A/N: Dialogue in italics is Chinese; regular font is Japanese

He was wedged as far into the corner as he could get, knees pulled up to his chest and hands bound. He glanced up when Jiao-tu said his name; at the sight of his face her knees gave out, and she sat down hard on the floor. Arakawa's eye was still purple and swollen; the other side of his face was covered in a scabbed and blistering burn in the shape of a hand. She felt her own arm stinging where Chuzi had touched it, but was afraid to look.

"Ah, Xu," he said in a dead voice. "They caught you too, huh?"

As horrified as she was by his injuries, Jiao-tu felt a surge of anger break through her fear.

"Caught me? They were only after me because you put your stupid file on my phone! You almost got me killed!" And still might. She couldn't punch him with her hands bound, but she was able to get a few kicks to connect with his shin and knee before Chuzi was crouching in front of her. He caught her chin in his hand and jerked her face forward. His fingers were unnaturally hot on her skin.

"I said quiet, Anjinha!" he hissed, the first truly negative reaction she'd seen from him. "Behave, or your face too will have a lovely new design." He let go roughly and stalked back to the table.

Jiao-tu settled back against the wall, trying not to touch her chin. She was pretty sure that she'd just imagined the burning. At least, she hoped so. Arakawa uncurled himself slowly, as if he thought she was going to attack him again despite the contractor's threat. He uncapped a half-empty plastic water bottle that had been hidden in his lap and awkwardly took a sip.

"You're the one who told them you hid the key on my phone?" Jiao-tu muttered quietly.

"Don't blame me," he shot back in an equally low voice. "I had to do something - the professor was going to sell my research! I don't know how he encrypted the files, but there's only one copy of the key; I wanted to protect it. I don't know how these people found out, but they knew that I had back-up copies of the encrypted files. They grabbed me yesterday, and that - that contractor" he practically spit the word out "did this. I had to give them the files, and your name."

"You burned down your own lab and killed the professor." And almost killed Tian. She was finding it hard to believe that she'd ever had a crush on Arakawa. Mei-li and Arakawa had talked after she'd left them at the fire, she remembered. Mei-li must have been the one to tell the MSS that he had back-ups.

"I didn't know he was in there!" Arakawa protested. "I had to make sure that he couldn't sell the research."

"Why? You wanted to sell it yourself, to Pandora?" she asked. That's what Kirihara had thought.

Arakawa sighed in exasperation. As he spoke, a couple of his scabs cracked open and oozed blood. "If we give this information to just one country, they'll use it to monopolize contractor-based intelligence and warfare, for their own gain. Nothing will change. It needs to be in the hands of a neutral organization - Pandora. They have their own scientists and experts - they can take my theories and expand on them, maybe find a way to strip all contractors of their powers, and finally rid us of those monsters completely!"

Were contractors monsters? Everything she'd heard said that they were; even Tian seemed to think so. Tian killed people. So did Xing, according to both Tian and Chuzi; Chuzi certainly frightened her. But…Tian had made dinner for her. And hugged her when she was upset, and let her sleep at his place two nights in a row because she was afraid. Kirihara didn't seem to think he was a monster, and she was a cop.

"My cousins are contractors," she confessed.

"Then I feel sorry for you," Arakawa said bitterly. He looked over to the center of the room. "What's his problem?"

Jiao-tu followed his gaze. Chuzi was arguing with Zhang and the other official, his Chinese even more garbled than usual in his urgency. He was pointing to a small zen fountain that was sitting on a little table by the door. She realized that Arakawa couldn't understand what he was saying.

"He's trying to get them to move the fountain out. He's worried about someone using it to find us." He'd told the driver not to leave the car by water, and was concerned that Jiao-tu had left her phone by a pond. And what had he said earlier, when they were in the car? "Do you know what a water doll is?" she asked Arakawa.

Her teaching assistant shrugged. "A doll? Dolls are like contractors, people who were changed by the Gates, but they're even less human. They're empty shells. No emotions, no thoughts, no souls. Mostly they're used for surveillance - tracking people and spying on them. I don't really understand how they work; no one that I know of at Tokodai is researching dolls."

"They see through water?"

"They see through whatever their medium is - stone, metal, water. Things like that."

Chuzi had succeeded in convincing Zhang and the other man to move the fountain. One of the guards started to move forward, but Chuzi insisted that the nameless man be the one to do it. Despite his earlier words, the contractor must still be worried that Tian might find them. Arakawa watched the fountain leave the room. "I guess I'd better give this back to them then." He picked up the water bottle.

"No!" Jiao-tu hissed. She glanced back towards the table; no one was paying them any attention. The Indian man near the door continued to ignore everyone in favor of his ball game. "Hide it!"

Arakawa's frown turned into a wince as his blistered skin stretched. "Why? They'll hurt me again if they know I'm hiding it, and do we really want other contractors finding us? At least with this group, we're still alive."

They were still speaking quietly, but Jiao-tu lowered her voice even further. "I want my cousin to find us! He tried to stop them from taking me, and Chuzi said something about how his water doll couldn't follow us. If we can keep the water hidden, maybe it'll help him." She didn't really understand how someone could look through water to spy on people, but whether she understood it or not hardly mattered; Chuzi seemed worried that Tian would find them with water, so she would do whatever she could to keep water in the room.

Arakawa snorted. "If your cousin really is a contractor, and he really is looking for you - it won't be to save you. I told you: contractors aren't human." But she saw him tuck the bottle into his lap again and cover it with his arms.

Just in time; no sooner had Arakawa hidden the bottle, than the phone on the table rang. Zhang answered, spoke a few words, then shook his head. He and Chuzi turned towards Jiao-tu and Arakawa.

"There was no phone there," Zhang said, stepping forward, his tone icy. "Are you sure - absolutely sure - that you told us the right location?"

"Um…" Jiao-tu said, her heart in her throat. Why wasn't the phone there? She was almost sure that she'd pointed out the correct shrine. "Maybe they just looked at the wrong pond?"

"Or maybe o Anjo Negro has found it for himself," Chuzi said. Jiao-tu thought that the contractor looked worried. He was probably still wondering whether Tian was looking for her or for him. But since they were both in the same room, it probably didn't make a difference.

"Let's make sure that she isn't lying before we move on to that scenario," Zhang said. "Chuzi."

"If you are lying, Anjihna, now would be the time to stop," the contractor said, pulling her to her feet.

Jiao-tu struggled against his grip at first - but then she looked past him and saw who was standing in the doorway. A man all in black: the man from the park, the man from the embassy. Even without the mask, Tian's eyes were cold and dark, and she knew why he was called Hei Tianshi.