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

by Audrey Faye

  That was interesting. “Is your mom tired a lot?”

  “Only when Henrique and Tao are being brats.” She grinned. “They’d exhaust anybody.”

  Ralph chuckled quietly. “Malia’s twin brothers. They’re two.”

  Tee’s sister had twins, and after a couple of hours childminding them once, I’d been ready to die. “Do you sing to your brothers?”

  “Nope. Momma says they’ll sleep when they’re good and ready, and the rest of us just have to buck up. I help play with them, though. They like the game where we jump on the gel-couches and try not to touch the poisonous swamp on the floor.”

  I remembered a version of that one, although digger rocks didn’t tend to run to swank decor like gel-couches. “How many of you has the swamp managed to eat?”

  Malia giggled. “It got Granddad’s toes once.”

  “Did not.” Ralph sounded insulted at the mere suggestion. “It only licked them.”

  The kid rolled her eyes again, lips tightly closed, and gave him a look that promised the conversation wasn’t nearly over. One seven-year-old, trying to remember her best manners.

  I watched the light dancing in both their eyes and tried not to be envious. It sounded like a normal, happy childhood—the kind most people never even caught glimpse of. She was a really lucky kid. “Got any songs about the swamp monsters?” Kids with Talent usually had an oversized love of the dramatic, and it would help magnify whatever resonance she might have.

  She shook her head. “No, but I bet I could make one up.”

  She probably could, but I wasn’t sure I had the energy. And there were easier ways, albeit less fun ones. “How about I Sing a few notes, and you sing along with me—whatever wants to come out?”

  “Okay.” She sat up a little straighter and pulled air into her flexible lungs. “Can Granddad sing too? He does musical theater, and he has a really nice voice.”

  I looked at Ralph and shrugged. “Sure.” Whatever made the kid feel more comfortable.

  He smiled at his granddaughter and mimicked her good posture.

  I let a couple of breaths massage my ribs, and then I started in my high midrange, sounding some basic tones. Malia listened for a few notes and started chiming in with ones of her own. She had a sweet, clear voice and a natural sense of harmony. I focused on her energy resonances as Ralph added chord intervals below us.

  My Song didn’t sense Talent from either of them.

  I shifted, moving lower in my range. Digging. Sometimes miners went deep on pure instinct.

  Malia followed me down, picking out pretty intervals, adding a few interesting shifts, and frowning harder the lower we got. I waited, swimming around a basic chord progression, wondering what she would do.

  She tailed me for a couple of spins and then she inhaled, eyes sparkling, and flew up a steep run to an octave most singers could only dream of. I followed her up, hearing my larynx gurgling in protest. It was a range I could sing in, but just barely—and I usually babied my vocal chords a whole lot on the way there.

  Malia rippled through the high notes like a butterfly, light and sure with flashes of glorious color. I took a moment to appreciate the pure, incandescent beauty of her voice. I knew good singing, and hers was glorious. There were a hundred inner-planet opera houses that would line up for a chance to train her.

  They’d never get the chance. In this range, the kid had Talent streaming from every cell.

  I glanced at Ralph, saw his gentle smile, and nodded, confirming what he already knew. And was fiercely glad to see the protective instincts rising in his eyes. Good. KarmaCorp would come for Malia in three years. In the meantime, she’d be in very good hands.

  Talent like hers was a highly desirable commodity, and grabbing young girls before the Seekers found them was extremely profitable business, even with half the Federation on their tails. And then there were the garden-variety corrupters—the people who thought just a small nudge couldn’t hurt, a little tweaking of the universe on their behalf.

  If the look in Ralph’s eyes was any indication, swamp monsters would be the worst thing Malia had to worry about.

  She’d stopped singing and sat watching me, still as a statue.

  Hoping. Wishing. Wanting the answer to be yes.

  That had never been me—I’d hated every minute of discovering I had Talent and what it meant. It was humbling to see her want, so clearly, to step into the shoes I wore. I reached for my subsonics and sent a gentle, welcoming trill her direction.

