Fic: Evidence
Apr. 2nd, 2011 06:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
azuremewTitle: Evidence (1/3)
Word Count: 2,350
Pairing: Eames/Robert, Arthur/Cobb, rest of cast mentioned at various points
Rating: PG-13 for this chapter
Warnings: Character Death, General Mindfuckery
Summary: Robert finds out about the inception and "Everett Forester"'s involvement; Eames tells Robert the truth, then tells Cobb that Robert's plan and his to change it, not to worry, etc. Naturally, Cobb does and sends Arthur in.
Author's Note: Fusion between Christopher Nolan's Inception and David Mack's "Kabuki", with a bit of Peter Chung's "Aeon Flux" for inspiration. Title and lj-cut is from Marilyn Manson's "Evidence".
“Cobb, I found Fischer. His brains were blown out from a Beretta pistol similar to the one you use in the field.” Eames pulls away from the body and opens the red gas can. The fuel pours onto the clothes, the silk threads hand sewn into fabric tailored to fit his small frame. It turns the charcoal shades darker before the smell is enough for the forger to have to cover his mouth. “I am disposing of the body to make it look like a fire swept through. The gas stove should be suffice to cover up that someone took care to make certain details were eradicated fully.”
Rising, he goes into the kitchen, the empty space with little to no use except to boil water for instant coffee and a refrigerator full of liquor. The knobs twist before igniting the fuse, and he leaves them there for a moment to survey the area one last time. “Arthur was right, wherever the bloody hell he is. Fischer seems to not only have recalled the incidents but remembered our faces enough to find someone that could find each and every one of us. Even your children. He has names, locations . . .”
The handwritten notes scrawled over the white walls leave him silent suddenly. Each connection is so erratic that it is hard to believe he could figure out anything in this manic display, but, “He was right. We needed to take care of this before --”
“Yes, I agree,” Dom says on the other side. He listens in his living room while James and Phillipa are outside. “Thank you for doing this, Eames.”
“It's my head on the platter as much as yours if someone saw this,” Eames replies. Outside of the apartment, he lights a cigarette and throws the match. It ignites first the floor, and by the time he reaches the bottom of the stairs, the whole place goes up in flames.
STOP. Rewind.
That is now. This is then. Nine months earlier, the rebirth of Robert Fischer. It is several minutes from the time the alarm clock sounds, waking him from the depths of another nightmare he grasps at faintly. His body is cold, shivering, from the arctic memory, leaving its remnants of what he remembers as falling back to reality. This is reality, although when he finds the ability to turn off the clock, he realizes that it is not the one in his flat but the one he held as a child. Brass and wound to mimic the older kinds, the big, black letters glow at night now dull.
He wonders briefly if this is a dream, but it feels too real to be so. The warmth of the covers, his room, the slight, medical smell left lingering even as his father's room is empty. All too real, he believes, and rises up to twist and plant his feet on the ground. The cold floor summons another chill, and he moans a little at the discomfort.
It is enough to summon something else – or rather, someone else, from the opening of the door. “Robert, you're awake,” Peter Browning says. “Good. I was beginning to wonder if you would ever get out of that bed.”
“I had another dream, Uncle Peter,” Robert explains. “This one had a fortress high in the hills. It was cold, the Himalayas, maybe?”
Browning chuckles, “You never liked skiing, so it couldn't have been a good dream.”
“It wasn't, really, but wasn't terrible either. Just strange,” as many dreams were, he knows. Robert gets up and stretches a little, letting the blood flow through this muscles and veins. “But I'm fine. Don't worry. I'll be down for breakfast soon.”
That assurance brings a nod to Browning, and he says no more. The door closes, leaving Robert to his own devices that are more normal than they were the days after his father's death. Reckless, he took up things he should have not. At one point, he remembers dancing on the rooftop ledge of Fischer Morrow, the concrete bottom a hundred stories away. The very memory is enough to make anyone worry, but after the psychiatry visits, he feels a little more grounded.
The armoire holds his finest suits, and he chooses the black one with the red tie for today's meeting. It is the first with the board of directors. On the desk are his notes, and he flips a few pages to let his speech solidify fully before execution.
He glances up at the photographs, black and white, a different place and different time. There are pictures from college, of graduation, smiling faces all proud. Next to him is Arthur, the engineering genius that helped him through math, and Ariadne, the architect. They stand with him and his mother and father and Uncle Peter. All smiles, enough to pull the corners of his own back a little.
Below is Eames, the actor that could become anyone on stage, but he prefers the man, the one that watched him in speech class and that microeconomics presentation.
