Inception - Ace Job

Trevor kept his expression blank as Ned opened the safe, although he raised an eyebrow at the Mark when the man pulled a gun on him. Before he had the opportunity to do anything about it, the sound of gunfire echoed down the hallway outside though. Oddly enough, it was a welcome sound, since it pushed Ned backwards and into Hunter's grasp.

"Can I get some crowd control, please?" Trevor said as he stepped towards the safe.

"Done." The woman on the floor sat up, and the floor itself seemed to ripple around her, almost as if she were a leaf sitting on top of a pond. It surged back and forth two or three times, and then the ripple exploded along the floor underneath the wall that paralleled to the hallway. The sound of muffled curses was accompanied by more gunfire and what could easily be imagined as the sound of several people tumbling down the stairs at the same time.

"Right then. Let's get what we came for." Trevor said, clapping his hands together once and rubbing them together as he approached the safe. With a deft motion, he plucked the poster from the shelf inside.

[OOC: What the hell did John just do??]

Just as Trevor's hand close around the poster, a shot rang out through the room. Ned, who had thrown off Hunter a moment before, knelt with a smoking pistol in his hand. Trevor's body fell to the ground, the poster tumbling across the ground.

Hunter swore and slammed the butt of his own gun across the Mark's face, sending him sprawling across the floor.

"John, cover me!" Hunter shouted, diving for the poster as the door to the room blew open. John took several skilled shots, dropping several projections before a shotgun blast sent him flying across the room like a rag doll.

Hunter's fingers closed around the poster, his eyes scanning the image as the shadows of the projections loomed over him... just a moment too late.

"Brilliant," he thought, just as the sound of a gun went off behind.

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Hunter was the last to awaken as the other two were already scrambling to disassemble the room and pack up the PASIV. One nod was all it took to assuage their fears.

They had it.

[OOC: Payne, in the next post, you can skip to meeting with the client to wrap up the job. Then we'll have the team assemble for a goodbye.]

[OOC: He warped the dreamspace. Think of it like when someone grabs the end of a rug and then whips it up and down, only he did it with the floor in the hallway.]

"Bloody hell..." Trevor groaned through his teeth as he sank to the floor. The poster was already committed to memory though. It just sucked to get shot when you weren't expecting it...

John reached over to the wall beside him from where he sat, putting his hand against it. He closed his eyes and moved his hand to the side, dragging the wall to close the doorway completely. Two projections had already slipped into the room though, and he could only get one with his pistol before the other had already gunned down Hunter. The second fell a moment later, and John sighed as he got up from where he had been sitting.

He leaned over Hunter's body, picking up the poster and glancing at it for a moment. Then, with a chuckle, he turned the gun in his hand on Ned, and then, on himself.

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The following morning...

Trevor folded over the paper he'd been reading as he saw the Client approach his booth from the corner of his eye. Sitting it carefully on the table, he picked up his cup of coffee and took a sip, giving the Client a moment to sit across from him. "G'morning, gov." He quipped cheerfully, sitting the coffee back on the table. "Would you care for a spot of breakfast? A cup of coffee?"

Price slid into the booth, ignoring Trevor for the moment as he searched the room, looking agitated.

"Save the cheery British niceties," he muttered apprehensively, finally turning his attention to the Extractor. "Do you have it or what?"

It was a somewhat unnecessary question, since the Extractor probably would not have met up with him and in such a pleasant mood if he didn't. But until Price had that concept in his hands, he wouldn't feel satisfied.

Trevor raised an eyebrow at the client, but if he took offense to anything Price said, he didn’t mention it.

“I believe you’ll find page five to be rather interesting.” Trevor said, sliding the news paper across the table. Inside, there was a sim card with the design on it.

“If you’ll be so kind as to deposit the remainder of my fee into the account I gave you earlier, I’ll email you the password to decrypt the files.” Trevor continued cheerfully, taking another sip of his coffee before signaling to the waitress that he wanted his bill.

Price snatched the newspaper and flipped through to the indicated page, his fingers grasping almost desperately for the tiny sim card.

But when Trevor mentioned the rest of the payment, he blanched.

"How do I know..." he began, but stopped. Of course, there was no way to know if the Extractor would hold up his end of the bargain. But Price was desperate, and they both knew it.

"Fine," he muttered, sweating at the thought of how desolate his bank account would be after all this. But he'd make it up... yes, with this idea, he'd more than make up for it in the future.

Snatching up his phone, Price logged into his banking site and quickly put through the request, unable to keep his stomach from convulsing as the balance number dropped abysmally in response. But when his phone beeped with the encryption code in response, he felt a sense of smug satisfaction at a job well done.

"Pleasure doing business with you," he sneered, getting up and make a short path to the door. It was time to stop sulking with the dregs of society and start living his new life.

[OOC: Wrap up the scene with Trevor, and then we'll do goodbyes. I'll also have to PM you about a possible resolution to the Ned-Price storyline]

Trevor glanced at his phone, waiting until the bank account reached the desired amount before he pushed send to deliver the password.

