Leo sat down at his kitchen table. Caine was already there, a small glass full of ice and some amber liquid which cast patterns on the wall as late afternoon light cut through the windows.
"I've always meant to tell you," said the older man, "that I admire your view."
"Thanks, Mike." The master of the house briefly tried to remember when he had become close enough friends with a knight to call him "Mike". Probably some point before his kids started calling that same knight "grandpa".
Leo reached over, and grabbed the grocery notepad and a pencil from their spots near the phone.
"I had an idea on the plane."
"Do tell," said Caine, with the air of a man who's been a sounding board for many in his time.
"Wait, wait, hang on."
Caine waited patiently while his friend went to see if Ms. Saito had remembered to give the kids sunscreen. Satisfied that the nursemaid had done her duty, he returned to the kitchen.
"My train got to the airport in Paris late. So I board the plane late, so I'm the last in the cabin, and I look around, and I realized Ellen Page was there, and Ken Watanabe, and Joseph."
"Whedon?"
Leo smiled. "Gordon-Levitt. There were a few other actors too. Entirely by coincidence, we had all booked the same first-class cabin. We didn't talk much, since I spent most of the flight asleep, but we all woke up at about the same time. What if we were all having the same dream?"
"I don't follow."
"What if there was some kind of technology, or magic, or something that could let multiple people have the same dream?"
"What would be the practical applications of such a thing?"
"I don't know." Leo stared at the twin Oscars in the cabinet across the room, a slight frown on his face. "Maybe they use it to design stuff. Like cars or buildings."
He can barely see through the tears welling up in his eyes, and he leans in a little closer to the microphone, still waving the little golden man like a kid with a new toy. "-And I'd like to thank my wife, who talked me into taking the job in the first place-" Laughter from the audience.
"That wouldn't work, unless there was some way to copy their plans into real life." Caine shook his glass, sending the sunlight into new patterns on the wall. "Since it's a dream, they wouldn't be constrained by the laws of physics anyway."
"No. There have to be rules, or else we end up with The Matrix. The bad ones, not the first one."
"Well," volunteered Caine, "If you're willing to take an old man's advice-"
"What do you know? You've only been in the movies since before I was born."
Both men smiled at each other.
"I was once told that stories, whether they're about a romance on a doomed cruise liner, or a rich orphan who dresses up like a bat, need to be about the people, not the ideas. Not a lot of people know that. They get hung up on how their rocket engine works, or what sort of element powers their deterium reactor or something like that."
Leo stopped writing, and tapped the hardwood tabletop with his pen. "Why not both?"
"Come again?"
"What if they go in there to steal ideas?"
Caine considered it. "I think you're on to something."
Leo wrote down "IDEA THIEF" and underneath "JAMES BOND + THE MATRIX?"
"Wouldn't it be more like 'Ocean's Eleven'?" Caine pointed out.
"I dunno. Maybe." His gaze lit on his travel bag, and he remembered something.
"My passport must've fallen out of my pocket while I was out, because the stewardess handed it to me when I woke up."
"Welcome home, Mr. Cobb," says the Customs guy, and handed him back his passport. One lane over, Ellen smiles at Leo. The actor takes his passport. "It's good to be back," he says, and smiles.
"It has your real name in it, right?"
"Yeah, Maurice, it says 'Leonardo Cobb'. Anyway, what if the team stole the target's passport? Just so they could have an excuse to talk to him?"
"Good idea," said Caine, idly spinning a top Wil had left on the counter when Ms. Saito served him and his sister breakfast.
A few seconds of silence.
He dreams of a city folding over on itself like an omlette, of gravity turning itself off, of a fortress in the snow. And, oddly, of onions.
"I saw Cillian on the plane."
"How was he?"
"Still a bit broken up about his father. I gave him my condolences."
"Poor lad. Worked with 'im on the Batman films. He didn't have the best relationship with his father."
"...Huh."
"What?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe we can work that into the movie."
"Well, I think this is very quickly going to get more complicated than two actors can handle."
"Speak for yourself; I'm a producer too."
"We need a director; let me see if I can get Chris on the phone."
"Columbus?"
"Nolan."
A woman appeared, arms full of grocery bags. Neither man had heard her come in, but she had certainly heard them.
"C'est mon mari," said Marion. "Travail, travail, travail."
"Hi, honey," said Leo, rising to kiss his wife on the cheek as she entered. She turned her head and met him on the mouth, then smiled at him and put the bags on the table.
"What are you two talking about?"
"I had an idea for a thief movie, like Ocean's Eleven."
"Isn't that a popular genre? What sort of twist could you bring to the table?" said the Frenchwoman. One of the things that had attracted Leo to her was her willingness to disagree with him if she though his ideas were wrong -
"I think you should take the part," she says, and puts another bite of Beef Wellington into her mouth "I don't know," he responds, leaning back in his chair. "I'm not sure how it will work." "Forget the part itself." Marion gestures with her empty fork. "You have the chance to work with Steve Spielberg, one of the best directors in history. And I "Not hungry," Leo says, while his hand, in his pocket, rubs a little velvet box.
"Well, for one thing, it takes place in your mind. The rules of reality won't necessarily apply."
Marion drew up a chair, and rested her head on her hands. "How did you come up with this idea?"
"Came to me in a dream."
THE END