Peripheral Visions: Grace

Peripheral Visions: They coalesce in the soft blur of darkest shadows and take shape in the corner of your eye. But you won't see them coming... until it's too late.

Grace

"Happy New Year!" Zev said, raising a glass.

"2052!" Bec said, toasting in turn.

"Election year!" Tad joked with a smile.

"As if any of us are old enough to remember elections," Zev said after everyone had taken a sip of their champagne.

"Is this real?" Bec asked, both eager to steer the conversation away from politics and find out where real champagne – or real wine of any sort – could still be bought. "How much did it cost?"

"Never you mind that," Zev said.

"Come on. Where did you find it?"

"A girl's gotta keep her secrets," Zev said.

"You go, grrrl!" Tad said, toasting again.

Bec smiled tightly. He was in the habit of keeping a tight lid on anything having to do with queer stuff.

Then again, he was among friends – even if much of Oregon was now an official "LGBTQ-free zone," Zev's house was a safe space. Anyone with the kind of family money Zev has can afford a safe space, Bec thought. and can afford to use words like "safe space," too.

Tad was standing at Bec's elbow, grinning at him. "Come on, unwind a little," he said. "It's okay to relax and have some fun."

"I'm having fun."

"It's okay to have more fun," Tad said. Was that a wink he'd just given Bec?

Bec made an effort to loosen up. He grinned back at Tad. After all, the guy had a point: It wasn't like anyone in the small group of friends gathered at Zev's home was unaware that Zev was transgender; it wasn't like anyone here didn't also know that Bec himself was gay. So was Tad, Bec assumed, thinking that it might be worth getting to know him better, even if his sense of humor was a little too rowdy for Bec's taste.

They made small talk for a few minutes, with Tad asking Bec about his life and background and listening attentively. Bec was from California; he'd migrated to Oregon after the Restrictions had been punitively imposed on that state.

"But the fight goes on," Tad said.

"I wish we could all just..." Bec shrugged. "I don't have time for all that. I've got too much to do. The window is closing if we want to finally establish a permanent presence in space."

"Oh, are you the guy working on the Moon mining project? Zev was telling me about you."

"I'm not directly involved with he mining. I'm an aerospace engineer," Bec said. "Less about minerals than flight paths, gravity equations, figuring out how to use new fuel formulations..."

"All of which goes right over my head," Tad said.

Zev crowded in on them. "You boys getting to know each other?" she asked, raking them both lasciviously with her eyes. She was in her finery tonight, Bec noted: Slinky black gown, blonde wig, makeup, earrings that seemed to sparkle in time with her extravagant necklace.

"I ask again: Is this real?" Bec said, only half joking, pointing with a finger.

"Do you mean the necklace or the boobs, you naughty boy?" Zev vogued and then smiled again. "I'm glad to see the two of you hitting it off. I thought you might." She lifted a bottle of champagne and Bec realized she was making the rounds, topping up the drinks.

"The matchmaker strikes again," Tad said, making a face at Zev.

"I just want you to be happy," Zev told him, gesturing at them both to drink what was in their glasses so she could refill them. "After all, I wouldn't be here for the new year without you."

Tad blushed a little and tipped his glass back, swallowing the rest of his champagne. Bec's ears pricked up. There was a story there, he thought, watching Zev pour Tad a new glass. He'd have to find out more later he thought, draining his own glass and letting Zev fill it anew.

But for now, Zev was swanning off, the champagne was giving him a buzz, and Tad was smiling at him again.

***

Three and a half years later, on the Oregon coast once again in mid-June to spend the President's Birthday weekend with Zev, Bec finally found out what Zev had meant with that cryptic comment.

It wasn't the best of times.

Bec and Tad had become a couple not long after that New Year's Eve when they'd first met. There was a strong attraction, and even more than that there was something else, something deeper. A connection that went beyond the sexual.

But Tad was reckless and opinionated, and not shy about making pointed remarks about powerful people like the current president – or the late, lionized President, whose shadow still loomed large over the land. It gave Bec the willies when Tad said things about the President, since any critique or sarcasm directed at Him could be prosecuted as both a political and religious crime. The President had, after all, been consecrated a Son of God even before His death, and a to some he was now elevated to God Himself having left the mortal world.

Tad had grown up Catholic. When that faith was outlawed along with all the previous (and "false") religions, Tad had refused to submit his mandatory Faith Pledge. Nothing had come of it, and Tad didn't seem worried that something would, but it made Bec uneasy.

Bec never took chances. He had turned in his pledge. He had signed the Loyalty Oath. He was careful never to leave an electronic trail that could suggest to a Moral Auditor that he was gay.

