The Depths

[Near]

You don't make plans for what you're going to do after the rapture.

The thing is, now that Jude is here in the apartment, Near has to figure out the What Next. And of course he hasn't really thought that far -- at least not in any way more practical than the occasional mind's eye directing of grandiose wish-fulfilment scenes: tying him to chairs with extension cords, primal-screaming invectives, whipping out a surprise gun, the kind of imaginary venting that offers fleeting satisfaction but that, when faced with the genuine article, feels cringingly sophomoric.

Anyway Jude may make a convenient surrogate for the source of all problems, but he isn't really the point. It's just the only thing Near is sure of, that Jude is an essential piece of some puzzle he's been able to put off starting for a long time because he knew there was that piece missing. Now he has it.

"I thought I might call your friends if I ever saw you again. But I don't want to give them the satisfaction. Not that you look very worried about it. Here." He crosses back into the living room and hands over a second glass of tap-cool water.

[Jude]

Their fingers brush as Jude takes the glass, and he is uncomfortably aware of it. Water in hand, he does slouch now, leaning back into the couch and crossing an ankle over his knee. "Bully for you," he says sourly at the unpleasant joke that Near would call his sister. "They would be ever so grateful." Yes, better, back to the familiar state of low-grade irritation, though now it is covering up the newly arisen disquiet. Near has managed to turn the faucet on Jude's mouth though, and so instead of speaking two sentences and staring like a hungry eel, he keeps talking.

"How would you know how worried I am? You don't know how long I've been watching you." That's not true. Maybe Near was watching Jude watch him. Near is the kind of person weird enough to do that. But Jude injects confidence into his voice all the same.

He looks at the narrow hallway that probably leads to the bedroom and bathroom and asks, "Didn't get another dog?" He vaguely remembers the one that ran off in the heat of the car crash. Can't remember the breed though. Was it some rat-catching kind of dog? Terrier? He doesn't remember a great deal of hair. No long, loyal face. No dumb, soulful eyes. Maybe he is just imagining the Near-version of a dog, yipping and ankle-biting.

[Near]

"Okay." An exhale, all faux concession to Jude's unfathomable mental state. So mysterious! So impenetrable! No one could possibly understand! "You're extremely worried I'll turn you in to your to your evil fucking family. That's why you followed me back to my apartment, right? Always let them take you to a second location, I've heard that's good life advice."

He hefts himself into a chair at a diagonal from the sofa; it's all concave plastic and so spindle-legged it looks like it could buckle beneath the weight of any substantive sitter but somehow manages to maintain its dignity as Near settles with his own legs open, leaned forward, somewhere between at-home casual and an animal with no real defenses trying to make itself look bigger than it is.

He follows Jude's line of sight to the hallway. "That wasn't my dog," he says.

Not technically.

"I don't like dogs."

He doesn't.

"I stole her, put her in the back of a car, and drove across state lines with her because I was pissed off that her worthless junkie owner" -- his boyfriend, sort of, but he decides to skip that part -- "was being a worthless junkie. Which was stupid, I know. Thinking he'd be anything else, I mean. Maybe taking the dog, too." At this point, he feels curiously removed from the whole saga of Isa and Lew, like he's describing the plot of a movie he watched once.

"But don't worry," -- because Jude doesn't look worried about it in the least, but what does Near know? -- "I made it up to him when I got back."

[Jude]

To keep from snapping back, Jude drinks his water. He drinks it slowly, slow sip after slow sip, his Adam's apple bobbing. Yes, he is extremely worried Near will turn him in to his evil fucking family. He is worried because the fate of seven billion people or so hangs in the balance. He is conscious that for several billions of that seven billion, horrible things are happening anyways, but perhaps one day, a hundred or so years from now, the survivors can make something of the world. Jude is trying to keep the car that is fate from taking the wrong exit, the final exit, and yes, that worries him.

