating. Eames and Arthur practice their forges again, and Arthur holds Botero for an hour while fighting with Eames’ Alejandro over Pamela, and if he and Eames both take pleasure in landing punches on one another--well, it’s for the job. They choreograph it, to ensure minimal injuries, but.
The night before the job, they run through their plan again. A lot is riding on Arthur’s forgery; he needs to convince Pamela, on the first level, that they’re in a dream and need to enter the second level, and on the second level he needs to convince Pamela that Eames’ Alejandro is actually Pamela’s projection of Alejandro, and only exists because she loves Alejandro more than David. And then they’ll fight and, presumably, buy Ariadne time to find the information they need, keeping Pamela focused on relationship issues rather than the cocaine business, so all that will be stored away by her subconscious. Yusuf will stay on the first level, to orchestrate the kick.
Presumably. Everyone is aware that a job never goes like the plan, but the plans are nice in theory. It provides a framework to work from.
They are up early the next morning, driving to the salon in Ariadne’s tiny aquamarine car, setting everything up in a back room. Eames flirts easily with the hairdresser as she drugs her client’s drink, and Arthur has to wonder how Eames can slip so easily into this character, this charming cad, a person who Arthur rarely sees.
When the mark enters the back room everything is ready.
They go to sleep.
The first level goes smoothly, remarkably. Arthur can feel Eames watching him from afar, as he and Pamela wander through the complex estate Ariadne has created.
“See,” Arthur whispers to her in Spanish. “This is not your estate. See how the rooms flow? And the servants are not doing anything they should be doing.”
Pamela is nodding.
“I’m helping you, my heart, because I love you,” Arthur continues, and he can hear the falseness in his words. “We need to go deeper in. It will be safer there.”
Pamela looks at him, a smile teasing at her lips.
“Deeper,” she says. “Of course, my dear. We will sleep together, then?”
Eames is watching Arthur, from across the room.
“Yes,” Arthur says. “We will sleep together.”
After Arthur drugs Pamela, Ariadne and Eames appear, and they all go to the next level together.
“This is a very strange place you have brought me, David,” Pamela says to Arthur when they wake up. “This is not what I had expected.”
“I had thought we might go to the coca fields,” Arthur says. “Because of our special partnership.”
Pamela smiles, now, it cracks slowly across her face, and it is hungry.
“Of course,” she says, catching Arthur’s hand in her own. “Of course.”
And then Pamela’s other hand is on Arthur’s back, or more properly David Botero’s back, and her mouth is on his, pressing hard, and Arthur wonders how she can kiss someone with such an idiotic moustache.
He tries to kiss back, but it mostly makes him uncomfortable. Pamela is old enough to be his mother. Pamela is the same age as his mother. And it is quickly becoming apparent, from the frantic way her hand is pawing at his crotch, that Pamela and David Botero use dreamsharing to have sex, and Arthur is not sure how much longer he can hold the forgery under these conditions. Eames is supposed to be here, by now. Instead, there are projections gathering around them, attracted to the feeling of sex, the outsize emotions.
Arthur needs Eames to be here, now.
Arthur has never been so glad to be punched in the face. He falls to the ground, clutching his bloodied nose, as Alejandro Padilla grasps his wife by the shoulders.
“What is this?” he asks, and it sounds real. If his Spanish was accented in the airport, it isn’t now. “Pamela, you must tell me.”
“Pamela!” Arthur says from the ground.
Pamela looks at them both, like she knows perfectly well what is going on.
“You know what is happening, Alejandro,” Pamela says. “Isn’t this how you like it?”
Eames, being Eames, takes it in stride.
“It is the way I like it,” he says. “But I did not think it was so close to your particular interests.”
“I was simply preparing him,” Pamela says. “We all know who belongs to whom. We mustn’t fight.”
Arthur looks at Alejandro, who is Eames. Eames strides over and kneels down beside him, and Arthur is well aware that they have an hour, but he suddenly understands what is going on, and he wants to kick to come now.
“Arthur,” Eames purrs into his ear, in English. “There were some things I did not tell you.”
“I think I know what they are,” Arthur replies. He has propped himself up on his elbows, and he is looking up at Alejandro, and he sees his eyes flicker lighter, Eames’ eyes beneath Alejandro’s dark ones.
“You’re in charge,” Eames says. “You have both of us.”
Alejandro helps him up, and Arthur exhales shakily. He is not sure why, exactly, Eames decided to exclude this particular piece of information, but the next hour has gotten much, much harder.
He steps between Alejandro and Pamela, and loops his arms around their waists.
“Come along, pets,” he says. “I have a casita prepared for us.”
It all feels terribly sleazy and Arthur wonders why Eames couldn’t play this roll, but--this is his job, right now. He concentrates on that, on whispered endearments and vulgarities.
Some of the comments David Botero made during their poker game make more sense, in light of this.
“David,” Pamela says at one point. “I am worried you and Alejandro have not yet made up from your fight, when he was so slow to join us.”
Arthur turns to Eames, and there is a gap, and then Alejandro nods.
Arthur presses David’s lips against Alejandro’s, chastely.
“You do not seem to have made up,” Pamela says.