Tad was sloppier about such things. No, not even sloppy; he was downright provocative, as if daring the Religious Police to come after him for buying restricted books or making critical comments on social media. Bec didn't want to end up worrying that Tad, if arrested would be subjected to the government's well-known torture techniques and forced to give up names – Bec's included.

Worse still, Tad might end up detained by the Church. Their interrogation methods were even more brutal.

Bec's better judgement had been telling him for three years that he should distance himself from Tad. Somehow, though, he'd wanted to stay with Tad more than he'd wanted to leave him.

Until now.

Zev had another guest in her large house that weekend: Rad.

Bec's skin tingled at the first sight of Rad. He was sitting on the grand balcony just off the main living room when Bec and Tad arrived that afternoon. The retractable doors had been folded away and there was no barrier between the living room and the balcony so that it was one great, airy space overlooking the sea. It wasn't quite summer yet... it was only June 11th... but the breeze was hot and humid. Rad sat at a table on the balcony, dressed in a mustard-yellow short-sleeved button-up short that looked like silk. He was wearing white shorts that showed off his sculpted calves and hugged the curves of his well-developed thighs. The shirt hung off his slender frame and didn't hide how well defined his torso was. Most striking were his eyes: Ocean blue, almost electric, set off by his slightly ruddy complexion and his blond hair. The hair was thinning, Bec noted with the first long glance, but that didn't detract from Rad's beauty.

Bec instantly returned to Rad's eyes. Rad was staring right at him, seeming to nail him in place with the quality of his attention. A spark seemed to pass between them – a spark Bec had felt before with others, but not in a long time and never this strongly.

"Hi," Rad said. He set a tall, sweating glass on the table – Bec hadn't even noticed he had it in his hand until that moment – and got up from the chair. Bec somehow expected Rad's movements to be like dance... somehow, he had an impression of Rad as accomplished in ballet, perhaps just from his style and the way the air seemed to buzz around him.

But Rad's movements were different: Muscular, slightly swaggering, slightly heavy. He was more a football player than a dancer. That was fine with Bec.

"Rad," he said, extending his hand as he drew close.

"Yes, Zev told us." Bec shook Rad's hand and felt another dose of electricity course through him. Rad's hand was warm, almost hot. And it was soft, but powerful. Bec had a sudden fantasy of that hand – of both Rad's hands – on his body, on his skin, moving places...

Rad had turned to Tad, who announced his name and, smiling, shook his hand. Bec saw something happen: Tad, too, felt something from Rad. From having been with Tad for so long, and seen him interact with so many other people, Bec could see that something about Rad shocked and troubled Tad. There was the briefest glimpse of that shock on Tad's face – a slight crease of the brow, a flutter around his eyes – but then it was gone and Tad was being perfectly nice, perfectly charming.

Too nice. Artificially charming.

He must know Bec thought. He must see it in me... or in Rad... or in us both.

That sexual surge, that chemistry. Tad wasn't jealous about sex, but there was something more powerful happening between Bec and Rad. Bec wondered if it was just his own yearning for something more, something that would make him feel both freer and safer than Tad did.

Then Rad turned his attention back to Bec, and Bec knew it wasn't just him.

The two of them smiled at each other while Tad shifted nervously, setting his soft-sided bag on the floor and then picking it up again. "I'm gonna go to our room," he said. "Bec, you want me to take your bag?"

"Sure," Bec said, handing it to him.

"I'm feeling like a nap, but you all hang out," Tad said.

"Okay," Bec said.

"See ya," Rad said.

The rest of the afternoon flowed like a dream... like a river in a dream... inexorable, inevitable. Rad led Bec to the balcony and a place at the table, then went back inside to prepare him a drink. They chatted, their words addressing surface matters like occupation and mutual friends, but their eyes and body language signaled other, deeper, more instinctual messages.

The balcony was shaded, but Bec was feeling hot. The humid air was refreshing until the breeze died down. The drink made Bec feel lightheaded.

Rad was standing over him.

"Huh?" Bec asked, looking up, ready to follow him to his bedroom or wherever else he might want to go.

"I said I'm gonna have a quick shower before dinner."

Bec nodded, half expecting Rad to ask if he wanted to join him.

"Zev's got some high-profile personal chef cooking for us this weekend and dinner's supposed to be at five sharp, which is in half an hour. You might want to get ready, too."

Bec suddenly noticed the tiny black dot over Rad's left eye – almost hidden at the edge of his eyebrow – and abruptly came back to reality. Rad was wired in with the latest ocular tech. Zev, also an early adaptor for every technological fad that came along, was probably messaging him even now about the evening's plans.

"Dinner. Shower. Nice clothes, right." Bec shook his head. "That drink is strong."

