Nakimura turned around. "Thank you, Sandy. I will look into it."

Just inside the door of cell number 9, Nakimura stopped to take stock. The cells had lighting that could be programmed from the guardroom on a scale from one to five, with five being a bright, noonday sun and one being a starlit night with a first-quarter moon. The lights were set on 'one' in deference to the prisoner's serious concussion.

Beside the door, a lunch tray stood untouched, sandwich, raisins, juice pouch and cheese stick. Nakimura studied the profile of the prisoner, just visible in the darkness. He remembered striking the boy while he attached detonators to explosives, remembered the boy falling sideways and hitting his head on the corner of a wooden crate.

The boy's head had been shaved by an inexpert barber, slashed off unevenly so that tufts of hair grew longer or shorter over his entire head. White scalp shone through in numerous places, usually accompanied by a scab where he'd been nicked by the barber. His face was fine-featured with a high, even brow and cheekbones brushed by thick, pale lashes.

A small, shapely mouth spoke more of a girl than a boy, though Nakimura had seen teenaged boys with similar faces that grew into rugged manhood. Silently, Nakimura crossed the room and knelt beside the cot that the boy rested on. The boy's breath rattled in his lungs. His eyes fluttered open.

"Why do you not eat?" Nakimura asked.

"Dead people don't eat." The prisoner's voice was raspy from thirst.

Nakimura was surprised by the answer. "Is that your desire, to die?" He wondered if the lad had simply given up on life and was trying to starve to death. If that were the case, the lad's determination was admirable.

"No, but I guess I don't have much choice, do I?" The boy turned his face to look but didn't seem to see Nakimura kneeling by his side.

Given that the ninja warrior was wearing a black gi and black mask, Nakimura wasn't worried when the boy didn't see him. "Why is that?"

The boy seemed to grow angry. "I'm in a grave, aren't I? My friends must think I'm dead in order to have buried me like this, but I'm not." He stopped to take a ragged breath. "It hurts too much for this to be death yet."

The lad chuckled mirthlessly then coughed. "On the other hand, I may be closer than I think. I'm talking to a ghost, after all."

Nakimura went and retrieved the juice pouch, opened it and squeezed a little of the juice into the boy's mouth. Reflexively, the boy swallowed. "I am sorry you thought you were in a grave," Nakimura apologized. "We kept the lights dimmed because of your concussion." He keyed his device. "Sandy, from Nakimura."

"Sandy."

"Raise the lights in Nine to three. Slowly, please." Gradually, the light changed. Nakimura squeezed the juice pouch again when the ailing prisoner didn't offer to suck on the straw. In the brighter light, Nakimura noticed that the 'boy' was really a young woman and that her eyes were closed against the light. She swallowed again. He squeezed some more. When she swallowed, she sucked at the straw until the pouch was empty.

"Thank you." The rasp in her voice was mostly gone. "That tasted good." She opened her eyes, revealing a startling, lavender color and the shine of fever. Shock registered and she moved one hand awkwardly to touch the side of his face. "I thought you were a ghost."

Nakimura chuckled. "No such luck; I took you prisoner." Her hand was unnaturally warm against his cheek, even through the silk of his face mask. By reflex, Nakimura stifled how much he liked her touch, accustomed to putting the mission, putting ECHO ahead of his own feelings.

She twitched one too-thin shoulder by way of a shrug. "Better than being buried alive, I guess."

"Why did you think you were buried alive?"

She closed her marvelous eyes again. "I've seen it happen. An explosion blew a friend of mine apart. He was almost dead and someone was coming. We didn't have time to wait, so the Major buried him, still breathing." She paused to catch her breath. ". . . had nightmares about it ever since. I thought maybe I did something wrong and got myself blown to bits too."

"No, I hit you."

She grinned a little. "That wasn't very honorable of you, hitting a girl." Her teasing surprised him. He'd expected her to be hostile or afraid of him.

"I didn't know you are a girl and you weren't being very honorable either, in trying to blow up the bridge." Nakimura was having troubles with his conscience. If he'd known she were a woman, he would never have hit her as hard as he had, perhaps not at all.

"Why is your head shaved?" he asked, wondering what she'd look like with more hair.

"I hate lice." Her answer was offhand, but there was regret in her voice.

"Was it very long when you cut it?" he asked sympathetically, but she didn't answer. Instead, she covered a bout of coughing with the inside of her elbow. When she dropped her arm again, the sleeve was darkly wet and her lips were crimson with blood. Nakimura keyed his device. "Patches from Nakimura."

"Patches."

"Get ready for a patient- female, coughing blood, difficulty breathing. She is dehydrated and showing signs of fever."

"Copy that, Nakimura; Patches out."

"Sandy from Nakimura."

"Sandy."

"Open Nine and the front door, please." Without waiting for a reply or even properly shutting down the comm link, Nakimura carefully scooped the ailing girl up in his arms.

