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“Here’s the thing,” Ariadne says, as soon as Arthur answers the phone. It’s one of the best things about her, because small talk makes him grind his teeth until he gives himself a tension headache.
“Tell me the thing,” Arthur prompts, trying to keep his face from folding into obvious wry amusement.
“So during a shared dream, your brains are all connected. When we did that job on Ro— on that individual with, you know, all that money and cheekbones— the physical me was sleeping on a plane and then the aware dream me was awake on one level at a time but then went to sleep on two levels.”
“I’m with you so far,” Arthur says.
“Great. So my most directly controlled thoughts went up a level, but since we were all mentally connected, I can’t shake the feeling that the things that happened in levels that my dream self was present but unconscious in are hanging around in my subconscious. Everything that happened in a shared dream because there is no reason that my thoughts, which were hooked up to everyone else's’ thoughts, should have been able to distinguish what parts of the dream it was quote-unquote conscious for.”
“Is there a question in there somewhere?”
“There are a lot of questions,” Ariadne says, matter of fact.
Arthur is finally getting comfortable in his chair. He’s rented an office in Fort Worth, not even doing any dream work at the moment. He’s doing the old fashioned kind of intellectual property theft and research, combing through pages of 401©3 books, patents filed in the last year, corporate donations. It’s mind numbing work; satisfying at the end but a drag until then.
He’s glad for the little break he’s having, Ariadne’s voice a constant stream, and anything but boring. The AC kicks on and Arthur feels a burst of cool air across the back of his neck.
“And they are?”
“Well, for one, I need to know a hell of a lot more than I know about the splitting of consciousness that happens in a dream state like we created. Implicit and explicit awareness, the boundaries of it. Can we access unconscious memories, or things going on in the dream while we’re sleeping on that level? Can I access someone else’s thoughts in a way more basic than extraction? And language!”
“Language?”
“Yeah. A lot of thinking is pictorial, or more or less nebulously symbolic than linear and articulated. Is the collective dreamshare the real Babelfish?”
Arthur closes his eyes against the bloom of heat he feels in his face at Ariadne making casual Douglas Adams references. “Sounds like you’ve been doing some thinking,” Arthur says. “I don’t know that I have all of the answers you’re looking for.”
“Of course you don’t,” she replies. He’s not even offended. Arthur wonders if she’s got a list. Picturing it isn’t exactly helpful in making his blush retreat. “And at first I thought I’d ask you to put me in contact with Cobb, but then I realized all of his tricks in the dream were just that — tricks. You know, build a bank, wait for secrets. Blah blah blah. It’s a checklist, not anything intuitive. I’m starting to wonder if it all really came from —”
“ — Mal.” Arthur confirms. Saying it doesn’t feel like broken glass anymore, but there are bittersweet memories rushing over him suddenly like low tide that he has to push away. “You’re not wrong. She wanted to conduct so much research, but it was a smaller community, back then. Recent expats, almost exclusively. Not a lot of people excited to be part of scientific testing.”
“Wait. How did she get involved?”
“Well. Her uncle — Miles’ brother — pioneered a lot of the tech that made dreamshare possible.”
“Oh my god,” Ariadne says, voice low and breathy and honest to god on the verge of giddy. “You’re pulling on my dick.”
“I’m not.” Arthur says, grinning. “So, Ariadne. How can I be of service to you?”
“Well. After graduation, I’m going to need some test subjects. And somnacin. And a PASIV. Also, if at all possible, a member of dreamshare that doesn’t speak English, or, you know, several of them,” she rattles off, ending with a cheeky: “if that’s not too much to ask.”
Arthur’s never been one to back away from a challenge. “Is that all?”
“No,” Ariadne says, hesitating for the first time in the conversation. “I could also use a research assistant. Preferably someone who knows about dreamshare and its origins and can explain what good totems actually actually are because I’ve had some time to think and the uses you outlined for them are really off base.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I oversimplified at the time. But I’d be more than happy to fly to you after graduation and help you with your research.”
He might even be able to get Cobb to part with Mal’s notes, but he won’t mention it because he doesn’t want to get her hopes up if he can’t manage it.
By the time he ends the call, he feels relaxed and energized, like he’s fresh out of a two hour massage. He’s going to get to do something interesting for the first time in a while. He’s going to — he’s going to see Ariadne in action, being brilliant and unassuming and chatty as hell. They might get a chance to have a follow up on something he felt bubbling on the last job, something he didn’t get to delve into because they’d been working and then she’d made a U-Turn at LAX to go back to school. It’s stupid to hope that anything will happen between the two of them, but… it seems worth a shot.
Oh, he realizes with a jolt, a sly thrill running through him. He’s going to need some new pocket squares.