And then Alejandro kisses back, hard. He is pushing David into a coca bush, and Arthur can feel the stiff twigs poking his back, and for a moment he thinks he can feel Eames, who is in Alejandro’s body, who is Alejandro. Their teeth knock together, and Eames’ or Alejandro’s tongue finds its way into David’s or Arthur’s mouth, and Arthur is not sure how much longer he can hold this; how much longer he push down everything and focus on the fact that this is a job, this is Alejandro and not Eames, David and not Arthur. This is a job, and Arthur’s playacting at being a forger, who is playacting at being David Botero. There are projections, ringed thick around them, watching.
They break apart, and Arthur can feel the paper-thin cuts on his arms, from the branches.
“That is better,” Pamela says, and they continue walking, hands intertwined.
Arthur hopes Ariadne is doing alright, with the projections. He hopes Ariadne is doing her job. Maybe Arthur should be with her. Maybe Arthur should be running point in some other way; running point with her.
But the projections are drawn to them, so as long as Pamela does not suspect, Ariadne will be safe.
The forgery can’t slip. Arthur tries not to think about it. Not thinking about it is his job.
He breathes out Arthur, in David. Eames squeezes his hand, and Arthur knows he recognizes the rhythm.
The thing is, there’s a part of Arthur that still likes it--that is enjoying this job gone wildly off the rails. It has been a long time since every moment of a job has felt this hard, required this kind of concentration. It has been a long time since a job felt new, and properly challenging.
There is no casita. Pamela gets impatient.
“We are in a dream,” she says. “You should create us a bed.”
“Dream a little bigger, darling,” Eames whispers, and there is a low hint of laughter in his voice.
“It will be so, so lovely when we get there,” Arthur says, and fondles Pamela’s breast. “You must wait. It will be better.”
Pamela pouts, but David is in charge. They are his. Arthur whispers sweet nothings into her ear and pets her until he thinks he’s going to retch.
Then there is music, low and rising higher like a tide around them, and the kick comes.
The kick comes.
When they wake up, Eames expression is unreadable, and Arthur tries not to look at him.
“I got it,” Ariadne gasps, and they’re paying the hairdresser and leaving, leaving, leaving.
They get back to the school, and Ariadne distributes airplane tickets.
“I’ve staggered our departures,” she says. “Yusuf and I are leaving last. Arthur, you’re tomorrow, and Eames you’re Wednesday. I’ll wire you the money on Monday.”
“Okay,” Arthur says, and his voice sounds stiff. His entire body is stiff with things he doesn’t want to think about.
Ariadne treats them to celebratory drinks that night, and it is maybe because he is drunk that Arthur does what he does when they get back to their classroom, with their cots wedged amongst school desks. Eames is sitting down, pulling off his socks.
“What the fuck was that, Eames?” Arthur says, getting to his feet and striding across the room. “Are you still angry about Sydney? Wanted to prove that I couldn’t do your job? Because I did your job, Eames. I did your fucking job.”
Eames looks up at him from where he’s sitting on the cot, and his face is blank.
“Yes,” Eames says. “Good job, Arthur. You did it.”
“Don’t humor me, Eames,” Arthur spits. “I don’t know what your problem is. So, what, you can mock me and I can’t say anything about you? Is that it? Because you’re so fucking special?”
Eames just looks at him, sitting on his cot without his socks.
It makes Arthur tired, or maybe he was already tired. He sinks down onto the cot next to Eames, though he’s not sure it can hold the weight of both of them.
“You’re good, Eames,” he says, quiet now. “You’re good. But I don’t know what that was all about, and it wasn’t--”
“I know,” Eames says.
“How long did you know?”
“When I found out about David Botero and Pamela--Alejandro was there, too,” Eames says. “That’s why we needed them both. But it was obvious Botero and Pamela were the ones running the coca scheme.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Arthur asks.
“Because,” Eames says.
“Eames.”
“I knew you could do it,” Eames says. “It wasn’t about revenge. It was about getting you in a situation where you had to do it, so you couldn’t back out.”
“I always do my job,” Arthur says.
“I know,” Eames tells him. “Trust me, I know.”
It’s a full moon, and when Arthur looks at Eames now his face is cast in silvery relief. Arthur fingers his totem through his pocket.
“How do you do it?” Arthur asks. “Change skins? Be someone else?”
What he wants to ask is: “How did you kiss me, when I was David, and make it seem real?”
Eames answers the question Arthur didn’t ask, anyway.
“Sometimes I hold the forge apart from myself,” he says. “And sometimes I’m in them.”
“Which was it, tonight?” Arthur asks.
“I was in it,” Eames says.
“I think I was, too,” Arthur replies, “But I need to check.”
He leans over, then, and kisses Eames, pushes him into the cot. And their teeth knock together, and Eames’ tongue finds its way into his mouth. But it’s better--so, so much better. There is nothing between them but themselves. And it makes sense.
After all, they’re the best at their jobs. No one else can ever quite match.
Now Arthur is lying on top of Eames, and he pushes his forehead against Eames’, and their noses touch.
“I like this better,” he says.
“So do I,” Eames replies, and his hands settle at Arthur’s waist.
“Where are you going, after this?” Arthur asks.
“You know,” Eames says. “Ariadne seems to have given me a ticket to New York. Aren’t you an actuary there?”
Arthur smiles, and breathes Eames in.