The Twisted Vine

by Alyce Caswell

  Fei stayed right where she was, her fury outweighing her fear. ‘And what about the desert tribes? Their god, the Desine, gives them powers — and they don’t even need a chip to use those!’

  ‘They are liars!’ Hunslow shouted. ‘There is only one true god!’

  Fei laughed and laughed, incapable of holding the derision in. She felt Ala’s fingers dig into her arm, trying to pull her back from the table, but she jerked away and raised her hands to the ceiling, just as her father had done. ‘Bagara, god of the rainforests, hear me. I need you. The people of Yalsa 5 need you. They desire to have you, so come claim us!’

  Vines exploded from her palms then twisted and wriggled their way across the table, seeking out those who hadn’t yet moved far enough away. The table was her next victim; it shook beneath the weight of the plants growing on it before toppling to the floor, where gnarled roots cracked it apart.

  Fei smiled, enjoying how everyone cowered before her, even the ones with ugly protrusions on their temples.

  Well, nearly everyone was cowering.

  Bock cleared his throat, hands pressed together as though he’d been applauding. ‘Well now, I guess we were holdin’ a conference with the wrong people, not to mention the wrong god.’

  Ala shot him a look. ‘Don’t ya dare do this, Bock.’

  ‘Can this Bagara of yours terraform my planet without any tech?’ Bock asked Fei, apparently unbothered by the warning in his wife’s tone.

  ‘I…I don’t know,’ Fei answered.

  ‘That Kuja dude will know,’ Bock said. ‘Can you get in contact with him?’

  Fei trembled. She felt her control slip. Barely a heartbeat later, the vines tumbled away from her and vanished, as though vaporised by a lasgun. She staggered backwards into Ala.

  ‘I can’t,’ Fei whispered, feeling her guts tighten. ‘It’s not safe.’

  Bock sneered but Ala held up one hand to silence him, using the other to set Fei back on her feet. ‘Shut up, Bock. She’s right. And it seems to me that Kuja left so she’d have a chance at a normal life without all the shit that messed Callista up.’ Ala drew a breath. ‘You’re pregnant, aren’t ya, Fei?’

  Fei nodded, confused. She was sure she hadn’t given herself away.

  ‘Then the best thing you can do right now is stay off everyone’s radar,’ Ala said flatly.

  Fei threw a frown between her two employers. ‘You’re not telling me something. I’m scared enough as it is without being kept in the dark. Get back!’ she roared when one of the Chippers tried to edge closer. They obeyed, meekly shuffling off.

  But Lilon wasn’t to be deterred so easily. He marched forward, back straight and shoulders jutting up towards the ceiling. ‘Feiscina. You cannot do this.’

  ‘What, shatter your faith in the Creator God?’ Fei asked. She gripped her elbows with her hands to keep them from knocking against her sides. ‘I don’t mean to point fingers, Lilon, but you did it to me first.’

  Behind Lilon, representatives from both GLEA and TerraCorp began retreating towards the door. Annoyed that they were trying to sneak away before she was done with them, Fei barrelled forward, swooping aside so that her shoulder would not collide with her father’s, and made her way around the perimeter of the table. She stopped only when she’d managed to get out in front of the representatives. They paused, all of them watching her with wary eyes.

  ‘You’re not the first abnormality we’ve seen,’ Head General Huw Hunslow finally said, the illusion of his human face flickering even more violently than before. ‘We are aware of all threats to GLEA, including those desert magicians. You do not surprise us. Or frighten us.’

  ‘So you do acknowledge that the Desine’s worshippers have powers, fancy that,’ Fei said, then looked at Moz. He was frowning. ‘Are you surprised that I’m no longer the little doormat you kept walking over? I made it too easy for you.’

  ‘Feiscina.’ Moz stepped forward — but only after a frantic shove from one of his superiors. ‘All of this unpleasantness could have been avoided. I was your boss. I was there for you. Why couldn’t you just talk to me?’

  ‘So you could brush me off or steal my ideas and take the credit?’ Fei shook her head. ‘No. TerraCorp and GLEA lost me. Bagara was the one who cared enough to listen.’

