AN Chris Nolan is my idol. Alas, we have no connection. This chapter is extremely dialogue-y, which is far from my strong point. So I apologize for my mediocre writing now.

"So you can go into other people's dreams?" Rie asked, lying down on the lawn chair with the needle still in. (Arthur had moved to remove it but she had yanked her wrist away, protesting she wanted to keep it in. "It doesn't work until I press the button," He had explained patiently, but she had stubbornly shaken her head. "It's so cool!" She gushed. "Don't touch it!")

He was frankly a little annoyed with her obvious over enthusiasm and excitement. Dream share was a professional industry for adults- the teen was clearly treating it as a dream come true.

Arthur grimaced. He had never liked puns, but working in the Extraction world was like setting yourself up for one every fucking day.

"Yes," He said forcefully, "But there's certain rules."

"Right, right," She said airily, literally waving it away with her hands, "But you can literally go in there and dream up whoever you want, or whatever place you want, and go in and control stuff?"

She was so wrong for this. So wrong. But it was far too late now.

"It's called lucid dreaming," He repeated, rubbing his hands together. "And we use it for our job."

She sat up, even more interested (impossibly so; he was sure of it, and he lived in a world where impossibilities were few and far between) and her lips pursed in confusion. "Which is?"

"The human mind works…" He huffed with impatience and reached behind him for a sketchpad and a thick ink pen. "As a series of patterns and associations. Cobb always explained it like this." He began to draw the circle out with a light but steady hand.

"Who's Cobb?" Rie asked immediately. Arthur paused, pen still poised midair. He cleared his throat.

"An old friend," He said softly, sincerely. Rie immediately looked taken aback and embarrassed.

"I'm sorry," She said. "I remember when my Grammy died-"

"He's not dead!" Arthur explained in horrified alarm. "He just retired. Jesus…"

"Well the way you said it made it sound like he was," She snapped throwing herself back in the chair with a huff and crossing her arms. "You shouldn't go making it sound like he died if he didn't actually die."

"Let's get back on topic, shall we?" He said smoothly, trying to smile politely but not managing more than a grimace. This was why Eames wanted her on the team- he could tell she'd be just the right choice to annoy Arthur.

"Alright," She said, seemingly indifferently. But she leaned forward and eyed the drawing all the same. "A circle."

"Yeah," He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "When you dream, you create and discover at the same time- sometimes it doesn't feel like you're building as much as you are finding. With our job, we can cut right through the middle (he drew the line in to highlight his point) by using the machine over there, called the PASIV."

"The Passive."

"No, it's like an Acronym. The PASIV. P-A-S-I-V."

"What does it stand for?" Rie was curious and fascinated, something Arthur could respect, and he fell comfortably back into Mentor mode, grinning slightly as the similarity to Ariadne became more pronounced, and the reinstruction felt comfortingly familiar, and reminiscent of the days the two had spent side by side in the otherwise empty warehouse, becoming fast partners and teammates.

"Portable Automated Somnacin IntraVenous Device," He rifled off, smirking as her jaw dropped.

"I know four out of five of those words." She defended herself when she caught sight of his smirk. "Oh, shut up and explain it already."

"Somnacin," He stated simply, "Is the chemical that runs through that needle into your bloodstream. It puts you to sleep and synchronizes you to the rest of us."

"So we're all in the same dream, basically? And this machine connects us?"

"Right. Now the dream is designed by the Architect beforehand, and it's generally made into a maze to confuse the projections and buy us more time."

"Projections? How much time do we need?"

"I'll get there," He reassured her. "It's like…what's your major?"

"English." Rie straightened up proudly. "I'm going to be an author."

"Perfect. There are usually two to three members on a team- but our team is much larger because of the circumstances. Don't ask- your life will be in danger if I tell you."

A moment of silence.

"I can't tell if you're kidding," Rie mumbled after a moment. Arthur looked up to meet her gaze, and there was an odd mixture of challenge, defiance, and curiosity on her face. "I'm not." He said seriously. Her eyes widened in alarm.