  Joy streaked across her face, and a response came back—excited, effervescent, and insanely loud in the frequencies only I could hear.

  I laughed. “You need a little work on your volume control, kiddo.” Especially if she had subsonics at seven years old.

  “How did you do that?” She practically bounced herself into my lap. “That thing I could feel inside my brain, how did you do that?”

  I’d been doing it for a lot longer than she’d been alive, and I still didn’t really have any idea. “That’s what they’ll teach you on Stardust Prime.” In the meantime, she’d just deafen the odd pig or bird.

  She’d bounced over to Ralph’s lap now. “I’m going to be a Fixer!”

  “I know, brightness.” He stroked the back of her hair. “I believe you’ll make a very fine one.”

  She turned toward me, eyes shining like the noonday sun. “Granddad says it’s really important work, helping the universe to have good balance.”

  He’d been preparing her, then. “I think so.” I soaked in her innocent, steadfast belief that what I did mattered.

  Ralph was still stroking her hair. “We live in a galaxy more peaceful, more just, more rich in beauty and diversity and freedom than anything that has ever come before us, thanks to the hard work of Lakisha and the other people at KarmaCorp.”

  His belief wasn’t so innocent, but it was just as steadfast. I felt my battered soul drinking it in. Tameka Boon was only one voice—there were others.

  Malia smiled up at him. “We live in a good world. We’re really lucky.”

  “We are—and you’re going to help keep us that way.”

  She nodded and looked over at me. “Do lots of things lose their balance? My brothers used to fall down a lot, and it made them cry.”

  The universe didn’t bounce nearly as well as most toddlers. “We try to help catch things before they land on the ground.” It was a lot easier than trying to put galactic Humpty Dumpties back together.

  She frowned. “That sounds hard.”

  Someday, she would walk in my shoes and feel the hard for herself. But not today. “KarmaCorp has lots of really smart people who help us know what to do.”

  She nodded, a child who still trusted the advisers in her world to be sane and good and right. And a child who would one day be a mighty tool for those trying to act on the side of good in the universe.

  Just like I was. I bowed my head, acknowledging the crooked lines and the message I’d just been sent.

  Destiny wasn’t mine to make—it was mine to work in service of. Rebel demon child I might be, but I wanted to be proud of myself when I woke up and looked in the mirror. Or when I looked into the eyes of seven-year-olds who someday wanted to be me.

  I was here to help sway two good people toward serving the highest good. A whole pile of KarmaCorp bigwigs would have blessed this mission before I got assigned to it, and I had no more business questioning it than Malia did. I was a Singer, not an Anthro or a StarReader or a boss lady. It wasn’t my job to understand the importance or rightness of the assignment I’d been given—it was just my job to do it. To trust that I was making a difference that mattered.

  Even if it made my heart scream.

  20

  Always go out with a bang. I’d grown up in a place that took that sentiment pretty literally, but I figured it applied elsewhere too.

  I’d run my mission here into a mountain of rock more times than I could count, but I was done hiding in shadows. Which was goo
d, because the ballroom sprawled out below me was dazzlingly well lit. Glow bulbs and firefly lights floated above food-laden tables and a dance floor that looked to be filled with half the population of Bromelain III.

  “Well hello, Singer.”

  I turned and spied the owner of the voice behind me, lounging against a wall. “Shouldn’t you be down there dancing?”

  “There will be time.” Tameka regarded my outfit and raised a wry eyebrow. “If you think that’s going to dissuade Devan Lovatt and do your work for you, you’ve seriously misjudged him.”

  I hadn’t dressed for him. I’d dressed for me. Lace-up miner boots, black leather fingerless gloves, and a short, tight dress crisscrossed in synth-leather and grommets and not much else. Hair in a braid that would have screamed “looking for a fight” in any bar on any mining asteroid in the galaxy, and around my neck, the gold retro headphones that traveled with me everywhere and normally never saw the light of day.

  Digger-chick regalia to the max, and badass, every inch. Not remotely appropriate attire for this event, and I didn’t care. I needed to do what KarmaCorp had sent me to do—but I could darn well do it Lakisha Drinkwater style. “I wasn’t aware there was a dress code.”

