Inception: A New Architect

INT. GREAT HALL, ÉCOLE D'ARCHITECTURE - MORNING

Cobb, carrying a shopping bag, looks into a lecture hall: no students, just a RUMPLED PROFESSOR hunched over paperwork.

INT. LECTURE HALL - CONTINUOUS

COBB (O.S.): You never did like your office.

PROFESSOR MILES looks up, squinting. Recognizes Cobb.

MILES: No space to think in that broom cupboard.

Cobb steps down past the empty wooden rows.

MILES: Is it safe for you to be here?

COBB: Extradition between France and the U.S. is a bureaucratic nightmare.

MILES: I think they'd find a way to make it work in your case.

Cobb hand Miles the shopping bag.

COBB: Can you take these back for the kids?

MILES: It'll take more than the occasional stuffed animal to convince those children they still have a father.

COBB: I know. I thought you could talk to Marie about bringing them on vacation. Somewhere I could meet-

MILES: Why would she listen to me?

COBB: You were married for twenty years.

MILES: She blames me as much as you.

COBB: Doesn't she understand that my kids need me?

MILES: Yes, she does. We all do. Go back and face the music, Dom. Explain what Mal did.

COBB: Be realistic, Stephen. They'd never understand− they'd lock me up and throwaway the key. Or worse.

MILES: You think what you're doing now is helping your case?

COBB: Lawyers don't pay for themselves. This is what I have. This is what you taught me.

MILES: I never taught you to be a thief.

COBB: No, you taught me to navigate other people's minds. But after what happened with Mal there weren't a whole lot of legitimate ways for me to use that skill.

Miles looks at Cobb.

MILES: Why did you come here, Dom?

Cobb shifts slightly.

COBB: I found a way home. A job. For powerful people. If I pull it off, I can get back to my family. But I need help.

Miles realizes something.

MILES: My God. You're here to corrupt one of my brightest and best.

COBB: If you have someone good enough, you have to let them decide for themselves. You know what I'm offering-

MILES: Money?

COBB: No, not just money: the chance to build cathedrals, entire cities- things that have never existed, things that couldn't exist in the real world...

MILES: Everybody dreams, Cobb. Architects are supposed to make those dreams real.

COBB: That's not what you used to say. You told me that in the real world I'd be building attic conversions and gas stations. You said that if I mastered the dream-share I'd have a whole new way of creating and showing people my creations. You told me it would free me.

Miles looks at Cobb, sad.

MILES: And I'm sorry. I was wrong.

COBB: No, you weren't. Your vision was a vision of pure creativity. It's where we took it that was wrong.

MILES: And now you want me to let someone else follow you into fantasy.

COBB: They won't actually come on the job, they'll just design the levels and teach them to the dreamers.

MILES: Design them yourself.

COBB: Mal won't let me.

Miles looks at Cobb. Appalled.

MILES: Come back to reality, Dom. Please.

COBB: You want to know what's real, Stephen? Your grandchildren waiting for their dad to come back. (MORE)

COBB (CONT'D): This job-this last job-is how I get there.

Miles looks down, fiddles with his papers.

COBB: I wouldn't be standing here if there were any other way. I can get home. But I need an architect who's as good as I was.

Miles looks Cobb in the eye. Decides.

MILES: I've got someone better.

INT. CORRIDOR - LATER

Miles and Cobb stand by as STUDENTS file out of a lecture.

MILES: Ariadne...

A young woman carrying books turns. This is ARIADNE.

MILES: I'd like you to meet Mr. Cobb.

She sizes him up with quick eyes. Offers her hand.

ARIADNE: Pleased to meet you.

MILES: If you have a few moments, Mr. Cobb has a job offer to discuss with you.

ARIADNE: A work placement?

COBB (smiles): Not exactly.

EXT. ROOFTOP, ÉCOLE D'ARCHITECTURE - MOMENTS LATER

Ariadne leans against the parapet, overlooking Paris. She unwraps a sandwich, watching Cobb pull out a pad of GRAPH PAPER and a PEN. He offers them. She bites her sandwich.

COBB: A test.

ARIADNE (mouth full): Aren't you going to tell me anything?