  She sauntered towards the door, pleased that she was more than capable of standing up for herself, and ran into Ton Tinel who was practically radiating triumph, though his red skin might have contributed to that impression. He had a lot of footage that he could use as blackmail now — and GLEA was not going to like that. Not one bit.

  Fei grinned.

  • • •

  Kuja ran over the dunes on some desert world, tears streaking down his face. He tripped and toppled over yet again, the sand caking the precious moisture that bathed his cheeks. He was so afraid that he already knew what his brother going to say, but he had to ask. He had to know.

  Levering himself onto his knees, Kuja cried, ‘Sandsa! Stark it, Sandsa, I need you!’

  The Desine ignored him. But the sand and grit around Kuja shifted, interest piqued. Encouraged, Kuja cupped some of the nearby grains in his hand and spoke to them. ‘Please, my friends. I don’t know if you look after him the way the rainforests look after me, but you’ve seen his pain, you know how bitter it’s made him. I don’t want to be like that. I don’t want to become him.’

  The sand trickled away between his fingers.

  And then a shadow fell over the Rforine.

  Kuja looked up just in time to see his brother drop onto ground beside him.

  ‘I’m impressed,’ Sandsa said, eyeing Kuja. ‘I would never have thought to use your rainforests against you in such a manner. I must be wary or soon you will wrest the deserts from me.’

  ‘Only you seem to have the ability to command more than your own domain, Sandsa,’ Kuja said, then bit down hard on his bottom lip. The ensuing sting told him he’d drawn blood. ‘I…I…oh, Sandsa. See into my thoughts. Fei is in so much danger and Fayay will come for her once he finds out — and it’s my fault!’

  Sandsa’s lips twitched. ‘For gods, we are surprisingly irresponsible. We forget that more caution is required in certain situations.’ When Kuja blinked at him, Sandsa clarified, ‘Birth control. But it was a beautiful thing, to create life with Callista.’

  Sandsa closed his eyes, his grief throwing lines over his immortal features.

  Kuja distantly knew that he shouldn’t try to make his case when Sandsa was like this, but he couldn’t feel anything beyond his own fear. ‘Sandsa! Please! I thought — I thought leaving Fei would keep her safe. I was so stupid, visiting her at night…please. Please help me. The way I helped you.’

  ‘You helped me?’ Sandsa laughed darkly. The dunes around them bent and swayed; some disintegrated while others grew to the size of skyscrapers. ‘You were useless when Fayay came for my family. He forced me to become a god again…and you did nothing.’

  Kuja winced. If he hadn’t failed, if he hadn’t let his brother down so badly, then Sandsa might still be with Callista…no. No, that had been Callista’s decision, not Kuja’s.

  Kuja shook his head. ‘This is not about you.’ He sent vines streaking out beneath the surface of the sand in all directions, like dark green veins writhing beneath beige flesh. ‘I still have a chance. If you stand by, if you do nothing, then I will lose my family. Please don’t let that happen! I want to see if I can…if I can be happy, the way you were.’

  ‘Happy! You think I’m happy, never sensing my wife or son, never knowing where they are…’ Sandsa dropped his chin to his chest, looking like a broken man.

  ‘Please, Sandsa, I love her!’ Kuja cried.

  ‘Love isn’t enough,’ Sandsa retorted. ‘There is so much more to it than love.’

  ‘What then?’ Kuja demanded. ‘Anything I need to do, I will do it!’

  Sand began to choke the Rforine’s vines, halting their growth and cutting them off at the source. Kuja breathed slowly, a
llowing the loss, willing himself not to rise against his brother. He needed Sandsa’s help. Desperately.

  But when the Desine spoke his voice was flat. ‘Kuja. Even if you were strong enough to fight Fayay and Father, what happens when Fei finds out what you are? She will leave you, just as Callista left me.’

  Kuja seated his fists in his lap. ‘My son already has his powers and Fei is accessing them — they need my support. They need me to be there for them.’

  ‘I cannot help you.’ Sandsa stood and began trudging away. ‘I cannot watch your heart break.’

  The desert god’s form dissolved into sand and the next gust of wind obliterated what remained of Kuja’s brother.

  Kuja sat there, unmoving, spine bowed, face drenched with sweat and tears. But instead of drowning in despair, he found himself thinking of Zareth Sins’ parting words on Saren.

