The Prey of Gods

by Nicky Drayden

  Muzi’s alphie uncorks itself from its dock in the corner, extends its legs to their full height, then scampers over to the bed, its dome head butting against Muzi’s thigh. It makes an odd purring sound that Muzi’s pretty sure he’s never heard before.

  “Eish! Could you imagine how ridiculous I’d look bald?” Muzi says to his alphie. The bot makes a sour chirp. Muzi rubs his hand over its sleek, black dome. “Yeah, but it suits you.”

  The alphie takes a couple steps back and the latch on its underside releases. Its red Dobi-12 wire unspools itself fully, then dangles suggestively an inch above the floor. Muzi’s absolutely positive it’s never done that before, but he can’t help but laugh at the sight.

  “You think that’s funny, ja? How’d you like it if I crimped a few inches off that thing?”

  The alpha bot’s mono-eye flashes a pleasant shade of green. Muzi shakes his head, but in all honesty, that wire does tend to get tangled up a good bit of the time, and it really could use a trim.

  “All right, then. Maybe I will,” Muzi says, giving his bot’s dome a playful knock. If he didn’t know better, he’d think it was trying to cheer him up.

  Muzi digs through his drawer and pulls out an old rusted wire cutter that he’d pinched from his father’s toolbox. He gives the rubber handle a couple of squeezes, and the sharp metal tips come together with an intimidating snap.

  The bot gives a nervous whistle.

  “You’re telling me,” Muzi mumbles, and he gets a warm feeling inside that maybe he has an abakwetha after all.

  Chapter 6

  Stoker

  Sixty-eight point five. That’s the average number of hours Councilman Wallace Stoker has put in over the last few weeks, and yet the one Friday he plans on ditching work a little early, this has to happen. His nose twitches at the smell of dusty blinds as he peeks through his office window at the mob congregated around the entrance of the staff parking lot. There must be a hundred of them out there, toting barely legible protest signs with grotesque drawings of dik-diks that look like the failed experiments of some ZenGen mad scientist: razor-sharp teeth, red laser eyes, and claws instead of hooves. It was a far cry from reality, but there seemed to be something almost inhumane about rallying against cute little doe-eyed antelope, no bigger than the family dog.

  Stoker doesn’t understand how this huge dik-dik problem landed in his lap. He oversees the Department for Economic Affairs, Environment, and Tourism, not animal control. And yet here they are, expecting him to work some sort of miracle, to figure out a way to “disappear” an estimated 340,000 dik-diks roaming the urban areas of the Eastern Cape—areas already brimming with more immigrants, tourists, and bots than Stoker knows what to do with. Dik-dik droppings dot downtown walkways, like perverse little brown gumdrops paving the way to a gingerbread house Stoker has no stomach for imagining. Incidents of the animals’ aggressive behavior are on the rise now that people are more diligent about keeping food waste out of the dik-diks’ reach. And damn it all if an evening doesn’t pass without some SABC newscaster reporting from the grisly scene of a ten-car pileup caused by a lone dik-dik stupid enough to forage through discarded fast-food containers in the middle of a four-lane highway. It’s a mess, Stoker will admit.

  But it’s not his mess.

  Stoker eyes the mob and their proximity to his little Renault Wind, the late-afternoon sun glinting off its freshly waxed hood. Fifteen impossible meters stretch between the building and his car, but he can do it. Hell, he has to do it, and soon if he’s going to make it down to Port Elizabeth in time.

  A familiar knock comes at the door. Stoker turns quickly and gets a face full of ficus leaves, nearly knocking over the whole plant. He catches it by its braided trunk, then eases the tree back to its position in front of the window, careful not to make a sound.

  “Sir?” comes Gregory Mbende’s voice from the other side of the door.

  Stoker doesn’t respond. Last thing he needs right now is to deal with Gregory’s blathering. Not that Stoker has anything against him. Gregory is a stand-up kind of guy, the most senior of his aides. Stoker’s seen all three of Gregory’s children go through university and is as proud of them as their father is. Sharp as tacks, all of those Mbende kids, though they must have gotten it from their mother. But what Gregory Mbende lacks in intellect, he makes up for in enthusiasm and passion for his job, which normally, Stoker doesn’t think is such a bad thing. But today, right now, Stoker has a date with destiny, and Gregory will only get in his way.

