Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
The air conditioner hiccuped, turning the frigid cold air to unpleasantly hot levels. Olivia groaned and slammed a fist on the unit box next to her bed, jostling her alarm clock over the edge. The air conditioner grumbled but continued to blast the heat.
”Fuuuck,” Olivia moaned.
She could feel beads of sweat form on her skin. It was too hot. The kind of heat that blanketed a person in a watery chokehold. Despite it still being early in the morning, the heat was worse than that of the American Deep South during peak summer. Olivia left Louisiana because of the heat.
Harvard had perfect weather for her. The summers were still hot, but the humidity was controllable.
She could breathe and walk around the city as if she weren’t swimming.
Years of schooling led her to earn a Ph.D.
in Linguistics and Cultural Studies, which then provided her with the opportunity of a lifetime: joining PME, Peace Missions of Earth.
PME was the United Nations’ response to the discovery of alien life on other planets.
A small group of people with different specialities would travel the galaxy and colonize the planets.
The goal was to achieve complete cultural immersion and hold peaceful talks.
Everything would be shared — languages and cultures — but the foreign worlds would remain intact.
It was a mission Olivia had held close to her heart since childhood.
Not many people get to explore outside of their country, let alone off-world. It was an opportunity her Pops had dreamed about. Now, Olivia was living that dream.
Except for the glaring detail that it was hot.
It almost made her homesick for the bayou. Her Pops would take her gator hunting during the summer, and her mother made the best shrimp gumbo in the Parish. Currently, though, Olivia wasn’t homesick.
She forced herself to sit up. The sheet on her cot stuck to her skin like a piece of armor. With a kick of her foot, she hit the air conditioner unit again. It coughed, rattled, and protested, but slowly the air started to cool down.
”Thank god,” she sighed with relief.
Her bank account was still hurting from the last time she had to get the unit fixed.
There was no way she could afford to fix it again, and the maintenance guys were working overtime in their small group.
It would be another six months before the extra manpower and supplies arrived—six months of constant heat.
In the year she had been in Helix, Olivia hadn’t felt a winter.
There was Summer, Very Hot Summer, Inferno Summer, and her personal favorite, Spring.
Helix was a tropical planet filled with flora and fauna in colors no one on Earth could imagine.
Daily storms cooled the air, though the area remained hot.
A soft melody played on her alarm clock, telling her it was time to wake up.
Olivia got up to her feet and walked to the small wardrobe on her side of the dorm room.
Her roommate, Kim Eun-Ji, was already out, getting ready for the holiday.
The representative of South Korea was a cultural anthropologist and chef.
When the news that one of Helix’s most loved holidays, Koureshtka’s Heart, was coming, Eun-Ji took it upon herself to learn how to cook the foods associated with the day.
From that, it grew. The politician of the group, Brian Wilcox from England, took over, and what would have been an intimate feast for the team had become a chance to strengthen their relationship with the leaders of Vrex City.
He called it a diplomatic affair first and foremost. One that would gain allies for Earth.
And Olivia was tasked with the most essential part of the whole thing.
Her entire job was to bridge the language barriers between the two worlds through their budding relationship with the spiritual leaders and smaller communities.
The larger, more powerful groups graciously allowed them to continue their work as long as they posed no threat to the government.
Now, though, she was to play the translator to the highest Lord of Vrex, Kaias, Sovereign of the Abyss.
Olivia stood in front of the air conditioner’s fan, basking in the cold air.
Goosebumps started to replace the sweat as anticipation for the upcoming meal loomed ahead.
She felt out of her league. It was one thing to speak with government ambassadors, but it was a whole different experience to talk with the actual leader.
She hoped that Ambassador Cainai would be present at the event. It would help to have an ally.
Reluctantly, she pulled herself away from the air and walked to the adjoining bathroom. She took a quick shower, put on the colorful robes of Vrex, and braided Dutch braids into her blonde hair. Pinning the braids to expose her neck, she sighed at the sight of herself in the mirror.
New freckles have appeared on her face since landing on Helix.
The sun had destroyed her complexion to a point that if she weren't careful, she would be leathery by the time she reached back home.
Before putting on her glasses, she lathered up the highest SPF sunblock she owned and applied it to every exposed area of skin.
“Time for work,” she grumbled to herself and covered her hair with the excess fabric of her robes as she stepped out of the bathroom.
Olivia paused at the bedroom doorway and grabbed her translator unit from on top of a dresser.
The palm-sized device resembled a smartphone, with a screen she used for typing.
She pressed a small button on the device's side, revealing a small earbud.
Olivia inserted the earbud into her right ear and was met with a high-pitched squeal.
Hissing in pain, she pulled out the bud and put it back in the device.
“Time to talk to Emil,” she sighed. Olivia tucked the translator unit into a pocket and walked out of the room.
