Grower's Omen (The Fixers, book #2: A KarmaCorp Novel)

by Audrey Faye

  Totally consistent with people picking up on the psychic sendings of an angsty teenager. I could remember the fractious, hot resonances of my own dream. Skin too tight. Breath not enough. No one understands. Classic teenager angst, and almost certainly the source of the biome’s problems.

  Except in this case, the teenager wasn’t human—and she had just tried to suck all the water out of the one person in the biome who had a hope in hell of being able to reason with her.

  My head pounded harder. I’d been wasted by a tree. Those were always the really fun reports to write up. I groaned and tried to pry an eye open.

  “I have a spray here, Tyra.” Glenn, saying important words. I tried to focus on them. “It’s got a mild stimulant and an analgesic—it’s the strongest thing I have for the pain that won’t leave you dopey.”

  I could correct for the dopey, but I was pretty sure he didn’t have anything strong enough to manage the hammers in my head. “Go ahead.” There was no harm in trying.

  I felt the spray land, and immediately knew it wasn’t going to accomplish anything useful. Which was a shame, because I had a really big mess to clean up. We suddenly had a monumental science problem on our hands—and a bunch of scientists I suspected weren’t going to be very happy to hear about it.

  Which was exactly the kind of thing Fixers were sent in to address, but it generally worked better if the Fixer in question could actually open her eyes and focus.

  I gave it my very best effort and squinted at what I could make out of Glenn’s face, and Toli’s behind him. There was no way I was going at this sideways—this was a small community, and even in defective tribes, scuttlebutt travels at the speed of light. “We need the head science team. All of them.”

  Glenn raised a questioning eyebrow. “Jerome too?”

  Especially him. “He created this.” And I would honor him for it, because there was scientific marvel in this as well as scientific terror. “He’s most likely to know what we might be able to do next.”

  “He’ll know.” Toli’s face was pale. “That doesn’t mean he’ll tell you.”

  I was very aware of that, too. But I believed, deeply, in giving people the opportunity to do the right thing. “All of them. We’ll see what happens.”

  I could see my two allies exchanging dark looks.

  I ignored them, even though it scared me to know I was about to walk in lands where even pragmatic optimists feared to tread. Instead, I rubbed at my temples, resolutely trying to get my head back online, and wished furiously for my cupboard of potions back home.

  Glenn held out an analgesic spray. “This would help with the pain.”

  I didn’t bother to read the label. Anything strong enough to take care of this kind of agony would also turn my brain to mush. “Some really strong passionflower tea, if you have it. Chamomile if you don’t.” Every planet in the galaxy had that one. It would at least get the soothing started.

  “I know where to find both.” Toli was on her feet and gone, almost before I managed to blink.

  I leaned back and closed my eyes. “Assemble them in your outer office. Give me a five-minute warning when they get here, and have them all come in, sit down, and be quiet.”

  “Done.” I heard Glenn breathe in to ask a question—and then breathe out again, leaving it unasked.

  I kept my eyes closed, working on inner healing right up until the moment I knew there were five scientists present on the other side of my eyelids. And the pungent, snapping smell of a passionflower brew strong enough to bend a spoon.

  It was that I reached for first. My face screwed up at the first swallow. “Ugh, what did you put in here, gym shorts and toe fungus?”

  “Neither of those,” said Toli almost primly, “are allowed in my labs.”

  I managed the ghost of a smile. It tasted exactly like a really effective tea should. My insides whimpered in gratitude as I took a second sip, this time adding a wisp of Talent to augment what the tea was already trying to do.

  “Grower.” Mary Louise Bastur practically sparked with irritation. “We have proper, modern analgesics to take care of a headache.”

  I pinned my gaze on the female half of the biome’s head duo. She needed to know who was in charge in this room—or who would be soon, anyhow. “I find it easier to modulate the resonance of plant essences in this form. For my purposes, a cup of tea is an unbeatable delivery mechanism.”