“Are you stalking me?” he finally found the courage to ask when Eames was ten paces behind.
“Perhaps,” Eames smiled. “Do you mind?”
Robert paused. “Actually, no,” he found it annoying yes, but amusing because while everyone was willing to be the friend of the future heir to an empire, none took interest.
Eames did.
His smile continues through the rehearsal, the image of Eames walking with him almost real enough to be a projection, but he knows it is only in his mind. His then boyfriend is miles away, probably on one of those tabloid covers by now if he chooses to take a glance. “While I understand that this is will be a difficult task for us, I believe that Fischer Morrow and all of its partners will benefit from the change.” He imagines Eames stopping him and pauses in the hallway, presses the notebook against the wall, and uncaps a pen with his teeth. Holding it there, a change is made.
Change, the grand metamorphosis that they believe he is capable of, but it took Maurice Fischer's death for him to realize.
Downstairs, Browning sits at the dinner table with his breakfast half-finished and newspaper opened wide. “Are you ready, Robert?”
“As ready as I will ever be,” Robert replies and sits at the chair opposite.
Breakfast is small, a meal to keep his energy up, surely. The grapefruit cuts without any additional sugars added, the whole-wheat toast without butter. It is all so strict that he wonders for a moment what would happen if he switches this, too. Would his body collapse from the ounce of body fat? He chuckles at the thought, and the newspaper drops to show a fraction of Browning's concern. “I was thinking that after this is over, I might take a vacation.”
“Oh?” Browning asks.
“Tokyo, to visit Mr. Saito personally and congratulate him,” Robert explains and sips his black coffee. “He was quite the competitor, my father always told me, and when this is through, this, the energy empire, will all be his, won't it?”
Browning nods, “I suppose so.”
Robert cuts into the wheat squares and scoops up a helping. The pause is long while he chews and swallows. “Then I would like to tell him that it is all well played, but the war is over now.”
“He's won.”
A shrug and another bite, Robert notes, “I guess that he did on that front. But we have so much else to work with. While Proclus Global will become monopolize the world, we have our other branches. Less known, sure, but still, there was a time when our priorities were not exclusively set in that department.”
“And that is your intent for this meeting? To let the board members know that you're dismantling your father's work to continue in venues less sought? The press will have a field day.”
Robert looks up, “But have you backing me, don't I, Uncle Peter? I realize that we might have had our differences from time to time, but you were the one that showed me that alternate will.”
“Yes, I did, and in fact, before I forget, there is something that came for you from PASIV. It is on your desk at the office, direct from Everett Forester. You should probably take a glance to see if everything has been set in stone.”
Robert does, in fact, check those papers first in the few minutes of privacy before his meeting. It sits where Uncle Peter told him, on the desk amongst other messages. Inside is the will, the document as bold as he remembers, and a sticky note:
Robert,
This is not real. You are dreaming.
Wake up. Wake up and be with me.
- E.
It sounds silly, so he crumples it up and calls PASIV to report that someone is playing a joke. Non, je ne Regrette Rien comes on after the ring, and he hangs up. It might be within the office, and the last thing he needs is to be reported for another psychiatric visit.
Days pass, and Robert dissolves the empire. The doors close finally, the boxes all gone, and he shakes the hand of a man that will deal with the financial end of finding a buyer. There is certainty that it done soon, and Robert is grateful.
He travels to Tokyo to meet with Saito, shakes his hand next. It is only when he returns to Room 528 of his hotel that he notices anything strange. On the desk is the complimentary memo pad, and on it is another note:
WAKE UP!
This is not real. One week ago,
you figured out the inception. You
planned on telling the authorities.
I told Cobb. He sent in his point man
to drug you. You're lying in a coma.
This is all a dream.
Wake up, Robert.
Wake up and be with me.
- E
Robert calls security to check the room. They search every corner, every floor, and beyond the building to the parking lot outside. Nothing is found.
Another week later, and Robert finds another note. This one is an e-mail:
This is a dream.
From: “E” -forgeries@pasiv.com-
To: “Robert Fischer” -the_mark@inceptyou.com-
Robert,
Listen to me, darling. You remember when your father was dying, and I sat with Peter Browning as Everett Forester. That is how we continued, and I regret not telling you sooner. When you boarded the plane from Sydney to Los Angeles for his funeral, I was in first class with Dominic Cobb, Arthur, Yusuf, Ariadne, and Saito. We incepted you with an idea, a parasite that latched on and changed you into this extraordinary man, but it came with consequence none of us expected. Due to your previous training in the dreamshare, you were able to recall parts of it, and because of your brilliant mind, you figured us out. You were able to forgive me, but the others were not fortunate to know you as I do.
