Destiny's Song (The Fixers, book #1: A KarmaCorp Novel) (7 page)

Emelio had paused in a corner of the compound that gave a convenient and impressive view over much of the grounds. “And your role was to calm the revolt?”

Something like that. “I’m good at my job, if that’s what you’re asking.”

He smiled. “It’s one of the things I’m asking.”

The man could charm the scales off a fish. “You expect me to be calming a revolt here, do you?”

His laugh rang out through the compound. “You’ll do, Singer. It appears Yesenia did good work in sending you.”

Evgenia sniffed audibly in the background.

I had no idea why she hadn’t simply joined us at this point, but it didn’t matter. They might have very different opinions of me, but both Lovatts clearly supported my mission’s intended outcome. Which was good news—allies didn’t have to be friendly ones. “I hope I’ll have the opportunity to meet your son soon, Inheritor.” Whatever bigger forces were in play, my job was here on the ground.

Emelio looked past my shoulder, his eyes lighting with pleasure and welcome. “You’re about to get your wish.”

I assumed the Inheritor Elect was home, and gathered my Talent. Time to let Devan Lovatt make his first impression. Harmonics in place, I turned, ready to collect data.

He wasn’t hard to find. Devan was the spitting image of a younger Emelio, with added hints of Evgenia’s fire. Tall, wiry muscle, he moved into the rotunda with the spare grace of a space pilot and the friendly exuberance of a man who had once been a boy running these grounds.

And then he was a man on the run.

I scanned the direction he was charging and winced, seeing the impending collision just before it happened. A young boy flying across the lawn, looking back over his shoulder—and half a step away from running headlong into an older girl carrying a stack of holobooks.

I could hear the collective intake of breath as the crash happened. The girl landed in an ungraceful lump, holobooks spraying out over several meters. The boy arced through the air and plowed face-first into the grass, followed a moment later by the crash landing of a toy cubesat just past his outstretched fingers.

A frozen moment, and then ten people arrived on the scene all at once. Hands reached out to dry the girl’s tears, collect up her belongings, soothe her scraped knees.

There were a few glances at the boy crawling over to cuddle his smashed toy. Enough to verify he wasn’t hurt—and to communicate their collective exasperation with the reckless child who hadn’t taken enough care.

My heart squeezed. I’d been him, so damn many times. I wanted, badly, to do something. To say something. To remind all those people that reckless hearts bruised too.

And then Devan Lovatt was there, scooping up a small boy and his smashed toy and settling both into his lap. A dozen people bustling, fixing, managing—and the Inheritor Elect of Bromelain III sat down on a patch of grass, hugged a small boy’s head, and touched gentle fingers to the sad, dangling solar wings of a busted model cubesat.

Offering comfort. Lamenting a wounded treasure.

The scene on the lawn changed. The brusque busyness around the girl shifted and a couple of friendly faces crouched down by Devan and the boy in his lap. One offered a gentle rub on the child’s knee. Another dug into her pockets and came out with a wrapped sweet and a tube of instaglue. Finding their kindness, their empathy for a small boy who didn’t look before he leaped.

Following the lead of the man who would one day lead them. The man who had, in the space of a few seconds, made a very intentional choice to stand for one small boy—and to nudge those around him without ever saying a word.

I could feel my brain noting the data, tracking what my harmonics were reading, stashing the observations for later. Which was good, because the rest of me was barely managing to stay inside my skin. My hands were clammy, my forehead was hot, and my chakras had melted into an auric puddle of goo.

Or as Tee would have put it, my hormones had just lit up like a Galactic Peace Day light show.

I knew I was in big trouble. My Song was mutating into something that resembled a freaking mating call and the guy who would run this planet someday was touching a small boy’s face one last time and climbing to his feet.

I swallowed once, my mouth dry as rock dust. And then I remembered that I was a Singer—someone who deserved respect and who could command it if necessary. “I’d prefer to meet with the Inheritor Elect later.” The steadiness of my voice was an abject lie, but it would fool anyone not Talented.

Emelio raised an eyebrow, clearly taken aback. Evgenia’s face resembled a Renusian thunderstorm.

