Inverted

8. The Canyon

Ada is speechless.

She glides down the wire, watching as Adwin disappears and Kostas lies unconscious. Her heart races as she runs after the assaillant, but just inside the cavern where Adwin was dragged there are five different tunnels and no sign of movement.

She runs back and crouches over Kostas looking for the wounds responsible for the small, but significant stream of blood creeping down the canyon path. The main culprit seems to be the tiny cut on his forehead even though his arms took most of the impact.

His eyes shoot open as she moves his left arm, and his scream echoes through the canyon. "OK. OK. Shh. Listen. Kostas, it's your turn to listen to me. You have to get up, and we have to go down one of those tunnels. The CC just heard a scream, and they will be looking for whoever made it. Can you stand up?"

"Where's Adwin?"

"She's gone. You just need to do as I say right now and get up. Can you do that?"

Kostas' eyes look like raisins and his mouth is as tense as a tightrope, but it's too late. A helicopter with several Conflict Controllers hanging from stiff rope descends on the pair. Ada contemplates running into one of the tunnels, but even as her breath is taken hostage by pure terror she decides sticking together is the better choice.

The CC grab them both, and Kostas, once again, fills the air with an echoing scream. The soft straps of the wrist binders holding Ada's hands together strangely puts her mind at ease. She tests the strength of the straps by trying to pull her arms apart, but the straps tighten and send electricity shooting through her arms. The unforgiving rock welcomes her as she drops to the ground and the shock stops.

"I wouldn't do that again if I were you, Ada," the CC agent remarks as he picks her up and leads her to the hanging rope. Pushing a button on her restraints the straps tighten again but no pain. The agent pushes the device against the rope and wraps it once.

Suddenly, Ada is flying in the air hands towards the helicopter above. She sees Kostas lying on the ground. They have put the restraints on his ankles because his arm is likely broken. A moment later Ada is staring at Kostas' feet as he hangs upside down dangling like a sailfish some lucky fisherman has plucked from the ocean and put on display for anyone walking by the pier to see.

Where are we going? How did he know my name?

"Kostas, are you ok?" Ada screams down at Kostas hoping he can hear her, hoping he is conscious. He almost certainly has a concussion, and Ada will need him if they are both going to survive. She may not know what they have in store for them, but what feels like a black hole deep inside her gut suggests the outcome will not be favorable. Kostas doesn't answer.

The helicopter begins to move, and Ada looks down into Emissary Cove to see the amphitheater still standing but looking like a distant third-cousin twice-removed from its original glory. The rows of seating that once held personal screens for its visitors look like paper someone scrunched into a ball and threw towards a garbage can but missed. The rest of the structure is covered in a cloud of deep black smoke with a fire feeding it from the ground. The people look like ants trying to avoid the concentrated sunlight of a kid with a magnifying glass.

Ada cries.

She cries for the people who lost their lives in the explosion. She cries for Adwin. She cries for her uncertain future. Tomorrow was supposed to be the start of her new, stable, meaningful life, but now she worries it will be filled with interrogation, fear, and torture. As she watches the chaos below through the tears that won't seem to stop she begins to wonder who's responsible for such a tremendous display of cruelty. The one point of relief is that she won't have to choose whether or not she will join the resistance. At least not tomorrow.