"Not really," Rad laughed. "You don't drink much?"

"No, I... I prefer to keep my wits about me. Be ready for work meetings, which could happen at any time."

"Your job sounds stressful."

"It is, but it's... I like to think it's important."

Rad nodded. "I wish I felt important," he said. The word had taken on a new meaning in the last few years; it meant "valuable enough to the government that they would not seek evidence of wrongdoing or wrong thinking," and, even if evidence for that sort of thing came to their attention, they would not be inclined to prosecute.

"I'm sure you are, though," Bec said, giving the word a spin in a different direction.

"Well, maybe. But only in the sense that I don't have to work," Rad said – meaning he was rich, maybe even an Owner like Zev's family.

"Where is Zev, by the way?"

"Oh, who knows?" Rad said, as if he hadn't been messaging with her. Well, maybe he wasn't. "Probably getting ready for dinner."

"For the last hour and a half?"

"She likes looking good when she has the chance."

"Looking good" – more code. Zev would be in full regalia tonight, her wardrobe and accessories reflecting who she was on the inside. No six-thousand-dollar bespoke men's suit for her tonight. She would be in the full glory of her womanhood.

Bec became conscious of the white noise from the constantly rolling surf down below and of the way time was standing still and the moment expanding. He and Rad continued to stare at each other.

"I'm sweaty," Bec said.

"Me too," Rad said.

"You go shower," Bec said. "And so will I." Feeling propelled by an urge both novel and atavistic, he said, "We'll be squeaky clean for getting sweaty again later on maybe."

"Together?" Rad asked, a smile tugging at his glorious mouth.

"Yeah."

"What about your man?"

"He's... he's not gonna be my man much longer."

"Does he know that?"

Bec laughed louder than he meant to, and the moment shattered. Time resumed its normal course. The air pressed down, heavy and hot. "Tad knows everything," he said, "and yet he's so clueless."

***

Zev wore a glorious gown with a lot of layers. Bec thought it must be monstrously hot, but she assured him that it was actually cool and light.

They dined at the same large table on the balcony where Bec and Rad had had their drinks and their long getting-to-know-you chat. In the half hour between drinks and dinner the space had transformed into a sumptuous area, with a luxuriant red tablecloth and fine dinnerware, screens of a fabric and hue that matched the table and provided even more privacy than the remote beach-side locale, and a retractable awning that extended over everything. Distant drone and satellites would not spy on their dinner – a good thing, given Zev's garb, makeup, and jewelry, though it was doubtful she would attract any trouble even if she walked up Fifth Avenue in New York looking like she did over dinner.

The meal lasted four hours. Afterwards, Bec was surprised that he didn't feel stuffed to the point of sickness – the mark, he thought, of true gourmet cooking.

The look Rad had given Bec let him know that he not only remembered Bec's earlier comments but looked forward to the fulfillment of the promise behind them.

First, however, he needed to do something.

This has been a long time coming, he thought to himself, watching Tad, who had stretched out on the bed without taking off his shoes.

"Just say it," Tad said, an arm flung over his eyes.

"You know things have been winding down between us for a while."

"No, they haven't. But you want them to be."

"I'm just so tired of feeling exposed all the time. You don't take my feelings into consideration when you make yourself a target, and me along with you."

"You don't win over bullies by not standing up to them," Tad said. He removed his arm, let it drop to his side, and sighed. "But we've been through all of that. I know that politics makes you uncomfortable, but denial doesn't save anyone. Things are bad, and worse is coming."

"I don't want to talk about that."

"No; you want to cut me loose and go play with that psycho."

"What psycho?"

"Rad. You've been out of your mind with lust since the moment you saw him. I don't care if you play – you know that. But you think you're gonna get more... some kind of partnership you don't get from me."

"Maybe."

"No one will ever get partnership from him."

"I didn't think you packed your crystal ball. Thought you left it at home this weekend."

"If only I could, but the crystal ball is me. I'm stuck with it. And I'm telling you... there's a sickness inside him. He's twisted, he's a tangle of rage and hatred, and he's up to no good."

"Yeah, I think you're seeing your own reflection there."

"I'm not gonna tell you that you know that's bullshit, since you already know it's bullshit."

"Look, I just don't need somebody always telling me things about the people around me... or even about myself... that sound like a Tarot card reading."

"Not telling you things you don't see for yourself."

"Like hell. It's like living with a goddamn palm reader. I wanted to fall in love with Tad... and I did fall in love with Tad... but I've been spending all my time with The Amazing Kreskin."

"Now you've lost me."

"Yeah? Read my mind. Find out all about him."

"If you're reading up about psychics, that's on you. I never said..."

"Ha, no, you just talk like Madame Blavatsky."

