Chapter One
The weathered farmhouse sat atop the small hill, overlooking Soldier’s Retreat like a sentry protecting the innocents in his charge. The air was chilly, the late fall weather rapidly changing into winter as Belleza Sutil’s orbital tilt moved the valley away from its sun. Clouds rolled overhead, shielding the valley from the dwindling sunlight; what little light remained cast long shadows throughout the valley. A rising, misting fog began to partially obscure the valley the farmhouse stood over, offering some semblance of privacy in the quiet and secluded dale.
Lights were on inside the large home, decorative lights, as the valley and planet as a whole prepared for the seasonal festivities. Smoke rose lazily from the top of the home’s weathered stone chimney, drifting off to the east as gusts of wind passed through the valley. Firebugs danced throughout the valley, most of the miniscule insects gathered in the small grove behind the farmhouse, their incandescent lighting flashing a brief yet brilliant call for mates. Bats, imported more than a millennium before, swooped through the darkening sky to hunt the firebugs. Throughout the valley, the circle of life continued unabated as it had since time immemorial.
Inside the house, a large family gathered to celebrate All Gallow’s Eve, the Founding holiday of the Dominion of Man. In the midst of this joyous family sat a solitary young man. His hands were sweaty, and his gaze was nervously flitting across the room, seeking each time the face of his love. She would catch his gaze, offer a tentative smile and continue talking to his mother.
Each smile caused his heart to leap, every small look was worth more to him than a pile of diamonds. He loved her with all his heart and always would. He knew this with every single ounce of his being.
So what was stopping him from asking her the most important question of all?
A child tottered into the room, precariously balanced as he moved around the furniture, looking for someone he knew. The child spotted a familiar face and squealed happily, stumbling forward. The young man smiled and reached for his nephew.
“How’s my little guy doing?” Gabriel asked as he picked up the squirming child. The boy giggled as Gabriel turned him upside down for a moment before righting him. “Oops. Forgot which end is up. Don’t tell your father, but I like you more than him.”
“I heard that,” Gabriel’s oldest brother called out. Gabriel smiled as Kevin, the eldest Espinoza sibling, stuck his head through the doorway.
“You were supposed to.”
“So did you ask her yet?”
“No,” Gabriel admitted, his voice sheepish. Kevin snorted.
“Coward.”
“No, I’m going to...” Gabriel’s voice trailed off with a shrug of his large shoulders. “Soon.”
“Right.”
“I am!”
“Right.”
“What?” Andrew asked as he slid past his brother and into the room. Gabriel rolled his eyes. “You guys arguing about who is smarter again?”
“We were debating what it’s like being the least loved,” Kevin answered. “Then we figured you’d show up and tell us.”
“Ooh, that hurt,” Andrew said as he dramatically grabbed his chest. “Being the middle child is horrible, and it doth pain this heart of mine to hear the sheer arrogance of the lesser siblings attempting to taunt the indomitable me.”
“Wait...what?” Gabriel asked. He passed his nephew off to Kevin, who poked his nose into his son’s cheek. The boy giggled and tried to squirm out of his grasp.
“See?” Kevin smiled. “You may be mom’s baby, but you’re still the stupid one.”
“Have you asked her yet?” Andrew queried, nodding to where Gabriel’s longtime girlfriend was talking to their mother.
“I’m going to!”
“If you don’t, I will,” Andrew teased. “She’s gorgeous, and since you’re my younger brother, I figure I’ve got a five percent chance at her saying yes, genetically speaking. Since, you know, I’m the older, more experienced one who happens to not have kids or a wife yet.”
“And the worlds of man rejoiced,” Kevin said with a straight face. Gabriel laughed.
“Okay, I’m going to do it,” he announced and stood up.
“What, right now?” Kevin asked, shock and surprise in his voice.
“Yeah, why not?” Gabriel looked at him.
“She’s talking to Mom!” Andrew stated. “You’ll never get a moment of peace if you do it in front of her.”