"You know who to call when you're ready ta make the jump from designer to CEO." Trevor responded cheerfully as Price made a b-line for the door.

Business completed, he took a final sip of his coffee and got up from the table, making his way to the cash register. Trevor dropped a generous tip for the lady who had made sure that none of the other tables near him had been filled while he was present and then, he let himself out into the street.

"Now then, time to pay the chaps at the loft..."

Whistling to himself, Trevor made his way down the street to where he had parked.

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John smiled at the message on his phone and lit the end of the cigar he'd been rolling between his fingers for the last half hour.

"Payment's been made." He commented to Hunter, blowing out a cloud of smoke in the process. "You sure you don't want one?" John continued, clearly referring to the other two cigars sitting on the bar. "They taste like victory."

Hunter watched John distastefully for a few moments before shaking his head at the sight of the cigars.

"They might taste like victory, but they smell like lung cancer and an untimely death," he said dismissively. He turned his gaze toward the window, reflecting on the job.

"It's not fair, really," the Architect mused quietly. "The Mark had talent, creativity, and inspiration, and he's going to lose out to a whining, entitled leech."

That wasn't to say Ned was a ray of sunshine himself, but he had to admire talent, and give credit where credit was due.

Still... clearly, life wasn't fair. He'd learned that the hard way.

"You know, I do have to thank you," Hunter said, feeling a bit awkward. "You're a pain in the ass, but you helped me realize that I have to give up the past and its regrets. I'm living life on this side of the line now, right? I might as well put both feet over it."

He didn't entirely feel that way just yet, but he wanted to. And that was a start.

John simply shrugged at Hunter's response, but he leaned back against the bar, looking thoughtful. Silence hung in the air, only filled with the sound of a long exhale that filled the room with another cloud of smoke.

"Is that really how you think the world works?" John asked without looking at the other man.

"I believe that the Mark will actually benefit from this. Sure, it may not be fair, but the way things were going for him, how much further could he really climb? It's not the mountaintops in our lives that teach us how to rise above. The valleys are what shape us, make us stronger, teach us to climb higher again."

He paused, taking another drag of the cigar. "The Client paid for a helicopter ride to the mountaintop, but he won't really get anything out of it. That much will be evident when he finds himself in the next valley."

John turned a crooked grin in Hunter's direction. "And just like you've realized that you have to accept what you're given, so will the Mark. Or, maybe he won't, but if that's the case, then he wouldn't have survived on the next mountaintop anyway."

Still smiling, he reached around for one of the remaining cigars. "So, now that you're on this side of the line, why not enjoy it a little?"

"Enjoy it while you can, gov." Trevor quipped as he walked into the loft. "Cause if those are the cigars out of the green box, you may not have much of a life left."

John raised an eyebrow at the other man, blowing out another puff of smoke. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Trevor grinned at that, taking the unlit cigar from John's hand and running it under his nose to take a sniff of it. "It means, gov, that these are the wife's cigars." He said cheerfully.

John paled slightly, but he masked his reaction behind taking another drag of the cigar. "Your wife likes me." He responded.

"Yeah, but she loves her cigars." Trevor responded as he dropped the remaining two of them back into the box they'd come from. "And she keeps count of how many are left."

Hunter had to smile at John and Trevor's banter. They were an unlikely group, but he'd come to like them in this short time.

Maybe even more importantly, they'd given him some much-needed perspective. John had more insight that he'd given the Pointman credit for.

"You know, John, you're smarter than you look," he said, grinning. Just then, the alarm went off on his phone, and he stood up.

"Well, gentleman, as much as I'd like to see John get his ass handed to him by a woman, I do have a plane to catch," the Architect said amicably, shaking each of their hands. "It's been real."

Hunter headed for the door, then turned as he worked the knob.

"Oh, and if you need an Architect in the future, feel free to call."

Smiling, he gave them a wave and headed out for his cab. After giving the driver his destination, Hunter sank back into his seat and pulled out his phone, giving it a long and thoughtful look. Then, biting his lip, he slid the phone back into his pocket and nodded. Yes, it was time to stop focusing on the last mountaintop and look toward scaling up toward the next one.

"I've got your info, gov." Trevor called back to Hunter as the other man exited the loft. As the door closed, he turned back to John, who was wearing a kicked puppy look.

"Did he just insinuate that I look unintelligent?" He asked.

Trevor couldn't help but chuckle a little at that, but he reached over to give John a pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry over it too much, gov. I'm sure you'll find a way to survive."

John opened his mouth as if to say something, but he closed it again almost immediately.

Trevor chuckled again and reached for the briefcase across the bar. "I'll be out of town for a month or so, gov. If you need to work, don't wait up for me."

"Where you headed this time?" John asked, his previous annoyance replaced with mild curiosity.

"South America." Trevor quipped back, fishing out his phone to read a message.

"Starting a revolution?" John joked with a crooked grin.

Trevor looked up from the message long enough to flash an answering grin. "Putting one down actually."