"Again, whoever that is." Tad sat up and sighed. "I know you're not happy. I know the whole world is not happy. It's in the air around us. It's a poison we have to breath and drink and soak in all day, every day. I'm not going to surrender to it. You do what you want. Go play with the Prince of Darkness in his room. Break it off with me, if that will make you feel more in control of your life. But don't get involved with him. Just don't."

"Why? Is he an axe murderer or something?"

"Or something," Tad said.

Bec scoffed and shook his head. "I'll be back in the morning," he said.

"I'll be off in the morning," Tad said. "I hate this holiday anyway."

***

"Tad left early," Zev said.

Breakfast was in the dining room. The French doors between the living room and balcony were closed. It was already getting late in the morning, but Zev always seemed to prefer to stay inside until at least noon.

Bec carried his small coffee pot and cup to the table. He glanced back at the buffet of breakfast offerings: Fresh fruit, pastries, cereals, milk. Real cow's milk, he was sure, despite the expense. The fruit was probably from a private orchard. Zev liked the best of everything.

Funny how stuff that had been available for anyone in the supermarkets of his youth were now the province of the rich, Bec thought.

He sat down. He was going to feel hungry later, he was sure, after the night's activities with Rad, but he wasn't ready for any food quite yet.

"I thought you and Rad might find each other... interesting," Zev said. "But I didn't know you were gonna toss Tad aside like that."

"We've been heading for this for a while now."

"Honey, I could give you all kinds of sauce right now for those empty words." Zev was holding her own coffee cup, the rim of which was marked with her lipstick. She glared at him. "But I'm only gonna tell you this: You boys sort things out as you need to, but be kind to him."

"I'm kind," Bec said.

"Right, sure. I've seen how that's not always true. He told me about one or two times when the air was black around you, and you made sure to rub his face in it."

"Ah, Jesus, not you too."

"Me too what? Talk about the air having colors? Talk about people's energy, or their feelings, not staying inside their own skins? Or how touching someone's skin means risking a tidal wave of images and sensations?"

"Are you clairvoyant too?"

"No. And I would call it more a kind of empathy, just so you know. Look, you probably won't understand this, but it's a kind of assault when you firehose Tad with your negativity."

"Well, then, good for Tad that we're no longer together."

"I agree. I thought you'd be good for each other, but my god. I was wrong. If I was like Tad, I would have seen it before I even got the two of you in the same room together."

"So, you did intend to set us up."

"All I wanted was for my two best friends to meet. And then to see what happened. And for a while you two seemed happy."

"Sure, except for all his weirdness."

"Yeah," Zev told him. "Yeah, and that was the point. His weirdness. Your weirdness. They went well together.

"I'm not weird."

"Oh my god. Really? You don't even know."

"Even if I am, it's not the same. He's..." Bec shrugged. "I can't even get into it."

"He's sensitive, that's what he is," Zev said. "Which you seem to mistake for weakness. But he's a hell of a lot stronger than you think he is. He's stronger than you, or I, or even Rad... and believe me, I can tell how strong Rad's sexual charisma is."

"Tad says he's empty and sick."

"I'd listen to him."

Bec laughed. "You agree with that? Then why do you have him here?"

"I like him. But sweetie, I wouldn't touch him with a twelve-inch dildo."

"Nice." Bec drank his coffee and set the cup down with a clatter. He started to get up.

"Oh no, you don't," Zev said. "You sit right back down. There's something you need to hear. I'm not kidding when I tell you to take Tad seriously. That man... that man saved my life. I mean, literally."

"He's a good listener, I'll give him that," Bec said, not sitting down but not walking way.

"I said sit down."

Bec sat.

"And I'm not talking about listening. A good friend can listen. But Tad? He laid his hands on me, and he cured me."

"Uh huh. Of what?" Bec said skeptically.

"Cancer. I had prostate cancer. Very aggressive. It had spread to my bones and lymph nodes before they found it. I should be dead."

"Then you must have gotten treatment."

"Only one kind of treatment, and that was Tad. Like I said: He laid his hands on me."

"On your prostate?" Bec said nastily.

"Stop that," Zev ordered him. "We used to fool around in the day, but all that was over with by then. He put his hands on my shoulders. We sat together for maybe, I don't know, two minutes. I felt something... tingling. I felt..."

Bec thought of the electricity he felt when Rad touched him. Rad's hands. Rad's lips, even his tongue. He seemed alive with some kind of literal power. He did something crazy to Bec's nerve endings, something he'd never felt before.