It's worried him more over time, actually. Sheltered as he was, Jude's interactions with the average American were limited. He did not understand how different he was; nor did he grasp the stakes. In the New World, his place was secured. It is not as though there are more than two walkie-talkies for these diabolical alien wavelengths; whatever nightmares will descend, he would have at least some exemption. He wasn't worried for himself, and his worry for humanity was more abstract. Slowly, it has become tangible. What will happen to the nice Southwest Airlines check-in lady at the Miami airport? What will happen to the ballerinas of the New York City Ballet company? What will happen to the Portland rose garden?

What will happen to Near?

As Near tells him a stupid fucking story about the stupid dog neither of them care about, Jude thinks about this. (First he thinks about pouring the remaining water onto Near's head.) Stupid, thinking he'd be anything else. Jude becomes offended on the junkie's behalf.

"Did you." Jude doesn't want to know, but he does know that he is expected to produce a series of words that isn't 'I don't care'. He knows enough to guess the junkie was a boyfriend, because he knows Near is an only child. Terribly annoying man. Whatever Juliet did to him, it was either too much or not enough.

[Near]

Stupid, too, he means, thinking -- or not even thinking, just pretending, and then not even pretending, just acting like, leaving room for the possibility that --  Jude is going to be anything except Jude.

Because it has crossed Near's mind, in the course of his poring over and over these things, that the impression he developed of Jude during their brief, disastrous time together might be inaccurate, that his expectations could be tainted by the bizarre circumstances of their meeting. Memory is a funny thing, and, hell, even if his memory is perfect, a first impression isn't anything but a first impression. Of course he knows that the people he chats with once at the bar, who present themselves as sad or cocky or flirtatious or vulnerable, might become anything else when they go home.

So far he's seen nothing to suggest that he has misremembered or misread Jude.

"If you don't care, don't ask." Like he can't tell if someone is too bored to even feign interest.  "What have you gotten done?" In his aimless quest to save the world, that is.

[Jude]

They circle one another, anchored by each other's gravity, kept in orbit by their opposition. Near cannot imagine that he has misjudged Jude, and Jude cannot imagine -- what can't he imagine? No, the failure with Jude is not imagination. It's too much imagination. If Near can see clearly, Jude can't remember to duck to not hit his head on a low doorway. He keeps misjudging the distance, or forgetting this doorway only has five and a half feet of clearance. Over and over he is surprised.

(But then, when he regards Near in equal measure to what he's offered, Near is displeased with that too. Is there no satisfaction?)

He blinks at the question. His pride begs him to conjure a full-bodied answer, fleshy and vibrant. Instead he submits, "Not much," likely to elicit scoffing and complaints.

The process itself is tedious. Jude did not walk out with the little black book of apocalypse supporters. He came to The Reaches first because he had been there often, because Courtland Farr's name and face were the strongest impressions in his mind. From there he has had to balance remembering, researching, and scuttling around. Names, faces, professional associations -- cities, neighborhoods, houses, work schedules, the probability of an allegiance versus a betrayal. Money. Begging for money. Attempting to explain that the apocalypse is terrible to people who he once helped convince it was the best possible relief from worse things. Explaining and then running.

Small relief that the world is dying slowly, he supposes. If he plays keep-away for the rest of his (un?)natural life, that probably also solves the problem.

"I've convinced a few people. But it's hard to know who really believes." He shrugs. "And Juliet is around, somewhere. I have to stay ahead of her."

He still feels the pull of her, the whisper of her through the shadows. Sometimes there's nothing, and other times, it is like he is being pulled down, down, down into quicksand, where she's waiting at the bottom.

[Near]

Near fixes an unimpressed stare on Jude's face and nods a slow, lip-gnawing acknowledgement of everything he's accomplished so far.

Convinced a few people.

Like he's Tinkerbell. Like if enough of the audience claps their hands, the sheer force of their collective belief will bring about a miracle.

(Hell, maybe that's a fact.)

Still, Near -- not being versed in the obscure field of magical mindvibes -- figures it's doubtful that anything will come of convincing a few people. Finds himself wondering to what end anyone is being convinced of anything.