You planned to tell the authorities about what Dominic Cobb and Saito did. You planned to take down Proclus Global and take Cobb's children away from him. You planned all of this, and somehow, you knew about Cobol Engineering and planned on telling them where Cobb and Arthur were. No one was safe, so Cobb devised a plan instead of listening to me. Arthur drugged you with one of Yusuf's designs. It keeps you in a dream while your body lies in a coma. Every day, Arthur keeps tabs to make sure you do not wake.
I love you, Robert, but I cannot do much else beyond sending these notes. If I come in, Arthur will know, but I managed to get Yusuf to create a drug that I have slipped into you occasionally with thesen notes. How they exist, I am uncertain, but I pray that they do.
Please, wake up. We'll find a way to deal with them, all of this, if you will just wake up.
- E.
Robert closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. He presses until it aches, so that he might wake up, but nothing happens. The e-mail is deleted.
The next morning a man arrives at the manor by the name of Mr. Charles. He recalls him clearly from subconscious security, the one responsible for teaching him about dreams. “It is almost like you read my mind,” he says at the door, letting him in. “I have not been sleeping well, and while my uncle is on business, I wanted to get this whole thing with Everett Forester sorted out. He is from your company, is he not?”
Mr. Charles nods, “He is. Mr. Forester is a bit of a rogue sometimes. Radical ideas, and sometimes, he takes his jobs a bit too personally. We had him at Fischer Morrow to observe your well-being, in case extractors might try to infiltrate you while you were most vulnerable. If I am not mistaken, you had something of a relationship?”
“It could be put that way, yes,” Robert agrees, recalling his lips, the taste. Mr. Charles's hand upon his shoulder pulls him quick back to reality. “How exactly did you know to come here? I never contacted PASIV.”
“I was told by security at the hotel you were staying at about your problem since it might have been someone trying to figure out what your next move is. You are a very well-known and important man, Mr. Fischer, and you pay us well to make sure everything is handled. I am only upset that we did not find out sooner.”
Robert nods, and they talk about making sure that the security is tightened. Men, with guns, start to circle the manor if Everett Forester should reappear.
Word Count: 2,350
Pairing: Eames/Robert, Arthur/Cobb, rest of cast mentioned at various points
Rating: PG-13 for this chapter
Warnings: Character Death, General Mindfuckery
Summary: Robert finds out about the inception and "Everett Forester"'s involvement; Eames tells Robert the truth, then tells Cobb that Robert's plan and his to change it, not to worry, etc. Naturally, Cobb does and sends Arthur in.
Author's Note: Fusion between Christopher Nolan's Inception and David Mack's "Kabuki", with a bit of Peter Chung's "Aeon Flux" for inspiration. Title and lj-cut is from Marilyn Manson's "Evidence".
“Cobb, I found Fischer. His brains were blown out from a Beretta pistol similar to the one you use in the field.” Eames pulls away from the body and opens the red gas can. The fuel pours onto the clothes, the silk threads hand sewn into fabric tailored to fit his small frame. It turns the charcoal shades darker before the smell is enough for the forger to have to cover his mouth. “I am disposing of the body to make it look like a fire swept through. The gas stove should be suffice to cover up that someone took care to make certain details were eradicated fully.”
Rising, he goes into the kitchen, the empty space with little to no use except to boil water for instant coffee and a refrigerator full of liquor. The knobs twist before igniting the fuse, and he leaves them there for a moment to survey the area one last time. “Arthur was right, wherever the bloody hell he is. Fischer seems to not only have recalled the incidents but remembered our faces enough to find someone that could find each and every one of us. Even your children. He has names, locations . . .”
The handwritten notes scrawled over the white walls leave him silent suddenly. Each connection is so erratic that it is hard to believe he could figure out anything in this manic display, but, “He was right. We needed to take care of this before --”
“Yes, I agree,” Dom says on the other side. He listens in his living room while James and Phillipa are outside. “Thank you for doing this, Eames.”
“It's my head on the platter as much as yours if someone saw this,” Eames replies. Outside of the apartment, he lights a cigarette and throws the match. It ignites first the floor, and by the time he reaches the bottom of the stairs, the whole place goes up in flames.
STOP. Rewind.