“You won’t even get to ask,” Kevin amended. “Mom’ll ask you about your plans, then hers, next thing you know it’s time for her to leave and you still haven’t asked her yet.”
“Crap.”
“Right. If I were you, I’d get her out on the patio,” Andrew suggested. “Kevin hides in the bushes, then pops out and scares the hell out of her when you get down on one knee.”
“Dack!” Gabriel coughed, trying and failing not to laugh. “Can’t Kevin just record it or something so we can capture stills from it later?”
“You are not my brother,” Andrew sniffed and walked from the room. A moment later Gabriel heard him begin talking to their mother. “So tell me about Delores’ new dog, Mom.”
“What a champ, taking one for the team like that,” Kevin said, a mournful look on his face. He pulled a small device from his pocket and showed it to his youngest brother. “There goes a brave man. I’ve got the digi. Now go ask her. I’ll try to stay inconspicuous.”
“Thanks,” Gabriel said with heartfelt gratitude. He wandered into the other room where he spotted Sophie smiling in amusement. Her blue eyes twinkled in the bright lights. He motioned for her to follow him, and she did, drink in hand.
The air had cooled down considerably and Gabriel began to wonder if his plan was such a smart one. Despite the lights from the house, the nighttime sky above was filled with stars. The planet’s two moons drifted off to the northeast, both waning and reflecting little light onto the valley. The timing couldn’t be better.
Then what was stopping him?
“Hey sexy man,” Sophie said as she came out onto the porch. Gabriel looked back over his shoulder and smiled.
“Still not sure what you see in me,” he joked. She grinned.
“If you’re going to drag a girl out into the cold, I wonder sometimes too.”
“Sophie...” he stopped and looked down at his feet. What is wrong with me? he wondered. He tried again. “You know you’re my best friend, right?”
“Well, I hope so,” she said, her expression confused.
“And I love you...” he continued, flustered.
“Are you breaking up with me?” she asked, horrified. Gabriel began to frantically shake his head.
“What? No! God no! No way!”
“Okay, sorry, that just...phew. Okay, so what did you want to say?”
“Well...” he rubbed his face. “This was supposed to be easy.” He dropped to one knee. “I suck at romanticism.”
“Oh my God...”
“Sophie Cardenas, will you be with me now, and forever? Will you honor me by–”
“Oh my God, oh my God...”
“Sophie? Are you going to let me finish?”
“Sorry, go...oh my God!”
“–by becoming my wife?”
“Oh oh oh oh wow. Oh wow. Wow.”
“Is that a yes?”
“Huh? Oh, oh yes! Yes!” she pulled him to his feet and hugged him fiercely. In the house, loud cheering exploded suddenly as the entire family celebrated. Gabriel smiled and tried to reach into his pocket to retrieve the ring.
“Do you want your ring?” he asked her. She let go of him, and he managed to open the small box.
“Oh...oh jeez. I think I’m going to cry,” she whispered as he slipped the ring onto her finger.
“It’s okay,” he said, unsure what to do next. He glanced back to the windows and saw Kevin standing there, digicam in hand, recording everything. The rest of the family was gathered as well, watching, smiling, waiting. “I didn’t think you’d say yes.”
“What? Really?” she laughed and threw her head back. “Never! I’ve been waiting for this since we were kids.”
He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her close.
“I love you,” he whispered into her ear as he leaned close. “Nothing in this universe can stop that.”
At that moment, for Gabriel Espinoza, life was perfect in every way.
* * *
The first thing Gabriel noticed about the office was it was stiflingly hot, almost unbearable despite the relative warmth outside the building. The heat made his head swim and sucked all vestiges of energy from his being. It felt as though a vampire had taken his soul out through the pores in his skin. He mentally complained as he checked in with the receptionist at the front counter.
“Espinoza, Gabriel,” he told the receptionist as he placed his elbows upon the countertop. The heavyset woman ignored him as she continued to type away on her datapad. Gabriel waited patiently for two long minutes before she looked up from the datapad, a strange mixture of exhaustion and disgust on her face.