"I am so sorry," he whispered. "We did not know you thought you were dead already." As soon as the cell door swung open, Nakimura began to run; alarmed by the slight weight of the girl in his arms.

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Kae felt herself being lifted by the ninja. Her head hurt, her lungs and chest ached and it was hard to breathe. She was aware of bright lights through her eyelids but didn't care to open them.

Movement told her that she was being carried and wondered where her abductor was taking her. He stopped running and Kae thought she heard what might be an elevator but she'd only been on one twice in her life and couldn't be sure. "Where are you taking me?" she whispered. Her coughing bout had made it hurt to talk, too.

Cradled with her head against his shoulder, she could feel the tensing of his musculature under her head. When his voice answered her question, she could feel the vibration of his voice as well as hear the deep baritone that seemed to resound in the pit of her stomach. "A doctor," he answered. "You coughed up blood." A bell dinged and he began to run again.

Soon, Kae felt herself settled onto a bent surface rather like a lounge chair but higher. A woman's voice thanked Nakimura and assured him that she would 'take care of her'. Kae realized that the woman was talking about her and opened her eyes.

A beautiful woman looked back at her. Honey-blond hair was braided and wound into a bun at the nape of her neck. Blue-green eyes were set in a fine-featured face with wide, full lips that pursed in concentration. She wore a set of military fatigues with the word 'Patches' sewn over the left pocket but no other insignia than that.

The woman waved a white tool over Kae's forehead while explaining that her temperature was being taken. Kae realized she was in a hospital bed, though she'd never seen one except on a neighbor's black-and-white TV, and that with remarkably fuzzy reception.

"You are very sick," the beautiful woman told Kae as she perused the display on the thermometer. "I want to help you, but you have to help too, okay?"

Kae resented being spoken to as a child but was in too much pain to argue. "Okay." In response, the woman smiled briefly and squeezed her fingers a little to reassure her before sliding a curtain around the two of them, blocking everything else off from view. "Who are you?" Kae asked curiously.

"I'm Patches and Doc is around here somewhere too. Hold still while I start an IV, okay? You are severely dehydrated. If I don't do this, you could die of thirst before I can figure out why you're coughing up blood."

The woman seized Kae's wrist. Kae closed her eyes and tried to relax, at least until someone started cutting her clothes off. When Kae opened her eyes in a panic, Patches stopped to explain.

"Your clothes are bloody. Since I don't know what's wrong with you and it might be contagious, I need to get rid of the bloody cloth. I didn't ask you to take them off because you're hurt so badly."

She finished and snapped a hospital gown around Kae's shoulders. As soon as the gown was snapped in place, the woman opened the curtain again and set to work on the promised IV line.

"I must stink." Kae's murmured comment wasn't designed for the woman- Patches'- ears.

"No more so than I." The deep baritone made Kae cringe in embarrassment but Nakimura chuckled and explained. "I have been in the same clothes for over a week now. It was in my head to shower but I heard that you were not eating."

"I'm sorry." She lowered her head to show remorse. In Kae's world, that infraction would have cost her a blow to her head. Her head already hurt almost more than she could stand and she knew that Nakimura was powerful enough to do more damage.

He touched her hand. "It was not your fault. Can you tell me how long it was before the bridge that you last ate?"

Reassured that he didn't hold her at fault, Kae looked at his masked face. "I hurt too much to think. Last meal . . ." She had to stop and catch her breath. "I had cold stew. Um, lunch yesterday?"

Studiously, she avoided looking at what Patches was doing to her arm. It hurt and Kae had learned by long experience that it hurt less- sort of- if she didn't look when someone was doctoring her.

Patches gave a little hiss. "Nakimura?" she enquired.

"Five days."

"That explains why her veins are so hard to find." Patches' task was taking a while. Kae tried hard not to flinch. Not thinking about it helped sometimes too.

Nakimura's answer startled Kae. Had it been so long? She thought a little. "I had coffee for breakfast and drank most of my canteen while I was setting charges."

"Four days ago," he told her. "You are my responsibility. This condition you are in is my own doing. For that, I apologize." There was grief in his voice.

Startled, Kae opened her eyes and looked at him. He was still wearing the black gi, still with the matching black mask. She found his eyes and discovered them to be looking down as if in shame.

It had been a long time since anyone really cared whether or not she ate. "Why do you care what I eat?" she asked him. On the other side of her, Patches had finally finished inserting the IV into her arm and was hooking up a long plastic tube to it. Kae was mildly curious but didn't dare look because she was afraid it might hurt if she did.

Patches came around the bed and took her blood pressure, then clipped something to one of Kae's fingers. She looked down Kae's throat and up her nose, checked her ears and listened to her chest through the stethoscope.

