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“Squad, we have a problem,” Captain Holt announces as he strides into the briefing room.
Jake jerks to attention, hastily stowing away a packet of jellybeans, but it’s already too late. Terry, following just behind Holt, gives him a disappointed look. Jake scrunches his nose up and braces himself to expect another long conversation about dentists and vegetables later. He doesn’t get Terry; cavities are only a problem if you’re not already used to it hurting when you chew.
“I agree, Captain,” Gina calls out from the back, interrupting his train of thought. “I too think Boyle is wearing too much cologne. Go easy on the stink, ya fink.”
“It’s Stank,” Boyle shoots back, and Jake shakes his head pre-emptively because this isn’t likely to go anywhere good. “Canyon Stank, to be precise. The manly musk of jerky and horse sweat.”
“Ewww,” Gina moans. Jake can’t really blame her.
“Yes,” Holt says, quelling, ruining any chance of this devolving into a slap fight. “But Boyle’s odd smell aside, we do have a problem.”
“Hey!” Charles calls. Jake pats his arm consolingly. There’s really no saving this though; he does smell weird.
Terry rolls his eyes at all of them as he takes over the briefing. “Word is that there’s a big shipment of drugs arriving into town in the next 72 hours and despite our best efforts, the gang member we have in custody has refused to cooperate.”
Jake thinks back to the interrogation itself, which involved Rosa and the guy staring menacingly at each other for ten hours in complete silence.
“My system usually works,” Rosa grumbles now, scrunching down to get more comfortable in her chair.
Terry eyes her with disbelief. “Does it?”
Rosa purses her lips and stares him down.
Terry takes a step back. “Okay, I take your point.”
“Anyway,” the Captain continues, drawing everyone’s attention back to him, “given that time is of the essence and our options are limited, the Commissioner agreed to authorise our squad to perform an extraction regarding the details of the shipment. At my suggestion, he’s also authorised an inception to see if we can’t turn this suspect to an informant for the future.”
“We’d be the first squad to try this out so it’s a pretty huge honour.” Terry beams at the squad. “We’re going to be the inception that proves the rule.”
Jake groans, echoed by Rosa and Gina, but Holt leans forward on the podium, his face smoothed of any expression.
“That,” he says slowly, “is incredibly funny. I can hardly contain my mirth.”
Jake looks, but Holt’s deadpan expression hasn’t changed in the slightest.
“Okay,” Terry says, eyebrows raised in disbelief as well. “Let’s get started. Jake, can I speak to you for a sec about very important dental care.” It’s not a question.
Well, crap.
By popular consensus, Hitchcock and Scully are left behind to look after the precinct and the bodies themselves.
“I don’t see why we can’t take a nap,” Scully says sadly. “I’m good at naps.”
“It’s not a nap!” Jake throws his hands in the air. “We’re going to go into his head and eat his brain.” Or something of that sort. He hadn’t really been paying attention during all of the tactical planning but he had the gist down.
“That’s not what’s happening either!” Amy snaps. “We’re going to extract information from the suspect’s mind.”
“Exactly. Brain eating,” Jake repeats. It’s essentially what the briefing said.
“Sure looks like a nap,” Scully fires back.
Hitchcock pats his back soothingly and scowls at the rest of the squad. “It’s ‘cause they don’t trust us. Well,” he says, tauntingly, “joke’s on you. We’ve been napping all the time.”
“Yeah!” Scully chimes in. “I’ve spent more time sleeping at my desk this past week than I have working.” Gesturing between himself and Hitchcock, he says proudly, “When it comes to naps, we’re the professionals.”
Terry throws his hands in the air. “Come on, man!”
Hitchcock just tuts. “Don’t hate us for being the best at what we do.”
Scully leans back in his chair, clearly settling in for another nap. “We’ve spent years practicing.”
“Guys –” Terry starts, but twin snores cut him off. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Jake pats his giant muscles soothingly. “Let it go, Sarge. Let it go. Trying to keep Hitchcock and Scully from naps is like trying to keep Amy from colour coding her binders. Hilariously mean, but ultimately futile.” He sees Amy look up at her name and hastily backpedals. “Not that I’ve ever done that.”
Her eyes narrow. “Is that why I couldn’t find my post-its the other day?” she asks menacingly.
“Help?” Jake begs Terry.