“Gene test?” she asked in the bored tone of someone who had asked the simple question too many times. Gabriel nodded quickly, a flush of embarrassment coming over him as he thought back to his earlier complaints. The woman’s eyes flicked to the digital screen positioned high on the wall to Gabriel’s right and frowned. “Take a chit and wait your turn.”
“Uh, thanks,” Gabriel replied, but the woman had already focused her attention back to the book-sized datapad, rudely dismissing him. Raised to be polite, Gabriel did not comment upon the second-class citizen’s response. Gene tests were very common, dull and required by everyone who wanted to get married or have children in society. She probably gets thousands of people in here a week, he rationalized as he took a small blank chit from the dispenser and walked over to a chair opposite the wall-mounted screen. The chit began to flash in his hand before the number four appeared. He glanced back at the receptionist, who had turned away from the counter. Meager wages and carrying around the stigma of being what she was would make anybody grouchy, he rationalized. He decided not to mention her attitude to the doctors once his own testing was done. He sat down gingerly and looked around at the other occupants.
The room was mostly empty, which came as a surprise to the young man as he crossed his legs. A few men roughly his own age were holding chits with flashing red numbers in their hands, identical to the one he nervously clutched in his fingers. Each bore the same look of all Perfects on the planet of Belleza Sutil just before a gene test: aloof, jaded and a subtle fear hidden beneath their exterior. Gabriel knew the feeling all too well, though. He was hiding his own fear of failing the test, a test one could neither prepare nor study for. Passing would mean fulfillment and happiness, a chance at a real life.
Failing...he shuddered. He did not want to consider the possibilities that came with a failed genetic test. It was a life no Perfect wanted to contemplate.
Nobody wanted to find out after their initial birth test that their genetics were mutated and impure, Gabriel thought as he looked down at the chit in his hand. The flashing number was nowhere near the number displayed on the digital screen on the wall, so he settled back into the uncomfortable chair and resumed looking at the other men who were awaiting their own tests. As usual, his mind began to wander as he discretely investigated each man seated in the room.
Each was dressed as conservatively as possible, their pressed and orderly clothing decorated in varying shades of dark blue and grey. Their shoes were nicely polished and each sported a recent haircut, as though their appearance would help the outcome from their gene test. The majority, Gabriel included, were freshly shaven. He smiled inwardly at the idea the gene test was susceptible to the appearance of the individual.
It was an absurd idea, and yet Gabriel had cleaned himself up specifically for the test. He had purchased a new shirt and slacks with money saved up from odd jobs working on his family’s farm the previous three summers in a nervous anticipation leading up to the gene test. It had taken him over an hour, that very morning, to shower, shave and prepare himself for the test.
It should all be a formality anyway, he thought as a new number appeared on the screen. Every head in the room bowed down slightly to look at the number held in hand, and sheepish grins followed as men who had just looked at their chits glanced back up for the umpteenth time. Gabriel shook his head in embarrassment. He knew there was no way the number that appeared had been for him, and yet nerves drove him to look anyway.
One of the other men stood up suddenly and flashed Gabriel a nervous grin before walking to a small door leading further into the building. Gabriel watched the man’s back for a moment before he leaned forward and began to think back to statistics his father had recited to him that morning before he had left.
There had not been anyone born into his family with the incorrect genetic markers in over ten generations, dating back to the Time of Colonization, he recalled as he fingered the edge of the plastic chit he held in his hand. His family was filled with Perfects, those whose genetic makeup signified they were not susceptible to almost any inherent disease known to mankind. Cancer, cystic fibrosis and a recently mutated version of neurofibromatosis only belonged to those whose genetic markers were impure. Neither his parents nor his two older brothers had tested positive for genetic mutation, and Gabriel intended for it to stay that way. Even if the haircut and fresh shave did not help in the least.