That is now. This is then. Nine months earlier, the rebirth of Robert Fischer. It is several minutes from the time the alarm clock sounds, waking him from the depths of another nightmare he grasps at faintly. His body is cold, shivering, from the arctic memory, leaving its remnants of what he remembers as falling back to reality. This is reality, although when he finds the ability to turn off the clock, he realizes that it is not the one in his flat but the one he held as a child. Brass and wound to mimic the older kinds, the big, black letters glow at night now dull.
He wonders briefly if this is a dream, but it feels too real to be so. The warmth of the covers, his room, the slight, medical smell left lingering even as his father's room is empty. All too real, he believes, and rises up to twist and plant his feet on the ground. The cold floor summons another chill, and he moans a little at the discomfort.
It is enough to summon something else – or rather, someone else, from the opening of the door. “Robert, you're awake,” Peter Browning says. “Good. I was beginning to wonder if you would ever get out of that bed.”
“I had another dream, Uncle Peter,” Robert explains. “This one had a fortress high in the hills. It was cold, the Himalayas, maybe?”
Browning chuckles, “You never liked skiing, so it couldn't have been a good dream.”
“It wasn't, really, but wasn't terrible either. Just strange,” as many dreams were, he knows. Robert gets up and stretches a little, letting the blood flow through this muscles and veins. “But I'm fine. Don't worry. I'll be down for breakfast soon.”
That assurance brings a nod to Browning, and he says no more. The door closes, leaving Robert to his own devices that are more normal than they were the days after his father's death. Reckless, he took up things he should have not. At one point, he remembers dancing on the rooftop ledge of Fischer Morrow, the concrete bottom a hundred stories away. The very memory is enough to make anyone worry, but after the psychiatry visits, he feels a little more grounded.
The armoire holds his finest suits, and he chooses the black one with the red tie for today's meeting. It is the first with the board of directors. On the desk are his notes, and he flips a few pages to let his speech solidify fully before execution.
He glances up at the photographs, black and white, a different place and different time. There are pictures from college, of graduation, smiling faces all proud. Next to him is Arthur, the engineering genius that helped him through math, and Ariadne, the architect. They stand with him and his mother and father and Uncle Peter. All smiles, enough to pull the corners of his own back a little.
Below is Eames, the actor that could become anyone on stage, but he prefers the man, the one that watched him in speech class and that microeconomics presentation.
“Are you stalking me?” he finally found the courage to ask when Eames was ten paces behind.
“Perhaps,” Eames smiled. “Do you mind?”
Robert paused. “Actually, no,” he found it annoying yes, but amusing because while everyone was willing to be the friend of the future heir to an empire, none took interest.
Eames did.
His smile continues through the rehearsal, the image of Eames walking with him almost real enough to be a projection, but he knows it is only in his mind. His then boyfriend is miles away, probably on one of those tabloid covers by now if he chooses to take a glance. “While I understand that this is will be a difficult task for us, I believe that Fischer Morrow and all of its partners will benefit from the change.” He imagines Eames stopping him and pauses in the hallway, presses the notebook against the wall, and uncaps a pen with his teeth. Holding it there, a change is made.
Change, the grand metamorphosis that they believe he is capable of, but it took Maurice Fischer's death for him to realize.
Downstairs, Browning sits at the dinner table with his breakfast half-finished and newspaper opened wide. “Are you ready, Robert?”
“As ready as I will ever be,” Robert replies and sits at the chair opposite.
Breakfast is small, a meal to keep his energy up, surely. The grapefruit cuts without any additional sugars added, the whole-wheat toast without butter. It is all so strict that he wonders for a moment what would happen if he switches this, too. Would his body collapse from the ounce of body fat? He chuckles at the thought, and the newspaper drops to show a fraction of Browning's concern. “I was thinking that after this is over, I might take a vacation.”
“Oh?” Browning asks.
“Tokyo, to visit Mr. Saito personally and congratulate him,” Robert explains and sips his black coffee. “He was quite the competitor, my father always told me, and when this is through, this, the energy empire, will all be his, won't it?”
Browning nods, “I suppose so.”
Robert cuts into the wheat squares and scoops up a helping. The pause is long while he chews and swallows. “Then I would like to tell him that it is all well played, but the war is over now.”
“He's won.”
A shrug and another bite, Robert notes, “I guess that he did on that front. But we have so much else to work with. While Proclus Global will become monopolize the world, we have our other branches. Less known, sure, but still, there was a time when our priorities were not exclusively set in that department.”
“And that is your intent for this meeting? To let the board members know that you're dismantling your father's work to continue in venues less sought? The press will have a field day.”
