Thank you so much for those who reviewed/commented on the last chapter!

Alright. This chapter will explain what a Shift is exactly. It's set a few months before the first chapter, so think of it as a prequel.

DISCLAIMER: Again, I do not own anything pertaining to Inception. It's very sad, I know. XD

A Lesson In Dreaming

"This is a dream?"

"This is your dream, Marloe. You created it." Dominic Cobb stood in the middle of a hilly valley with his hands in a russet-colored jacket. Tall, green grass licked at his knees as a cool breeze made the green ground ripple. He kept his blue eyes focused on the twenty-six-year-old girl in front of him.

Marloe marveled at the sight that was, according to her friend Cobb, a dream. She did a slow three-sixty to view the entire valley. She couldn't believe she had created this herself. It was beautiful. The sun was more than half way down the sky and turned the sharp mountains beyond a glowing orange. At the opposite end of the valley lay an expansive forest of fiery leaves. The season was, without a doubt, autumn. The chilly air that came from the direction of the mountains played with Marloe's messy waves of auburn hair and put the uneven bed-head spikes in even more disarray. She inhaled deeply, scenting the luscious grass that tickled her palms and the faint smell of whatever Dom had sprayed on that morning.

She was confused, however, by the random people wandering about. "Who are they?" she asked Dom.

"Your projections. Just random people created from your subconscious."

Marloe watched them for several minutes it seemed. Some of them were picking at the grass. Others were running and laughing together. One female projection simply stared in Marloe's general direction. She wondered why her subconscious had chosen them.

"Everything seems so real," she eventually commented.

"Dreams feel real when we're in them."

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

"And you know, in a dream, anything is possible," said Cobb enticingly.

Turning to face him, Marloe asked, "Anything?"

"Anything."

That was all she needed to hear. Smiling, Marloe concentrated hard on her surroundings until the ground trembled slightly beneath their feet.

Cobb glanced at the ground and then at the woman. He knew she was changing something. It was a question of what.

The ground around the two began to ripple, as if it were no longer solid, but liquid. The hills that made up the valley began to shift and flatten until the entire area was more like a leveled playing field.

Nodding with satisfaction, Marloe went on to step two. Again the ground thundered, but for a different reason. "You should come over here," she said, waving her hand at Cobb to come closer.

He furrowed his brows with confusion, but obeyed quickly. Standing beside Marloe now, he watched at she rose a large metal structure from the earth several yards away. As the steel frame rocketed towards the sky, Cobb noted how similar it looked to the basics of a building.

The structure grew until it was exactly 1,451 feet into the sky. Marloe didn't know how she knew that it was the proper height, but she felt that it was correct.

Once the frame stopped growing, the ground at its base wriggled slightly as thousands of glass panes crept out and up until the entire building was covered in dark, reflective glass. The finishing touch was the growth of two metal prongs at the top of the massive skyscraper.

Marloe continued to smile when she looked over at Cobb. "Well? Would do you think?"

He observed the building carefully for a moment before looking at Marloe. Then he nodded with his hands in his pockets and said, "It's good." Cobb turned his attention to the rest of the valley, which was devoid of anything but grass and the wandering projections. "But it seems like the rest of the field has a lot of wasted—"

The young woman cleverly blinked her azure eyes. Instantly, a hundred more skyscraper frames rose out of nowhere around them and were quickly covered by glass and windows that popped out from beneath the grassy surface, as though every piece was alive and crawling towards its intended place upon each building. The chorus of their creation was like a wind chime that echoed off the mountains beyond and fell right back into Cobb's and Marloe's ears.

"—Space," he finished, jaw slightly dropped.

Marloe was quiet, the smile on her face having never disappeared. In between the buildings were her projections, unharmed, but with an obvious discontented look upon their faces. "They look pissed. What did I do?" The woman projection from earlier looked the most upset. She watched Marloe as though the dreamer was some sort of prey.

Cobb didn't answer at first. He simply observed the projections carefully, watching their every move. They were all looking around, as if searching for something that they couldn't find. Then Cobb saw the woman who watching Marloe. He locked eyes with her and was completely still. As the moments passed, the lady slowly walked away behind a tall building and disappeared from sight.