"I felt very peaceful," Zev said. "And I thought, that's nice, he did Reiki or something on me. He loves me. He cares. But when I went back in for my next consult with the doctors... it was gone. All of it. Every tumor, every malignant cell." Zev poured herself more coffee, picked up a napkin, and wiped at the cup's rim. The napkin picked up her lipstick, gaining a red-orange smear of color across its blank whiteness. Zev looked up again – first at the wall, then at Bec. "He cured me."

"I saw him act like a fortune teller," Bec said, "and sometimes he even talked about how he'd see things, or sense things... but he never said he was a faith healer."

"I don't think he is. He's an atheist – I think he's sincere about that. It's not faith. But that doesn't mean his gift isn't real."

"And where'd he get this super power?"

"Why don't you ask him?"

"I don't want to have those conversations with him. Or any conversations, not for a while."

"Hey," Rad said, entering the room. He didn't look tired from the night's exertions. He looked fresh, energetic... like he would go sailboarding or skydiving, or even jump right back into bed and pick up where they had left off. "Hey," Rad said again, more softly, stopping next to Bec and leaning down to plant a kiss on him.

"Young love," Zev said, picking up a box of cigarettes and a lighter that rested on the table next to her coffee pot. She stared into the distance and lit up.

"Sure you can smoke in here?" Rad asked teasingly.

"She's in a mood," Bec said.

"Now, watch it," Rad said, picking up a small plate and selecting a croissant from the breakfast spread. "You best not try to mansplain anything to her."

No one said anything as Rad selected a jar of jam and a knife and brought his food to the table. "What's up?" he asked. "Did I interrupt something?"

"Tad left this morning," Bec said.

"Oh. Sorry. Maybe it's just as well?" Rad said.

Zev looked at him. "You do this often? Bust couples up?"

"Hey." Rad raised a hand in surrender. "I didn't do nothing. I was just there when this guy..." He looked at Bec. "...fell into my lap. He told me they were done. I took him at his word. What was I gonna do? There was a connection."

"Why don't you tell this fool what kind of connection it really is, though?" Zev said. "He seems to think you two are gonna have, like, a thing."

"Well, we can have a thing. A friends-with-benefits kinda thing," Rad said.

Bec looked at him with shock.

Rad looked back, then smiled and shrugged. "You really didn't expect more, did you? This is a weekend, not a wedding. Let's enjoy the moment."

Bec stood up, and this time Zev didn't order him back to the table as he walked out.

***

"March 22, 2058," the doctor dictated to the room's electronic filing system. "Male, age thirty-three. Occupation..."

"Aerospace engineer," Bec said.

The doctor nodded. "Same as last time," he said. "Surprised they haven't changed the job description yet. The names for everything else seem to change every other week."

"Nope, still aerospace engineer," Bec said.

The doctor didn't need to repeat it for the EFS. The system would preserve the words in writing on the proper forms.

"Presents with slightly elevated body temperature, says he's feeling fatigued, says he's not sleeping well. Anything else?"

Bec hesitated.

"That is all," the doctor said. "System off."

"Not recommended while consultation is still in progress," a synthesized voice said.

"The consultation is over. I prescribe 10 ccs of zefiphloxin one daily for twelve days, plus five ccs of dorimax before bed nightly, also for twelve days. Follow up appointments as needed. Send the scrips to the pharmacy and have them ready. The patient will wait here for a few minutes while the prescriptions are being readied. Now, system off."

There was a beep.

"Okay," the doctor said. "What's the rest of the story?"

"Guy I was seeing... well, I just heard he died a week or so ago."

"You heard a week ago? Or he died a week ago?"

"He died a week ago, I guess, or maybe a couple weeks ago. I heard about it the day I made this appointment."

"So, four days. And had you been having symptoms before that point?"

"Yes. I just thought I was tired from work. You know, eighty, ninety-hour weeks."

"Uh huh. Minimum wage," the doctor said – more modern code, a way of acknowledging how many hours even professional people were being required to put in now that India was exerting more pressure on the global market by heating up the space resources race. Everyone else in the world was struggling to keep up.

"What did he die of?"

The doctor knew Bec was gay, knew he slept with men. It was okay; the doc was part of an underground network of medical professionals who took their Hippocratic oaths more seriously than their loyalty oaths to the Maga Party.

"The person I heard it from..." Zev. She hadn't said it outright, but her meaning had been clear. "They suggested pretty strongly it was the haemophage."

"Do you know this for sure?"

"Like I said, it was a strong suggestion."

The doctor sighed. "Obviously, we can't have you officially tested. A positive result would get you remanded to the camps. Even a negative result might not save you – just getting tested puts you under suspicion. I do have a few test kits, but just a few. I don't want to waste any."

"Doc, I'm telling you. He died of the haemophage."

"How long was your association with him?"

"Three years, on and off. Pretty intense sex a few times a year."

