02-10-2020, 05:45 PM
Jude’s three-pointers evoked another wince from Near, whose head was still throbby and noise-sensitive. He cast a glance toward the cup, the pillar of steam snaking upwards from it. Didn’t take it. Didn’t quite trust it. Less because Jude had made it (although that probably should have put it in a category of suspicion), but because he still wasn’t sure he trusted tea as a concept.
The whole Armageddon thing was feeling shady, too.
“Sounds like you’ve already got a plan,” he said, carefully neutral. So he had to have some notion of what stopping it entailed without any brilliant Courtland plan. Live through the end of the world or die stopping it. Maybe. The thought of the kid heroically throwing himself in front of a supernatural bulldozer to save the world was troubling, less because he was bothered by the idea of a universe minus one Jude ... (was there a last name?), but because the notion of anyone adopting this kid as some kind of martyr/savior figure rubbed him the wrong way. Like if he’d known Jesus was kind of a jackass but still had to listen to everyone being grateful he’d died for their sins.
Eleven o’clock, January 3rd. Next year? Last year? Every year? He scrolled down the wall of text on the screen, found a little superscript 11, read “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core,” and didn’t feel any more enlightened than he had a second ago, except that “perishing” and “woe” all clicked with his evening so far. Even assuming he was going in the right direction, assuming that there were breadcrumbs to be followed and not just random crazy, so what? Did that make Jude “them?” Jude’s “them” them? Near? Courtland?
“Which town?” he asked, neither a yes nor a no.
The whole Armageddon thing was feeling shady, too.
“Sounds like you’ve already got a plan,” he said, carefully neutral. So he had to have some notion of what stopping it entailed without any brilliant Courtland plan. Live through the end of the world or die stopping it. Maybe. The thought of the kid heroically throwing himself in front of a supernatural bulldozer to save the world was troubling, less because he was bothered by the idea of a universe minus one Jude ... (was there a last name?), but because the notion of anyone adopting this kid as some kind of martyr/savior figure rubbed him the wrong way. Like if he’d known Jesus was kind of a jackass but still had to listen to everyone being grateful he’d died for their sins.
Eleven o’clock, January 3rd. Next year? Last year? Every year? He scrolled down the wall of text on the screen, found a little superscript 11, read “Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core,” and didn’t feel any more enlightened than he had a second ago, except that “perishing” and “woe” all clicked with his evening so far. Even assuming he was going in the right direction, assuming that there were breadcrumbs to be followed and not just random crazy, so what? Did that make Jude “them?” Jude’s “them” them? Near? Courtland?
“Which town?” he asked, neither a yes nor a no.