  “There isn’t.” The old Fixer’s lips quirked. “Feeling prickly, are you?”

  Apparently. I touched my hands to the headphones around my neck. They were the first thing I’d bought with the first Commonwealth credits I’d ever made. I’d been sixteen and dumb, and I still adored the hell out of them.

  Tameka was watching my hands and smiling softly. “My grandmother used to own a pair of those.”

  I had zero interest in making small talk, but I also had an annoying fondness for the old woman trying to engage me in it. “She was a Singer?”

  “No. A generator mechanic. Said they were the best ear protection out there.”

  There were a bunch of drill operators I knew who agreed with her.

  She stepped away from the wall. “Go, girl. Make your impression.” Her smile was full of mystery this time. “And do yourself a favor.”

  She was the last person on earth I wanted advice from in this moment. “And what would that be?”

  “Listen to the impression you actually make.”

  I gave her a glare that even I knew seriously lacked in maturity, and then headed down the long, sweeping staircase into the ballroom. Every step I took drummed in the fact that miner boots weren’t the normal footwear gracing these treads. Judging from what I could see below, attire here ran to fancy, sparkly, and dainty as hell.

  Good. It was time we all remembered I didn’t belong here.

  “Singer.” If the man who normally handled affairs in the Lovatts’ breakfast room was at all surprised by my appearance, he hid it well. “The Inheritor Elect bids you welcome.”

  I didn’t stop to talk—especially about the Inheritor Elect. Whatever Devan’s plans might be for this evening of his, I was here to work. I made my way through the ballroom, Fixer antennae on high alert. Brushing the edges of gatherings, reading, analyzing. Looking for any last leverage to do the job I’d been sent to do.

  Always go out with a bang.

  By the time I’d reached the other side of the ballroom, my bang had turned into a whimper. No signs of leverage—and I’d misjudged the entire damn planet. Half the people here had interrupted their night to say hello, and the commentary on my outfit had been complimentary to the last word.

  A planet of individualists, attracted to one who had dared to be individual. Not remotely what I’d intended, and not the ideal vibe for a woman who’d come here to finally be a decent cog, but it was too freaking late to go change. And it probably wasn’t all that reasonable to be mad at a whole colony for being friendly. I clomped in my miner boots, clutched my headphones, damned Tameka for being right, and made do.

  “You look ready to chew nails.”

  I scowled at Janelle, gliding along a sparkling gold rug my direction. “I’m hungry, that’s all.”

  She looped a silk-clad hand through my elbow. “Food’s this way.”

  I looked at our conjoined arms and tried not to be amused. “That’s quite the outfit.” Hers flowed from a snug blue sleeveless top down into layers of shimmering, almost translucent floor-length skirt. A far cry from the woman on horseback. Intergalactic royalty hanging out with the digger-rock brat.

  She followed my gaze. “What, you don’t like blue?”

  It was gorgeous, and if it were mine, I’d probably never take it off. I sighed and let some of my cranky go. “It’s really pretty—it’s just not what I expected to see you wearing.”

  “I could say the same.” She grinned and looked down. “I’m totally stealing those boots the next time you’re not looking.”

  It so wasn’t the night for friendship to be sneaking in my cracks—and yet I had no idea how to resist. “They’re the height of miner fashion.” And she could have traded her dress for about a million pairs of them.

  She tugged us sideways into a break in the traffic around one of the immensely loaded food tables. “Chocolate first, or real food?”

  Chocolate was real food. However, I’d spied something far harder to get on Stardust Prime. “Bacon, then chocolate.”

  The sound that came out of Janelle was almost a giggle. “I think you’re an addict.”

  “Guilty.” And determined to indulge the only one of my cravings that seemed safe.

  “Here.” She handed me two bowls and reached a ladle toward a pot of beautiful hammered copper. “These are baked apples. We’ll put some of the bacon on these, and some of the cheese from that plate over there, and then we’ll go hide so nobody steals our bounty.”