But Jude doesn't have an end, does he? Not a real one. He didn't then, he wanted dead Courtland to figure it out. He doesn't now. He's just running around aimlessly, glancing over his shoulder. Doesn't matter.

"Let's get rid of them," Near says. Because he does have an end. A very specific one that has nothing to do with impending apocalypses and everything to do with erasing Jude's cult buddies or whatever the fuck they are off the face of the earth, and to save his life he hasn't been able to remove Jude from any sketched-out picture of getting it accomplished.

[Jude]

Jude is Tinkerbell-adjacent. It's the start-up boy energy, and start-up boys are just secular prophets. The boys in Silicon Valley use pitch decks to convert belief into venture capital. Jude has been part of something more elaborate, a rapid and strategic infiltration into spheres of science, politics, and religion. Unsurprisingly, money congeals in all of these higher echelons. Investments were made. There was even the hope the federal government  could offer its bi-partisan support, sooner or later. Jude skedaddled before that level of execution, but it was there. Belief matters.

More than that, there is something metaphysical to it. The heat generated by belief cannot melt an ice cube, and yet Jude uses belief to reverse entropy.

"Hah!" This must be a joke. Jude sits up a little taller, bouncing up like an exclamation point with the energy of his amusement. He looks at Near expectantly, waiting for the follow-up.

His expression waivers. "Wait. Are you... serious?" Another "Hah!" comes out, but this one is an off-brand imitation of the first.

Jude can imagine a lot of things, but he has not imagined an actual confrontation. Once again, Near has imagined something entirely beyond him.

[Near]

Instant unbridled enthusiasm for the proposition would be a neat surprise, but Near hasn't waded into this swamp expecting much. If anything, he's braced for instant unbridled refusal. After all, the people he's talking about are Jude's friends? Family? A derisive "hah" isn't promising, but it's not the "fuck no" that would lead to him to making the contact to inform said people where their runaway asshat is, so he decides "hah" counts as obnoxious but more or less positive.

From what he has gathered, Jude was previously regarded as some sort of tool for some sort of nefarious purpose, and so he had no need for any real direction or strategy of his own. Based on their conversation so far, he hasn't managed to develop any strategy or direction in the interim. Ostensibly, though, he has knowledge and some kind of value (at The Reaches he demonstrated that he can do [i]something[.i], though it was never abundantly clear what that something was ...). And that is why he has been brought here to Near's crappy apartment, to sit on Near's budget couch and sip Near's tapwater. Near is all set for direction. What he needs is knowledge and a tool.

"Why not?" he asks back, still as serious as before. He really wants to know: why not? What are the major obstacles to accomplishing this? If it turns out they're immortal, bulletproof, fireproof, prosecution-proof (no, he hasn't nailed anything specific down yet) maybe he'll sigh and change his mind. Otherwise, what's to keep him from trying?

[Jude]

Yes, these are Jude's friends and family -- or, they were. When Jude first left, decided against the idea that he should bring about this alternate end of the world, it was felt less as a turning against his family than turning against this fate. On an intellectual level, he recognized they were the same thing, but on an emotional level, he feared his people more than he dislike them. A year on the run has stirred up some resentment, the myriad inconveniences of nomadic life flicking sand into Jude's oysters. Pearls of anger have flecked around thin motel walls and uncomfortable bus seats.

But it seems revenge enough if he can unravel what he has spent years helping to form. It is as violent as slashing car tires, and no more. What Near is saying is much, much more serious.

"You want me to fight?!" There are surely other considerations -- such as Jude not knowing the limits of his own power, whether he is immortal, bulletproof, fireproof, or hundred proof. But first and foremost he is a magician, a pitch man, and now Near is talking action-movie in his model Ikea room apartment. No? No!

"Near." There is a small amount of water left in the glass on the table. Jude blinks rapidly, swallows around a dry mouth. "I mean -- that's insane."