  Fight, Kuja. Fight because it’s the right thing to do. And who knows…you might even win.

  ‘I might not win,’ Kuja murmured. ‘But I have to try. She deserves no less.’

  When he rose from the sand, he was not just a god. He was a man fighting for everything he loved and held dear.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  ‘If you don’t accept TerraCorp’s generous offer, then I will continue to live with your mother,’ Colonel Lilon Neron stated, his voice devoid of any emotion as he delivered his threat.

  Fei’s hands clenched and unclenched at her sides. She knew her mother wasn’t entirely happy about sharing the townhouse with Lilon and she suspected he wasn’t particularly pleased about it either — he had only moved in with Berale for the extra space, after all. But Fei wasn’t going to let Lilon manipulate her, even if she had made the mistake of letting him into her apartment.

  The conference had finished an hour before dusk, despite how badly things had gone earlier. Agreements had been drawn up, stating that Bock now owned the twenty-nine functioning terraforming machines in return for surrendering all copies of the files exposing the connection between the Agency and TerraCorp. But GLEA knew Fei was Bock’s best hope for using the machines. So they’d sent her father along with a contract of employment. If she accepted it, Moz would be her boss again, but at least they’d offered her a pay rise.

  ‘I see,’ Fei said calmly. ‘You are attempting to use my mother’s happiness against me.’

  ‘Don’t be unreasonable about this, Feiscina,’ Lilon said from his position at the window, where he was studying the streets below as they became steeped in shadows. Yalsa 5’s nearest star was dropping below the horizon.

  ‘Unreasonable?’ Fei echoed. ‘No. I’m not that girl you destroyed. And I don’t think you cared that you did it. You certainly don’t care about Mum — you’re only in this for yourself. If you get me to sign this contract, your superiors will give you a better room and a promotion. That’s it, isn’t it?’

  Lilon turned towards her, shaking his head, apparently disappointed. ‘Very well. GLEA will report to the mediaists — but not that Ton Tinel fellow, even if he did promise he would never use the footage from the conference — that you are a disgruntled former employee motivated by jealousy and greed. Your colleagues had more impressive salaries, after all.’

  ‘What!’ Fei threw her eyes up at the ceiling. ‘You mean I should have asked for more money before now? Is that it?’

  ‘The other programmers at TerraCorp are not as good as you,’ Lilon continued. ‘You knew this, of course, and were angry about their work being rewarded when yours was so much more superior.’

  Fei scowled. ‘Moz. This is all on Mozel Zan. He wasn’t paying me enough because he could get away with it — I bet the budget always looked good in his yearly reports! He took advantage of me not being able to stand up for myself. But he can’t do that anymore, poor Moz…’ Her laugh sounded harsh and inhuman, even to her own ears. ‘You can smear my name. I don’t care. Bock and Ala won’t fire me over anything the mediaists say, so my position here is safe. Now that your stupid attempt has failed, what are you going to do?’

  Lilon had the nerve to graze a knuckle against the corner of one eye, as though he was wiping away a tear. ‘You don’t care about your mother’s wellbeing? How sad. She will have hoped for better from you when I tell her this. But I think she will still cook my food and sleep beside me, because she is desperate for any companionship.’

  And then he smiled.

  Fei’s heart was flooded with hot fury that shot out through every vein before cycling back to stab into her chest. ‘And you Chippers wonder why everyone’s abandoning your god in droves. You’re scum. The lot of you.’

  ‘And you are an anxious little girl who is going to cause great pain to her mother and lose the only proper job she’s ever had,’ her father fired back.

  ‘Oh, fuck off.’ Fei glanced around, looking for Ala, but the words belonged to her. ‘And I have a job. Here. Because you idiots handed over ownership of the terraforming machines. So go back to your temples and have a good sulk about it. I won’t be your casualty anymore.’

  ‘Fei…’ Lilon tried.

  She wondered how he could simulate remorse when he clearly didn’t feel it. The corners of his lips were appropriately downturned and he even held out his arms to her, as though requesting one last conciliatory hug.

  Fei shook her head. ‘No. I’m sticking with the people who listen to me and apologise when they don’t. You’re nothing to me, Lilon.’