  “Hello?” Gregory says again with a softer knock.

  Precious seconds tick by. Stoker tiptoes over to his desk and shuts down his government-issued alpha bot. Its clunky operation system grinds to a halt.

  Processing . . .

  Processing . . .

  Downloading 347 patches . . .

  Stoker growls. Ooh, this piece of unreliable junk. Its scheduling app has become so glitchy lately, he’s resorted to leaving himself notes in odd places just so he doesn’t forget about important meetings.

  Installing patches . . .

  Finally, the alpha bot’s holoscreen flickers off, and the virtual keyboard winks out of existence. Stoker cradles the alpha bot under his arm like a football. He can’t afford for it to wander off and blow his cover.

  He waits another three minutes until he’s sure Gregory has gone, then slips out into the dimly lit hallway. Stoker holds his breath as he slinks past Gregory’s ajar office door, then presses himself against the wall as he comes to an intersection. Peeking down the hall, he sees Callie Wilson with the Department of Agriculture chatting with an aide. Stoker swears she’s stalking him . . . always showing up to his meetings uninvited, lurking in the halls near his office even though she works two floors above, conveniently catching him as he comes out of the men’s room on more than one occasion.

  And don’t think he hasn’t noticed her staring at his crotch when she thinks he isn’t looking.

  Her eyes dart up from her conversation, like a lioness sensing the presence of a lame gazelle. Stoker jerks back and hopes she hasn’t seen him.

  “Councilman Stoker!” she calls.

  Stoker cringes. He doesn’t have time for this. He grits his teeth and dashes down the hallway, past her.

  “Sorry,” he mumbles. “Got a meeting to get to!” An absurd thing for a gazelle to say to a lioness, and it wouldn’t have worked any better out in the savanna.

  “Wait, sir!” she says, heels clacking like claws on the limestone floor.

  Stoker zips, zags, cuts corners, and treads lightly. The clack of her heels echoes, farther and farther away. Stoker pauses to catch his breath, straightens his tie. That was close. He sighs and turns . . . running smack into Gregory Mbende’s chest.

  “There you are, sir,” Gregory says, his portfolio clutched beneath an arm, and Stoker knows all too well what that means. “Things are getting a little hectic out in the parking lot.”

  “I’ve noticed. And while I appreciate your concern, this dik-dik problem isn’t ours to solve,” Stoker says firmly, in a preemptive attempt to avoid an impromptu presentation of Gregory’s latest featherbrained idea. First there was the idea to introduce natural predators into urban areas. Stoker imagines how a pride of lions stalking the tree-lined streets of Grahamstown would go over during art festival season, roaring at tourists just trying to score good seats to the ballet. Gregory’s most recent plan, at the heart, actually had some merit: marketing subsidized dik-dik meat to township communities as an alternate source of protein. Eat a dik-dik! the marketing posters had read in bright blue-and-orange block lettering, with a picture of the cutest, saddest-looking dik-dik staring back at you. But Stoker’s put so much time and effort into fighting the illegal bushmeat trade, he’s afraid sending a message like that would reendanger a whole slew of less annoying wildlife.

  “Well, I’ve got a new idea to run past you,” Gregory says, unzipping his portfolio.

  “Can’t right now.” Stoker ducks into t
he rear, rarely used stairwell. Then he’s on the first floor, nearly to the exit to the parking lot, but Gregory isn’t so easy to lose.

  “Sir, the dik-diks’ breeding season is only a few months away. If we’re going to act on this, we need to do it quickly. Days are precious.”

  “This isn’t—” Stoker begins.

  “Our problem. I know,” Gregory says with a nod. “But you’ve got to look at the bigger picture. Rumor has it that you’re in the running for the premier’s seat, and what we need now is a big win. Solving this dik-dik problem would be a huge win.”

  “Mr. Mbende, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Stoker stops. Campaign season is still a couple years away, and yet the way everyone in the province is talking, he probably should go ahead and file a change of address to have all his mail forwarded to the premier’s mansion. His mother is probably doing it for him right this very moment, in fact, so proud of her son carrying on in the footsteps of a whole line of Stokers of some form or another with a paw in the political candy jar. “My record speaks for itself. Who else do you know who’s gone out to nearly every single one of the Eastern Cape’s townships, providing them with the means to construct solar panels and solar wells? Who else do you know who’s spent months working beside the poorest of South Africa’s poor, helping to plant disease-resistant and drought-tolerant crops?”

