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“There you are!”
Olteca gets ready for a chase or a fight, but to his surprise Hiromi and George just join him on the hill.
“Stars are beautiful,” George says.
“They’re prettier in the countryside,” Hiromi replies. Olteca scoffs.
“You really are a country bumpkin.”
“We could take you back to your eternal cell right now if we wanted,” George argues, that obnoxious know it all grin on his face. Olteca just scoffs again. Like he’s stupid enough to not realize the scientist does it on purpose.
Not that he’s complaining. Sometimes he wonders if he might lose his mind in there. Escape is how he keeps his mind sharp, when the thoughts begin to consume him and words like traumatized and lonely and guilty might almost describe him.
…Emphasis on almost.
He’s not going to become some pathetic sob story of a redemption like Aguilera or Julio. He’s not some victim who lost his way or trusted the wrong people .
No, he was finally someone people listened to .
“Why is the other one here, anyways?” Olteca asks. “Isn’t he old as shit, still?”
“We fixed that,” George says. “Obviously.”
“Didn’t you cause it too?”
“Technically,” George says. “ D a d d y did that.”
“And more importantly,” Hiromi says. “George fixed it. Kind of. Part of the way.”
George continues to grin. Olteca should hate it, but despite himself he has a respect for the man. He’s batshit insane and a complete asshole but he genuinely is not stupid.
“I’ll take it,” George says.
“I still don’t know why you haven’t bothered with arresting me yet,” Olteca says.
“We’re looking at the stars,” Hiromi says, and oh, there is that bite under his pathetic goody two shoes exterior. Must be how George bagged him properly. The same as that clever arrow.
You aren’t a threat , he says without words.
Olteca would be offended, but it’s not untrue.
He doesn’t even know what his plan is, anymore.
“What constellations do you know?” George asks. Olteca stares.
“What?”
“Hiromi is great, and then he starts squinting ,” George says. “Calls them too vague. It’s not even an old man thing.”
“Like he said,” Hiromi says. “I’m not from a damn city.”
Olteca laughs.
“You can curse?” He asks.
“You call that f u c k i n g cursing?” George asks. Olteca rolls his eye, and he realizes Hiromi does the same.
“For the record,” Olteca says. “Yes, I do know plenty of constellations. But I—”
I always made my own. Stars only have patterns if we give them meaning. I don’t like taking what I was given. I—
“…nevermind,” Olteca says. “Forget it. This is asinine.”
“I mean,” George says. “You’re alternative is jail.”
“I’d prefer that.”
Silence.
“…I’d make my own.”
“What?” Hiromi asks. “Why?”
Olteca shrugs.
“Bored kid,” he says.
Lonely. Hurt.
“…It passed the time,” is what he says out loud. “Not that I could do it wherever I wanted.”
The other two nod as though it makes perfect sense. Maybe it does. Olteca doesn’t know. He doesn’t know why he can’t stop talking, because he looks up and maps the patterns of a broken bored child’s daydreams.
“That one’s the mega kraken—”
George laughs, and Olteca immediately lowers his hand and gets up.
“Forget it,” he says. “I’m leaving.”
A rustle, a clack!
And Olteca is attached to the rail nearby.
He curses internally.
“We can’t just let you go.”
To his surprise, when he’d turns he finds the hand over his new cuff is not George but Hiromi. Too close, not planned, he…
“Why not?” He asks. “Want to punish me yourself?”
Hiromi rushes back, and George keeps laughing. Oleteca sighs.
“Guess I’m caught again,” he says. “Whatever shall I do?”
“Unclear,” George says. “Now tell me about the Kraken and I may shorten your sentence again.”
Olteca stares back.
“No,” he says.
“Okay then,” Hiromi says. “We’ll go home and get back to our date.”
Do… do they intend to leave him here? Are they stupid?
“Whatever you want,” Olteca drawls. George laughs.
“Oh you silly squid,” he says. “We’re taking you with us.”
…What?