  She raised her hand to better display the small vine curling its way through her fingers. She didn’t need to ask him to leave. He got the hint and fled into the waiting hoverlift.

  Fei’s smile felt cold and brittle, but she kept it in place as she went to the window to watch GLEA’s departing starships rise above Atsa City, blotting out the stars on their way to Gerasnin.

  Ton Tinel might no longer have any proof of GLEA’s collusion with TerraCorp, but the mediaist was good at making his audience wonder about it. Tinel had even told Fei that the footage containing the boy GLEA had held hostage had contributed to a thirty percent drop in temple attendance rates. The reduction in donations, as well as the recent loss of so many expensive TerraCorp machines, had to be hurting the Chippers.

  Fei rested a hand over her stomach, soothing her son as he made his displeasure known. ‘It will be alright. We won’t have to deal with them ever again.’

  Fei supposed she had better finish testing the simulation program that Bock wanted for Yalsa 5 — she no longer had any excuses. But her temples tightened and her skin went clammy at the very thought of sitting down to work again. There was no way she could get anything done feeling like this. And it wasn’t like Jalen needed her help to run the test suite.

  ‘I need another holiday, a real one,’ she muttered, hoping — pleading — that this was the solution.

  She picked up her communicator and contacted Bock, willing to bet he was still in a good enough mood from obtaining the machines that he’d allow it. She’d bet right. Bock was more than happy for Fei to ‘sort your shit out’ because he needed time to hire more scientists to gather data, seeds and genetic samples. The program wasn’t going to do much without those anyway.

  After Bock warned Fei that she’d have to interview potential new programmers when she got back, he asked her where she wanted to be dropped off.

  Fei decided on Bagaran, because it was the only place she could remember finding any peace.

  And she just might run into a certain someone there…someone who needed to be told that he was going to become a father. Because there was no way, no possible way, for him to know.

  There was no way for him to be visiting you either, Fei thought, smiling.

  She hoped she’d get to tell him off in person about that.

  He’d probably have a thing or two to say about her removing the implant, but Fei was sure he would be happy to see her again. He had to be.

  • • •

  Fight. Fight. You might even win.

  Despite his determination and Z
areth Sins’ words echoing in his ears, Kuja’s heart still stuttered when he stomped his way between the white columns that heralded his arrival into the Everything Portal. He wasn’t surprised to see Fayay waiting for him, the Watine’s cruel smile parting as he prepared some biting remark.

  Kuja didn’t even give him a chance to speak.

  He threw up a hand and thin, twisted branches whipped out from his palm like cords, binding the Watine to the nearest column. One particularly thorny twig snaked around Fayay’s throat, tightening so that his attempted words became unintelligible croaks. Water began dashing down from the invisible ceiling but Kuja rose above the puddles growing on the floor, walking steadily across the ropey bridge that his vines created for him.

  You can’t do this — how are you doing this? growled the Watine, apparently remembering that he could revert to mind-speech. He gave a vicious tug against his bonds but the branches held.

  Kuja wondered if his grin looked as maniacal as it felt. ‘Because I can’t fail. Not this time. I’m stronger now, so much stronger than when you destroyed me.’

  What are you dithering about? Of course you can fail!

  ‘Oh, shut up, Fayay,’ Kuja said.

  He took hold of the connection between them and hacked through it like a machete through dense foliage. Fayay’s voice died completely. Kuja continued on his way, hands in the pockets of his cargo pants, trees and plants exploding into being around him. He had to dodge one particularly tall fern when his vines lowered him to the floor, the white surface now stained with roots and soil.

  Kuja’s triumphant smile slipped when he saw Finara and a handful of other gods standing in a line between the last two columns, barring him from the thousands of maze-like passageways beyond.

  Finara bounced a ball of fire in and out of her palm. ‘Kuja, what the stark are you doing? You can’t seriously be thinking about challenging Father over that woman. Just go back to the Enocian Harem and sort yourself out.’

  ‘Is that what you’ve been telling them?’ Kuja jerked a hand at their siblings. One or two of them actually ducked, expecting him to unleash his powers, but Kuja had no intention of hurting anyone who didn’t come after him first. ‘That you can solve your ills by visiting a brothel?’