The Twisted Vine

by Alyce Caswell

  Not wanting to encounter any Bagathians returning from the lab site, Kuja fled to the hut that the village headman had allocated to him and sat in the corner, chin resting on his raised knees. He had fought so hard to shield Sandsa, the desert god, and his wife, Callista, from discovery when the other gods in the Galactic Pantheon had demanded that Sandsa abandon his family and return to the deserts. Kuja’s siblings had decided that there must be a deity roaming the sands; their father’s perfect grand design could not be tampered with or ignored. It had taken everything from Kuja to keep his brother’s family hidden. And he had failed.

  Kuja caught the sob in his hand. Emanating concern for him, a vine crept in through a hole in the wall and wrapped around his legs — not like chains, but an anchor that grounded him and kept him from losing the human form he was currently wearing.

  Now none of the gods dared to dabble in love, afraid they would be punished for straying just far enough from their duties that it threatened the grand design. The water god, Fayay, had also warned his brothers and sisters that since he was in charge of them now (Sandsa was the eldest but had been branded an outcast), he would take this responsibility very seriously and kill anyone who distracted his siblings.

  There was no way Kuja would ever endanger a mortal’s life by allowing himself to fall in love. But he couldn’t help wanting it, wanting someone by his side for eternity, someone who filled his heart with joy and laughter once more.

  ‘I am so weak,’ Kuja said to the vine.

  You will be strong again, it promised.

  All of us know this, spoke billions of other plants across the galaxy.

  Kuja could not bring himself to believe them.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Don’t you have anything better to do than call your mother and complain about your temple?’ asked the communicator resting in Feiscina Neron’s palm.

  Fei plonked the device down on her desk and then let her forehead smack into the space beside it. Her long purple hair, kept soft and manageable by a strict routine involving several bottles of chemicals, puddled around her face. She snorted some strands out of her nostrils.

  ‘Fei!’ her mother scolded. ‘I heard that! Don’t hit your head — you need those brain cells!’

  ‘I don’t need brain cells, my code’s compiling,’ Fei muttered.

  ‘Your what? Oh, honey, you need to run a medical app for that.’

  Her mother hadn’t yet told Fei to run some app to fix her ‘twenty-seven and still single’ status, but it was only a matter of time. Unfortunately.

  Fei levered herself off the desk and stared down at its shiny surface. Her eyes were hollow — probably because she had set her electronic irises to a deathly white that morning — and her bronze skin was being washed out by the glow of the vidscreens. This gave her the appearance of a zombie, which was no laughing matter because a scientist had managed to cause an outbreak among the worker population of Londinium one Old Earth year ago. Fei’s boss wouldn’t be pleased if he saw her looking like this, but he rarely came to visit her down in the basement. She was safe. For now.

  ‘My code’s compiling,’ Fei repeated. ‘Which means I have nothing to do at the moment. So I thought, erroneously perhaps, that my own mother would want to hear from me.’

  ‘You know I don’t speak your programmer lingo.’

  Fei pursed her lips. She could explain to her mother that she had to wait for her code to be translated into a language her console actually understood before she could run any complicated terraforming simulations, but that would mean having to yet again defend her job. People always asked Fei why she couldn’t just go to a planet and throw a few seeds around to see how certain plants grew in certain environments. No one seemed to realise this would not be effective, cost-wise or time-wise. Simulations, based on the climates requested by TerraCorp’s clients, were supposed to give you a heads up of how likely the terraforming job was to succeed, without wasting any seeds or funds.

  Berale Neron, as usual, managed to think of something to say before Fei did.

  ‘Fei, honey, if you really don’t like the temple you go to at the moment, you could always try another one,’ Berale said, her high-pitched voice due either to Fei’s outdated communicator or maternal desperation.

  Fei cradled her head in her hands. ‘Mum. It’s not about the temple. It’s about…everything.’

  ‘But how are you supposed to find a husband if you’re not worshipping on a regular basis?’

  ‘What!’ Fei burst out laughing. ‘Seriously? I work with plenty of guys who worship the Creator God. They don’t go to temples. They’re too busy. Like me. Well, I guess I’m not busy right now, because my code’s compiling, but if I turned up at a temple in the middle of the day no one else would be there. Defeats the purpose, doesn’t it.’ The chuckles began anew and Fei had to clamp down on them.