Clear evidence that I needed to beat my retreat a whole lot more graciously. I offered up what I hoped was a rueful smile. “My apologies—I’m suddenly quite tired from the travel. I believe I’d like to spend some time in my rooms now.”

I had no idea if either of them believed me, but as I followed a hastily summoned staffer out of the sunlight and into a dim hallway, I didn’t much care. Hiding might not be a life strategy my mother respected much, but every kid from a digger rock knew it had its uses.

Devan Lovatt was as good a reason as I’d ever had.

I
wasn’t
sure what life forms had made the little trails I was following through the high grass, but they surely weren’t human. Or headed anywhere purposeful.

No matter—the aimless wandering suited my mood. My assignment had just turned into even more of a clusterfuck, and I had no idea what to do about it.

Damn hormones.

And not just hormones. Devan Lovatt had shaken me silly, but Janelle had landed a few blows as well. A target who thought her desires and choices mattered was pretty standard on a KarmaCorp mission. Most people believed in the greater good, right up until they had to personally sacrifice for it. That’s why my job was to nudge, to make sure the ripples that happened were the right ones. But this time I’d be leaning on someone I liked, and I was out here partly because that royally sucked.

“Lost?”

The single word nearly jolted me into outer orbit.

Tameka unfolded herself from her seat on the ground and stood, holding out a hand in welcome. “If you’re trying to get somewhere, I can promise you this path isn’t going to work.”

“I was just taking a walk.”

She looked me up and down. “I see.”

I hoped my outer layers were distracting enough to keep her from looking any deeper. Before I fled the Lovatt compound, I’d ditched the KarmaCorp skinsuit and pulled on my mangiest pair of puff pants. They were billowy, flowy, and cool, and the wind that seemed to constantly tease the Bromelain III grasslands was having a field day with them. I stuffed my hands in their oversized pockets and focused on the feeling of being really aware of my skin. It had soothed a blonde demon child once—maybe it would work today, too.

Tameka was watching my pants with interest. “Those don’t look like digger-rock gear.”

“They aren’t.” No miner would be caught dead in anything with loose, flowing fabric unless they had an almighty death wish. The pants were a habit I’d picked up from Tee’s family, which was full of voracious gardeners and martial artists.

My host hefted a medium-sized rock and tossed it at a small pile of them on the side of the path. “So, what has you wandering aimlessly along my fence line?”

I looked around, surprised—I hadn’t seen any fences.

She smiled. “Figure of speech, mostly. The boundaries between properties are electronic in these parts. You’ve crossed into my lands.”

“Glad I’m not on a planet that shoots first and asks questions later.”

“These days, that’s a reasonably safe assumption.”

I was growing the sneaking suspicion that BroThree had a far less placid history than the official docs suggested. “I didn’t mean to trespass—I was just looking for a little air to clear my head.”

“We have lots of that available.” Tameka rocked back on her heels, hands in her pockets. “What’s got you on the run?”

It was entirely embarrassing to be caught at it. “I was looking for somewhere I could hear myself think.” I winced at the whiny complaint in my voice. “There are a lot of people stuffed into that compound.”

“You’re welcome at my place any time you like.”

It was a generous invitation, and a tempting one. “I have a job to do.”

“Indeed.” Approval tinged her words—and a hint of exasperation. “But one can’t always do a job every hour of the day. If you have need of a bit of sheltering before you’re done here, consider my home yours to use as you wish.”

Her home was a tiny piece of galactic magic, and I had no intention of sliming it with the shit I was suddenly neck deep in. Tameka herself was a different matter, however. She was old and tough and totally capable of taking care of herself. “Do you have any idea why Emelio Lovatt has pull with Yesenia?” It wasn’t the most important thing I needed to figure out, but it was a start.

My host’s eyebrows flew up in surprise. “No. But the Inheritor is a smart man. You’d do well not to underestimate him.”

I’d already figured that much out. “That seems to be true of a lot of people around here.”

She smiled. “You’ve met our lovebirds then, have you?”

I hadn’t actually managed to meet the Inheritor Elect. But Janelle had been entirely impressive, and whatever else Devan Lovatt might be, he clearly wasn’t the browbeaten son I’d imagined—even fleeting first impressions had incinerated that idea. “So how is it that two smart, interesting, attractive people who grew up together haven’t managed to at least try the bed-buddies deal?”