  I could see my words register for her—and the realization that I had options at my disposal that could beat her science in the ring every time.

  Which wasn’t precisely true. I honored science at least as much as anyone here. But I also knew its limits and when to go around them. This was one of those times. I could feel the Talent-infused passionflower finding the nooks and crannies the drugs had blown right past. It wouldn’t fix my head, but it might at least keep it attached to my shoulders.

  Glenn relaxed a little in his corner. Clearly he could see his patient getting better too.

  It was John Bastur who picked up the reins this time, with a sympathetic smile that did nothing but grate on my already-raw nerves. “Grower, we understand an event of some magnitude happened in experimental dome Alpha, and you were at the epicenter.”

  An earthquake wasn’t a bad analogy for how it had felt. I nodded my head and then winced sharply—that form of body language needed to stay far off the menu for the time being.

  John appeared not to have noticed. “I need to ask you to describe it for us so we can take appropriate measures to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”

  It wouldn’t be him leading this effort, but I could make that clear later. First, I needed to entirely freak them out. “I was running some baseline diagnostics, standard ones and Talent-enhanced readings. Once we had our baselines, I added some measured use of Talent as a stimulus.” Scientists understood the basic testing of stimulus and response—and hopefully remembered that sometimes, the reaction wasn’t the one you expected.

  Jerome’s right eyebrow lifted slightly. I could see him working out the rest, or at least the flashing red arrows pointing at what had likely happened.

  And then, to my surprise, he stayed silent.

  I kept my eyes on the head duo. “The first two stimuli had no effect. The third one triggered a very significant response, which appears to have been primarily directed at me.” I raised an eyebrow at Toli to confirm.

  She assumed the stance and tone of a police corporal on report. “I experienced no effects. In addition, Dr. Jeffert and myself have thoroughly checked the instrumentation and found no evidence of any response we can measure.”

  I blinked at the use of Nikki’s full name, and at how fast they’d moved to find data.

  “I have also checked the recorded data.” Jerome’s words were clipped and far less friendly than Toli’s. “And done a thorough inspection of the dome. It appears none of the important experimental work we are doing there was affected.”

  This time I kept my wince non-visible. If someone had played around in my research, I’d be ready to feed them to the recycler in teeny, tiny pieces. “I had no intentions of disturbing your work, Dr. Salmera, but I took a larger risk with that than I expected to, and for that, I apologize. I’m glad your work is intact.”

  He didn’t seem the least bit mollified. “You will inform me in advance of any further such intentions.”

  It was an order, and one he felt well within his rights to make.

  It wasn’t one I could obey, but this also wasn’t the fight I needed to pick first. “That’s a reasonable request.”

  His eyes made it very clear he knew I hadn’t agreed—but again, he kept quiet.

  A man who knew there were bigger stakes still to come. I went on sheer instinct. “How is the willow tree?”

  He glared at me, every muscle stiff. “If you are referring to the Salix babylonica, it appears unaffected by the events of the morning.”

  Time to make clear to him that you can’t bluff a Fixer. “That tr
ee was the source of the events this morning.”

  I watched his eyes as I said it. Saw the wild array of emotions flowing through them as I laid the stakes that mattered on the table. And noted the emotion that wasn’t there.

  Surprise.

  I opened my mouth to shred him, and then processed the rest of the resonances I was picking up. He knew something, that much was very certain. But if my aching head hadn’t misled me, the best scientific mind on Xirtaxis Minor was proud. And afraid. And ready to go to the mat to protect a certain willow tree.

  I opened my mouth again, not yet sure what I was going to say—and felt us both get swallowed up in a cacophony of scientific panic as the rest of the team reacted to what I’d just said. I absorbed their words for a minute, trying to make sense out of the maelstrom of sound. And concluded they had it mostly right. We had a very dangerous tree on the rampage—and the threat had just escalated, big time.

