Wraithkin (The Kin Wars Saga Book 1) Page 3

  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.

  Chapter Two

  Despite the distance between the city and his family’s farm, Gabriel decided to walk home from the testing center. It gave him time to think about what he was going to tell his fiancé, and what to tell his parents. Tell them how he had failed them, failed his family. He kicked a stone out of his way and turned down the long and winding dirt road, wondering just how much grief his brothers would give him. He had been the baby of the family, the youngest. His brothers had been annoyed at the pampered attention their mother had doted on him as a young boy. How will they treat me now? He wondered. Will they revile me?

  His shoes kicked up a small cloud of dust with each step down the dirt-covered driveway to his family’s house, which was located atop a hill overlooking the small hamlet of Soldier’s Retreat. The lights were on in the kitchen, he noted as a small herd of deer-like ekus crossed in front of him and he paused as they ambled lazily across the road. He watched the leader, a large buck which stood nearly to his shoulder, lead the group into the large field south of the family barn to graze. The four-eyed creature turned and looked back at him once, its gaze measuring, before the buck started to forage for his dinner.

  Any other time, Gabriel would have sprinted into the field to chase off the herd in an attempt to preserve the wheat harvest from total destruction. The ekus, while not very big, had voracious appetites and had taken to the humans’ crops like a bear to honey once the planet had been fully settled. With elongated rear limbs, quick
reflexes and supple bodies, the ekus were impossible to keep out of crops and harder to shoot. Dogs, it turned out, were the best deterrent to the eku population problem; the deer-like creatures feared them and could only outrun them over a great distance.

  Unfortunately for the wheat fields, the last golden retriever the family had raised died of old age the previous winter. Gabriel’s father had said he was going to get more bred, but had yet to follow up on his promise. His delay had allowed the eku herds to grow bolder over the months and move with impunity through the fields, and Gabriel knew it was only a matter of time before they began to completely destroy the crops. The generations of eku had yet to come to fully fear man, and only the loud barking of the golden retrievers seemed to deter them from devouring the fields.

  Soldier’s Retreat was nearly silent as dusk slowly turned into night. His neighbors, almost all farmers like his family, were already inside eating dinner and preparing for the next day’s work. The only sound he heard was the nearby Cattleprod River splashing against the rocky banks behind his house. Somewhere along the river near the fields lay a make-shift dam he and his brothers had made long before, a game to ease their summertime boredom. They had merely wanted to create a small pond to swim in but instead had flooded the entire lower basin of the farm. Their father had not been amused.

  “I can’t do it.”

  The sound of his own voice startled him. He had not spoken since he had left the testing center hours before, nearly in tears as the doctor had laid out his options. Chemical sterilization was required by law for any Imperfect, lest they pollute the gene pool, though the doctor recommended against an immediate surgical procedure. A more thorough test of his genes would be done in a laboratory off-planet, though the final result would more than likely be the same. The disease he was marked with would be attached to his personnel file, and only then would the determination and scheduling for the sterilization surgery take place.

  His older brother had been married for a while and Andrew was a government employee, so their genes were perfect like everyone else in the family. His mother had talked so often how much she would love to gather her three sons and all of their children at the family farm for Yuletide celebrations in the future. Will she change her mind? He wondered as he looked up to the darkening sky. I’m going to be that uncle, the one who is Imperfect.

  Polymorphic neurofibromatosis, he thought back to what the doctor had told him. Extremely rare genetic disorder, may or may not contribute to neurological damage and tumors. What the hell does it morph into, anyways?

  A slight brightening of the horizon drew his attention for a moment. Caballero, one of the two moons which orbited Belleza Sutil, slowly began to rise from its northern elliptical orbit. Duquesa, the second and slightly smaller moon, had yet to rise. Gabriel stared at the orange-tinted Caballero, the moon a seemingly ominous reminder of what it was like to not be a Perfect.

  I failed my family.

  He choked back a sudden urge to laugh maniacally and cry hysterically at the same time. There it was, the horrible truth which would bring about his family’s fall. They would be known as the family with the Imperfect, the failure. Ostracized, they would be shunned from other activities by the farmers in the valley. Their taxes would be raised to compensate for the curse of having an Imperfect son, one who could no longer breed or support a family with a reliable and steady job. He would be forced to work in the dregs of society, working in public venues with little pay and less security. He would be a second-class citizen at best, a dreg, a burden in society.

  I’m never going to get to be with Sophie.

  Somewhere in the forest near the river, a bird screeched in triumph as it caught its dinner. The sound startled him, so out of place with his silent grieving. Gabriel turned his head back towards the main house and was surprised to see a familiar, lithe shadow standing out on the front lawn. He recognized the silhouette easily enough, as his hands had caressed every square inch and his eyes had tracked every familiar curve over the past eight years.

  She will always have my heart.

