Back again. Sorry for the late update. I just finished it. I really am loving this story. It gets better after the mission, so don't worry. Oh and SPOILER : I'm apologizing in advance for character death later on. Really sorry, but the story had to have something...

Disclaimer : I do not own Inception. I own Ali and Jak and James, though.

DREAM LEVEL 2

They were in a bar again. This bar was in a corporate building, somewhere relaxing where the businessmen and women could relax on break and after their work and meetings. It was lit brightly and it was white, chrome, and gray. Alina had the same appearance as last time except for clothes, eye color, and facial structure. Instead of high rounded cheekbones and a square jaw, she took her face from Michaela Conlin, also known as Angela Montenegro off Bones. She was wearing a black pencil skirt, a white short-sleeved dress shirt and over that shirt was a gray, blue, yellow and pink plaid sweater vest. She had on black glasses and a smile that could light up the world. She was wearing black short heels. Her eyes were a beautiful icy blue.

"I thought you weren't a forger?" Eames asked, confused at the sudden appearance change. Ali just grinned at him.

"I had to work on my own for a while before I got my own team. . Worked alone when I was 17, 18, and 19. Had a team, but we disbanded a few years later when our point man and forger got an out. So, I was alone with my brother until you guys came along after Cobb got out too. Therefore, with the solo working, I had to learn how to do every job," she shrugged.

"Back to the mission, though. Go on, Eames. Work your magic," Ali said with an encouraging pat on his shoulder. He gave them his lopsided smile and walked over to the bathroom. He stepped out a few minutes later a clean-shaven young man with bright blue eyes and high cheekbones. He called the bartender over, gestured towards Jak, and the bartender handed Eames a beer and slid one to Jak. He raised an eyebrow, the barkeep pointed at Eames, who raised his hand in a gesture of hello. Jak slid off the stool and went over to the one next to Eames.

"What was this for?" he asked, looking confusedly at the glass in his hand. Eames shrugged, eyes amused at the sight of the man. He slowly sat in the chair next to Eames.

"You looked like you needed it, mate," chirruped the Brit with a grin. Jakob managed to smile as he drank and he looked around for any familiar faces. Seeing that he found none, the tense British man next to him relaxed considerably and he settled down to finishing off his first glass of Corona. Jak gave him a smile that said thank you.

"So, what's your name?" Eames asked with a quirk of his brow. Jakob also finished his beer before turning to answer his question.

"The name's Jakob Nelson. You can call me Jak. You?"

"I'm Jason Williams. You can call me Jason," Eames replied, studying the clean chrome bar before raising two fingers up for two more glasses of beer. The bartender nodded and slid them over a few seconds later. Jak nodded his thanks appreciatively.

"What department do you work in?" Jakob asked Eames and he shrugged.

"I don't work here. I came here for a meeting with my boss and the rest of my team. We work for the company, but we do not come to the building unless we have meetings. The meetings are few and far between, though," Eames said nonchalantly. Arthur wanted to face-palm, but he didn't.

"Ah. I came here because I needed to discuss a few things with my father's business associate. You see, my father is brain-dead and he left all of his money, stables, estates, racehorses, everything that he had, to me. We own Nelson Stables, you see. Our rival friend-enemy stable is Azar Stables, even though I'm close friends with their children. I have no idea what I'm going to do," Jak said, running a shaky hand through his thick dark hair. Eames gave him a sympathetic look and then smiled.

"Did you know that you're dreaming?" Eames asked, and Arthur got up and hurried off through the building, cursing under his breath. He was using Cobb's tactic. The "you're dreaming and you're subconscious is being attacked by some random extraction team trying to get info out of your head" thing that he pulled off during the Fischer inception. Maybe Eames could pull it off. Arthur could only hope.

Eames smiled grimly at the wobbling atmosphere as he finally began to realize.

"Do you remember how you got here, Mr. Nelson?" he asked, raising a lazy brow. Jakob frantically shook his head, the bar wobbling even more. Everyone was looking at them now.

