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“This won’t work. We need a forger.” Dom says, shaking his head.
Arthur sighs, looking exasperatedly at the scribbles on the whiteboard. “Good forgers are few and far in between. The last guy we had almost ruined the whole thing.”
“Actually, I know someone,” interjects Dean, their chemist for this job. “Goes by Eames, pretty new in town, but guy’s a genius.”
Arthur’s eyes widen. It’s barely enough to alert someone like Dean to Arthur’s surprise, but Mal shoots him a concerned look.
Later, she corners him alone and asks, “family of yours?”
He shakes his head. “Can’t be,” he says, thinking of his nice extended family, living quietly in the suburbs of Chicago.
Days later, they head to a nearby café to meet Dean’s contact. Arthur feels more nervous than he has any right to, his breaths rattling on their way out.
They round the corner, and Arthur stops, rooted to his place in shock. The broad shoulders look different out of military uniforms and army-issue t-shirts, and the hair is longer than he has ever seen it, but they are still unmistakable. Arthur feels his body go cold, and all of his blood drain down to his feet, then through it onto the cobblestoned street below.
The man looks up straight into Arthur’s eyes, and his mouth drops open. Arthur wants to turn around and run, but he can’t seem to tell his feet to move. He can only watch helplessly as the other man reaches into his pocket, presumably to palm his totem, before leaping up from his chair and towards him.
“They told me you were dead,” the man says, still sounding dazed.
“I am. Officially.” Arthur replies, not without an edge of bitterness. “They told me you turned traitor.”
“I did,” the man now calling himself Eames says with a cheeky grin. “Evidently. And so did you.”
“On me. They said you sold me out.”
Eames narrows his eyes. “Bullshit.”
“Yes,” Arthur says, softly now, “I can see that.” His hands reach out to catch on the silver chain showing from underneath the open collar of Eames’ shirt. He tugs on it to reveal the ID tags that had long been reported as lost but was really nothing of the sort.
EAMES
ARTHUR D.
123-45-6789
O POS