  ‘Just tell me what’s really bothering you, honey.’

  Fei managed to rein in the sigh; she knew it would cause too much static on her mother’s end of the call. ‘I’m finding it very hard to feel…connected to the Creator God right now. I know, it sounds bad, but I’m just having a minor crisis of faith. It’s fine. I’ll get over it.’

  ‘Have you tried talking to our god?’ Berale asked.

  Fei clapped her hands together and raised them to the ceiling, mouthing profanities. When she trusted herself to be civil, she said, ‘Yes, Mum. Of course I tried that. I’ve been trying for months.’

  ‘Are you thinking about talking to those sub-level gods instead?’ Concern sharply became reproof. ‘You know they are inferior gods who do nothing for their followers.’

  Fei had only become aware of the multitude of gods people worshipped in the galaxy when she had taken this post as a programmer on the wealth-drenched planet of Enoc. Each terraforming simulation she was tasked with creating had to factor in a local population’s predilection for worship. If someone on a client’s planet claimed to follow the desert god, also known as the Desine, then Fei would have to appease them as well. She didn’t mind. It was both challenging and fun to find a way to sustain a slice of desert on a world that someone had paid to make entirely wet.

  ‘No, Mum, I haven’t been talking to any sub-level gods.’ Fei drew a breath. ‘Maybe my crisis of faith has something to do with the fact that everyone I care about ends up abandoning me to go join the Galactic Law Enforcement Agency. Like having fancy powers obtained through tech is so much better than my own company.’ Fei slammed her head back onto the table. ‘Ow. Actually, yeah, that does sound better than my own company.’

  Sniffling emanated from the communicator.

  ‘Oh, Mum, I didn’t mean…’ Fei flung her exasperated grimace up at ceiling, wishing she could toss it all the way past the fifteen misshapen moons orbiting Enoc. ‘You’re always there for me.’

  Silence. A nose was blown. Then — ‘Your father was called to the service of the Creator God. That’s why he joined GLEA, honey.’

  ‘Yeah, but GLEA offered to relocate our whole family and he just went off without us,’ Fei grumbled.

  ‘Oh, honey, he said it was because they didn’t pay him very much,’ Berale reminded her. ‘He was worried about providing for us.’

  Fei picked her head up in her hands and swung it towards the console her code was being displayed on. The green progress bar continued to creep its way over to the right-hand side of the vidscreen, but it wasn’t even halfway across yet. Already a dozen error messages were streaming down and out of sight. She couldn’t bring herself to move her hand to the screen to scroll through them. Not right now anyway. It would mean admitting that her boredom-fuelled laziness had resulted in messy syntax inside her code.

  ‘Right, Dad decided he’d rather provide nothing at all,’ Fei said, rolling her top lip towards her nose. ‘You worked two jobs just to feed us both when he left, Mum. And let’s not forget that five years later he hinted he’d like to get back with you, so you moved us all the way to Gerasnin, the G
LEA homeworld — only for him to not even bother seeing us. Not for a single second!’

  ‘He’s very busy, Fei. Agents have to go all over the galaxy, you know. And they do good work, honey. They maintain law and order so that we are safe to worship the Creator God.’

  ‘They also stole the man I was supposed to marry!’ Fei hammered her fists onto her desk. The communicator leapt to freedom but she snatched it out of the air before it could hit the floor.

  ‘Fei, it was the Creator God’s will that Zareth felt called to become an agent like your father.’ When her mother pitched her voice low, it was an attempt at sympathy, which Fei did appreciate even if it didn’t make her feel better. ‘You could have joined up with him, you know. GLEA makes very generous accommodations for married agents, or so I’m told. Your father rightly pointed out that it wasn’t my calling so I never…’

  ‘I think the problem is me,’ Fei said, glaring at the twentieth error that had popped up on her vidscreen. ‘I must be pretty awful if both my father and my fiancé decided that a lifetime of shit pay and following orders was the better option.’

  ‘Well, they do get those powers,’ her mother pointed out. ‘But it’s more than that. It’s very tempting to join up and make the galaxy a better place.’