"Oh."

"Yeah," He said sympathetically. "We have a very powerful job, Rie. Anyway, besides the Architect is the…Chemist…he provides the Somnacin or any sedatives we need to put us to sleep."

"I thought the Somnacin put us to sleep?"

"It does. The sedative is used to keep the team under. See, we can only stay under and go so deep without stabilization. The sedative stabilizes everything, the Somnacin just connects us all up."

"O-kay…"

"It'll make sense eventually," He assured her. "We also have a Forger, that's Eames, who can be someone else in a dream. I'm the Point Man, which means I cover the Extractor, look out for details, and take care of everything so the Extractor can focus."

There was a very pregnant pause. Arthur was very obviously waiting for her to ask another question- Rie racked her brains for the appropriate thing to say, but nothing came to mind.

"Your job," He said finally, slightly disappointed when her response wasn't quite as Ariadne-like as he'd expected, "is the Extractor."

There was another pause, but Rie was quick to snap at the chance to redeem herself. (That, and she was curious). "What's an Extractor?"

"The Architect will design a dream, and teach it to the dreamer. The Dreamer is kind of the setting of the story- he's "in charge" of the dream- he makes sure it doesn't collapse, gets built properly, and stays there drawing off projections. The Subject- or person we're extracting from, will fill that set with Projections- parts of their subconscious that they project into the dream. The Projections will become suspicious if they realize they're dreaming- so my job is to take care of them. But the Subject also puts his secrets into the dream- usually the Architect will design a safe or a vault, and when the Subject is filling the dream he automatically puts the secrets in there. Your job is to go through the maze, find the safe, break it open, and discover the secrets inside."

"Like a secret agent?" She asked excitedly. Arthur nodded, pleased at how fast she picked up, but winced. There was that damn over enthusiasm again.

"Right. So we're going to go under again, and you're going to try and find the safe that's filled with your secrets." He stood up and walked over to the PASIV, scooping it off the counter and carefully placing it on the floor between them. "Eames will move this when he gets back- we usually don't put the PASIV on the floor, but I need to be able to reach it." He reinserted the needle into his easily accessible wrist, smiling reassuringly at Rie when she winced in empathy. "After a while, you barely feel it."

"Like a heroin addict?"

"A bit more high class, but yes. Before we go under- do you understand all of this?"

"I think so," She said hesitantly. "I go in and find the secrets. You protect me, Eames…does something, and we have a Chemist who makes chemicals and an architect who made the map for where we go. Right?"

Arthur realized with a sinking heart she was missing the obvious. He sat back down on the lawn chair and leaned back, putting an arm behind his head.

"Remember how I said this was illegal?" He asked darkly.

"What? Oh…right." He glanced over. Rie looked confused, then sheepish. "I should probably ask why, right?"

"It's not obvious to you?" Arthur asked dryly, looking sardonically at the ceiling now. Rie made a face and blushed.

"No," She squeaked, in apparent shame. "I'm sorry, but I don't really know anything about this."

His voice was much sharper and harsher than he had wanted it to be. "We're hired by companies to break into a person's mind and steal from them- it's illegal, and immoral. We're breaking the law, invading privacy, and going into the one place you should be safe."

"But…but we get to dream, right?" Rie seemed very hesitant to voice this thought out loud, as if it were a taboo thing to say. Arthur looked back over at her, eyebrows raised.

"You want to dream that bad?"

"Is that wrong?" She asked quickly. He smirked and leant over to deploy the button.

"On the contrary- you've discovered the very reason we do this."

"Good," She said fervently, and then yawned. "Jesus, this stuff goes fast."

Arthur closed his eyes sleepily, relaxing. "Just relax," He instructed smoothly, calmly. Rie felt like she was floating away on a cloud or something, his velvety voice crooning to her. She sighed and collapsed into herself, curling into the chair, lazily drifting asleep.