  Bird forgotten, Gabriel began to walk slowly towards the figure, each step uncertain and fearful. The shadow waited for him patiently, sensing his need to gather his thoughts and emotions. To corral his strength for the coming trials and tribulations. It’s odd, he thought as he drew closer to the shadow, how well she knows my mind. How well she knows me, period.

  A light from the house fell across her face, a quick stab of light which allowed him to see her face. The eyes, wide open and caring, holding nothing back from him. Her soft smile, both teasing and reassuring to him. Her delicate chin. It was too much for him. He stopped ten feet away, his head hung in shame. Tears began to form in his eyes as he struggled to regain his self-control. Just as quickly, the light from the house was gone.

  “I, uh, yeah,” he stammered, uncertain how to begin. She stepped out of the shadows and into the pale light offered by Caballero. He sucked in his breath as he saw her fully, the light reflecting off of her pale, creamy skin. Her blue eyes were bright. “Eight years...you still take my breath away.”

  “Funny,” Sophie whispered as she wrapped her arms around his waist and squeezed tightly, resting her cheek on his broad chest. “I was just telling your mother how you steal my heart every day.”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered and kissed the top of her head. He buried his face into the blonde hair and closed his eyes, wishing the moment could last forever.

  “It’s okay to steal my heart,” she murmured back as she held him tightly. Gabriel coughed slightly and shook his head. He kept his eyes shut tightly as he continued to just enjoy her presence, the feeling of her in his arms. “Just make sure I can still use it for blood circulation. I don’t want to use a machine to keep going.”

  “That’s not what I meant,” he corrected with a soft sigh. He lifted his face from her hair and looked at the house behind her. He could see someone peeking out from behind one of the curtains in the living room window. He looked away, ashamed; his mother, more than likely. How do I explain to them how I have failed them?

  “I know,” she surprised him, her voice comforting.

  “Do they know?” Gabriel asked, looking back at the silhouette in the window.

  “Not yet,” Sophie answered.

  “I think–”

  “Hush, beloved,” she said as she raised a finger to his lips. Her eyes sparkled and Gabriel realized that she had been crying as well. She sniffed and smiled at him. “I don’t care what you think right now. Just let me be with you.”

  Gabriel swallowed back a comment and simply reveled at Sophie’s touch. The doubts he had left him one by one, in time with her strong heartbeat. Every concern melted away under her touch, every pained fear evaporating as he met her eyes. His fears and doubts were gone, replaced only by a slight feeling of regret.

  “So what’re we going to do?” he asked, his voice filling the silence minutes later. He looked away and focused instead on the quickly rising Caballero. “I can’t marry you.”

  “Death can’t stop true love,” she quoted. “Nothing can stop us from being together. So we can’t get married according to the law. Big deal. Can’t have kids? More time for ourselves. More money, too.”

  “But the law says–” he tried to protest but a pair of full and eager lips silenced his, paralyzing him with their sweet taste.

  “The law can be worked around,” she murmured after pulling away from the kiss. “And there are more lenient worlds out in the Empire, you know. I can think of two or three right off the top of my head that allow a Perfect and Imperfect to cohabitate.”

  “But not marry,” Gabriel muttered bitterly. Sophie looked at him curiously.

  “What is marriage?” she prodded. “What does it mean to you?”

  “Well, we can be together forever,” he answered, racking his brain for the right answers. “We can have children, have a family. We can own property, and I can support us.”

&nbs
p; “Please,” she snorted with disdain. “We’ll be together as long as we want, even if we don’t marry. The only thing that defines our marriage is a scrap of paper and a digital license back in Marigold City. Children? That never came up before this, you know. I didn’t know you were serious about that ‘spawning’ thing. I can own property still, and you know as a reserve officer in the Dominion Navy I make ten times the amount you would have made even before this. Plus, with the money my father left me when he died...” Her voice trailed off as she pinched his cheek with her fingers.

  Gabriel thought about her reasoning and as it sunk in he began to nod. She had a point, though one major obstacle tripped up her logic slightly.

  “They have laws preventing you from living with me if you’re an officer in the Navy,” he reminded her. Sophie looked at him, her face incredulous as she stared into his eyes.

  “You think I won’t resign my commission so I can be with you?” she asked, her voice rising slightly. Gabriel flushed, embarrassed.

  “But you said...” he protested weakly.

  “Of course, the job thing,” she nodded as she realized where he was going with the argument. She ran a finger across his chin and smiled. “I’ve been saving up my money for the past few years, genius. Unlike some of us, I prefer to save my money. I’ve got enough to live the rest of my life on. Our life. Trust me on this one. We can start a new life, comfortably, somewhere.”

  Gabriel was mute. Every single argument he could think of she had countered with ease. He was at a loss for words. He told her so.

  “That’s because you worry about the limitations of things you don’t already have,” she said as she disengaged her body from his. She motioned for him to follow her to the house. “I worry about what I can do with what I have.” She eyed him as one would look at a prime piece of meat at the store before she turned and started towards his house. “And I have a lot to do still. Don’t I?”