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

reconnaissance mission in the Katmandu system. She’d be back in about a decade.“I’ll be happy to work with Tatiana.”
    Yesenia nodded sharply, as if she’d expected no less—and then walked off as if we’d never met.
    I shivered and let myself into Iggy’s pod before anything else bizarre came rolling down the hallway. I had things to do, especially if tomorrow had just been reassigned into the work column.
    I had the first bottle of cider halfway out of my bag when Iggy banged through the pod door herself and slid it shut behind her. She posed against its sky-blue flatness and raised an eyebrow. “What the heck is Yesenia doing skulking in the hallways?”
    I resisted the urge to shove the cider under a pillow. Barely. “She’s still out there?”
    “A couple of walkways over, but she’s got terrified people taking detours all over the place.”
    Scuttlebutt traveled fast, especially if it kept people out of a surprise face-to-face with the scariest woman in the habitat. “I assume you weren’t one of the detours.” Imogene Glass might look like a whimsical, lightweight fairy, but she changed her course for no one.
    “Nope.” Iggy grinned and pulled out a shiny package of Venetian dark chocolate. “So the rumor that she can smell contraband at fifty paces has been dispelled.”
    “More than once today.” I leaned back in my gel-chair and offered her a bottle of my favorite contraband. “I had this in my bag when she walked past me.” I wasn’t ready to talk about Yesenia’s strange request yet—I needed to let it process a little first, and put my ear to the underground currents. I wasn’t a Fixer who moved quickly.
    Iggy took a long swig from her bottle and then reached for her bag. “We should do the tats before we get totally plastered.”
    That never happened—not with a Grower in the room, anyhow. “The cider’s got something in it to take care of that.”
    “You’re no fun.”
    I laughed. “I’ve been working on this particular additive. It doesn’t mess with the high overmuch, at least not in moderation. Just the aftereffects.”
    Iggy picked up her bottle again, studying it with interest. “You’ll be rich beyond all imagining.”
    Probably not—most of the universe wasn’t all that fond of moderation. “Just a little gift for my friends.”
    Her mobile face told me exactly what she thought of that idea. “You’re the best Grower in the quadrant, and you refuse to make any money doing things that hordes of people would be willing to throw credits at you for.”
    A whole bunch of things in that sentence were disputable, so I picked the easiest. “I make money—I get my KarmaCorp salary every rotation, same as you.”
    She wrinkled her nose. “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”
    I did. We’d had this argument plenty of times before.
    “Other Growers do it, and even Yesenia doesn’t blink. I’d do it in a heartbeat if I could.”
    I wasn’t as convinced of that as she was, but neither of us would likely ever know. Most Talents didn’t monetize all that easily—not without crossing ethical lines really fast, anyhow. Growers were different, especially those of us who were good in the science lab. There were plenty of useful, ethically permissible lotions and potions. “You know why I don’t.”
    “Because it messes up how people connect with you.” Iggy rolled her eyes and bent into one of the contortions she called stretching. “So you give away valuable gunk for free even when most of your customers could happily afford to pay for it.”
    It paid me, just not in credits. It was one of the ways I gave back to my tribe and made them stronger—and that, in so many very important ways, fed me. “Not everything is about money.”
    She uncoiled and smiled. “I know, sweetie. I’m just riling you, and I’ll stop now.”
    I grinned and repositioned her cider bottle where she could reach it. “You’ve picked up some of Raven’s protective