  It was what to do about it that was going to be the real fight.

  I stuck up my hand into the melee. “Stop. Please.” Any louder, and my head was going to crack.

  Their compliance probably had to do more with Glenn’s low growl than my feeble words.

  I cleared my throat. “Yes. A tree, an experimental willow created as part of the research here, rendered a highly skilled Grower unconscious.” It had tried more than that, but I wasn’t ready to ascribe motive to a tree. All I knew so far was that I had found my sensitive—and it had leaves, not fingers. “I also believe it was responsible for a dream I had last night that fits the profile of what many of your staff have been reporting.”

  That set off more protestations of alarm.

  I held up a hand again, this time a far firmer one. “If you keep that up, you’re going to cause a nice repeat of what your tree just did.”

  Only Nikki had the grace to look embarrassed. I blinked—I hadn’t even realized she was in the room.

  “The tree needs to be removed.” Mary Louise looked ready to take a hatchet to it herself. Gordie and John glowered from their stations at her left and right shoulders.

  Nikki sucked in a horrified breath. “You can’t.”

  “You won’t.” Jerome’s words were only a fraction of a second behind those of the young lab tech.

  Mary Louise didn’t back down an inch. “If it can hurt a Grower, what could it do to someone else?”

  The maelstrom of words started up again, more wild speculation on what had happened and why and how to stop it. I wished, deeply, for noise-cancelling headphones—and some brain cells that weren’t ready to explode. It didn’t take a Fixer to read the vibrations. People were digging in to intractable positions in a matter of seconds.

  The Basturs had taken the favored path of leader bureaucrats everywhere. Eliminate problems, stay in a zone of safety. They were already thinking about the report they’d need to write. It made me sad to see. They’d both done radical, field-altering research—that had been what earned them this post in the first place. But somewhere along the road to administrative power, they’d lost their sense of scientific adventure.

  Gordie wasn’t the kind of scientist who’d ever had any. He was a pragmatist, a man who wanted science to be useful. Most days of the week, I blessed guys like him—they made research matter, translated it to the real world so it contributed to the lives of human beings instead of just the halls of academia.

  Today, however, he was lining up beside his bosses and adding his bulk to their roadblock.

  Digging in on the other side, with a fierceness I hadn’t known she possessed, was one previously chameleon lab tech. Every line of Nikki’s body spoke of horror at what she was hearing. The woman who loved the spiky little red invader plant couldn’t fathom killing a tree for bad behavior.

  Beside her, the glowering countenance of a scientist who was barely holding in his fury—or his grief. I wondered if I was the only person in the room who saw the latter. Or if Jerome had any idea that the small woman standing to his left was currently his best ally.

  Because three of us in the medical waiting room had yet to declare ourselves. I was waiting, because I needed to be last—and because the choices of the other two would tell me a whole lot about what options I had. A team of five would be far more powerful than a team of three.

  I looked at Glenn and Toli, understanding why both of them looked torn, and knowing this was a choice they needed to make freely. Neither of them had said a word during most of the fray, but that didn’t mean they didn’t have anything to say. I kept my gaze steady, professional, and quietly demanding.

  It was time for them to pick a side.

  Glenn waited for a moment when no one else was talking and then cleared his throat. “I don’t like the idea of a clear and present threat that we don’t understand very well.” He glanced my way.

  Mary Louise nodded sharply, and I revised my impression of her. A little. An irritating bureaucrat she might be, but she was trying to protect her people, too. That I could respect.

  “We haven’t collected any data or evaluated anything yet.” Nikki jumped staunchly to the defense of the tree she was clearly already three-quarters of the way to adopting. “Scientists don’t know the answer when we start—that’s the whole point of what we do.”

  “Very true.” Glenn’s smile at the tech held more affection than he likely realized. “But I’m the one who has to deal with the bodies while you figure out your answers.”