"Come, let's go to the restroom, Mr. Nelson," Eames said, leading him to the bathroom, which was large and spacious with no urinals. "What do you remember, Mr. Nelson? You need to try really, really hard to remember what happened," Jakob shook his head and gripped the sides of the sink, arms bulging as he slowly stuttered out what he remembered.

"I-I remember… a bar… it was dark, and I was dancing with some girl… I don't know… James, my best friend started to confront me about it… there was a lot of kissing… uh… Sexual, maybe?" he squeaked, unsure and confused.

"Very good, Mr. Nelson. Now, who do you think would set you up to do this to you?" he asked carefully. Eames knew that Alina, being a forger herself, could turn herself into some random conniving "teammate" and easily get this done and over with.

"My brother-in-law. He's always been jealous of me getting the money and stables," Jakob replied almost immediately. His face was scrunched up in disgust and Eames nodded.

"I'm going to tell my two team members, okay? Don't shoot me, okay?" Eames asked and then pressed his cell phone. Ali's rang a few floors up in a spacious janitorial closet. She picked up and sighed in relief when she heard Eames's calm voice.

"Look for a team led by Mr. Nelson's brother-in-law. Uh," he paused and continued. "Mr. Liam Samuels," Alina nodded, she hated Liam. "Alright, Jase," she said, calling him by his alibi just in case Jak could hear.

"Good luck, Annabeth. Tell Mark I said to be ready at all times," he said, pushing the END button and slipping it into his pocket. "They're working on it, Mr. Nelson. Come on, let's go find them," They had secret signals. Jase was secret for floor 4, and "Tell Mark I said to be ready at all times," was coded for "We'll be up in around 5. Be ready," which was quite scary, in its own way. Alina stood pacing in the hallway, making sure there were no mirrors or large reflective surfaces for them to look at and see her real image. She was now a grumpy young man around 28 years old with dark brown hair and a clean-shaven face. Her skin was olive-toned and she had a square jaw. When they heard the elevator ding, they started yelling at one another. She pointed her Glock 19 at an area a bit off the left of Arthur, but it looked as if she was aiming at him.

"Put the gun down, Mr. Samuels," Arthur commanded, voice loud enough for the men in the elevator to hear. Eames and Jakob thundered down the hall, and stared at the sight they saw. "Mr. Samuels" was fighting against Arthur, wrists being held in place by his hands, Liam trying to break from his hold. Arthur broke away and kicked her in the knee enough for her to cry out in pain, but not hard enough to permanently damage her

"Mark!" Eames called, a fake worried expression on his face. "Where's Annabeth?" he asks. Arthur threw a fake wince over his shoulder for a moment. "Gone. Was shot by one of his teammates. She's in reality, waiting for us," he said, narrowing his eyes at Liam. While he had his back to them, he gave Ali a wink and a grin, and she gave him a half grimace, half smile.

Arthur pretended to slam his fist into the side of her head, and she "fell, unconscious" to the ground. They dragged her to the closet, and she could hear Eames talking.

"Where's the rest of his team?" he asked and she could hear Arthur's smile as he spoke. He acted like a happy-go-lucky guy. "Dead. Anna got most of them down before she got shot," Arthur said, and she didn't dare move for fear of them hearing.

"Well, that's a good thing," Eames said and looked around the place.

"Since his team's picked off and Mr. Samuels is unconscious, we can wait for the kick to get the hell out of this dream," Arthur said and Eames shrugged and said an okay.

"Let's go," they went into an empty conference room and locked the door. Since it had sofas, they waited until Jak was asleep on one to go get Alina. She was still up, staring at the door impatiently, and an iPod in her hand, ear buds in her ears.