Another number flashed onto the screen, and a thin man who looked the same age as Gabriel stood up. With a wary glance to the others waiting in the room, he walked to the door the previous man had entered moments before. The door opened and a woman in a nurse’s uniform led the thin man away into another part of the building. The door closed behind them with an ominous sounding click! Gabriel empathized for the man, yet found himself hoping his own number would never be called. Let them call someone else, he silently prayed.
“Absurd,” Gabriel muttered to himself as he looked back down at the chit in his hand. He was allowing his fears to get to him, something he didn’t do too often. The last time I was this afraid, he thought as he looked down to find his hands shaking slightly, I was convinced that monsters lived under my bed. He mentally chided himself and willed his hands still as a new number appeared on the digital screen. He glanced down at the chit held tightly in his fingers and was surprised; his number matched the one on the screen. He looked back up at the screen, where the numbers seemed to float off the display and swim before his eyes. He rechecked the number on the chit and shook his head. They still matched.
He looked around at the other men in the room, his expression dumbfounded as he stood slowly. For a terrifying instant he felt the urge to run, to bolt through the front door and out into the city. Nobody would know if he passed or failed. Nobody would have to know. He had passed the basic test as a three-year-old child, surely nothing had changed in the past twenty years.
The number on his chit continued to blink insistently as he stared at it numbly. Slowly, he walked to where the far door awaited, dread heightening with each ensuing footstep. He rubbed his nose with the plastic chit, scratching the skin painfully. He cast a glance at the others waiting for their numbers to appear.
“Guess it pays to make an appointment,” he tried joking as one of the doors opened. Though he had intended to put a good deal of humor into his tone, it came out flat, wrong. One of the other men offered him a weak smile in return, but that was all. No laughter, no broad smiles. The atmosphere in a funeral home is livelier than this, he thought as he reached the open door. Gabriel shifted his focus to the nurse standing in the doorway, her pretty face turned up in a small, humorless smile.
“Mr. Espinoza?” the nurse asked. Seeing Gabriel’s nod, she continued. “Right this way, sir. The test should only take fifteen minutes, and then you can go back to work if you want.”
“I called in for the day,” Gabriel replied as he followed the nurse through the doorway and down a sterile hallway. His footsteps echoed quietly in the tile-covered hall, and for the first time Gabriel felt a stabbing panic in his heart. He looked at the small, petite nurse in front of him and tried to allay his own fears. “Get many people nervous for the test?”
The nurse looked over her shoulder and smiled comfortingly at him.
“All the time,” she stated and turned left down another matching hallway. Gabriel had no idea how she kept track of which hallway she was traversing. “It’s a typical reaction to fear the unknown. I bet you’re also wondering what if the test results are faulty. Nothing to worry about or be ashamed to ask. We run three different versions, so we can spot and weed out the false-positives. With your indicated family history–” making a motion to the datapad in her hand, which Gabriel had not noticed before, “–we will triple-check the results, just in case. Don’t worry, Mr. Espinoza. Your history alone indicates you’ll be Perfect.”
Gabriel nodded, his heart hammering against the walls of his chest as they entered a small room. A plain, unadorned examination chair was situated in the middle of the room, surrounded by various medical devices he could only assume were for the testing process. The nurse motioned for him to sit in the chair as she set her datapad on one of the countertops lining the walls.
“Please have a seat,” she said as she tapped into her datapad. “I’ll take your vitals in a minute, then we can begin.”
Gabriel nodded, sat down heavily in the examination chair, and rested his hands on the armrests. His head relaxed against the soft padding behind him. He felt the chair beneath him mold and contort to better fit his frame. The tension began to ooze out of him slowly, though not completely. He half-closed his eyes and allowed the chair to help him calm down.
“Is the chair designed to help put a patient at ease?” he asked as his legs were raised ever-so-slightly to a more comfortable angle. He wiggled and felt the contours in the chair shift to match his gyrations. He smiled in spite of the situation. Sophie would love this thing, he thought, looking back towards the nurse. Then he chuckled silently, recalling that Sophie had already done her second test. She already had a chance to enjoy the chair.
