by Audrey Faye
Yesenia’s left eyebrow rose a very controlled centimeter. “How long are you going to stand there and quote me the manual that I wrote, Journeywoman?”
Oops. That was definitely pissed-off boss lady. “I’m done.”
“Good.” She sighed and shook her head. “I know you weren’t pleased to have this particular assignment in the first place. Would you like to hear why I sent you?”
Several very cranky replies popped into my head, side by side with the jaw-dropping astonishment of the boss lady offering to explain herself. A week in a flying tin can never has me at my best. A week of contemplating probable career suicide and the idiocy of pining for a man I would probably never see again while in that tin can had left me riding the thin edge of insanity.
I did, however, have enough remnants left to keep my mouth shut.
Yesenia stood, opened a chill box on her desk, and pulled out a shimmering glass bowl of fruit. “Here, it looks like you could use this more than I can.”
I kept my hands behind my back. The exotic fruit was worth a week of my salary, and the handblown Venusian glass it sat in probably ran a hundred times that. “No, thank you.”
“Journeywoman.” The bowl landed on my side of the desk with a decided thunk. “Sit down, shut up, and eat. Now.”
Shit. I sat. And after one more death glare from the other side of the desk, picked up the spoon. “Thank you.”
“Better.” Yesenia sat down and watched like a hawk as I took one small bite and then another.
Even a week’s worth of pent-up terror couldn’t make this taste like sawdust. I felt my idiot tongue revel in the bits of mango and pineapple and something that tasted like honey, and tried not to puke it back up.
If this was a condemned person’s last meal, it was a worthy one.
It wasn’t until I’d let the last spoonful slide down my throat that the woman on the other side of the desk spoke up again. “I sent you because you’re one of my most creative Fixers.” Her face could have given an ice sculpture a run for its money. “Although I must say that I didn’t count on Tameka giving that particular quality of yours a good, hard push.”
I was slightly stoned on mango and utterly lost. “I don’t understand.”
She frowned and looked at a place on the wall just over my right shoulder. “My job is not as easy as most of you think it is, Singer. We have very good men and women evaluating the energies of the universe, the places where the Talents of a Fixer might shift outcomes for the greater good.”
Any first-year trainee knew that. “And our job is to do the mission as assigned.”
“Correct.” She looked squarely at me again. “What you don’t know is that often the directives those good men and women issue are not straightforward. There are nuances, difficulties, gray areas. And in the case of this assignment, sometimes more than one possible desirable outcome.”
That definitely wasn’t something they told the first-year trainees. I stared at her, completely horrified. She was sounding like Tameka Boon.
“You wonder why we don’t tell you.”
I shook my head slowly. “No.” I could feel the answer congealing in my gut. “It would make us less certain, less likely to act with clarity and conviction.” It would make our Talents as wobbly as all hell.
I could still hear the sound of mine rending.
“For most, yes.” She was studying me very carefully. “Fixers are human beings, and most human beings prefer a clear direction to follow.”
My neurons had all chittered to a disoriented stop.
“Some don’t.” Yesenia’s tone was dispassionate, almost clinical. “Those who don’t are often our brightest and our best.”
Somewhere inside my brain of ice, comprehension landed. “Like Tameka.”
“Yes. What you as trainees learn of her is limited, and that is done at my directive. I don’t need a herd of Tameka Boons to manage.” She paused, an enigmatic look in her eyes. “But I do need a few. You have it in you to become one of them, Journeywoman. See that you do.”
I stared, shocked to the rock-bottom soles of my feet. “I’m a fifth-year Fixer who royally screwed up her assignment. I’m nothing like Tameka.”
“She doesn’t agree with you.” Yesenia said the next words as if they tasted slightly bitter. “And neither do I.”
I’d seen a miner who’d been inside a tunnel blast once. I was pretty sure I knew how he felt.
“Let me speak clearly, Singer.” Yesenia laid her hands on her desk. “This mission was the result of directives from the highest levels. It was quite clear that Devan Lovatt would be a major force in this quadrant one day, and also that there was value in encouraging his heart to open to a key relationship at this point in his life.” She inclined her head slightly. “The directives were much less clear on who that should be.”
I couldn’t stop staring. “You sent me to put him together with Janelle.”
She nodded crisply. “It is the outcome that the StarReaders anticipated to be most likely.”
I could hear it—the single note that she was clearly allowing me to hear. “You didn’t agree with them.”
“I am not always quite as certain as they are. I have some familiarity with strong-willed young people and the difficulty of predicting who they will become.”
My mind was jibbering, trying to take in the utter annihilation of the world as I knew it. And then the full, immediately relevant import of Yesenia’s words sank in.
“You expected this?” My astonishment was the size of a supernova and growing. “You sent me to Bromelain III knowing this would happen?”
She inclined her head slightly. “It was one of the possibilities.”
That was insane. “I’m a Fixer. He’s a man who will have to navigate a dozen bureaucrats before he can even enter inner-planet space.” Never mind the shoes he would be filling one day.
“Not all of us choose easy paths, Singer.” Her face gave nothing away. “You grew up digging holes in the side of a deep-space rock. I imagine you would find an easy life’s journey rather boring.”
This assignment had taken every possible crazy turn. At this point, I was just hanging on by my fingernails and trying not to die.
“I have one last thing for you.” She reached behind her and lifted up a small box. “Emelio Lovatt couriered this to my attention. The accompanying message from his wife indicates that you would know what to do with it.” She pushed the box across the desk and lifted the lid. “She also instructed me to make sure that you accept it.”
I gawked at the kilo stack of shrink-wrapped bacon. It would have cost a king’s ransom to send via galactic messenger. I looked at Yesenia, entirely stupefied. “Why on earth would they send me this?”
“You’re not usually so dense, Journeywoman Drinkwater.” The corners of her mouth hinted at what might almost be a smile. “I believe it is their way of telling you that they approve.”
I stared, every molecule of my brain totally fried.
“Go, Singer. You’ve got work to do.” Yesenia’s tone was back to brusque and businesslike. “And if a certain young man from Bromelain III is ever in need of a visitor pass, I will instruct Lucinda to aid him in any way necessary.”
I gaped. Bean could make anything happen. “You’re not dropping me down a wormhole?”
“Not today.” That hint of a smile was back. “Don’t make me regret it.”
I stumbled out of her office, the implications of her words racing through my mind and soul, setting fire to every neuron they touched.
I was not going to die today.
I was going to eat apple pie and bacon and hug my friends.
Yesenia had just given KarmaCorp’s tacit blessing to a romance between a Fixer and an Inheritor Elect. Which meant the StarReaders had too.
I had made the choices of a renegade—and not been branded as one.
And I would see Devan again.
Thank You
I appreciate you reading!
&n
bsp; The next Fixer tale is already out—Grower’s Omen, which is Tee’s story. (Don’t worry, you’ll get a peek at Devan and Kish too! Rumor has it he might be coming for a visit.) You can also find Kish’s origin story in the Starbound anthology, with more details than she gave on Tameka’s porch…
As you might have guessed, there are more KarmaCorp books on the way. You can find all the books in the series so far here. To hear about the next release, head to audreyfayewrites.com and sign up for my New Releases email list. You can also find me on Facebook. And if you’ve been kind enough to write Kish a review, please read this note :).
Also, if you’re a reader who likes to graze widely, you might enjoy my assassins while you wait.
May there always be boots on your feet and a story in your hands,
Audrey