For the second time today, Terry shakes his head at him, which is deeply unfair. If Jake didn’t know better, he’d think Terry isn’t taking his vow as godhusbands seriously anymore.
By the time Amy’s finished yelling at him and - somehow - making him promise to buy something called a doily for his living room, everything’s already set up in the briefing room. Someone has managed to wrestle the blanket from the breakroom couch away from Scully, and it’s now spread out on the floor with the perp from holding passed out on it. Terry and Rosa are sitting on either side of him while Gina is propped up on what look like all the seat cushions from Holt’s office couch.
“Hey, hey!” Gina grumbles as Jake throws himself down on the cushions next to her, but relents when he gives her his most exaggerated pout. “Ugh, fine.”
Jake waits until her attention returns to texting to fistpump. He grins guilelessly at Amy who huffs and settles in next to Rosa. It’s amazing that she manages to do this with perfect posture, her back as straight as a ruler. It looks horrifically uncomfortable.
Aaand now he’s vaguely turned on. He has to wonder what part of his brain is broken that Santiago’s ridiculous posture has become deeply arousing…
“I’m not thinking about your sexy posture or anything,” he informs her so no one knows that’s totally what he’s thinking about.
“My sexy what?” she asks, confused, somehow sitting up even straighter. Jake’s back is in agony just looking at her but man, is it working for him.
“What is wrong with me?” he whispers, hastily averting his eyes before things get even harder.
Fortunately Boyle interrupts this train of thought by coming in with the PASIV and a case of somniacin. If they’re in luck, this will be nothing like the stuff they’d been given at the training camp which, first of all, made every dream smell like old farts, and second of all, made them throw up so much right after they woke up that, yeah, no. Gross.
“I got a great deal,” Boyle says, unwrapping a set of syringes and attaching them to the PASIV. He holds up the tube of somniacin. “The guy at the military complex I got this stuff from says they specialise in aftertastes and mouthfeel now. It’s just a little bit extra but I figured ‘what the heck’ so I got you guys the stewed trotters.”
“Great,” Jake says encouragingly, trying to smile through the wince. “Can’t wait.”
“Yeah,” Charles says, because stopping while he’s ahead isn’t really his strong suit. “You think it’s just going to be that great slimy slurp all the way through, but they agreed to add in a little fried crunch in there too. You guys are in for a treat!”
“Stop talking, Boyle,” Rosa mutters, “or once I’m back I’ll be ripping off your face and using it for a barf bag.”
“Well, that’s hurtful,” Boyle says.
“Just looking not to throw up this time, buddy.” Jake’s encouraging smile feels horribly fixed but it’s the best he can do with crunchy slime to look forward to. “One step at a time.”
“Right, right,” Boyle chirps and depresses the plunger.
He can feel the edges of his vision going blurry as he slumps down and he has a second to enjoy the cushiony softness of the pillows below him before he feels Gina shove him off.
“Heeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaahhhh,” he garbles, deeply betrayed.
And then there’s just the dark.
He wakes up in heaven, surrounded by an irate squad.
Terry gestures with annoyance at the vista around them. “I shouldn't have to tell you this, Peralta, but it’s pretty easy to recognise this place as Nakatomi Plaza.”
“Come on, Terry, it’s the one place I know well enough to design with my brain,” Jake whines. He turns to the rest of the squad. “Guys, back me up here.”
“It is really detailed,” Amy offers hesitantly. Jake immediately resolves to buy her something amazing for disagreeing with a senior officer on his behalf. Something great but within his budget. Like pound cake. Or pot noodles.
“We’re surrounded by Bruce Willis!” Terry yells.
The crowd of John McLane projections look vaguely over at them.
“Pay no attention to us. Die Hard is the greatest movie ever,” Jake says to them cheerily, waving them off as best as he can. A few of them menacingly finger the weapons they’re carrying and he has to wonder if this is the day that he ends up shot by his greatest hero, but then they seem to lose interest, continuing to prowl the area, bald, heavily armed, covered in grease and blood.
“See?” He says, turning back to the others. “All good.”
Terry sighs, put upon. “Come on. Let’s find the guy and get down to the next level.”
It takes them a bit to find the dude and convince him to come with them. Apparently being a career criminal means that he’s both ridiculously paranoid and super familiar with guns. Unsurprisingly, when they eventually locate him, he’s holed up in a room exchanging gunfire with two angry projections.
