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Arthur has been against this from the beginning. There are too many unknowns, too much data that cannot be collected no matter how well informed they are, no matter how long they observed their mark, no matter what records they hacked. Shared dreaming as a whole and extraction specifically is not intended for telepaths, and had never even been attempted with telepaths, so far as he knows, either as the host or as an incomer. Just because there are no records that the mark has ever had anything that resembles defensive militarized projection training does not mean that the nature of telepathy wouldn't inherently interfere with any part of the process of shared dreaming.
He certainly had not liked that they made their move on the mark in extremely close proximity. If the mark got the least bit suspicious, there isn't a one among them that has had any meaningful training to guard against telepaths. The whole plan would be obvious, laid bare, and if not stopped in its tracks, all the weaknesses would be just as discernible. The team could be dreaming their way into a trap and be none the wiser. And Arthur will not have his team subject to the consequences of things going poorly.
Not when the mark is Charles Xavier, strongest telepath known to the planet Earth.
Arthur has heard the rumors. After the Cuban Missile Crisis, a CIA clandestine unit had lost their memories of the whole month preceding, effectively decimating any useful knowledge they had about Xavier or his rag tag collection of mutants. Some time later, in a move apparently intended to stop his former friend and comrade Erik Lehnsherr from assassinating a number of senators, he completely possessed as many as a half dozen Secret Service agents, moving them like pawns on a chess board, putting his words in their mouths. But there was one thing above all the others that raises a growl in his throat like bile.
The senator that Lehnsherr marked for death had been extremely anti-mutant, had in fact been at the forefront of the early movement to register, regulate, or eliminate mutants completely. By the time Xavier was done, the senator had reversed his position completely. But it wasn't the decision of a man that preferred to keep breathing – the senator had become a true believer of the mutant rights campaign. Where his team had had to work an elaborate scheme, risking their consciousness and their sanity, to perform an Inception that may or may not have the full results intended, Xavier had been able to do it in less time than it took to blink. Xavier had taken a man's thoughts, opinions, memories, his very will, and replaced it with something he felt more fitting.
Arthur will not let that happen. He'd rather be dead or lost to Limbo than let that happen to him, to have himself scooped out and something else left in his place, wearing his face. He's willing to die if it means Eames and Ariadne escape intact, if it means when they wake up they won't have forgotten him, or what they meant to him. The thoughts in conjunction make his stomach twist, but it also makes his awareness that much sharper.
“Honestly, darling,” Eames says from beside him, voice pitched low for only Arthur to hear. He's using that voice, a sort of crooning, the one he uses when he's trying to soothe Arthur, when he's worried Arthur might not stop. Ariadne is behind them, the tense line of her arm brushing his back just barely as she turns, trying to take in their surroundings, already anxious because all her work as Architect had amounted to exactly nothing; it was probably good she couldn't hear Eames, couldn't tell just how tightly wound Arthur has become. “Is that really necessary?”
He's referring, of course, to the way Arthur's subconscious has adjusted his wardrobe. A tighter cut, the fabric having more give, jacket and tie gone in favor of a slim waistcoat, impeccable in all dark colors. Arthur's only response is to grind his teeth in the barest effort to swallow another growl. They are, after all, completely surrounded by projections, so very many projections, all of them staring the three of them down.
“At least they're not violent?” Ariadne is scrabbling at hope, but Arthur can hear the thread of fear in her voice. He grinds his teeth a little harder and doesn't mention the handful that have already tackled Cobb somewhere in the sea of faces, or the fact that a good number of these projections are based on mutants that actually exist and without doubt could use the idea of those powers against them.
He doesn't say that there's nothing left but to hope that Yusuf hasn't been compromised, and they just have to hold on long enough for the kick. Assuming that, in the mind of a telepath, a kick still works.
“Now, now, that's hardly necessary.”
Arthur's head swivels toward the sound of Xavier's voice, shifting his stance to put more of himself between the mutant and his people. Ariadne presses closer to Eames and him, and he can feel the way she turns, slowly, purposefully the same direction that Arthur is facing.