Tameka raised an eyebrow. “You’re sure of that, are you?”

“Yes.” Talent rarely misread something that basic, and my read on Janelle had been good and solid. “Trainees hop into bed with each other all the time.” It was a fairly natural occurrence when you had randy teenagers sharing the same oxygen supply. “Why not these two?”

The wind whipped my pants, picking up on my frustration—multiple flavors of it.

Tameka shrugged. “Chemistry’s easy when it happens, and hell when it doesn’t.”

I was living proof of that at the moment. And suddenly curious—Dancers were good at sparking things. A Singer wasn’t actually the obvious Talent to have sent to intervene here. “Has anyone ever given them a nudge?”

“You mean, did I come out of retirement long enough to try to steer the love lives of a couple of healthy adults?” She chuckled and tipped her head up to the sky. “No. And as far as I know, I’m the only person on Bromelain III with enough Talent to do so.”

I squinted, suddenly suspicious. “Did Yesenia ask you to try?”

My host looked at me, eyes steady, but opaque. “Yes.”

I felt my insides, already rattled from Janelle and Devan, dump into a blender. Fixers didn’t say no—trainee tadpoles were regularly scared with stories of the few who had tried. That kind of rebellion happened very rarely, and when it did, no one got to retire happily to fields of grass. “You said no?”

Tameka was watching me carefully. “It’s not the first time I’ve done that.”

My brain stuttered to a halt. The woman in front of me was a Fixer legend. Of the good kind, not the tadpole-scaring variety.

She raised a wry eyebrow. “They’re still whitewashing my story in the hallowed halls of KarmaCorp, are they?”

I shuffled my feet just enough to make sure the laws of gravity were still working. I could buy that they controlled what the trainees heard, but there was no way Yesenia didn’t know.

I was looking at a real-live Fixer who had said no.

More than once.

And drank apple cider on her porch.

My vaunted ability to improvise crash-landed and skittered off into the grass. And somewhere inside me, fascination rose. The blonde, fiery demon child, curious as all hell. I tried to squish her back into the cave she’d come out of.

Tameka watched me steadily. “Ask, girl—no one’s here to listen.”

“Why didn’t you lean on them?” It wasn’t the most important question I wanted to ask, but it was the least dangerous—and the most relevant to getting my mission done.

Tameka took her hands out of her pockets and raised her arms like she was about to carry a watermelon. “I held Janelle when she was just a tiny thing. I was brand new here and heard that her mama was sick. I came by to drop off some soup, and they put this wrapped, squalling bundle in my arms to see if I could do anything to quiet her.” She laughed softly. “I’d barely put my feet down on the planet, and I hadn’t so much as seen a baby in sixty years. It was scarier than being handed a neutron bomb.”

I had some idea—Tee had a lot of little, squalling cousins. “What did you do?”

“I Danced.” Her eyes hazed over, a woman remembering. “For hours, I held her, and together we touched the first air she breathed, the first sunlight, the first winds over the grass. They were some of my first winds here too. We shared that.”

Realization dawned, bright and shiny and horrifying. “You love her.”

“I do.” Tameka’s hands were back in her pockets. “I didn’t mean for you to know that just yet.”

Some things you couldn’t walk backwards. “You didn’t mean for me to know it at all.”

She shrugged. “I didn’t expect to like you.”

That was going to be an issue for both of us. “Are you going to try to keep me from doing my job?”

She sighed. “If I thought Janelle and Devan could be happy together, I’d be the first in line to help you push.”

“You don’t think they’d be happy?”

“Some people live easily with mediocrity, with settling for something that isn’t exactly right.” She tossed a small rock hand to hand. “But you and I, we aren’t those people. Neither are Janelle and Devan.”

If this hadn’t already turned into a pisser of a mission, it would have gone down that drain now. “I don’t want to be in a sparring match with a wily old Dancer.”

“Oh, I won’t get in your way.” She smiled and dropped the rock in her pocket. “I won’t need to.”

That was about as comforting as an oxygen tank on zero. Exactly like what had chased me out here in the first place.