“Very astute observation,” the nurse said pleasantly as she finished typing on the pad. She walked over to him and patted his shoulder as she pulled off a pressure cuff that was hanging from the chair. “Depending on how nervous they are, people usually just assume it’s their body adjusting to the situation. A logical, but incorrect, assumption. Arm out, please.” Gabriel obeyed and the nurse slapped the pressure cuff onto his muscular arm. After a few seconds the device beeped and the nurse glanced over at her datapad.
“Bad?” Gabriel asked, his nerves skyrocketing as the nurse frowned. She looked at him and shook her head.
“No, sorry,” she apologized. Gabriel let out a huge breath of relief. “I was thinking about what to make for dinner and couldn’t remember if I had put out the vegetables. Your blood pressure is perfect, Mr. Espinoza. Just as expected.”
Gabriel sat still as the nurse continued her routine checkup. Tonsils, temperature and his eyesight were all checked and verified, the nurse making quiet little noises as she saved each and every result onto her datapad. From there, Gabriel remembered as the examination began to wrap up, the pad would transfer all the data to a central location where it could be sorted and categorized.
“Now for the final test,” she said as she reached down to a drawer cleverly hidden beneath the exam chair and pulled it open. She withdrew a small, syringe-like device that Gabriel had never seen before. Lacking a needle at the tip and featuring a small claw instead, he began to wonder what exactly they were planning to extract from him. She recognized his wary look from years of experience and offered him a warm smile. “This is just for portable results.”
“Huh?” Gabriel asked, thoroughly confused as he eyed the strange device. The claw looked back at him menacingly, promising him a silent and painful few minutes. “Portable what?”
“After I get a skin sample,” she began as she opened the miniature claw on the end of the device with a push of a button, “I’ll plug this into my pad. From there the test will run and take about two minutes for the results to get back to me. After that, the second and third tests will begin should there be an issue with the first. With me so far?”
“I think so,” Gabriel said with a nod. The nurse pressed the claw against his forearm and Gabriel blinked as he felt a small tickle as a miniscule patch of skin was removed. She pulled away after a moment and nodded.
“That was it,” she said as she plugged the opposite end of the device into her datapad. Gabriel looked down at his arm, where a faint black spot the size of an eyelash could be seen. He grunted, surprised.
“That’s all?” he asked as he flexed his hand. Apparently, the arm still worked. He looked at the nurse. “I expected more blood, maybe a little pain, even some screaming and orderlies to sedate me.”
The nurse giggled slightly as she watched the display of her pad intently.
“Lots of patients expect as much,” she explained as they both waited for the data to come back. “They get so worked up for it that when it actually happens, they think I’m joking or trying to trick them into missing the giant needle about to go into their spinal column. Some pass out. Then they go home a nervous wreck and disappointed.” Seeing Gabriel’s expression, she quickly added, “There’s no hidden needle, by the way.”
“That’s...good to know,” he breathed as the pad chimed quietly. Gabriel looked at the small pad as the nurse began to read the notes to herself. He felt his stomach drop as his eyes tracked from the pad to her face. Something’s not right, he thought as her pleasant face slipped slightly as she continued to read the results on her datapad.
“Well, that’s why we run three confirmation tests,” she muttered blandly as she punched in a series of keys onto the pad.
“What...what happened?” he asked, his voice quiet. The nurse looked at him with a small frown.
“Just a minor glitch,” she said as she pocketed the datapad in her lab coat. “Like I said, with your genetic history it’s probably just a minor glitch, I’m sure. The final results will be back in a few hours. We have a waiting room supplied with drinks if you would like to wait here for the results. Or we can forward the final results, so you can view them in the privacy of your own home. If you do that, however, a doctor will want to speak with you no matter what the outcome. We want to refine our testing so we get less false positives and make this process as stress-free as possible. However, in the end, it’s your decision, sir.”
“I’ll wait,” Gabriel said hoarsely as his throat began to slowly constrict. He felt as though he were being choked by some unseen force, some unknown entity determined to end his life. He was vaguely aware of the nurse touching his shoulder and tried to focus on her cool hand instead of the burning agony and fear which blossomed in his heart.