"So, brief episodes of sexual interaction."

"But... lots of sex when we got together, and... and we weren't using any kind of protection."

"No, of course not," the doctor said. The words were judgmental, but he tone of voice was understanding. He pushed with his feet and set his rolling stool ion motion. He made his way to a nearby cabinet, opened a drawer, and removed a small package. "Test kit," he said. "It's similar to the old HIV tests. I need to prick your finger for a drop of blood..."

Bec tuned out as the doc explained what he was going to do. He's had HIV tests before. A doctor who violated the law by offering treatment to a person with HIV was risking the loss of his license and hundreds of thousands in fines, and might even be jailed. The penalties for administering a HIV test were not quite as severe, though they were substantial. The doc had always administered the tests without complaint or mention of the risks to himself.

Now he was risking himself again, and Bec felt badly about it.

"Is there any way to treat it yet?" he asked, meaning the haemophage, as he watched the doctor prick his fingertip. The doc squeezed and a round, fat drop of blood rose up.

"No," the doc said, going about the test, "and there's not likely to be. Not while the current government is in power."

"You think they really did engineer the HIV virus to create the haemophage?" Bec asked. The conspiracy chatter about the new disease, discovered only a year and a half earlier, was that the government, frustrated by the continued availability of HIV medication on the black market, had created the haemophage as a means of biological warfare against the hidden gay community. It wouldn't have surprised Bec if it were true, though it sounded more like something the church would do. The politicians wouldn't want all the gay guys dead – not when they made for such easy scapegoats. Faith was sometimes less pragmatic than realideology, however.

"Personally, I think it could easily have been a natural mutation in the HIV virus," the doc said. "But it's possible."

"So... if I am positive... what should I prepare for?"

The doc shrugged. "Death," he said.

"But how? And how long?"

"How long is a tricky question. The virus targets red blood cells much like HIV targets the immune system's T cells. Like HIV, the disease can lie low for years; carriers can be asymptomatic, spreading the virus to others without even knowing they have it. Then, suddenly... the virus becomes active, and starts eating the red blood cells."

"Eating?"

"In manner of speaking. At least it doesn't open the door to very opportunistic infection in the world. In a way, it's a kind death. Your cells simply suffocate because they can't get enough oxygen. You'll feel weak, tired... basically, you'll suffer the symptoms of anaemia. Then those symptoms will get worse, and then you'll start suffering organ necrosis... not long after that, systemic shock will kill you."

"Can I get some kind of palliative care?"

"Not once they make a diagnosis. An official diagnosis means you're illegal to treat medically. In other words, the law says you have to be left untreated and die."

There as a long silence.

"When will we know the result?" Bec asked.

"I can tell you now," the doc said, looking at the test kit. There was a small window in the plastic of the small box. Several bright lines had appeared on what previously had been a blank strip of paper.

"I'm sorry," the doc told him.

***

"I was surprised to hear from you," Tad said.

Bec nodded and gestured at the table. "Can I join you?"

"Nothing in the laws of physics forbids it," Tad's favorite way of teasing Bec when he said "Can I?" rather than "May I." When they were together, the words had a ring of laugher and affection about them. Now they were wooden – noting more than lifeless tokens of recollection.

Bec maneuvered carefully to get onto the banquette. The table was fixed in place; he had to bend his knees and flight gravity as he slide between table and bench. It was enough effort to cause black spots to hover in front of his eyes, and he gasped and panted for air.

"Shit," Tad said. "I'm sorry."

Bec waved weakly, unable to speak right away.

"Rad?" he asked.

Bec nodded.

"Goddamn it," Tad said softly. "And goddamn them, all of them, fucking monsters. They created this plague, you know."

Bec shook his head. "I dunno. Maybe."

"For sure. And your friend Rad? He was part of it."

"I dunno – "

"Of course he was. Where do you think he got his money? From what I hear about him, he didn't exactly come from wealth. Where do you think all that sick self-hatred came from? It was guilt, it was shame. It was cowardice, that's what it was. He became a carrier on purpose because he hated himself and he hated everyone like him – just like they groomed him to be, groomed all of us since we were babies. Then he hated himself more when..."

The spots faded away. His ears stopped ringing. Bec looked at Tad, who had bitten back the rest of what he had been going to say. "What? Finish your thought."

"They used him, you see. I mean, it's the only explanation. Whether he was already infected, or they infected him as part of their agreement, they used his sexual charisma to spread the disease."

"Do you know that for sure?"

"As sure as dammit," Tad said. "Some fucker from the government approached me about a year after we broke up. Said there was a good-paying government job for 'someone like me,' if his assessment ranked me with a high enough score. He wasn't talking about an IQ test, or even a loyalty test, and I didn't have to touch him for the meaning of those words to jump out. 'Someone like me.' Yeah, I'm sure they know about anyone who might be..."