"Took you long enough," she said scornfully to Eames and pulled the headphones out of her ears and into the pocket of her jeans. She had changed back into her normal appearance. Curly shoulder length dark brown hair and eyes that were too green to be real, with long legs and a gorgeous figure complete with long, delicate, calloused fingers and strong arms and shoulders was Alina. She smiled though, in spite of herself and they walked back to the conference room quietly, glad that it was almost over. Arthur had to go under first, and that made Eames unhappy.

Arthur and Eames shared a heated kiss, lips on lips, fingers tangled in hair, hips against hips. They broke away, panting, and they shared this look, this broken, scared-to-death look, that made Alina's heart want to break. Eames pressed another quick kiss to his lover's lips and hooked him to the PASIV, squeezing his hand gently before he was dreaming on the couch. He put Jak under next, and then gave Ali a wavering half-smile.

"You be careful, okay?" he told her gently, sticking the IV into her arm.

"I'll keep Arthur safe," she whispered before her eyes slowly slid closed.

It was a few hours later. Eames had set the bombs to go off when he pressed the "DETONATE" button on Ali's iPod touch. The projections hadn't bothered him yet, and he hoped they wouldn't bother him at the moment. Because right now, he was trying to find out more things about Arthur. Things he didn't already know. But it was becoming exceedingly hard to do, it seemed that Eames knew everything about everything about Arthur. Which was okay to him; it made him feel like he accomplished something. It was quiet in the room except for the soft whirring noise of the PASIV hooked up to the small group. There was sudden bangs and then the window to his left shattered. He wasn't surrounded, thankfully, but there were plenty of the projections outside. He now officially hated his own mind. He shot off a few rounds at them, the AK-47 jolting back into his shoulder.

"Drop the Kalashnikov!" yelled a projection from below, grouping with around five or six more projections next to a car. Eames grinned and yelled a loud okay from the window. He dropped it on the ground and picked up his M32 MGL, his smile now as wide as the Cheshire cat's, full pink lips pulled back to show off slightly crooked teeth. He shot at the car, and it exploded in one big burning fireball, the smell of burning flesh just touching his nose. He wrinkled it and stepped backwards; stepping quickly away from the stench that threatened to overwhelm his senses. He picked up the Kalashnikov again, and downed the two snipers located on the roofs in front of him. He snarled at the projections, launched two more grenades from the MGL and laughed when it caused a chain reaction in the cars below. Some idiot's gas tank had been leaking, and it leaked right underneath another car's gas tank. When the car with the leaky gas tank exploded, the gas trail lit on fire and then that car exploded, causing the car right next to it to explode, and so on and so on, until the end of the street, where no cars were located. It was an empty parking lot, thank God. There was a silence. It was long and almost never ending. There was no movement outside. Then there was the wail of a car alarm and he sighs in relief. Eames did not like that silence. It was unnatural. It was unsettling. It was scary. The alarm was shut off and he frowns. The world is silent again, holding its breath. The only noise he hears now is the steady roar of the fire burning down below. The street that the building was on was the only street in the city burning. It was like someone made a perfect line through the city, doused it with gasoline and set it aflame, just to see what would happen. There was calm. Nothing moved, there were no other noises. Just that. While the street burned below, he stacked some chairs against the door and slept on the couch for a few hours. There was more silence. Then there was the sudden noise of music. Soft at first, and then loud. It was something he'd heard before, something... And then he remembered. It was one of Arthur's favorite. Non Je Ne Regrette Rien by Edith Piaf. Eames smiled, pulled out 3 grenades, and pulled the safety pin out of them. He threw down another, just incase. He pressed the "DETONATE" button on Ali's iPod touch. Everything exploded around him, and the dream crumbled away.

A/N :

I'm working very hard to get chapter three done and ready to be published. It's hard because of school, but it's becoming easier. I'm not nearly finished, but I promise by October 5, I'll be done and you can have your 3 dream level. I might even have some of the next chapter done.

EDIT : Sorry about the whole really late thing. I'm 6 days late for my deadline I promised you above. Really, really sorry. I wanted to murder that 3rd dream level though. It didn't like me.