Mia couldn’t concentrate. She pushed her book back with a sigh and thought she might as well go join the protest at the courthouse downtown. She looked around the computer lab at her small college and suddenly realized the room was almost empty. She guessed the other students had gone to the protest.

The crowds had been growing with each passing day, and there was still no word about Jesus or his location. The government denied holding him, but everyone knew he had been grabbed while giving a speech at CNM’s Little Theater.

Mia checked her phone for the fifth time in five minutes in case Jesus had posted to one of his social media sites. But there was nothing new. Hastily, she stuffed her unfinished English paper into her backpack, hitched the pack over her shoulder, and started at a trot toward the bus stop on University Blvd.

She rounded the corner just as the bus pulled up. Relieved, she scuttled up the steps, tugging out her school ID to show the driver. He glanced at it and turned back to his mirror as the bus jolted into the lane on its way down to Central.

The driver looked back when Mia’s text alert, “hey there,” chirped from her phone, and Mia giggled. For some reason, most people found the sound irritating, but she thought it was cheerful and always laughed at the sour looks she received.

Ck out Instagram!! 🙂 was on the screen.

Mia opened the app and went straight to Courtney’s page. Her jaw dropped. The photo Courtney had posted was from the courthouse on 4th Street downtown. The crowd was bigger than it had been before. But it wasn’t the crowd that caught her gaze and held her attention.

It was Jesus standing right in the middle of it.

He was surrounded by the usual banners and signs from the protests: WHERE IS JESUS CHRIST? THE TRUTH WILL SET HIM FREE!! LET JESUS GO, and many others. But there was Jesus himself, standing at the center of a long banner with his name on it, pressed into the midst of the protesters. Cell phones were snapping selfies all around him.

Mia stood up and clutched at the seat as she swayed. She edged her way to the front of the bus, ready to run the second the doors opened.

Was Jesus free?

The most popular rumor was that after he disappeared from the theater at CNM, he had been brought down to the courthouse and hidden in some cells underneath. Today was day eight since anyone had seen or heard from him. Some people said he had been smuggled from Albuquerque to the new American capital, Saint Louis. Others thought he must be in Israel somewhere. Some claimed he had gone back to Heaven.

Mia remembered her astonishment as she flipped between Fox News, CNN, and every other channel that had switched to emergency broadcasting when he descended toward earth with a large group of people a month earlier.

But the students, like most people, believed the government was hiding him and lying about it.

Mia was indignant. She had been in the theater the last time anyone admitted seeing Jesus. She had seen the black cars racing off with him and the shocked reaction of the students and teachers who had gathered to hear him. She remembered Jesus’ words, his casual attire, and his friendly air inside the theater.

She remembered the shock of seeing him, hearing him, and realizing he had returned to earth at all. It wasn’t that she had thought his return was a fairy tale. Her abuela had been certain of it when she taught Mia to pray as a child, after Mia came to live with her when her madre died. It was just that she hadn’t expected him to look like a man.

But what was he supposed to look like, she thought? Maybe have a halo and a heart outside his body?

Mia zoomed in on the photo. She could see feet underneath the large banner, and none of them had boots like the ones Jesus was wearing the day he disappeared. Jesus was grinning at the camera, his beard and neat mustache unmistakable, wedged in among the others holding the banner.

For half a second, she wondered if it was fake. Then she saw the hand. She looked closer. Yes. She could see the scar on the outside of the hand grasping the top of the homemade banner, just as she had seen on his hands when he stood before them that day at CNM.

There were two more photos of Courtney with the three others holding the sign, but in those photos, the fifth person, Jesus, was gone.

Quickly, Mia shared the first photo to her own page and reposted it on Facebook and X.

JESUS, she tapped, and posted it before getting up to transfer to her next bus.

She could hear the roar of the crowd even as she climbed down, three blocks from the protest. They were shouting something in unison.

“Set Jesus free! Set Jesus free! Set Jesus free!”

She rushed to join in. But why were they shouting to set him free if he was in their midst?

She scanned the crowd for her friends, especially Courtney.

She caught a glimpse of the banner near the street on Lomas, and she tried to hurry through the crowd. It was hard to do. She shoved and elbowed as best she could. People seemed agitated but fairly tolerant, and eventually they parted enough to let her through.

“Have you seen Jesus?” she said as she jostled her way forward.

“No,” people replied.

She had just reached Courtney’s side when there was a collective gasp from the crowd. Mia looked left and right.

“What is it?”

Phones began chirping all around her.

Someone held his up, and the words left her breathless. She recognized the voice of Raj, one of Jesus’ ambassadors. The short message repeated three times before the phone fell silent.

“Everyone remain calm. All military units, report to base.”

The crowd began to disperse. Mia checked her phone one more time for any word from Jesus.

There, on the Jesus Speaks Online website, was a very short message.

MY FRIENDS. BE READY.