COBB: Before I describe the job, I have to know you could do it.

ARIADNE: Why?

COBB: It's not, strictly speaking, legal.

Ariadne raises her eyebrows.

COBB: You have two minutes to draw a maze that takes me one minute to solve.

Ariadne takes the pad and pen. Cobb looks at his watch.

COBB: Go.

She starts DRAWING LINES on the grid, constructing a maze.

COBB: Stop.

Ariadne hands the pad and pen to Cobb. He glances at the pad, then, looking her in the eye, TRACES the solution. She is taken aback. Cobb RIPS off the sheet, hands the pad back.

COBB: Again.

She traces straight lines, CONCENTRATING...

COBB: Stop.

She hands Cobb the pad, a touch pleased. Cobb solves the puzzle instantly, as before. Her smile falls.

COBB: You'll have to-

She GRABS the pad, frustrated... but this time she FLIPS it over and starts drawing on the BLANK CARDBOARD of the back. Cobb watches, surprised. He smiles as he sees that she's drawing CIRCLES, creating a maze based on concentric rings. Ariadne hands back the pad, defiant. Cobb takes the pen, starts the maze. This time he gets stuck. Nods.

COBB (working the maze): More like it.

EXT. NARROW STREET, PARIS - DAY

Arthur stops at a warehouse door. Consults a piece of paper.

INT. WORKSHOP - CONTINUOUS

A large, dusty warehouse. The SLIDING DOOR cracks open. Arthur enters. Looks around, approvingly.

INT. SAME - LATER

Arthur DRAGS LAWN CHAIRS into the middle of the room. He erects a table. Lays out several SILVER CASES, unpacking them, laying out lines of tubing, MECHANISMS...

EXT. PARISIAN CAFE - DAY

Cobb and Ariadne sit at an outdoor table.

COBB: They say we only use a fraction of the true potential of our brains... but they're talking about when we're awake. While we dream, the mind performs wonders.

ARIADNE: Such as?

COBB: How do you imagine a building? You consciously create each aspect, puzzling over it in stages... But sometimes, when your imagination flies-

ARIADNE: I'm discovering it.

COBB: Exactly. Genuine inspiration.

Cobb leans forwards and draws on the paper table cloth.

COBB: In a dream your mind continuously does that...

Cobb has drawn a circle made of two arrows.

COBB: It creates and perceives a world simultaneously. So well that you don't feel your brain doing the creating. That's why we can short- circuit the process...

ARIADNE: How?

COBB: By taking over the creating part.

Cobb draws a straight line between the two arrows.

COBB: This is where you come in. You build the world of the dream. We take the subject into that dream, and let him fill it with his subconscious

ARIADNE: But are you trying to fool him that the dream is actually real life?

COBB (nods): While we're in there, We don't want him to realize he's dreaming.

ARIADNE: How could I ever get enough detail to convince him that it's real?

COBB: Our dreams feel real while we're in them. It's only when we wake up we realize things were strange

Ariadne gestures around them-

ARIADNE: But all the textures of real life- the stone, the fabric. cars... people... your mind can't create all this.

COBB: It does. Every time you dream. Let me ask you a question: You never remember the beginning of your dreams, do you? You just turn up in the middle of what's going on.

ARIADNE: I guess.

COBB: So... how did we end up at this restaurant?

ARIADNE: We came here from...

Ariadne trails off, confused.

COBB: How did we get here? Where are we?

Ariadne THINKS, unable to remember. A FAINT RUMBLE begins.

ARIADNE: Oh my God. We're dreaming.

Cobb nods. The RUMBLE is BUILDING.

COBB: Stay calm. We're actually asleep in the workshop. This is your first lesson in shared dreaming, remember?

Ariadne looks around, mind REELING. Cobb BRACES-

The restaurant VIOLENTLY FRAGMENTS, EXPLODING AND IMPLODING PARTICLES OF FURNITURE, WALLS, PEOPLE FLYING AROUND- Ariadne WONDERS at the MAYHEM WHIRLING around them- Cobb SHIELDS his head against the debris. She sees him-

ARIADNE (shouting over noise): If it's just a dream, why are you covering your-

Ariadne is WIPED FROM HER SEAT BY A MASSIVE BLAST and we-

CUT TO: INT. WORKSHOP - DAY

Ariadne JOLTS awake.