"I must answer in life for every life I take or release," Nakimura explained when the doctor had finished her cursory exam. "There is honor in defeating an enemy in combat, but to allow you to nearly perish with neglect holds only disgrace."

She looked at him, more because she was talking to him than anything, since all she would see were his eyes and mask. "So, what will you do about it?"

Kae was curious. She'd never met anyone outside her own group before, let alone interacted with anyone from such a different culture. The doctor must have put something besides water in the bag that dripped into her IV line, because already the pain was beginning to fade.

Nakimura shook his head. "I am honor-bound to repay my debt to you but I must discuss it with Patches first. She will be your warden for now."

"Is that what you are?" Kae wanted to keep him talking. She was fascinated with the slight, oriental accent with English overtones he displayed and loved the deep sound of his voice.

"No. In Japan, I would be a constable rather than warden, responsible more for the arrest than the detention."

"We are not in Japan then," she grinned, mind working furiously as she thought about maps she'd seen. "Okay, that limits about a half-percent of the world. Let's see, we're not on water, so that accounts for another seventy percent; only a mere twenty-nine and a half percent of the globe to cover before I figure out where I am."

Patches laughed and removed the clip from Kae's finger. "Keep guessing. But now that you've told him the game, don't expect any more hints. Nakimura is a master of puzzles. I have a few questions for you before you do, though."

She settled a tube around Kae's head that directed twin streams of oxygen into her nose, then pulled a small, wheeled table over to the hospital bed and sat a plastic cup full of ice chips on it. "Don't eat too many all at once," she warned before sitting down with her clipboard. "Your stomach isn't used to anything in it and too much all at once could make you vomit."

Kae started to reach for an ice chip and discovered that the hand with the IV was also tethered to the bed rail. She decided against an ice chip since the other arm had a pressure cuff and the clip on her finger.

Patches asked her first question. "May I have your name, rank and serial number, according to the Geneva Convention as applies to prisoners of war?"

Most American paramilitary organization members considered themselves prisoners of war whenever they were arrested, Kae knew. But she wasn't like most of them, didn't feel as if she were part of any sort of military; wasn't fighting for any great cause. "I'm just Kae."

Kae watched Nakimura fetch the ice chips. Instead of eating them himself as she expected, he held the cup near her lips so she could take one. Sheepishly, Kae worked one into her mouth. He nodded and sat the cup in her free hand. "Thank you," she told him.

"Kae, what's your last name?" Patches continued.

Kae shrugged. "Can't say; no one ever told me."

"Okay, where were you born?" Patches apparently had decided to skip the serial number question on her form.

"Somewhere in Montana; my mother wasn't much for state-run medicine."

"So, you probably have no birth certificate?"

"You could say that." Kae answered rather dryly, thinking it obvious.

"Do you know when your birthday is?"

Kae shrugged again. "Nope; all I know is it's in the late spring or early summer, because my dad taught me to set off sticks of dynamite for my birthday once. And before you ask, I don't know how old I am either; probably in my early twenties, I guess."

"Fair enough; how long have you been coughing up blood, Kae?"

"I've had the cough for a few months. The blood's new."

"I'll test the blood on your sleeve and see what I come up with. Have you ever seen a doctor before?"

"Once, when I was little; he came out to the camp."

"How about the dentist?"

"Yeah, there was one just outside of town we went to. He took cash and didn't ask questions. My dad insisted."

"Do you drink?"

"When the occasion warrants; I don't drink every night and I don't like being drunk." In fact, after the first time she'd gotten drunk, Kae had been attacked and never drank enough to get that way again. She'd been far too vulnerable when drunk and learned the hard way that being inebriated wasn't a safe condition for her to be in.

"Illicit drugs?"

"Nope; some of the guys do but it makes them stupid. Dad made me promise not to." She'd seen what happened to the women in camp that were junkies and never wanted to end up like them.

"Glad to hear it." Patches smiled at her. "So far, you have a fairly decent concussion that may take a long time to heal, courtesy of Nakimura here and a stack of crates. You are severely dehydrated and underweight. All of that I can fix. As far as your lungs, I'll let you know when the tests come back."

Patches eyed her silent companion. "Nakimura, I want to see you in the office." She left the room at a fast clip, not waiting to be followed.

Nakimura stood as well. "I will return. Patches married my brother and probably wants to know why he has not yet returned."

"Why hasn't he returned?" Kae asked curiously, not wanting the mysterious, masked ninja to leave.

There was a grin in Nakimura's voice. "I gave him a babysitting job. Have more ice, Kae." He watched her take another ice chip before leaving the room.

Kae noticed that he didn't make any sound when he walked. She saw some buttons on the bed rail and studied to see what they did. There was a button that was split in half, though Kay couldn't figure out what the little picture on it meant, pictures of the bed bent into various poses and a red 'call' button.

Kae took another piece of ice and closed her eyes. The steady cadence of the IV machine lulled her to sleep despite the lights.

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