"Sensitive?" Bec asked.

"That's not the same as Rad's charisma, but I'm sure they have their uses for anyone with a gift. Or a grace."

"A grace? Is that what you call it?" Bec asked, genuinely curious.

"The thing you want from me? The ability to heal? Yes. That's the grace. That guy from the government had a heart murmur when he approached me. He didn't have one after our little chat. He did, however, agree to file a report that said he'd assessed me and I wasn't what they needed for their program of 'domestic domination'."

"Jesus. That's really what they were doing? I'm sick right now because they....?" Bec couldn't speak. He'd lost his breath again.

"Suspecting it makes you mad, but knowing it kinda leaves you not knowing how to feel, doesn't it?" Tad said.

Bec shook his head. "But you really can heal people. You really do have this... grace?" he asked hopefully.

"Zev told me she told you about it," Tad said.

"How is Zev?"

"She's fine. Sheltered by her money. Lives for the weekends when she can hide inside her big house on the coast and dress according to her own truth. The truth of who she really is. And she should. Not everyone had the resources, or even the... the courage to be who they really are."

Bec didn't challenge him on that or bother to acknowledge the truth of it. He was too sick to be bothered by words.

"But here's what she didn't tell you," Tad said. "I got the grace from someone else. Someone named..." He laughed. "Grace."

"What?"

"My great-aunt. She was arthritic my whole life, confined to a wheelchair."

"And she healed people?"

"Yes. She healed me."

"How?"

"I'll tell you, but first I have to explain something. She didn't heal herself from the arthritis. But she healed lots of other people from lots of other things. But it's interesting... the more she used the grace, the less of it she had to offer. So she was careful. She might have cured herself, gotten out of the that damn chair... she was only in her fifties when the arthritis got so bad she couldn't walk any more, couldn't do anything much. But what she could do... it was so powerful. I don't just mean that she could help women conceive, or restore someone's sight if they couldn't afford glaucoma treatments, or even reverse diabetes. She did all those things for people, and they were grateful, but that's not why they loved her. She always had so much kindness in her. She had an aura of kindness. You felt safe with her. And her words were always so kind, too, and so wise. She always knew what to say. When I'd get bullied at school, she'd tell me, 'They're just mad because they're not special.' And she made me feel special."

"But you are special," Bec said. He meant it.

Tad looked at him. "Thanks," he said. "But I'm not really. My gift? Anyone who learns to read micro-expressions or to pay attention to the nuances of what people say could pick up on the things I do. I just have a more direct way of perceiving things. But her grace... Grace's grace..." Tad smiled. "That's special. She was special. And if I'm special now, it's only because of her."

Bec didn't understand.

"I was sixteen when I started sleeping with guys," Tad said. "You know. The preacher. One of the coaches at school, a couple of players from the school's football team. The usual cliché. And I was nineteen when I went to an underground clinic and got tested and found out I had HIV. You know? A disease that almost disappeared when the government outlawed teaching about it, treating it, testing for it. It's still a problem today, but people have wised up... or died. That's why they need this new thing, this... haemorrhage thing."

"Haemophage," Bec said.

"What you have. Am I right? Of course I'm right," Tad said when Bec didn't answer. "Well, I knew I was done for. I knew I was dead. And Grace knew something was wrong. She asked me to tell her, and I did. You knew you were safe with her. You knew there was no judgement, only acceptance and love. The religious people used to say God was like that, before it became a crime to 'insult' religious sentiment by reminding them of it."

Bec stared at the table, biting his lip, anxious to plead for Tad's help but willing to let him say his piece and wind down.

"And she didn't judge me or tell me I was wrong or bad or going to Hell. She just... put her hands on me. Put a hand on my head, another on my back... her hands were so twisted, but so soft and warm, her kindness like sunlight streaming through them. I felt it: Warmth, sunlight, electricity."

Bec thought about Zev's description of how Tad had laid hands on her.

"After a couple minutes she said not to worry, and she loved me, and she gave me a kiss and sent me on my way. And I never got sick. I got another test about a year later... and I was clear. No HIV. She cured me. But there was a cost. Three weeks after she laid her hands on me, she was dead. We found out she'd had breast cancer – apparently a very swift and aggressive form of cancer. That was strange, because she got monthly checkups and there had been no trace of any cancer a week before she laid her hands on me."

"So, you think..."