Robert looks up, “But have you backing me, don't I, Uncle Peter? I realize that we might have had our differences from time to time, but you were the one that showed me that alternate will.”
“Yes, I did, and in fact, before I forget, there is something that came for you from PASIV. It is on your desk at the office, direct from Everett Forester. You should probably take a glance to see if everything has been set in stone.”
Robert does, in fact, check those papers first in the few minutes of privacy before his meeting. It sits where Uncle Peter told him, on the desk amongst other messages. Inside is the will, the document as bold as he remembers, and a sticky note:
Robert,
This is not real. You are dreaming.
Wake up. Wake up and be with me.
- E.
It sounds silly, so he crumples it up and calls PASIV to report that someone is playing a joke. Non, je ne Regrette Rien comes on after the ring, and he hangs up. It might be within the office, and the last thing he needs is to be reported for another psychiatric visit.
Days pass, and Robert dissolves the empire. The doors close finally, the boxes all gone, and he shakes the hand of a man that will deal with the financial end of finding a buyer. There is certainty that it done soon, and Robert is grateful.
He travels to Tokyo to meet with Saito, shakes his hand next. It is only when he returns to Room 528 of his hotel that he notices anything strange. On the desk is the complimentary memo pad, and on it is another note:
WAKE UP!
This is not real. One week ago,
you figured out the inception. You
planned on telling the authorities.
I told Cobb. He sent in his point man
to drug you. You're lying in a coma.
This is all a dream.
Wake up, Robert.
Wake up and be with me.
- E
Robert calls security to check the room. They search every corner, every floor, and beyond the building to the parking lot outside. Nothing is found.
Another week later, and Robert finds another note. This one is an e-mail:
This is a dream.
From: “E” -forgeries@pasiv.com-
To: “Robert Fischer” -the_mark@inceptyou.com-
Robert,
Listen to me, darling. You remember when your father was dying, and I sat with Peter Browning as Everett Forester. That is how we continued, and I regret not telling you sooner. When you boarded the plane from Sydney to Los Angeles for his funeral, I was in first class with Dominic Cobb, Arthur, Yusuf, Ariadne, and Saito. We incepted you with an idea, a parasite that latched on and changed you into this extraordinary man, but it came with consequence none of us expected. Due to your previous training in the dreamshare, you were able to recall parts of it, and because of your brilliant mind, you figured us out. You were able to forgive me, but the others were not fortunate to know you as I do.
You planned to tell the authorities about what Dominic Cobb and Saito did. You planned to take down Proclus Global and take Cobb's children away from him. You planned all of this, and somehow, you knew about Cobol Engineering and planned on telling them where Cobb and Arthur were. No one was safe, so Cobb devised a plan instead of listening to me. Arthur drugged you with one of Yusuf's designs. It keeps you in a dream while your body lies in a coma. Every day, Arthur keeps tabs to make sure you do not wake.
I love you, Robert, but I cannot do much else beyond sending these notes. If I come in, Arthur will know, but I managed to get Yusuf to create a drug that I have slipped into you occasionally with thesen notes. How they exist, I am uncertain, but I pray that they do.
Please, wake up. We'll find a way to deal with them, all of this, if you will just wake up.
- E.
Robert closes his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. He presses until it aches, so that he might wake up, but nothing happens. The e-mail is deleted.
The next morning a man arrives at the manor by the name of Mr. Charles. He recalls him clearly from subconscious security, the one responsible for teaching him about dreams. “It is almost like you read my mind,” he says at the door, letting him in. “I have not been sleeping well, and while my uncle is on business, I wanted to get this whole thing with Everett Forester sorted out. He is from your company, is he not?”
Mr. Charles nods, “He is. Mr. Forester is a bit of a rogue sometimes. Radical ideas, and sometimes, he takes his jobs a bit too personally. We had him at Fischer Morrow to observe your well-being, in case extractors might try to infiltrate you while you were most vulnerable. If I am not mistaken, you had something of a relationship?”
“It could be put that way, yes,” Robert agrees, recalling his lips, the taste. Mr. Charles's hand upon his shoulder pulls him quick back to reality. “How exactly did you know to come here? I never contacted PASIV.”
“I was told by security at the hotel you were staying at about your problem since it might have been someone trying to figure out what your next move is. You are a very well-known and important man, Mr. Fischer, and you pay us well to make sure everything is handled. I am only upset that we did not find out sooner.”
Robert nods, and they talk about making sure that the security is tightened. Men, with guns, start to circle the manor if Everett Forester should reappear.
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Date: 2011-04-02 11:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-03 12:08 am (UTC)