Page 53 of Omega’s Fealty

I have to go out.

The arm is fine. Better than fine, given who stitched it. I took the staples out ten days ago with a pair of pliers from the crate and a lot of swearing. What’s under the gauze now is a fat pink line front and back that pulls when I lift anything.

I can make a fist. I can hold a can. If I had to hit somebody with it, I’d regret it, but I could.

The monotonous food, I could manage. It’s everything else that I can’t.

Four walls of concrete. No window. A vent I can’t see the sky through. I’ve been in worse places for longer and it never bothered me. I sat on a folding chair in a garage for three months in front of four crates and never once wondered what was outside the door.

I can’t do it now. I don’t know what changed.

Yes I do.

It’s Aurelio. I can’t lock myself away knowing that he exists in this world and I’m not out there with him.

I scroll through my phone while I chew.

The news first, because that’s the habit now. Wake up, piss in the bucket, check if anything has happened to him.

Nothing has. Or nothing they’ll say.

The story hasn’t changed. There’s a clip from some breakfast show doing the rounds, two anchors on a couch, and behind them a still from the last statement he gave. He’s wearing what I’ve started to think of as his uniform: a dark suit, usually navy with medals and a sash.

And of course, the new addition: a collar buttoned right up under his jaw. There have been three statements now, and every one of them pre-recorded and every one of them in the collar.

“—and again, no mention of the abduction itself,” the woman anchor is saying. “Not the kidnapping, not the suspect, not the rescue. Three interviews and all he’ll talk about is trade agreements.”

“Well, and the palace has been clear about that,” the man says. “The prince is not ready to speak publicly about what happened to him. He’s being supported privately, he’s receiving the best care, and they’re asking that his privacy be respected while he recovers. I think we have to take that at face value.”

“Do we?”

“I think we do.”

“I think he was taken off an American street and kept in a shipping container by a man who’s now at the bottom of the Chicago River. It’s a bit weird that he’s barely said a thing about it. That’s all I’m saying.”

The man laughs like she’s said something a little off-color and they go to weather.

I run it back and watch the still of Aurelio behind them for a while. It’s small on this screen. I can’t make out the expression in his eyes very well. I can see the collar.

I don’t know what to make of it. That’s the thing that’s eating me. He’s alive. He’s standing. He’s talking, sort of.

I don’t know what is going through his mind. I’ve carefully listened to every single word in every single statement. I know he can’t speak to me directly, but I thought maybe he’d try something coded.

Talk about the banks. Or something. Anything that tells me that the whole thing that happened with us wasn’t just some insane fever dream.

But then maybe he thinks I’m dead. Dead men don’t get updates.

I finish the cereal and lick my fingers and pick the dust out of the bottom of the bowl. Then I open the forum.

That’s the other habit.

I found it the second week, off the FREE MONTEVERRA site. You need an account. I’ve got three now.

None of them are “me.” One persona’s a college kid in Michigan who got interested after the news. One’s a retired guy who likes maps. One doesn’t post, it just reads. I built them slow.

I don’t know what I’m building them for. That’s a lie too. I’m building them because these are his people, or the nearest thing he’s got to people, and somebody out here needs to know what’s going on in that country, and it isn’t going to be the guy who’s never voted.

First thing I learned: they don’t like him.