It’s almost poetic. This guy is totally the Gruber.
“Yippee ki yay,” calls one of the projections, as he stands up only to be shot in the shoulder by the perp.
“Ho ho ho, I’ve got a machine gun,” yells the other and lays down defensive fire while dragging the other projection behind a table.
“This is so beautiful,” Jake whispers, nearly hyperventilating with glee, because it really, really is. “I’m never going to wake up. This is as close to perfection as life can get. Everything else is going to be a disappointment.” Then, remembering Amy is right behind him, “Except being with you, Ames. You’re what makes waking up worthwhile.”
“Aww,” Amy coos, and Jake nods, wide-eyed, sure everyone can tell the lie from his eyes. He’d stay here in a heartbeat if he could.
But there’s work to be done and Jake is nothing if not an amazing cop. Possibly the greatest cop ever after this.
“We need to get him away from his projections if we're going to take him down to the next level,” Holt mutters. “But how?”
Rosa eyes the McLanes and then seems to make up her mind. “No problem,” she says, deadpan, and shoots both projections in the back.
“Hey!” Jake whisper-yells. “Foul play!”
Rosa rolls her eyes at him and walks out to meet the perp. “Come with me if you want to live,” she tells him. He squints and stares at her, clearly struggling to place her in this scenario.
“That’s not even the right dialogue. That’s Terminator,” Jake whines, deeply offended. It’s like Rosa wants to hurt him.
“Who are you? You look kind of familiar…” the mark says, but Rosa's already whacking him over the head and dragging him over to the others.
Gina shakes her head. “That poor bastard.”
They get to work and hook him up to the dream PASIV.
Jake looks around sadly one last time before they press the plunger and head down to the next level.
Holt's mind is a bit of a trip for them all. All his projections have little to no facial expression and are very polite. Also, they're really very erudite.
“Can someone please explain why these projections want to discuss Kafka with me?” Rosa asks testily as she and Amy tie the victim to a chair. Amy gets busy setting up the next dream PASIV, checking the dream somniacin levels and attaching tubing to the device.
“Well, he is one of the foremost writers of the 20th century's social revolution,” Holt points out blandly. The implicit criticism comes through loud and clear.
Rosa's finger tightens and releases on her gun. “We're in a place where I can shoot you without a problem,” she says, eyebrow raised but face as emotionless as the projections around them.
Holt nods, clearly having assessed the risks. “Point taken.”
“I read Kafka,” Amy says brightly from her crouched position behind them. "I wrote a book report on The Trial once."
Holt eyes her. “And yet you still chose to go into this line of work. Interesting.”
She smiles at him, awkward and unsure, and her eyes flick towards Rosa for help.
Rosa ignores them both. Jake figures she's got people to kill, secrets to steal, and a better gun to imagine.
And it’s got to be said that Rosa imagines a lot of guns. And knives. And axes. And throwing stars. By the time they see her use a small rocket launcher on a group of Holt’s angry projections yelling at them about the beauty of the contrabassoon in Aho’s works, it's all pretty much old hat.
“I’m surprised at them,” Holt muses. “I would’ve thought they’d be more enthusiastic about Tilson Thomas’ interpretation of Mahler.”
Jake ignores him because that’s just weird old person talk.
“Rocket launcher, huh?” he says instead, sidling up beside Rosa. “Cool.”
Rosa looks particularly satisfied when she smiles, fondling the barrel in a way that is... disturbingly sexual.
“Well, okay then,” Jake mutters, and backs away. Rosa’s a friend. He doesn’t need to see that.
“Wow,” Amy mouths silently at him, wide-eyed.
Then she pushes the plunger and they’re down one more level.
Terry’s architecture is… distinct.
“This is very suburban, Sarge,” Gina drawls, looking at the row of picket fenced houses, the big lawns. There might even be a mini-trampoline in one of the backyards. “You're like a big, beautiful Stepford wife in there, aren't you?”
Terry shoots her an annoyed look and hefts his Hello Kitty gun higher. “What? It still shoots!” he says when she raises an eyebrow at him.
All Terry’s projections are children. Tiny, tiny children. Watching them. Jake doesn’t even want to think about what they intend to do when they attack.
“This is weird,” Rosa says, saying what everyone is clearly thinking.
“How is this weird?” Terry blusters, and godhusbands or not, Jake has to tell him the truth.
