Ariadne enters Cobb’s subconscious, shaping a dream set in a Parisian street. As she bends the cityscape, the dream destabilizes, and Cobb’s subconscious projections turn against her, revealing the dangers of dream manipulation.

ARIADNE JOLTS AWAKE.

COBB (O.S.)

Because it's never just a dream.

CUT TO:

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

COBB (CONT'D)

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.

(CONTINUED)

EXT. SAME PARISIAN STREET – DAY

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

COBB

It's good. You've got the café, the layout... you forgot the bookshop, 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...

(CONTINUED)

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 (CONT'D)

It's something, isn't it?

COBB

(quietly) Yes. It is.