“More than likely, this is a false-positive Mr. Espinoza,” she repeated as she patted his shoulder comfortingly, though a bit hesitant. “You come from good genetic stock, after all. Your history proves this. The odds of you being a...well, one of them is virtually nonexistent.”
“Yeah,” Gabriel agreed, though with no emotion or even the slightest bit of conviction in his voice. He had heard the change of tone in her voice. One of them indeed, he thought.
“The waiting room is this way,” she said as she touched his arm lightly. Gabriel heaved himself out of the chair to follow the nurse out of the room. As he stood, however, he could not help but to notice that she had wiped her hand clean on her lab coat after touching his shoulder. As if he was dirty. As if he were one of them.
He shuddered slightly and followed the nurse out into the sterile hallway.
* * *
The wait was nearly unbearable.
Each and every second that passed was excruciatingly drawn out and made every emotional tick that much worse. One more minute was another chance for his imagination to attack his mental wellbeing and assault his fragile emotional state. It was like nothing Gabriel had ever felt before, and yet inferior to anything he could have expected. He thought of it as similar to dying, though not the way a dignified person should die.
Worse yet was the other man across the room who was waiting for his results, his eyes continuously trying to meet Gabriel’s. Is he seeking comfort, or maybe companionship, Gabriel wondered. The gaunt and haunted look on the man’s face was almost enough to push Gabriel over the edge. There was a desperation there, a feral gleam in his features which disturbed him. Despite the clean-cut appearance and new clothing, the man looked haggard and worn. Gabriel did his best to ignore him, instead focusing on an invisible spot on the wall two feet to the man’s right.
The drinks provided by the medical office were mostly alcoholic by nature, thoughtfully arranged by strength and content. Cups were also provided, as was a bucket filled with thermal chill cubes to cool off the drinks. Gabriel only gave the liquor bar a passing glance when he had arrived, and in the hour since he had only cast one furtive, longing look in that general direction. The bar beckoned, but he resisted. He needed a clear head for whatever was to come, no matter how inviting the sweet taste of amberlicor might be.
If I get another positive result, he thought as he rubbed his leg through his slacks anxiously, I’ll just be quiet and go home. No fuss. If I’m negative, then drinks all around.
Please, God, if you’re really there, let this be a false-positive, Gabriel prayed silently as he thought about his future, and his bride-to-be. We have so much planned...
The door suddenly opened, and a tall, angular doctor walked into the room. His eyes locked onto Gabriel’s for a moment. In that single moment, Gabriel felt his heart stop. Things he would never get to see again, things he had done before this entire mess had begun, gone. He saw his parents laughing at the dinner table, his father telling a story about some idiot farmer off-world trying to grow triglyceride-loaded kernel in the middle of winter. Of Sophie swinging on an old rope and leaping out into the river behind the family farm, and his brothers daring him to jump into the piles of hay in the barn. His life, meaningless before, but so lost to him now. In that one moment, Gabriel’s world seemed to end.
He sharply inhaled and blinked back sudden tears as the doctor turned and approached the other man across the room from him. Gabriel felt a torrent of emotion welling up within, and he was not certain what he should do. He felt not only relief surge through him, but also a small amount of angry impatience. He had not had that strong of an emotional response in a long time, he realized.
Not since Sophie told me she loved me, he recognized with a sudden start. He coughed slightly and rubbed his eyes, where a single tear had managed to leak out. He slouched into his chair and surreptitiously watched as the doctor sat down next to the other man. He hoped the best for the man, though it was hard to hear any part of the conversation. The doctor kept his voice low, and Gabriel wondered what the results were.
It was apparent what they were when the man jumped out of his seat and shouted joyously, the mystery answered. He heartily shook the doctor’s hands, a huge smile spread wide across his face. He then turned and eagerly approached a still-seated Gabriel.