“Sorry, Sarge. This is totally Children of the Corn weird. This is Children of the Corn II weird. I didn’t see the third one because there’s only so many of those movies you can watch but I’m guessing it still counts.”
Terry turns to the one person he assumes isn’t really creeped out. “Back me up here, Captain. It’s not that weird, right?”
Captain Holt looks him dead in the eye. “It’s terrifying,” he says, sounding perfectly calm. “But let’s ignore that. Gina, are you ready to proceed?”
Gina flicks her hair. “Man, I was born ready. Step aside, yo, I'm about to tell that bitch a story.” She takes a deep breath and then her image ripples as she forges into an old man in a three piece suit.
“Damn,” she says, swivelling round to check out her ass. “Even wearing a 60 year old mob boss I can't hide the sexy.”
“Gina!” the Sarge snaps when she doesn’t move, still checking the different angles and arranging her hair.
Gina rolls her eyes. “All right, I'm going! Jeez. You'll peel off all the stickers on your glitter gun with that sourpuss.”
"Gina!"
They set Gina up in one of the houses, in a dark study full of wood and big comfy couches. Terry makes a beeline for one of the couches and flops down, a glass of bourbon and a fancy cigar materializing right next to his elbow.
“Sarge,” Jake says admiringly, “I didn’t know you had it in you!”
Terry shrugs uncomfortably, puffing on the cigar. “It’s a dream, man. I’m not doing any of this around my precious babies.”
“You know we’re going to have to go out on the balcony in a minute to let Gina do this, right, Sarge?” Amy looks sympathetic.
“Give me a minute,” Terry begs. “It’s all so beautiful and nothing’s sticky here. Nothing’s sticky here, Santiago!”
“Whatever,” Rosa says, even as Amy’s doing her awkward smile-and-nod, and goes out into the hall to drag the unconscious guy in. They barely have a minute to force Terry out onto the balcony before she starts slapping him awake.
“Hey, hey, hey,” he grumbles, flailing out at her. “C’mon, take it easy.”
Rosa flicks her eyes over to where Gina’s ensconced herself behind the giant desk like a… Well, like a mob boss. It’s oddly apt.
“Boss,” the guy blurts, hastily sitting upright. “I didn’t know they were working for you!”
“I welcome you and this is how you react,” Gina rasps in a bad Marlon Brando impression. “You offend me. You have brought shame to me and mine. Have you ever swum with the fishes? That’s what you’ll do if you don’t tell me where the drugs are.”
The guy looks really confused. “It’s at Pier 18 right where you said, boss. In the shrimp crates.”
Gina nods and smokes the giant cigar they couldn’t get away from her. Watching from their hiding place on the balcony, Jake thinks this might be a scoosh too far but the guy seems to be lapping it up.
“Good,” she rasps unconvincingly. “Someday, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day, accept this advice as a gift on my daughter’s wedding day - being a snitch is easier than prison.”
The guy looks baffled. “What? Boss, I’d never tell on you.”
Gina waves. “You really think even you telling would mean anything to me? I’m a motherfucking drug lord, son. I’d move before things even went down.”
The guy’s nodding disbelievingly. “You would. You always know shit before it happens.”
“That’s right,” Gina informs him, exhaling dream-smoke in artistic circles. “Now get outta here. I have to get back to work. It’s part of the wedding. No man can refuse a request on his daughter’s wedding day.”
“I love that you love that movie, boss,” the guy simpers.
Jake rolls his eyes. Whatever. Everyone loves that movie.
“So... what now, Captain?” Amy asks once Rosa’s knocked the guy out again and they’re all back in the room. “We’ve got the information. We’ve still got hours before the dose is supposed to run out. Should we shoot ourselves and head back up the levels?”
Holt sits down on the couch and deliberately holds eye contact as he says, enunciating every word with deadpan precision. “I have a better idea.”
In his hand is a bottle of bourbon. And he’s somehow wearing a smoking jacket.
“Holy shit,” Jake breathes. This is the best ever.
“Good work, squad,” Holt says later as they wake groggily. “Though I could have done without all the gunfire and arson at the end. And the giant wolves. I could have especially done without those and the naked men riding them. And the maniacal laughter.”
Gina grins at everyone’s pale faces. “Well, that’s one fantasy I’ve lived at last. So when can we go again?”