  Fei pinched the communicator between two fingers and held it over the bin chute beside her desk. All it would take was a snap of her fingers and the conversation end, instantly crushed and recycled into something better.

  Static screeched out of the device. Berale must have sighed. ‘I’m sorry, honey. I wish I was one of those mothers who could easily lie and say it wasn’t you and that you really are a wonderful person.’

  ‘Oh, my code’s stopped compiling,’ Fei lied quickly, skimming a palm over the vagrant tear on her cheek. If Berale realised how upset she was, then the conversation would never end.

  ‘Does that mean you’re finally off the toilet and have to do some work?’ her mother asked.

  ‘Mum! No! That’s not what it means!’

  ‘Well, I heard you talking about piles…’

  Fei’s reluctant grin slipped when a horrifying groan came from the hoverlift shaft. ‘Mum. I have to go. And I’ll think about trying another temple. Okay? Bye. Bye.’

  The communicator made a discreet click. Fei set it beside her glass of water and positioned her fingers over the multicoloured lines on the desk that made up her keyboard. She began sliding her fingertips over the keys, humming to herself. None of this helped; her chest continued to constrict.

  It’s alright, it’ll just be Moz and he’s shorter than you, remember, Fei consoled herself, then winced as the hoverlift clunked into place. While it was quiet when passing most levels, one of the hoverpads was clearly malfunctioning because every time the lift came down to the basement it literally hit the bottom of the shaft.

  Fei pressed her trembling lips together. Oh, stark it. I hate being like this. I mean, I can tell myself that it’s okay and I can handle it but when the moment actually…oh fuck, just work, Fei!

  Her boss strutted out of the lift, dwarfed by a strange duo Fei had never seen before. The ugly protrusions on their temples and the bright purple jumpsuits they were wearing immediately gave away what they were, however. Fei froze in place, her eyes flicking unseeingly over the vidscreen in front of her. GLEA agents! Here! What for? Had she broken some Enocian law? Were they coming to arrest her?

  ‘My code’s compiling,’ she blurted as her boss passed the last row of empty desks that crowded the basement.

  ‘Ah, programmer humour,’ Mozel Zan said aside to the agents and guffawed. They simply stared at him. ‘Ms Feiscina Neron writes the code we feed into our simulation software. She’s in charge of Yalsa 5’s upcoming transformation.’

  The agents, though not at all similar in height, girth or colouring, could have been twins in Fei’s opinion. Their heads swivelled towards her in one movement.

  She swallowed. Oh God. I know they can read energy, so does that mean they can read thoughts too? Do they know I’m having a crisis of faith? Well, not that I think the Creator God isn’t there, per se, I just don’t know if his existence matters to me anymore. Oh my God. They can probably hear me. Shit. Stark.

  ‘Neron,’ the man of the pair repeated. He had one golden stroke on the left shoulder of his uniform, a feature indicating that he was a sergeant.

  Fei wilted. ‘Um. Yes. My father is one of you.’

  ‘You should be proud,’ the sergeant said. He must have seen her flinch because his indifferent expression wavered, bordering on disapproval.

  Moz fluttered over to Fei’s side and leaned across her shoulder, taking in the error messages. She wished he knew a little less about her work. Though he had grown slack since being promoted to middle management, with a stable of programmers at his beck and call, he still retained enough knowledge to know when someone was playing him.

  Moz nodded, his lips bunching to one side. ‘A few syntax and semantic errors. Don’t bother fixing them. We need to alter the parameters and run a different simulation.’

  ‘But I…’ Fei’s eyes fell to the surface of the desk. Her blank white gaze was soulless and passive, a reminder of what she was supposed to be. ‘As you say, Moz.’

  ‘You are wondering why,’ the female agent spoke up. Her purple uniform bore four golden strokes, two on each shoulder. She was a major and also her partner’s superior.

  Fei offered what she hoped was a sweet smile, though it hurt her cheeks. ‘I don’t get paid to wonder why. I just input stuff.’

  ‘Listen, Feiscina, this is very important,’ Moz said, joggling on his bent knees beside her. ‘GLEA has asked us to terraform the entirety of the planet. No deserts whatsoever. They say we can add some tundra as well because, honestly, no one wants a whole planet of tropical rainforests. That’s a little boring.’