  Stoker smacks his lips, remembering the taste of tangy pap and gravy, porridge made from the very same maize he’d helped sow. He’d shared meals with them, listening as they’d voiced their concerns over economic hardships and injustices, and nodding along at their ideas for growth and development. He’d also spent many an evening at the local shebeens with a barely cold quart of Black Label clutched in his hand, more than willing to turn a blind eye to the sale of unlicensed beer and liquor. In return, his bumbling, half-drunk attempts at speaking Xhosa drew bright-eyed smiles from his hosts. The click of the language popped on his tongue like fireworks, but they accepted him as one of their own despite his white skin. That’s how he’d gotten to see how rich they were, in pride and love and hope and anything that truly mattered. That’s how he learned that they didn’t want handouts, but tools and resources and opportunities to make life better for themselves and the pride that comes with accomplishing it. That’s what they needed, and that’s what Councilman Stoker had provided, and with that, the Eastern Cape’s poverty level had plummeted almost overnight.

  But Mbende is right. The people, they have short memories, and something does need to be done about the dik-diks.

  Just not now.

  Stoker checks his watch. “Maybe we should have a little talk about this, but I’ve got a rather busy evening, Mr. Mbende. Monday will do just as well, won’t it?”

  “Oh, that’s right, that fund-raiser this evening. Ten thousand rand a plate, I hear.”

  Stoker nods. His mother had arranged the whole thing to get his face out there, and if he decides to enter the race for premier, he’ll have a head start rubbing all the right elbows. In any case, the fund-raiser will be easy, just smile and laugh in all the right spots while listening to billionaires tell him their life stories. What he’s really worried about is his audition this afternoon, all the way out in Port Elizabeth, which once again reminds him that he’d better get a move on if he’s going to make it there and back in time.

  But Gregory doesn’t back down. Instead he positions himself in front of the exit door, eyes darting around like he’s not totally at ease. “I’ve got a solution,” he says. “A real solution this time. Something they used in the States for deer overpopulation problems a couple decades ago. It was sort of controversial . . .”

  “Mr. Mbende, I’m not getting any younger here.”

  “Sorry, sir. It was a virus,” he says, barely a whisper. “Totally inert to humans, introduced into their deer population. It caused sterility in eighty-five percent of those infected, and they only had to inject a few hundred deer.”

  “A virus? No offense, Mr. Mbende, but this has got to be the most idiotic idea you’ve ever had. There’s no way I could support viral anything. We could end up with giant mutant dik-diks for all I know. Think of what that would do to tourism!” Stoker checks his watch again and is back on the move. Gregory Mbende scuttles behind him.

  “Just let me look into it, get some more information. Run some numbers. I’ve got a contact at ZenGen who’ll be discreet. If you take a look at the findings and they’re agreeable, we can bring it up at the next meeting. If not, it never happened.”

  “You’re going to keep pestering me until I say yes, aren’t you?”

  “That’s quite possible, sir. It’s a viable option, which we seem to be running short on these days.”

  Stoker bites his lip. This has disaster written all over it. ZenGen Industries has been a boon to South Africa, creating thousands of high-tech jobs and keeping the country’s brightest minds from being siphoned off to Europe and the States. Its presence has drawn dozens of supporting industries since its founding in 2021, not to mention its role in resurrecting three of the five big game animals gone extinct through poaching, bringing life back to the bush. But there are whispers that ZenGen has been tampering with the genomes of more than just plants and animals. Stoker swallows back the bile in his throat. Whispers aren’t the same as accusations, but still, it wouldn’t hurt to be informed. Another time, though—if he wastes another minute, he’ll be late no matter how fast he speeds.

  “Okay,” he says. “Poke around a bit. See what you can find out.”

  “Thank you, sir,” says Gregory. “Have a good evening.”

