As Rinzler led her down another hallway that led to rooms that CLU had set aside for himself, Rinzler and other high-ranking programs; he watched the User from the corner of his eye. She glanced at him from time to time, but seemed to be concentrating more on walking down the hall. 'She must be tired from the arena,' he thought when she stumbled a little as she walked. Yes, the circuit lines on her suit were much dimmer than when they had been fighting. At least it would not take much longer to reach the empty room that she would be quartered in for now. He was not sure what to do with the User if she became too tired to function properly.

CLU had called her rare. She was, indeed, rare. It had surprised Rinzler that CLU had not told the others that she was a User. What was CLU planning? Why was he keeping her status as a User a secret?

He stopped walking and looked at the User next to him. She was stumbling more often, now. Her circuits were even dimmer; and as he watched they seemed to flicker slightly. She stopped walking and leaned against the wall. "Sorry," she said, looking up at him. "I need to eat something. It's a blood-sugar thing. I'll be fine if I just eat something soon." Rinzler nodded his head slowly, and began leading her down the hall once more. He didn't know what this 'eating' or 'blood-sugar thing' was; however, he thought that if Users could do whatever it was while standing in a hall, she would have done so already. The sooner he got her to the room, the better.

A few nanocycles later she stumbled again and fell to one knee. He pulled her up, trying to make her stand, only to have her collapse to the floor when he stopped supporting her.

"Sorry," she said weakly, a wobbly smile on her pale face. "I don't think my legs are going to work right now."

Rinzler looked at her again. Her circuits were flickering faster and more often, and were much dimmer than before. If she had been a program, he would think that she was running out of energy and about to crash. Could Users crash? What would happen to her if she did?

No, he decided. She must not crash. If she ran out of energy and crashed; she might not be able to power up and reboot again if she did. Rinzler would not allow this to happen to the only User he had ever seen on the Grid other than Flynn.

Flynn.

Flynn had gotten low on energy once, too. Not nearly this low, but still low enough to be troubling. He had been fine though, after the three of them had found the energy pool… No. It was better not to view those old memory files. All it did was hurt to review them. But now he knew what to do.

Rinzler reached down and picked the User up in his arms. She looked startled, but did not fight him as he started down the hall again. He stopped and waited for the door to his room to open. He wasn't sure where he was originally meant to take her; and did not want to waste time looking for it. As soon as the door was open, he carried her in and set her down so that she was sitting on the edge of his bed before turning to walk over to a hidden cabinet set into the wall. Opening it, he grabbed a vial of a glowing blue liquid and brought it to where she sat slumped on the bed. She was losing the battle to stay upright, but was still fighting to do so. Bemused, Rinzler wondered if she ever stopped fighting anything. He opened the vial and helped her to sit up straighter.

"What is that?" she asked weakly. Rinzler was holding a vial of some sort of blue fluid, and it was glowing. He put it in her hand and tried to help her bring it to her mouth.

"No," she said faintly, moving her head back and away from the vial. "Not 'til you tell me what…"

"Drink," growled the voice from behind the helmet, interrupting her. He tried again to lift her hand that held the vial to her mouth.

She didn't understand him; however, he had never tried to hide what he was doing; even when trying to kill her earlier. In fact, if he wanted her dead, he could have simply finished her off in the arena; or any other time he chose, earlier.

Taking a deep breath, she drank what he offered. Almost immediately, she started to feel a little better. Whatever had been in the vial, it was helping. She felt herself starting to slip away from awareness, and realized that she had fallen against him at some point. He gently laid her down on the bed. The last thing that she was aware of was looking up at him.

Rinzler looked down at where she lay on the bed. She didn't understand him? This User made no sense at all to him. She was even more confusing than Flynn had been. Until now, he had thought that was impossible for anyone to be.

He tilted her head to the side to get a better look at her injuries. She had a bruise already purpling up the side of her jaw, and the cut from his disc crossed her right cheekbone almost to the center of her face. Using the remaining energy in the vial, he washed the dirt and dried blood from the cut and off of her face. Thankfully, the cut wasn't very deep. Rinzler had no idea how Users healed from injuries; however, the injuries she had sustained did not appear to threaten her continued functioning.

Rinzler straightened up and stretched slightly. The need to downcycle was beginning to affect him. He needed to enter a sleep cycle soon to reset his processes for maximum efficiency. He looked at the User sleeping on the bed. Well, at least if he was on the bed he would wake if she tried to leave or needed something. He stretched out on the other side of the bed next to the sleeping User and entered his sleep cycle.

Rinzler came out of his sleep cycle. He looked over at the User lying next to him on the bed. She had apparently moved during her sleep cycle, and now lay turned away from him on her side. He leaned over her as she lay there to get a better look at the only User he had ever seen, other than Flynn. He tugged lightly on her shoulder so that she rolled until she was lying half-turned in the bed.

Her hair had come loose at some point in time; and now spilled across her face and lay partially coiled near her disc dock. He leaned even further over her and carefully brushed her hair from her face. The gash from his disc, while cleaned, had not yet healed. It appeared to have developed a stiff crust of some sort over it. Was this how Users healed? An odd shape coiled around the rim of her ear. Flynn had not had such a thing on his ears. Did only female Users have them? He had so many questions about her. How she had come to be on the Grid was only the beginning of them.

Rinzler wished that she was active. He would have liked to get a better look at her eyes. Programs did not have eyes that mixed two different colors together. Did other Users have eyes like hers?

As if in response to his wish, the User on the bed stirred slightly and blinked her eyes open to look up at him.

She woke to find herself on a strange bed with a black-helmeted figure leaning over her. She felt herself tense slightly at the realization that if he stopped holding his body above hers, she would be pinned and unable to move away.

"You know, this is kinda awkward," she said lightly. "I mean, I don't normally wake up in bed with people who have tried to kill me. In fact, this is the first time."

She watched as the man above her cocked his head to the side, making her think of a curious bird. Maybe a bird of prey, she thought, trying to decide if it should eat what it had just found.

"Not to be rude, but could you give me a little more room? This is a little too close for me to be comfortable with."

From the doorway came a voice. "I don't know…the two of you look plenty comfortable to me."