COBB (O.S.): Because it's never just a dream.

Ariadne turns to Cobb's voice. They are both sitting in the lawn chairs. Arthur watches over them.

COBB: And a face full of glass hurts like hell, doesn't it? While we're in it, it's real.

ARTHUR: That's why the military developed dream sharing-a training program where soldiers could strangle, stab and shoot each other, then wake up.

ARIADNE: How did architects get involved?

COBB: Someone had to design the dreams. (to Arthur) Let's go another five minutes-

ARIADNE: We were only asleep for five minutes? We talked for an hour at least...

COBB: When you dream, your mind functions more quickly, so time seems to pass more slowly.

ARTHUR: Five minutes in the real world gives you an hour in the dream.

COBB: Let's see how much trouble you can cause in five minutes.

And we-

CUT TO: EXT. SAME PARISIAN STREET - DAY

Ariadne walks down the crowded street with Cobb. Cobb looks around at the street, the cafe, approving.

COBB: It's good. You've got the cafe, the layout... you forgot the book shop but pretty much everything else is here.

Ariadne looks at the passers-by.

ARIADNE: Who are the people?

COBB: They’re projections of my subconscious.

ARIADNE: Yours?

COBB: Sure-you are the dreamer, I am the subject. My subconscious populates your world. That's one way we get at a subject's thoughts-his mind creates the people, so we can literally talk to his subconscious.

ARIADNE: How else do you do it?

COBB: Architecture. Build a bank vault or a jail, something secure, and the subject's mind will fill it with information he's trying to protect.

ARIADNE: Then you break in and steal it.

COBB: Exactly.

Ariadne wonders at the detail of the street.

ARIADNE: I love the concrete sense of things- (stamps foot) Real weight, you know? I thought a dream space would be all about the visual, but it's the feel of things. Question is, what happens as you start to mess with physics...

She CONCENTRATES on the street. The street starts to BEND IN HALF− the buildings on either side FOLDING IN until they form the INSIDE OF A CUBE OF CITY, GRAVITY FUNCTIONING INDEPENDENTLY ON EACH PLANE. Ariadne looks up (or down) at the people on the opposite city surface. Cobb watches her excitement.

ARIADNE: It's something, isn't it?

COBB (quiet): Yes. It is.

As they walk, Ariadne notices more and more of the projections STARING at her.

ARIADNE: Why are they looking at me?

COBB: Because you're changing things. My subconscious feels that someone else is creating the world. The more you change things, the quicker the projections converge on you.

ARIADNE: Converge?

COBB: They feel the foreign nature of the dreamer, and attack-like white blood cells fighting an infection.

ARIADNE: They're going to attack us?

COBB: Just you, actually.

They walk along the street to where it joins the next gravitational plane. They step up onto the different plane and walk down the street towards a river. As Ariadne approaches, steps emerge from the flagstone, and she leads Cobb up onto a small jetty. As she concentrates, pillars emerge and a BRIDGE starts to telescope out from the jetty. They step onto it as it grows. Cobb is impressed.

COBB: It's beautiful... but if you keep on changing things...

People crossing the bridge STARE at Ariadne. Several of them BUMP her shoulder as they pass.

ARIADNE: Mind telling your subconscious to take it easy?

COBB: That’s why it’s called subconscious. I don’t control it.

The bridge now spans the Seine. Cobb marvels at it.

COBB: Arched stone, iron pillars... it's...

Cobb pauses, thinking. Remembering.

INSERT CUT: Mal, hair blowing, turns to Cobb, smiling, laughing. He smiles back. They are on the same bridge.

COBB: I know this bridge. This place is real− (serious) You didn't imagine it, you remembered it...

ARIADNE (nods): I cross it every day on my way to the college.

COBB: Never recreate places from your memory. Always imagine new places.

ARIADNE: You have to draw from what you know-

COBB (tense): Use pieces-a streetlamp, phonebooths, a type of brick-not whole areas.

