tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When; Backdated to Monday the 24th.
Rating; PG-13 to R
Characters;

shifts
Summary; Mister PASIV has arrived!
Log;

When the doorbell rings, Eames is the one who happens to be nearest. He debates whether or not to wait and let Arthur or Ariadne get the door, already engrossed in preparing some massively disgusting protein shake that he'd concocted when he was young and had never let him down for getting back into shape - but when neither of them seemed inclined, busy doing whatever it was they had busied themselves with, he turns off the blender. He pulls off the towel he'd left draped across his shoulders, tossing it onto the kitchen counter before he leaves it entirely, and its a short waltz before he's unlocking the deadbolt and opening the door, forgoing the peephole entirely.

He opens it to an empty hall, but at his feet lies a thick cardboard box meticulously taped shut, the types used for packaging. Eames, for his part, doesn't recall ordering anything, and while he would usually have some sort of half-set paranoia toward strange boxes (if only because he's once delivered bombs in said boxes), this is the City, and the City always seems to guarantee some degree of nonadventure. He crouches down to lift the thing into his arms, and the weight seems vaguely familiar, though it's only then does he note a post-it stuck to the side of it.

"Sweet dreams?" he reads aloud, squinting at the scrawling script as he shuts the front door with his foot. Then, to himself: "Oh."

"Ariadne! Arthur!" he bellows, voice carrying through the apartment. Of course the Deities would deliver their request in some sort of ambiguous manner like ding-dong-ditch. Though, who could say whether or not it would actually be the PASIV and the Somnacin - it seemed more likely that they would get less than their preference. "Package!"

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At the call, Ariadne drops a tomato-stained wooden, spoon in the sink, spaghetti dinner abandoned for whatever has speared Eames' attention. Rarely does anyone in this apartment bellow for each other, so it's a curious event - each of them are rather good at maintaining separate spaces despite close quarters. She heads into the hallway, kitchen towel in tow, looking at him with a faintly skeptical expression. Front door deity service? Ariadne had anticipated something more grand, fanfare with bells and whistles or something completely eerie and exaggerated. The UPS man seems too pedestrian.

"For all of us?" she questions, standing beside Eames to peer at the box. She joins in on the squinting. "You think it's a gift basket from the deities?

Edited 2011-01-30 03:09 (UTC)

Arthur's wearing an all too familiar scowl as he steps into the hallway. Since when did Eames feel the need to yell over a package?

"Eames, you don't need to ye—" He stops short as his eyes fall on the actual package. "Oh."

At which point Arthur strides across the hall in a matter of seconds, a box cutter already out in his right hand as he approaches Eames. "I know what it is," he states with a kind of certainty he hasn't felt in a long time.

Eames' eyes drop to Ariadne, shrugging with a slight lift of his shoulders, then over to Arthur - though, more importantly, to Arthur's box cutter. While Eames can appreciate anyone's enthusiasm on any other day, the point coming at him with a box cutter is something entirely different. Also a matter for concern. Also a matter for trepidation and worry over one's fingers or other extremities. Wordlessly, Eames hastily sets the package down at the setting table tucked against the wall in the gallery hall, taking a step back to allow Arthur room to have at the thing.

"Gift basket?" Eames echoes Ariadne's words, brows raising. "It could be- though I wouldn't be surprised if it was little more than balls of lint."

There is some measure of excitement thrumming under his skin, though, and he waits somewhat impatiently for Arthur to slice the cardboard apart so they can see what's actually inside.

"I was speaking figuratively," she declares, nonchalantly, gesturing to the package just as Arthur applies the blade. As casual as she's acting, an excitement of her own is quickly mounting, zipping through nerves as she gazes on intently. The PASIV incites that unique, unrestrained anticipation like a child receiving some coveted toy for Christmas. Though clearly, the PASIV is nothing like a toy, more like a key revealing doors only imagined.

At least, Ariadne thinks it must be the exchange. What else could it be? Grocery deliveries?

"I'm thinking this has to do with Arthur's request."

Arthur wastes no time opening the package open. Within minutes he's extracted the contents of the box and laid them out on the floor: a silver briefcase and a smaller box.

