Tricincinatti/New Columbus - 29 May 2102
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Judas’ Kiss
Herod Ecleates had long considered himself a basically honest and good man. He had worked hard in school, been kind to his friends, and gone into a career in which he strived for the protection and betterment of all mankind.
Herod Ecleates’ friends, on the other hand had long considered him untrustworthy and probably evil. He had largely been carried through compulsory schooling by the intellect of his friends, shared with him by virtue of Coronation, his friends were endlessly kind toward him and he in turn taunted and teased them, and when they finally parted ways in life, he went on to work for a shadow organization that none of them felt particularly fond of.
Whether or not the young man was actually good by any concrete metric, his father loved and respected him anyway, and to Herod, that was what mattered most now. With Horace Ecleates hospitalized after a downturn in the condition of his rare cancer, Herod was finding himself especially concerned with his father’s thoughts and feelings as of late. He was visiting the withering man nearly every night after work, taking the bullet train from Columbus to Tricincinnati after clocking out and taking the return train sometime well after midnight each time.
Horace Ecleates was being cared for in a room on the top floor of the St Amadeus Memorial Hospital, and when Herod visited he would spend much of his time standing by the window, looking out over the megalopolitan skyline while he talked with his father. One time Horace questioned Herod about it, asking why his son couldn’t keep up eye contact with him while they were talking. Herod had claimed he simply found the view fascinating, as the forty-eighth story bay windows allowed quite the broad and impressive view of the massive city, but the truth was he could hardly stand to look at his father in his state of continuous decay.
On one particular evening late in May of 2102, Herod left work a little late, and missed the train he would usually catch. As efficient as the national rail was, this particular line didn’t have much commuter traffic at this hour, so the following outbound train wouldn’t come for nearly an hour. Herod spent that time sitting on a bench in the train station, thinking about his father’s work at CORC and an issue the man had been pressing with him every visit as of late: his childhood friend, Asaph Ananke Sherman. The Sherman clan had, for four generations now, possessed rogue nodes that existed outside the known parameters of other nodes. Asaph’s father’s personal node, Azazel, had remained individual during the nodal convergence throughout the sixty days of fire, and both Azazel and Asaph’s node Azrael continued to exist in the shape of the original nodes during the time of coronation.
One thing CORC and ANET could agree on— despite their largely differing core missions— was that the existence of rogue, categorically different nodes was a volatile unknown factor at all times, and things would be safer and more predictable if such nodes were... eliminated. Recently, Horace would not shut up to Herod about the need to “solve that problem” in reference to Azrael and Asaph, and Herod did not like what we thought his father was implying as a solution. The whole thing was actually driving him so mad that he found himself considering not going to visit the man at all this night, with the missed train offering him an easy out. In the end, he stewed on that decision so long that the following train arrived on the platform and made up his mind for him.
The train ride was uneventful and Herod kept his mind clear by focusing on the landscapes whipping past outside the windows. He arrived at the hospital and made his way along the corridors and up the elevator and along more corridors until he reached his father’s wing. He was going to continue on to his father’s room but a nurse at the reception desk for the wing called him over.
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“Mr. Ecleates?”
“Herod, please. What is it?”
“Well, there’s no good way to put this, but your father’s doctors have given him a timeline.” ”A timeline? What do you mean?” Herod had a suspicion, and he didn’t know how he felt about it.
“For the end. The cancer has reached a point where treatment is no longer effective, and his condition is going to begin declining rapidly. As you’re essentially his caretaker at this point, I’ll tell you we gave him the information on all his options; Assisted Rest, Induced Coma, Stop Treatment, and he chose the latter. He said he wants to drop the pain meds too, so we’re weaning him off but we’ll keep them ready in case he decides he likes the comfort.”
“That’s… A lot. You know how he is with telling me what the doctors said so I appreciate the heads up. I’m going to go talk to him now,” Herod said, strangely not struggling to keep his composure.
“Yes, of course,” the nurse saw him off with a fittingly grim but empathetic smile as he turned heel and started down the hall.
Herod expected his father to downplay his condition to the bitter end as he always had, so the conversation that unfolded the moment he opened his father’s door came as something of a shock. Before he could even say hello, the old man was talking.
“I’m going to die, boy. And there’s something I need to tell you so you might finally understand what I have been saying about those rogue nodes. You know Jude died two weeks ago?”
Herod absolutely did not know this, though the news was hardly shocking considering the man had been drinking himself to sleep for what seemed like decades now. In any case, there was no time to remark on it as his father continued talking.
“Well, there’s something I never told you, that Jude told me once after a few too many at the bar back in the early days of the Commission. The media spun it like he saved the world, and he never made any effort to set the record straight (and who would, in his shoes?), but the truth was that the node was calling the shots. The way Jude told it, Azazel possessed his body and used him like a puppet to fight against the EOKAJ. Jude says he had absolutely no control in the matter. Even said he sobbed and apologized to the EOKAJ after she fell and Azazel released him— so pathetic.
“So you see, boy? That’s what these rogue nodes are capable of. You can’t just rely on your schooldays friend to keep the thing in check, it could simply take the reins whenever it felt like it, and it could have just as much or more power as the EOKAJ ever did.”
Horace paused to let his son mull that over for a moment, then continued, “Azazel vanished when Jude died. As we ought to have expected based on his parents. That all but confirms that Azrael would do the same if… circumstances were replicated.”
“So what? I should kill a lifelong friend before his guardian angel beats me to it?”
“Yes, exactly!” crowed the old man, and then laughed, which rapidly turned to coughing, which became a fit that seemed like it might not stop.
Herod was disgusted. He left the room, passing two nurses in the doorway who were doubtless rushing to his father’s bedside. Herod couldn’t help but hope the fit killed him.
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Herod had a restless night. He had difficulty falling asleep, unable to stop thinking about Jude’s death, and his apparent secret truth. When sleep finally did come to him, he dreamed of Asaph being possessed by Azrael, and the boy unwittingly causing Herod’s own Crown to somehow awaken and take control of him. And then Edith was there, poor missing Edith, looking like she did at thirteen, and Azrael caused her Crown to take control of her too.
Herod awoke sweating and gasping for air. The possession in his dreams had felt like suffocating, so palpably it alone seemed to be what had woken him. He checked his phone and saw a missed call and a voicemail from the hospital. Herod hardly needed to listen to it to know what it said. The coughing fit really had finished him off.
It made him sick to do it, but he suddenly felt so certain that his father was right. Herod made a few calls to certain ANET officers, and the thing was arranged. All there was left to do was wait.
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