Several people around them ECHO Cobb's attitude...

ARIADNE: Why not?

COBB: Because building dreams out of your own memories is the surest way to lose your grip on what's real and what's a dream.

ARIADNE: Did that happen to you?

Cobb says nothing. He stands there, starinq at Ariadne. PEOPLE around her stop and look at her, hostile.

COBB: Look, this isn't about me-

Cobb reaches for Ariadne's arm, turns her to him-

ARIADNE: Is that why you need me to build your dreams?

A passerby GRABS Ariadne's shoulder-

COBB: Leave her alone-

More of the crowd join in, PULLING at Ariadne, holding her arms open- Cobb PULLS people off- the crowd PUSHES him away- Cobb sees someone WALKING PURPOSEFULLY through the crowd towards the helpless, Ariadne- it is Mal. She approaches with even strides- Ariadne stares at her, uneasy.

ARIADNE: Wake me up, Cobb.

As Mal walks, she pulls out a LARGE KNIFE-

COBB: Mal, no!

ARIADNE: Wake me up!

Ariadne SCREAMS as Mal LUNGES at her with the knife and we-

CUT TO: INT. WORKSHOP-DAY

Ariadne WAKES, BREATHING HARD. Arthur moves to her-

ARTHUR: It's okay.

ARIADNE: Why couldn’t I wake?

ARTHUR: The only way to wake from inside the dream is to die.

Cobb, in the lawn chair opposite, PULLS his tubes out.

COBB: She'll need a totem.

ARIADNE: What?

ARTHUR: Some kind of personal icon. A small object that you can always have with you, and that no one else knows

Cobb gets to his feet, Ariadne stares at him, furious. He heads to the bathroom.

ARIADNE: That's some subconscious you've got, Cobb. (calls after him) She's a real charmer!

ARTHUR: Sounds like you've met Mrs. Cobb.

ARIADNE (surprised): She's his wife?

Arthur nods, pulling off Ariadne's tubes.

ARTHUR: So. A totem. You need something small, potentially heavy...

INT. BATHROOM, WORKSHOP - CONTINUOUS

Cobb takes out his PEWTER SPINNING TOP, SPINS it on the marble counter...

INT. WORKSHOP - CONTINUOUS

Ariadne looks at Arthur, puzzled.

ARIADNE: Like a coin?

ARTHUR: Too common. You need something that has a weight or movement that only you know.

INT. BATHROOM, WORKSHOP - CONTINUOUS

Cobb STUDIES the spin of the top as it decays, becoming more and more ECCENTRIC...

INT. WORKSHOP - CONTINUOUS

ARIADNE: What’s yours?

Arthur holds out a DIE.

ARTHUR: A loaded die.

Ariadne reaches for it- Arthur snatches sit away-

ARTHUR: I can’t let you handle it. That’s the point. No one else can know the weight or balance of it.

ARIADNE: Why?

ARTHUR: So when you examine your totem...

INT. BATHROOM, WORKSHOP - CONTINUOUS

Cobb’s spinning top WOBBLES OVER.

ARTHUR (O.S.): You know, beyond a doubt, that you’re not in someone else’s dream.

Cobb GRABS it like a drowning man reaching for a lifeline.

INT. WORKSHOP - CONTINUOUS

Ariadne thinks this over.

ARIADNE: That’s not an issue for me.

ARTHUR: Why not?

ARIADNE: Arthur, maybe you can’t see what’s going on, maybe you don’t want to. But Cobb’s got problems he’s tried to bury down there. I’m not going to open my mind to someone like that.

Ariadne gets to her feet. Walks away.

COBB (O.S.): She’ll be back.

Arthur turns. Cobb is standing in the bathroom doorway.

COBB: I’ve never seen anyone pick it up so fast. And one reality won’t be enough for her now. When she comes back, get her building mazes.

ARTHUR: Where will you be?

COBB: I’ve got to talk to Eames.

ARTHUR: Eames? But he’s in Mombasa. Cobol’s backyard.

COBB: Necessary risk.

ARTHUR: There are plenty of other thieves.

COBB: We don’t just need a thief. We need a forger.