I’ve never done anything the easy way, I thought to myself as I saw my best friend suspended against his will, although with the nature of gravity, I’m sure it wasn’t completely against his will, 25 feet in the air.

What do I know? The question was designed to help me evaluate my surroundings and figure out how to control the situation.

They had captured a member of the Program with remarkable ease.

I should never have let Brian join the Program.

Fear. Attachment. I shook off these emotions and continued my assessment. There were signs of struggle to be sure, but it was almost as if his wounds had been calculated. Did they get to him? Is this a ruse calculated to weaken my resistance?

If they had broken him, he was no longer Brian. The fear in his eyes betrayed him or did it betray something else?

I followed his eyes to a darkened corner of the antechamber and my heart stopped at once. Evelyn. They had her too. My will quickly crumbled. “All right!” I shouted. “You have my attention.”