A small bead of sweat formed on Cobb's forehead, but Marloe didn't see it. She was too busy focusing on the newly acquired look on Cobb's face that was beginning to concern Marloe. He looked surprised.

"What? What's the problem?"

"Nothing. No problem." Cobb paused and continued to stare at the projections. Their unhappy and confused expressions slowly vanished and the subconscious people began to resume their previous activities. The man's lips twitched slightly, as if threatening to unleash a smile, but he regained his composure and turned back towards the buildings in front of Marloe.

"Now wait a second. These structures look familiar." Cobb pointed at the first building to be made. "This one especially."

"It's Willis Tower. This is Chicago." Marloe's grin faded as slight confusion settled in. "Why? What's wrong?"

Something was definitely wrong. Cobb was beginning to look upset. "You can't do that," he said bitterly at Marloe. "Never recreate places from your memory. Always imagine new places!"

"What's wrong with dreaming about Chicago, or any other place I've been to?"

"Dreaming up memories is the easiest way for someone to get information from your mind. If I was suppose to be extracting something from you right now, I would already know about a place you've been to multiple times, judging by the accuracy of the city. I'd even know what your favorite building was."

Marloe just watched him, finally understanding what the problem was and suddenly not feeling so excited about shared dreaming. "You'd know Willis Tower was my favorite because I made it first."

Cobb nodded. "Exactly."

"Okay. I didn't know."

"It's fine this first time since it's just you and me, but you have to be more careful. You can take a piece of Chicago, say a street lamp or a mailbox, but nothing to this extent."

Marloe looked out at the fantastic scene around her. The buildings were perfect, right down to their location and the number of stories. But she knew now that building out of memory was a complete no-no. Sighing loudly, she let out a heavy breath of air, which blew her buildings away in a swirl of ash and dust.

Cobb stared. He hadn't seen anyone work so strongly on their first attempt at shared dreaming. It was obvious Marloe was a natural dreamer with an active imagination. He glanced over again at the projections. They were again looking unhappy, but they couldn't figure out what exactly was making them unhappy. So like before, they continued with what they were doing before any shift in the dream had occurred. The female projection from before, however, was now visible again since the buildings were gone and she was staring directly at Marloe, who didn't seem to notice. Cobb's heart began to pick up pace. It was only when the woman failed to make a move that he began to calm down. Besides, it was almost time…

Marloe opened her eyes slowly and removed the white wristband from her arm. She wasn't tired, but she hadn't realized how hard she had worked to build the city just a few minutes ago.

"How was it?" asked Arthur, hovering over her with an odd expression on his face.

"Good, up until the point when I realized I'm not allowed to build from memory." She sat up from her couch and looked at the small alarm clock on the old coffee table beside her. It read 2:16pm. Her brows furrowed. "Wait, that can't be right."

"What?" asked Cobb, leaning forward on his recliner.

Arthur answered for her. "I think she means the time."

Marloe nodded. "There's no way we were only in there for five minutes."

"Five minutes in the real world gives you an hour in the dream world," said Arthur.

"Time flows differently in a dream. It might take some getting used to," Cobb commented.

Marloe just nodded.

Arthur watched her for a moment before asking Cobb, "So what did she build?" His voice was way too serious for Marloe's liking, but she ignored it for now.

The older man snatched an item from his jacket pocket before answering and spun it on the table. The three watched intently and sighed simultaneously when the top slowed and toppled onto its side. They were, in fact, in the real world. "Chicago."

The Point Man—Arthur—stood still, looking at Marloe and then Cobb and then back at Marloe.

She laughed slightly. "Hey, I didn't know I wasn't allowed to do that sort of thing. Sorry." But it soon became clear to Marloe that that wasn't why Arthur was giving her such a strange look. "What did I do this time? Did I talk in my sleep? I do that sometimes." Cobb now began to eye her and she was getting to the point of being very disturbed. Marloe stood up suddenly, feeling uncomfortable with everyone's eyes on her, asking, "What the hell are you guys looking at?"

Cobb stood up as well and sighed. He was trying to find the words. "Marloe, that wasn't your dream you were just in."

Her brows creased. "What do you mean? Of course it was. You said so." Not that she believed everything she was told, but why would Cobb lie to her about whose dream she was actually in?