Eames is, as ever, annoyingly cavalier about the whole thing. “What isn't necessary?” He tips his head to the side, hands in his pockets, casual as can be. “You obviously have us at your mercy.”
A youngish man – no more than 35 by appearances – pushes through the crowd of projections, flanked by another pair of projections that are clearly more than just subconscious conjurations. Arthur thinks that perhaps Xavier wears his (vaguely familiar) younger face; certainly Eames is treating the man as though he is. That's more than enough to indicate that they aren't being fooled by a bait and switch.
Arthur is sure the taller of the two projections is Lehnsherr's shade; he'd learned every iteration of Lehnsherr's face, given his close history with Xavier followed so abruptly by bad blood between them. He still remembers the problems Mal's shade brought along, remembers too well how close they came to Limbo, to Ariadne being trapped in Limbo, and has no intention of being taken by surprise. The blonde girl is more of a question, even if there's something about the shape of her face.
“Your friend has been doing calculations about the best way to force your little group out of my dreamscape.” Xavier looks placating and a little condescending. “I haven't done anything to your, oh what is the word you use, chemist, isn't it? He is safe and sound of mind.”
Arthur thinks very, very hard about his opinion on Xavier's potential definitions of “safe” and “sound of mind”.
Xavier makes a sad sort face. “I suppose I deserve that.” He sighs a little and shakes his head. “I mean your definition of sound of mind, Arthur. I have done nothing to the integrity of any consciousness aboard this train.”
The blond shade snorts. “Don't you think Cobb's is a little bruised?”
“No more worse for wear.” Lehnsherr's shade obviously thinks Cobb is deserving of something else. “No more than any homo sapien's non-militarized projections would do.”
Out of the corner of his eye Arthur can see Eames biting his lip, which is either very good, or very bad. “Does that mean you intend to let us go?”
“Of course I'm going to let you go.” Xavier looks surprised and sounds twice as appalled. Lehnsherr rolls his eyes, but Xavier speaks again before the shade can comment. “What kind of reputation have I got, that you think I'd trap you or...” Arthur raises an eyebrow, letting just the shadow of a thought flutter through his mind, and Xavier frowns at him. “I knew another man not unlike you. He learnt the hard way, on his own, what living as though you're some kind of barely caged beast leaves you with.”
Blondie rolls her eyes. “He has some serious anger management issues.”
Eames glances sideways at Arthur, but his expression doesn't change. “Is it really just that simple?”
“Yes,” the blond shade says at the same time as Lehnsherr's shade declares, “No.”
“Is it just me, or are the angel and devil on his shoulders Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum?” Ariadne says quietly, sounding less anxious albeit not relieved. Arthur can't help the ghost of a smile that pulls at the corner of his mouth, especially not once Eames chuckles a little.
The crowd on Arthur's left parts just long enough for projections to shove Cobb staggering at the three of them. Eames catches him easily with one hand and gives him a once over before he nods over his shoulder at Arthur. At least Xavier has been true to his word thus far.
Xavier pinches the bridge of his nose. “I do not make a habit of lying. There's hardly any reason to, don't you think?” He pauses as though waiting for Arthur or Cobb to argue. “Yes, I will just let you leave, when the sedative runs out and your man delivers the, hm, kick. Such a strange vocabulary in your professions. The no is for the fact that you will not leave with the information you came here for.”
“Does that mean you can't wake up either?” Ariadne, always so curious.
At least this time Xavier looks a little amused. “Telepathy does not make me immune to the laws of biology, I'm afraid. And since we're all stuck here together for the next little while, you should take this as a sign of good faith, a truce, if you like. It stands to reason that should you decide to try to fetch that information, I'm well within my rights to defend the sanctity of my own mind.”
Cobb looks like he might argue, so Arthur cuts him off. “That's reasonable.” He feels Ariadne's fingers brushing against his palm, and he lets her thread their fingers together in silent confirmation that, for now at least, everything is alright.