Destiny's Song (The Fixers, book #1: A KarmaCorp Novel) Read Online Free Page B

coveted, and had really short life expectancies.
    KarmaCorp hunted for Travelers in every corner of the galaxy, and in my lifetime, there had been three. I looked at the girl who had asked the question and sent me woolgathering. “No idea.”
    I saw a few eyes in the class sidle toward a student in the back. She was elegant ice, sitting chill and still with a snooty look on her face.
    We didn’t need an introduction. Tatiana Mayes, only progeny of Yesenia Mayes and headed straight for the Fixer elite ever since she’d been old enough to get her thumb into her mouth. If she was a Traveler, it hadn’t manifested yet—but the possibility had already earned her a world of privilege, hatred, and overprotected hovering.
    This was the first time we’d actually come face-to-face. I looked at her square on, curious to see what she was made of.
    Two golden eyes met mine, gaze even and registering slightly bored.
    I let the tiniest smile show, impressed, despite my best intentions. Yesenia’s cub had some backbone.
    Slowly, she raised her right hand.
    I was pretty sure there wasn’t anything about Fixing, KarmaCorp, or the Federated Commonwealth of Planets that she didn’t already know. Yesenia would have sent her spawn out into the world impeccably prepared.
    Tatiana was still waiting, the bored ice queen with her hand up. And more eyes in the room were turning to watch. I raised an eyebrow slightly and engaged the battle, because whatever else this was, it was a challenge. “You have a question, Trainee Mayes?”
    She acknowledged my first thrust with the barest flicker of a smile.
    She wasn’t surprised that I knew who she was, but she was impressed that I’d laid it out there—or at least that’s what I took from the small flicker. I waited for her question.
    Her eyes slid left for a brief moment, over to the non-assuming girl in blue who had asked the smartest question of the day so far—and got a quick, reassuring glance in return.
    Ah, so that was the lay of the land. The cub had a friend. I found myself glad of it. Fixers without friends didn’t last long, even if they’d been born into KarmaCorp’s bosom.
    Tatiana breathed in like one of the dolphins on Xanatos, slow and liquid and taking all the time in the world, as if oxygen was a small, permitted luxury instead of the stuff of life. “What is it like working for my mother?”
    Youch. There was no way to answer that and come out without scratches.
    I watched as the quiet girl in blue grinned, acknowledging the play.
    I didn’t mind a few scratches—and I liked Tatiana more than I’d expected to. I waited a moment and then gave her the respect of an honest answer. “I imagine it’s easier than being her daughter.”
    The ice queen melted for just a moment, and I saw a kid with golden eyes who knew she lived in a golden cage—and planned to get out one day.
    My heart answered in an instant. I hoped she made it.
    Which is the kind of thing you absolutely don’t want to think as a loyal employee of KarmaCorp, or as someone who’s ever caught a glimpse of Yesenia Mayes in a temper. A woman who could shred fifteen grown men over delays in interplanetary shipping schedules wasn’t anyone to mess with, ever. I broke eye contact with Tatiana, cursing whatever momentary impulse had made me stupid.
    And saw Yesenia, standing just inside the far left door. She saw me looking, bowed her head slightly, and slid out as silently as she had come in.
    I shivered. The woman never missed anything.
    Tatiana was back in her snooty, bored pose, the one I suspected she wore like a comfortable second skin—but I wasn’t convinced that she missed much either.
    And I was a tired Fixer about to head off-planet again who didn’t need any more crap to land. I scanned my audience one more time, using that command presence I didn’t generally have to suggest that question period was done. “Anyone else?”
    A hand shot up on the far right, and a girl with bright red hair