Her dorm room opened onto a hallway reminiscent of a hospital corridor.
Their small accommodations were separate modular pods assembled into a structure to help alleviate the homesickness of those from Earth.
There were the residential rooms, a lounge space with video games, movies, and other forms of entertainment.
A section of the unit functioned as a garden space, filled with a variety of plants from Earth.
The kitchen and eating space were equally communal.
Olivia walked down the stark white hall to the maintenance office. She opened the door to see Emil Alvarez working on a small computer pad. He looked up from his work and cocked his head to the side.
Olivia smiled and began to move her hands in a quick succession of various placements. “The translator unit is acting up. Will you be able to look at it?”
Emil nodded and then indicated to his desk.
“How long will it take?” She asked as she signed.
Emil frowned. He looked around his workspace and sighed. Slowly, he lowered his tools and began to sign. Olivia watched his fingers move deftly, answering her question with the worst possible time.
“Four days?” Olivia asked, forgetting to sign.
Emil rolled his eyes and snorted. “If you want it to work, you have to give me time.” He answered in sign.
“Okay,” Olivia sighed. She thought about the critical dinner and felt a sick feeling in her stomach.
The language spoken in Helix was an intricate language with sounds that were difficult for her to pronounce.
She was confident enough in her skills to communicate, but in a diplomatic setting, the translator had been a lifesaver.
“Okay,” Olivia sighed in reticence, “I'll have to make do. Are you going to dinner?”
Emil’s laugh was loud and bawdy. He shook his head and indicated the room.
“And leave all of this behind?” He signed, “It would mean another day or two for the translator if I did that.”
“You just want to get out of the party, admit it,” Olivia snorted.
Emil gave her a shit eating grin and then turned his attention back to what he was doing. Olivia sighed. She wasn't going to get him to speed up his work, and he was free from the obligations Brian had placed on the rest of the team.
“Lucky, bastard,” she snorted and reluctantly left the room.
Olivia traveled down the hall and exited the dormitory pod.
It opened onto an outdoor hallway bordered by white stone columns.
The sun shone down, stretching its shadows to astronomical lengths.
Curtains of pale blue silk cascaded from between the columns.
They moved like ocean waves, slowly lapping onto shore.
Olivia passed three of the curtains before dipping into one. On the other side of the fabric wall was a large room. Murals of Vrex’s history decorated the walls. A sculpture of the city’s namesake, their god Vrex, stood in naked glory in the center.
Vrex stood tall on his dais, commanding the space with his hoarded glare.
In his hands was his war spear. For an alien race, there weren’t many differences between the inhabitants of Helix and humans.
Their anatomies led to theories suggesting genetic ties between the two peoples.
There was one stark difference between them.
Stone-like bones grew outside the skin in some regions of the body.
A crown of rock-hard bone protected the back of Vrex’s head. It sprouted upwards, making him look like a horned king. More bone grew from his knuckles. They were sharpened to a point, acting as an additional layer of defense on the battlefield.
Olivia stared at the statue, thinking of how the statue of Vrex made her feel about Joseph Geef’s famous sculptures of Lucifer. There was a sense of understated power in the art piece.
”There you are,” Eun-Ji called from the other end of the room, “Brian is driving me insane. I need you.”
Olivia smiled. Eun-Ji was like an older sister to her, tall and thin with a magnetic presence. There was a time Olivia thought Eun-Ji belonged more in a K-pop group than on an alien planet. But after one drunken night that ended in karaoke, Olivia knew otherwise. The two were inseparable since.
“This is what you get for telling him about Koureshtka’s Heart,” Olivia noted.
”How could I not?” Eun-Ji asked, walking to Olivia, “It’s a beautiful story.”
Olivia sighed. Eun-Ji was right, the story was beautiful.
Possessed by the demons of the Abyss, Vrex waged war against his fellow Gods.
One by one, each god was slaughtered by his spear.
Only Koureshtka, the Goddess of Life, remained.
In the climax of the battle, Vrex drove his spear into the Goddess’s chest, piercing her heart.
A bright light burst out of the wound, claiming Vrex’s darkness.
It flowed out of Koureshtka, bringing breath back into the dead and cleansing the land.
Sanctified by Koureshtka’s heart, Vrex realized what he had done. As she was dying in his arms, he opened his own chest and pulled out half of his heart. He placed it in her chest and sealed the wound with a kiss. The two hearts became one, and she became his bride.
“They’re coming!” Brian called from another room.
Olivia swallowed the lump that appeared in her throat.
She replayed the importance of the holiday for the people of Vrex.
Koureshtka’s Heart was a commemoration of the union of their most valued Gods.
They celebrated with songs, stories, and food.
She couldn’t help but think of the most vital part of the holiday and wondered what Eun-Ji had done as a form of symbolism for it.
Marriages were made on this day.