Re: [Dream Training]
He liked the smile. There were elements in it that Eames knew well, like a painter might identify the traits of a Rembrandt or a Picasso. Something about the strokes, when it came to paintings, Eames understood the way the face flexed, darling. The way it sketched impressions. It had slyness, that smile, a sliver of honesty in a bare-faced refusal to say anything at all, and Eames's own mouth stretched at the corner. Whatever and whoever Hannah was, she lied beautifully without saying anything at all.
"Why?" Eames asked. Baldly, without any suggestion that he wasn't likely to receive an answer. He wasn't, he didn't think so. Hannah tucked her loose ends inward and it was itchy fingers that twitched to pull one simply to see how it would unravel. "What are you worth, darling?"
No one ever believed Eames told the truth much of the time. She looked at him, bright blue eyes and an open look and Eames shrugged. "If you spend any time with Arthur, you'll know. He's dedicated," he said, with a note of carelessness that made it clear Eames didn't think much of dedicated, which was the lie in all the truth he was tossing about in a Parisian street.
He held up his hand. "One, the subject. That's you, darling. You dream within the structure we provide. Two," a second finger, "The dreamer." A better name than 'extractor', when nothing was being extracted. "Who dreams the dream, that puts you in it. Three, the architect. If it's just one level, they're one and the same, but the architect is about finding mazes to trick the subject into dreaming deeper. Four, the forger. Everyone wants to see something. The forger gives it to you. Five," he folded his fingers away. "That's Arthur."
He looked around the empty, empty street. No people. No bustle. There wasn't a footfall to be heard. "Go on," he said, distracted. It didn't make sense. Any sense, at all. No subconscious, no projections. It was stable, of course it was because she'd nothing to fight it with. But there was nothing to go further with. "Go on," he said again, facing her.