“Did you hear that? It was a false positive!” the man declared excitedly, his eyes shining as he grabbed Gabriel’s hand and shook it vigorously. Gone was the haunted look in his eyes, the gloomy certainty he was one of them. The man before him was not the same man earlier who looked like death warmed over, Gabriel realized. He wondered if he would react the same when his false positive result was confirmed. Part of him hoped not, but a larger part inside hoped that he would have something to celebrate about in a ridiculous manner.
“Congratulations,” Gabriel said as he released the man’s hand. The man’s smile slipped slightly as he remembered himself, and he coughed in embarrassment. The man rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly as he looked around at the surroundings.
“Sorry about that,” the man apologized as he looked down at Gabriel, his eyes still shining with happiness. “Got caught up in the moment. I’m sure you’ll be cheering like me in a bit, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” Gabriel agreed. His voice lacked any conviction or certainty though. An uncomfortable silence filled the space between them for a moment before the other man decided it was time to leave.
“Luck to you,” the man said. He turned and walked away. The man waved again to the doctor and exited through the back door, a way to leave the building unobtrusively. It was designed for people who had received news, for good or ill. Gabriel wondered briefly just how many people walked out of the building feeling like utter failures. It was a stone-cold sobering thought.
Gabriel looked up and noticed the doctor had not yet left the room. Indeed, the man was staring intently at him. The doctor’s piercing green eyes gazed into his own dark brown eyes once more, this time measuring and sizing up Gabriel. He swallowed nervously as the doctor stood and walked over to where he had remained seated. The doctor paused a few feet away.
“I’m Doctor Jeremiah Moore. Mind if I sit down?” the doctor asked. Gabriel steeled himself and nodded jerkily, looking away from the doctor.
“Sure, Doctor Moore,” Gabriel said through a clenched jaw. He forced himself to relax and succeeded minimally as the doctor pulled up a comfortable looking chair and sat down next to Gabriel.
“Please, call me Jeremiah,” he said and pulled a hand-held datapad out of his coat pocket, similar to the one the nurse had used earlier. He tapped a finger onto the screen and looked at Gabriel carefully. “Sorry about the unexpected outburst. Some people get so excited they feel as though they had won the lottery.”
“It’s okay,” Gabriel said and sighed, a dark and foreboding feeling coming over his entire soul.
“I’m surprised he even remembered to be embarrassed for the outburst,” Doctor Moore mused as his gaze grew distant. “It’s hell on everyone else who is waiting. It’s even worse, though, if we stick them in rooms by themselves. I heard they did that a long time ago and discovered quite a few those waiting for their results committed suicide.”
Gabriel bowed his head towards the spotless tile floor and closed his eyes, his mind processing everything the doctor had said. It’s all there before me, he realized. The answer the doctor was building up to while delaying, the friendliness and camaraderie the doctor was trying to express. Gabriel looked up at the doctor and noticed how drawn and tired the man looked. His job, he thought as a certain amount of grim determination filled his heart, must be the worst job in the universe.
“No offense, doc, but can we get this over with?” Gabriel asked, a small part of him already knowing the final answer. There had been a reason the doctor had delayed telling me the news in front of the other man, he mentally grasped in dismay. His head drooped back down, chin resting gently upon his chest. His eyes closed and waited for the worst.
“You want it sugarcoated or not?” Doctor Moore asked him, his voice flat and devoid of emotion. There it was, Gabriel understood with sickening horror. The unadulterated truth.
Sophie’s going to kill me, he thought as every ounce of pain in his body concentrated onto one cold, lonely spot in his heart. His lips were numb, and took an extraordinary amount of effort to will them to move. He ran his tongue across the inside of his lips. They feel like sandpaper, he thought distractedly as he managed to lift his eyes and look the doctor in the face. He straightened his back and tried to show some courage, to come up and be a man like his father had always told him to be. To be something he was no longer, by law, allowed to be.
“All of it,” Gabriel managed to choke out through hot and bitter tears as his soul, and perfection, died.
* * * * *