He picks up the box and opens it carefully.

"And this would be the compound."

Eames lives by a certain number of guidelines. The foremost is this: if you get what you want, immediately be suspicious of it. Hence, he leans over Arthur's shoulder to take a good gander at the vials of compound, plucking one up from the padded packaging. It, for all intents and purposes, at least looked like standard Somnacin - not Yusuf's particular brand, so they wouldn't be able to go deeper than two levels even if they wanted to.

There wasn't exactly a way they could test it, however, without using it.

"What's our plan?"

Ariadne, for all her excitement, can't help but hesitate. Obviously, this is not to be considered a free hand-out, all three of them having exchanged a crucial tether to reality for the device. (Though their totems' reliability as of late - or even upon arrival - may be contested.)

In other words, Ariadne and Eames' trains of thoughts are currently converging.

"Think we can trust them?"

Arthur shakes his head. "No, not entirely." He hands the box of somnacin to Eames without a word before taking the PASIV case and heading for the living room. "The way I see it, there's only a few ways to approach this." He sets the PASIV down on the coffee table.

"Even if we found a means of figuring out exactly what's in the compound they gave us, it's not like any of us knows the chemical makeup of somnacin well enough to be entirely sure." He pauses to roll up his sleeves. "At this point, I'd rather just test it out to be completely sure that it is what we asked for."

Eames returns the vial to the compartment he'd been handed, closing it before following Arthur into the salon, brows raising. The point has... well, a point, certainly - and Eames isn't exactly someone to be completely against offering someone else for the testing. Still, the reaction could be less than savory, but in the end there are some risks you have to be willing to take, particularly when the risk isn't necessarily yours.

He eases himself to sit on the arm of the couch, peering at Arthur, then Ariadne, then the somnacin, then back to Arthur. "A thirty second run ought to do it," he offers. "You'd get six full minutes in there."

Ariadne continues to hang back, as she usually does, hands resting in her pockets. A mulling look passes her face.

"The PASIV's only good for a few runs, is what you're saying," she questions, looking toward Arthur, "We'll just have to assume the deities aren't trying to poison us."

Some witticism about poison and deities' exchange policy crosses her mind, but this is not the time nor place.

Arthur considers Eames' suggestion for a few seconds. "Sure, let's do 30 seconds." Then he turns to Ariadne with a half smile. "Hopefully they aren't. In any case, we'll know pretty soon." And with that, Arthur opens the PASIV case to examine the contents. He pulls out a booklet and scans through it.

"The manual seems to be the real thing, at least."

"Is the model number the same?" Eames questions, curious. Those numbers, at least, aren't easily chosen at random, and they've each seen them enough times to remember the series.

That, at least, seemed a bit easier to base the legitimacy on than whether or not the compound would work - which would be up in the air. Of course, there was the question of how the deities procured the PASIV, or if it was the same machine that was in Arthur's possession, how that managed to travel from where they had been to where they were now. It was complex and wholly illogical, and Eames supposes that there are some things you focus on now with a regard to the mechanics later.

What is important now, at least, is determining whether or not this is reality.

They can function on logistics afterward.

Whether or not Arthur gets poisoned in the process, though, might be a matter for concern.

Asking how the deities do anything is an exercise in futility, really. Ariadne herself has abandoned sorting through those twisted, interminable threads of logic for what they call in the theatre: suspension of disbelief.

"Any telling marks, scratches, scuffs?" she tacks onto Eames question, silently wondering if Arthur keeps the device as meticulously perfect as he does with his appearance. It looked perfect to her, in any case. "We're all going in, right?"

To rectify: Whether or not Arthur, Eames and Ariadne gets poisoned in the process, though, might be a matter for concern.*

"Same model number. No identifying marks, though. In fact," Arthur checks the side of the case, "it looks brand new." He pauses to consider something as he starts removing a coiled line from the case. "I never mentioned the model number in our deal. And guessing it is pretty improbable. It's almost too perfect, isn't it?" He turns to Eames before going back to uncoiling the line.

"I'll test the compound first. Then we can start thinking about running another test or two and finding a way to produce more of this compound in this place."

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