"I know," Tad said. "I mean, it was no secret she could heal people. That was the whole point of people whispering among themselves, of trusted people who'd come to our house to tell about someone they'd vetted, someone they'd heard from... I don't know if anyone ever bothered to ask her about it except me, though. Ask her how and why, not just if. If she could help someone. No, I asked her when I was about twelve: How and when did she get this ability, this grace? And she told me the story. She was in her thirties and she had breast cancer. A friend took her to see a faith healer who was passing through town, having a revival or a show or something at one of the big churches... back then there were all kinds of different faiths, and none of them were illegal. She told me that she'd just heard from the doctor that she had about three weeks to live. She had an open sore that was running... stinking pus she soaked up with a thick pad of gauze and a bandage. The faith healer zeroed in on her, called her from the crowd, put his hands on her... and she felt the same thing, the electricity: It was like a bolt of lightning, she said.

"He only laid hands on her that evening. The rest of the show he led the people in prayer. He left town the next morning, probably right around the time she was waking up to discover that the open sore was no longer running pus. In fact, it had scabbed over... 'isinglass,' she called it. When she went back to the doctor, he told her that the cancer had completely disappeared."

"And he'd somehow transferred his healing gift to her?"

"I think it's more like the grace chose her as its next vessel. But here's what I'm trying to tell you: That healing took everything the faith healer had left. She heard later that the faith healer had canceled the rest of his revival tour. She heard she was the last person he laid hands on. And about six months later she heard that he died... some kind of blood disorder or something. There were different stories. But all the stories said the same thing: He died of the same disease he was diagnosed with as a young man, before he received a laying on of hands at a church from a faith healer."

"And received the grace to begin with. It moves from person to person." Bec said.

"From vessel to vessel," Tad said. "That's how I've always thought of it. And once you have it, you use it wisely, because you only have so much of it. Or maybe it's better to say you can only channel so much of it... The problem with healing you is that it would take everything I have left. What would happen then? In a year or so I'd end up dying in some cot, probably in a camp. Dying from whatever infection got hold of me. Or else they'd just shoot me and send my body to the incinerator, like they do in some of the big camps now."

"They don't really. That's just conspiracy chatter," Bec said.

"Yeah? The way it's only conspiracy chatter that they engineered HIV and created the haemophage? Or that they use people like Rad – people with a gift, some special sort of charisma – to spread their made-to-order disease?"

"So you won't help me," Bec said.

"I can't."

"You could, but you won't. You won't help me."

"In case you're thinking I'm angry at your or getting revenge, I'm not. It's just... it doesn't make sense. You or everyone else? How do we adjust the scales for a choice like that? Someone comes to me with malignant mole or something, I can cure it easily – before it's a major health issue. I can still go on that way for years. And as time passes and people hear about me through the grapevine and they have faith in me, the very strength of that faith allows them to help themselves. That happens, too: I don't have to expend any of the grace. Their belief is enough.

"But the kind of health challenge you present?" Tad shook his head. "I'm sorry. It's just too much. And..." He hesitated.

He didn't have to say it. Bec filled in the rest. "The grace isn't choosing me, is it? Because you would know if I'm meant to have it next."

"Well, that makes it sound like a judgement. And it's not, I don't think... but yes. The grace isn't choosing you." Tad reached across the table and put a hand on Bec's arm. "I'm sorry, I really am. I did try to warn you, though."

"Yes," Bec said, bowing his head. "Yes, you did."

"It's just that... I can help so many others with what grace I have left. Or I can give it all to you."

"And then, somehow, for whatever reason, it would be mine. But what would I do then?" Bec said.

"Right," Tad said.

"I'd end up like you... with a gift. A grace."

"And you'd have to figure out how to use it. Who to trust, who avoid, who to make an offer to... an offer of a miracle. Someone who wouldn't just turn right around and sell you out to the Religious Police for money after you cured them."

"That happens?"

"Not to me, because I have a gift: I can see their intentions, I can see who they are inside. But you don't have that gift. And I'm not sure you have the kindness or the love in you to use the grace the way it's meant to be used. Freely, in a way... but wisely. Always wisely."

"You're right." Bec stood up from the table. It was a far easier process than getting situated had been. "I'm not worthy. Not to use it, not to receive it."

"You are worthy," Tad told him. "Everyone is. But you're not right for it. Hardly anyone is right for it."

"Yeah." Bec started to turn away.

"But Bec?"

Bec turned back to Tad and saw the sorrow and the love on his face.

"You were right for me."

Nodding, silent, Bec turned away and took his leave.

Next week a grim tale of the near future greets our eyes: A politician who has spent years going along to get along and never bothering to understand the impact of the laws he's helping to pass finds out what it means to feel the force of those very same laws... and the disinterest of his own fellow legislators. Join us for a karmic bleak comedy of comeuppance as we "Wait and Watch."