  Fei’s head snapped back up. She couldn’t help herself. ‘But this job was commissioned by Governor Bock Atsason. He’s the one paying us.’

  ‘He’s also a major gang leader,’ the male agent said, scorn running rampant through his words. ‘We will not allow a criminal element to make the decisions for an entire planet.’

  ‘Well, that’s…that’s…’ Fei’s vision sparked and her skin boiled at the very thought of speaking up, but she had to say it. ‘That’s silly. I mean, yes, he’s the leader of the gangs, but he’s also the elected ruler of Yalsa 5. That means you have to follow his rules, because as far as I know GLEA doesn’t create laws, they just enforce them…’ She trailed off when Moz cleared his throat. ‘Well, alright. If that’s what I’m doing.’

  ‘You cannot seriously be prioritising a criminal’s wishes ahead of those of the Galactic Law Enforcement Agency,’ the sergeant said, his eyebrows forming an unbroken line across his forehead.

  ‘Oh, she’s not, she just knows all this useless trivia,’ Moz said, lifting a hand from the vidscreen to pirouette it beside Fei’s head. ‘She’ll do it. It’s fine.’

  Fei stared at her reflection. A zombie stared back.

  The female GLEA agent reached across the table and patted Fei’s hand in what was probably meant to be a reassuring way. Fei jolted upright and snatched her fingers out of reach. ‘Um. Sorry, Major. It takes me a while to let someone touch me. I mean. Yeah.’

  ‘Is there something else that’s bothering you?’ the major asked her.

  Fei bowed her head. ‘I don’t…it’s not my place. So I’ll just…shut up and work.’

  The other woman stowed her hands at her sides and her face softened, distinguishing her markedly from her partner who continued to glower. ‘If you have something you want to say, please say it. We can’t read minds, Ms Neron. We can sense people’s energy and sometimes their emotions, but that’s it.’

  Fei peered up at Moz. He nodded tightly. She swivelled her gaze to the desk again so that she wouldn’t have to see anyone’s faces while she spoke. ‘There’s a large faction of people on Yalsa 5 who worship the desert deity and t
hey’re not going to be terribly happy if we take away their access to him.’

  ‘Don’t concern yourself with that this time,’ Moz said. His hand was now on the hoverchair, forcing it closer to the vidscreen. The chair gave an undignified whine. Fei wondered when that hoverpad would conk out too.

  ‘Ms Neron is allowed to express concern,’ the major said, glancing aside at her partner when he snorted. ‘Mr Zan, you should always allow others to say what they think, so that you can better help them understand your aims. Now. Ms Neron.’ Fei started. ‘You worship the Creator God, do you not?’

  Fei shifted in her chair. Her knees hit the side of the desk and she winced. ‘Yes. Yes, of course I do. But I don’t think that’s reason enough to…’ She trailed off, but the other woman nodded encouragingly. ‘It’s not a good enough reason to dismiss people who happen to have another god on the other end of their prayers.’

  The major smiled. ‘I agree. But gang leader Bock has specifically asked for half the planet to remain barren, despite our entreaties to him. We think unguarded deserts make it too easy for pirates and slavers to come and go.’

  ‘You could ask him why he’s so insistent.’ Fei hesitated. ‘I mean, well, you probably have.’

  ‘Of course we did,’ the sergeant said, staring down his nose at Fei. ‘He would not answer us which has made us all the more suspicious. So we would prefer to deal directly with TerraCorp.’

  ‘Yes, yes, we cooperate with the authorities, always,’ Moz said.

  Even if those ‘authorities’ are a not-for-profit organisation that only lends out its services when its agents feel generous? Fei wondered. She had read plenty of anonymous posts on the Web about how it was dangerous to accept protection from those who were beholden to their religion before all else.

  ‘Alright,’ Fei said. ‘I’m going to have to compile more code, I guess. Haha.’

  Moz laughed along with her, masking her more tired attempt, then led the GLEA agents back towards the hoverlift.

  ‘What the fuck, Moz!’ Fei snapped once the doors were closed and the lift was heading for the foyer.