mayachain

Title: Cryptography and the Joys of Living
Characters: pre-Arthur/Eames, Ariadne
Genre: pre-slash
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~1150
Summary: Arthur is six when he comes up with his first code.

* * *

The first code Arthur ever writes in goes like this: All the words in the short note stuck into a paper plane and sent flying in Tommy Dwyer’s direction are delleps ekil siht. It’s two sentences long.

The four lines of blocked letters confuse stupid Anthony when he intercepts the plane. The boy stares at Arthur’s message for a minute before he throws it away in disgust. Tommy keeps a careful eye on their teacher as he slides out of his chair, picks up the note and reads it with a triumphant smile.

Anthony’s brothers can’t come and beat them up after school if they don’t know their meeting point.

Arthur is six years old.

* * *

The second code Arthur uses folds the alphabet in on itself and substitutes each letter drgs rgh nriilr kzigmvi. He gets the idea from an old Mickey Mouse comic and is fairly sure millions of boys and girls must have done this before, but it’s just complicated enough to serve his purposes.

Blfi pvbh ziv rm blfi qzxpvg, reads the message he passes on to Momma’s boyfriend. The mystified look on Cale’s face goes a long way to prove Cale’s ignorance of everything that matters in the world. Arthur has tried and failed to convince Momma that she’s too smart for him ever since the man showed up in their home.

The laughter when Momma fishes the keys out of stupid Cale’s jacket is an unexpected bonus.

Arthur is six years and seven months old.

* * *

The fifth code stays in use for quite a while. Arthur uses it for everything, from shopping lists to hate mail to Momma’s boyfriends to drafts of his ubzrjbex. Naturally, to get the teacher to read the latter he has to write it all out when he gets home, but nobody is going to just copy Arthur’s ideas for an essay ever again.

Besides, after two weeks he barely has to think about switching out the letters anymore, so it’s really no different than any other brainstorming session.

Arthur starts using the fifth code at eleven.

* * *

By the time he turns sixteen, Arthur experiments with coding whenever he has time to spare. Trying out different mathematical functions, incorporating symbols and branching out to foreign alphabets – all of it means he doesn’t have to think about how untenable the situation is becoming at home.

He no longer writes messages to anyone. Whenever his mother finds another sheet, it invariably lands in the bin. The days he would spend passing notes with Tommy are long since forgotten.

* * *

The fourteenth (permanent) code is actually taught to him by the military. Arthur cannot believe the massive oversight he committed by never learning Morse code before. He makes up for it by mastering it •• –• •– –– •– – – • •–• ––– ••–• •••• ––– ••– •–• •••.

This accomplishment, combined with a well-timed discovery of his notebook, earns him a place in advanced coding seminars well before his rank should allow it. The only reason his education doesn’t become confined to cryptography is his affinity for actual pens and paper.

After he puts his own spin on yet another code they taught him, his instructors start talking about putting his mind to use in a top secret operation.

Arthur is twenty-one.

* * *

The day he cuts all his losses and runs, the message Arthur leaves is not as airtight as it could have been because it’s meant to be understood by one specific person. He knows that if found by anyone else, there is a high risk that the experts will eventually break it. It’s worth it, though – better to almost get caught than not give Mal a way to contact him.

He barely escapes with his life. Two years later, he gets a call from an utterly distraught Dominic Cobb.

* * *

The twenty-seventh code is Arthur’s best to date. He is not under the illusion that it could not be broken, given sufficient motivation and time. There’s a reason he keeps all his contact information wrapped between the covers of his moleskin and not in a laptop that could potentially be hacked into.

If someone steals it, Arthur will know (almost) immediately. Digitalizing the notebook’s content will take up time the hypothetical thief won’t have, because Arthur will be coming after him.

For the time being, however, it’s the perfect way to keep a record of every dream sharer’s, client’s and mark’s whereabouts. The frequently updated information is always immediately available, and Arthur doesn’t have to worry too much about it falling into the wrong hands.

It may be cocky, but the game Arthur sometimes plays is simultaneously a source of amusement and a precaution. When on a job, he will give out single sentences as bait and wait to see if any of his current coworkers can make any kind of sense of it. So far, no one has managed it, not even Dom.

* * *

Some day, Cobb is going to be able to return home. If Arthur doesn’t completely hate the man by then, he plans to teach Philippa gl szev ufm drgs gsv zokszyvg.

* * *

The second time they met, Eames started retaliating against Arthur’s baiting slips on his desk by leaving notes scrawled full of utter gibberish in the confines of Arthur’s wallet. Arthur can’t quite decide if it’s supposed to be a challenge, mockery, or a simple joke. There is the smallest of possibilities that it’s a genuine code Arthur simply hasn’t managed to decipher yet, but he doesn’t think it likely.

For the first time in years, he thinks about paper airplanes. It’s a sad apologia for failing to break Eames’ sneaky, thieving fingers.

* * *

The only reason Arthur returns to Paris so soon after the Inception job is because Ariadne asks him to militarize her mind. He trusts her, for a given value of trust. To familiarize her with subconscious security, and, if he’s honest, to make some undefined point, he lets her try to extract something from his personal safe.

When she looks up from the sheet of paper, Arthur expects something along the lines of I can’t read this. “Isn’t this lonely?” Ariadne asks instead.

She kindly pretends that the projections find her in that exact moment by sheer coincidence.

* * *

Arthur visits the Cobbs. He and Dom make a tentative peace with the last few years.

Mal’s children don’t yet know how to write.

* * *

Upon arrival at a pricy hotel in Cordoba, Arthur receives a postcard. The handwriting isn’t one he recognizes, but then Arthur’s moleskin is full of information on people whose penmanship is versatile.

The picture on the front shows an anonymous beach. The barely legible postal stamp says Bujumbura. It is dated five days ago, when even Arthur hadn’t known he would be where he is now.

Uoy thguo ot llac em, reads the message.

It takes Arthur a few days to decide on his next move. Then he books a flight to Latvia.

He has a meeting point to get to.

* * *

Arthur's coded sentences:

...spelled like this
...with its mirror partner
Your keys are in your jacket.
homework
...in a matter of hours
to have fun with the alphabet
You ought to call me.