  Stoker presses the door slightly open and sees the mob, which suddenly looks much larger and meaner than it had from the vantage of his office. The fifteen meters to freedom suddenly seem like five hundred. He calls back to Gregory. “Mr. Mbende, you don’t happen to have those poster mockups for the ‘Eat a dik-dik’ campaign, do you?”

  “Actually, yes, I do.” Gregory pulls a half-sized poster board from his portfolio and hands it to Stoker. “Are you reconsidering it?”

  “Something like that,” Stoker says, then steps outside into hostile territory. Strategically he holds the poster in front of him and sneaks past the crowd, joining in on an anti–dik-dik chant. He pumps his poster occasionally and whoops and hollers until he’s close enough to make a final sprint for his car. Then he peels out of there with a glance at the dashboard clock, relieved he has just enough time to fetch his clothes from the dry cleaner’s. After that, he’s gunning his little Renault as fast as it will go down the highway, top down, blue sky stretched as far as he can see and the worries of his work life a distant memory.

  Don’t get him wrong. It’s not like he doesn’t like making a difference in people’s lives. He prides himself on meeting people within the bounds of their reality and does his best to engage in the narratives of their life stories, even if only for the length of a handshake. There’s no better feeling in the world than knowing he’s brought hope to those in despair, and knowledge to those who’ve thirsted for it. He likes to perform minor miracles for the people.

  But he likes to truly perform for people even more.

  Because Stoker’s heart is in the entertainment industry, music specifically, and he’d give this all up in a second if he could use his voice and lyrics to turn the hearts of his fellow South Africans instead of referendums and policies. In some rare instances, his passions collide, like how recently he’d conceived a motion to get several megastar artists to use local talent to open up for their concerts. Pop starlet Riya Natrajan had jumped all over the opportunity and is holding auditions in three major cities, and Stoker couldn’t be more excited to be one of those chosen to try out.

  He can’t believe he’d nearly forgotten about it. He’s been so busy lately, and with an average of seven meetings a day, he’s not sure how he can keep anything straight. Fortunately, Stoker had left his black-and-gray-striped seersucker suit hanging in the front of his closet, which had r
eminded him of Riya Natrajan’s newest hit, “Midnight Seersucker,” which had reminded him this morning of the audition, and now here he is, ready and eager to give the performance of a lifetime.

  Brake lights blare, and traffic grinds to a halt. Emergency vehicles howl in the distance. In the five minutes it takes Stoker to boot up his alpha bot, he’s gone less than half a kilometer. With a few clicks of the keyboard, he’s got access to satellite pictures of a wreck. Two jackknifed freight trucks and half a dozen smoking cars make up the bulk of the carnage, but when Stoker zooms in, he sees what is most likely the cause of the crash: a dazed little dik-dik who, other than a slight limp, looks no worse for wear. Stoker grits his teeth.

  Now it’s personal.

  These dik-diks are nothing but a nuisance, littering the streets with their droppings, harassing tourists for scraps, and clogging important expressways that stop business from getting done in a timely manner, and since he oversees the Department for Economic Affairs, Environment, and Tourism, Councilman Stoker supposes that these dik-diks actually are his problem. First thing Monday morning, he’s going to call a meeting to solve this issue once and for all, and, oh, if he’s late for his audition, there’s going to be real hell to pay.

  But right now, in the privacy of his car, Stoker unzips one of his garment bags to reveal the perfectly pressed double-breasted suit that he’ll be wearing to this evening’s fund-raiser. He pushes it aside with a shrug and opens the other, revealing a gold-sequined gown in all its splendor, maybe a little shorter and clingier than he remembered it. Still, it dazzles and he’ll need all the help he can get at the auditions. Riya Natrajan herself is going to be there during the selection process, and once she sees his act, he knows he’ll be in the running to open for her for sure. Not only does he have a voice, but dance moves for days, and calves that kill in a pair of stilettos.

  As his car idles, he makes himself a promise then and there. If he gets this gig, he’ll take a stab at the premier’s seat and be the best leader the Eastern Cape has seen in decades, and for a brief shining moment in his life, he’ll have the best of both worlds. It’ll be a sacrifice, sure. As premier, all eyes will be on him, and it’ll be impossible to sneak away to do sets in small cities where nobody knows his face. But in his heart he’ll always know he was good enough, and no one, not even his mother, could ever take that away.