"You were in my dream." Cobb watched her reaction.

She didn't say anything, so he continued.

"I dreamt up the valley and the mountains and the forest. I figured that was something you might dream or at least like to dream."

Still no response, so Cobb spoke again.

"See, normally when a person besides the dreamer starts messing with the dream's layout and its contents, the dreamer's subconscious—those projections you saw—will attack the foreign entity. Foreign entity being you, in this case."

Marloe's eyes locked onto Cobb's as she sat down on the old couch. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. But it wasn't just because Cobb had lied to her. "So why didn't your subconscious attack me? I changed a lot in the dream. I built a whole goddamn city, but all they did was look a little pissed. Why didn't they come after me? Especially that woman. She looked angrier than all of them."

Cobb hesitated before saying with a slick smile on his face, "That's a good question, isn't it?"

"Is she talking about Mal? Wait, Mal was there and she didn't come after you?" Arthur looked at Cobb and then at Marloe with a surprised face.

"Who's Mal?"

"Cobb's wife."

"She's not a happy person, is she?"

Arthur was quiet for a moment before he responded. "Mal died," he said quietly, in courtesy toward Cobb, who was standing very still and focusing on nothing in particular.

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry. It wasn't your fault," was all Cobb could say.

Arthur, in good sport, attempted to change the subject. "So, uh, if you managed to sneak past the projections in a practice dream, imagine what you could do when you're on the job?" Arthur cocked an eyebrow at Marloe and her heart unintentionally fluttered.

"So I'm taking it none of you can do what I did?"

The other two shook their heads in sync, Cobb already getting past the Mal subject.

Marloe began to think about her new-found gift. From what Cobb had told her when she was first asked to join the team, extracting information from someone's mind could be tricky, especially if the Mark figured out that he or she was dreaming. If a part of the dream needed to be altered, or if something had to be added to make the dream more convincing, it would be impossible to do without alerting the dreamer's subconscious. I guess that's where I come in, mused Marloe with a sly smile. "Why did you ask me to join your team, Cobb?"

The sudden change in topic caught the man off guard. "We needed someone who could mess with people's minds, no matter how literally, to help us get the information we needed from the Mark."

"Uh-huh. So why choose me?"

Arthur spoke up now. "From the Intel we had on you, you seemed right for the job due to your ability to, well—"

"You're a con-artist and we wondered how that might work out in the dream world. It obviously works to our advantage," finished Cobb, eyeing Arthur with slight impatience.

Smiling cleverly and clasping her hands together, Marloe took a moment to think. Yes, she was a fairly great con-artist. She got what she wanted by toying with people and lying, much the way Cobb did things. And now she had a genuine use for her talent. "You mentioned something about a job?" She glanced up Arthur, who smiled slightly.

"If you're interested," responded Cobb.

Marloe nodded, still smiling. "Yeah, I'm definitely interested."

Cobb smiled. "Now you just need a job title and you can join the ranks of the team."

"Job title?" questioned Marloe.

" I'm the Point Man, Cobb's the Extractor, and Eames is the Forger."

She gave Arthur a cocked-brow look.

"Eames, annoying guy with the accent."

"Oh yeah! I like him." Marloe smiled at an irritated Point Man. "As for a title, how 'bout Shift? The Shift? Suiting, don't you think?"

Cobb nodded moments after she asked. "I don't see why not. It fits your new job description."

Arthur bobbed his head in agreement, too.

"Now I just need one of those little object things you all carry around."

"A totem," corrected Arthur.

"I'm sure you'll figure something out," announced Cobb optimistically, but it was obvious the talk of Mal had affected him due to the note of discontent in his voice.

"Yeah, I've already got an idea. So, can we go under again?" Marloe asked, hoping to cheer up Cobb.

He smiled. "How about you and Arthur give it a shot?" It was obvious Cobb was no longer in the mood for much after the short conversation about his deceased wife.

Marloe laughed slightly. "I'm not sure if I want to be in one of his dreams," she commented sarcastically before giving the Point Man a genuine smile to let him know she was only joking.

Arthur was about to say something sarcastic back, but that smile calmed him down instantly. He was definitely going to enjoy Marloe hanging around. He just wasn't too sure about having her in his dreams just yet.