  I winced—I didn’t think he’d meant that literally, but he’d just poured rocket fuel on the admin team’s worry. Mary Louise pinned me with a barracuda gaze almost as good as Yesenia’s. “Grower, if this situation could pose permanent harm to someone, it’s unconscionable that we let it continue.”

  She’d felt just fine ignoring it for months. I tried not to think about how it had felt as my cells had been sucked dry of water. And prepared to walk a very fine line—I hadn’t been sent here to protect a tree. “What the tree might be capable of and what we intend to allow are two different things.”

  Glenn was studying my face. Clearly he, at least, understood that I’d just taken a stand—and staked my skills on it being a reasonably sane one. “Dr. Lightbody, if you can promise no one will be seriously hurt from this on your watch, then I vote in favor of further study. Very careful further study.”

  Nikki squelched a quiet cheer.

  He looked her way and his face softened. “I took an oath to do no harm. I’d prefer to extend that as broadly as I can.”

  I nodded respectfully, knowing his choice hadn’t been an easy one. And hoped that he’d helped the last person on the fence to decide. I needed them all if I could deliver on the big, scary, unspoken promises I’d just made.

  Toli, when she finally moved, did it quickly and with finality. “If I got rid of everyone and everything that made a mess around here, we wouldn’t have any scientists left. Let’s clean this thing up.”

  Good enough. The tree wasn’t her priority, but I wanted her on my side anyhow. Bureaucrats, I could deal with. The people who actually know how to get stuff done are a lot harder to fight.

  I stood up, my head giving notice that I had about thirty seconds left before it deserted my body and went off in search of a warm, dark cupboard. So I kept it short, sweet, and incontrovertible, and I laid it out with every gram of Fixer authority I could muster. “Jerome, Glenn, Toli, Nikki, and myself will form the investigative team. No decisions will be made concerning the tree in question without my prior approval.”

  I held up a hand as Mary Louise started spluttering. “As this appears to be a matter related to Talent and use thereof, it falls under KarmaCorp jurisdiction.” I had no idea if our agreement with the Federation had ever considered this kind of a mess, but I was pretty sure she wouldn’t know either—and I needed to stake my claim before she found a rule book.

  She glared, but said nothing. Fixers normally operated with wide latitude, and no Federation bureaucrat would override a Grower taking a position this cl
ear.

  Not yet, anyhow.

  I looked around at my new team and tried not to sway.

  We needed to get to work—the clock was ticking.

  14

  Glenn glared as I walked into the lab.

  I glared back. “I slept for two hours—that was your deal.” And one my head hadn’t given me much choice in agreeing to.

  He was already sweeping me with a monitoring device. “Your face is pale, there are still shock circles around your eyes, and your blood pressure is about as good as your average corpse.”

  “Thank you for the update,” I said dryly. “I also have a rocking case of nerve shakes and some pretty wild capillary bruising.”

  “You need to be in bed.”

  I met his eyes with as much firmness as I could dig up on short notice. “We have work to do. I promise to be a well-behaved invalid after we’re done.”

  Glenn’s face creased in concern. “You can’t take another hit like that one.”

  I was far more aware of the dangers of that than he was. “I don’t intend for it to happen again. I’ve taken precautions.” All the ones I could think of, at least. I wasn’t used to defending myself against attacks, much less one from a tree.

  Jerome was over at a bench, intently working with one of his scopes. He’d barely looked up long enough to acknowledge my presence. Nikki careened around him like a dizzy moon who hadn’t figured out her orbit yet.

  “They’re waiting on the gene sequencing,” said Toli quietly behind me. “Checking to see if anything’s mutated in the willow’s peripheral cells.”

  That made sense. Splicing made for unstable genomes, especially in the early generations, and in parts of an organism that replicated often, things could go awry. The plant version of cancer, or at least rather hasty and unplanned evolution.

  “It hasn’t,” said Jerome with finality. “We will find nothing.”

  Nikki looked stricken. “It’s the obvious thing to check.”