  I stood still and acted as a serving tray while she filled two bowls with steaming apples. They smelled like butter and cinnamon, and it was all I could do not to plop myself in face first.

  This planet knew how to throw a punch.

  Janelle peeled off her gloves and reached for two long slices of bacon, crumbling them on top of the apples. It didn’t dim the sense of galactic royalty at all.

  “You’ll want cheese on that,” said a woman I didn’t know, dressed in a flowing sheath of gold and purple and holding out a plate mounded high in bright yellow shredded stuff.

  “Thanks, Auntie D.” Janelle swooped down on the cheese and dropped a kiss on the cheek of its bearer. “It’s yours, yes?”

  “Straight out of the curing cave this morning.”

  Janelle added huge handfuls to the top of each of the bowls I held. My stomach let loose a growl loud enough to be heard in the next quadrant.

  Auntie D laughed and set the cheese plate down again. “You both look lovely tonight. It’s nice to see you enjoying your evening, Singer.”

  I blinked, shocked to discover that in this moment, I actually was. “Thank you. And apparently, my stomach thanks you too. The cheese smells wonderful.” Tee’s family made cheese for very special occasions, but it was soft and fresh. This had a tang that reminded me oddly of rocks, in the best possible way.

  She chuckled and dropped a spoon in each bowl. “It tastes even better. Go eat, before the masses realize they’re hungry.”

  Janelle grinned and motioned with her head, leading me off to a spot in the shadows. I followed, suddenly grateful for a moment to hide.

  She took one of the bowls from my hand and toasted me with it. “Food of the gods.”

  I picked up my spoon, appropriately reverent and suddenly starving—and had to struggle to keep my knees from buckling as I slid in the first bite and nearly drowned in cinnamon-buttered, bacon-topped bliss.

  Janelle laughed at my appreciative hum and talked around her own mouthful. “My sister says it’s better than sex.”

  Her sister was right, and I’d had some pretty good sex.

  A hand reached around me and tugged on Janelle’s hair. “You obviously need to pick better partners.”

  I turned, nerves totally shot—and nearly landed my apples in Devan
’s chest.

  He was dressed in midnight-blue silk and leather that should have looked as ridiculous as my outfit—and gave him the vibe of a wandering galactic bard instead.

  A really sexy bard. My nose yearned to cross the final inches and bury itself in blue silk and the smell of him.

  I was losing this bar fight. Badly.

  He backed up half a step and looked at me carefully. “Hello.” One word, his eyes saying dozens more.

  I couldn’t deal with any of them. “I’m probably supposed to thank you for putting on this shindig in my honor.”

  Janelle swallowed a choking laugh beside me.

  Amusement joined whatever else Devan’s eyes were saying. “Probably.”

  No one got to laugh at me tonight, especially these two. “I don’t like being manipulated.” Especially when I had no idea what he was up to.

  “That’s an interesting statement from a Fixer.” Steel now, and not a small dose of it.

  Every digger-rock cell I possessed fired up. And then froze as Devan got wrapped in purple-and-gold exuberance.

  “There’s my beautiful boy.” The woman I knew only as Auntie D kissed Devan thoroughly and patted his cheek. “You’ve been hiding—I haven’t been able to find you all night.” She reached into her copious bag and pulled out a thick, round package. “I brought some of your favorite.”

  His eyes softened. “Thank you. Nobody makes cheese like you do.”

  “Of course they don’t.” She patted his cheek, delighted. “Let’s go put it into your cellar. You know it doesn’t like to be out of a nice chill, and it’s been in my bag for hours now.”

  Janelle’s choking laugh had started up again.

  I watched, bemused and still sparking, as the man who would one day rule this planet sent me a rueful, laden glance and walked off to help a woman who clearly adored him—and thought he was five—tuck away a round of cheese. I could hardly stand the lump in my heart.

  “Well.” Janelle cleared her throat beside me. “That was interesting.”

  I shoveled in a huge spoonful of warm apples. They tasted like sawdust.