Karma Patrol (2 page)

“Is there something funny I should know about?” Jade asked, taking a seat in front of the desk, and Celia’s grin widened.

“You did it. I’ve gotta hand it to you, kid. You finally did it.”

“Did what?” Jade asked, mystified. Celia produced a sheet of paper from the folder on her desk and gave it to Jade with a flourish. The younger woman scanned the sheet, going from puzzlement to disbelief as she read the data analysis. “No way.”

“Yes way,” Celia contradicted. “Jade Bailey, you are officially the enforcer of the number one catchment area in all of New York City. Midtown West’s yearly average balance is at an absolute value of 0.15 as of the first of November.”

Jade stared blankly at the paper for a long moment. She’d known that she’d done well this karmic year; she’d taken all of Celia’s criticism and helpful hints to heart, and she’d tried to pay special attention to overall balance, making sure to focus more on long-term positives and negatives. Still, the best she’d hoped for on this review was to be told that she’d screwed up less than last year. Her catchment area was famously volatile, and she did so much sheer volume that it was impossible to control its overall balance from day to day.

“Does this mean I made the short list?”

She heard the desperate hope in her own voice. Judging by Celia’s expression, her boss heard it too.

“Made the short list? Kid, you’re at the top of the short list.” Celia pointed a finger at her. “If you can keep from screwing up between now and November 15, you’re practically guaranteed a promotion to specialist. You won’t end up on the supervisor list, either; I made sure of it. I like my job, but you weren’t built for account supervision. You belong in the field.”

“I…” For once in her life, Jade was rendered speechless. “Celia, I don’t know what to say.”

“I know what you should say,” Celia informed her. “You should say, ‘Gee, thanks, Celia, I’m so honored to be the number one enforcer in the entire region. It’s all thanks to you and your excellent leadership. In return for your help, I solemnly promise not to screw this up between now and the end of the selection period, because this is my life goal and because I know how important it is for you, as my boss, to be able to brag to that Brooklyn jackass Andrew Delaney that you finally had one of your enforcers get promoted to specialist.”

Despite her residual shock, she felt a smile cross her face.

“Don’t worry, Celia,” she promised her boss. “I won’t let you down. I’m going to hedge in my patrol area so tightly that no one will be able to shoplift a pack of gum without immediate retribution.”

Then she would get the job she’d wanted since the age of sixteen, and she would show her father she’d made the right decision to leave their sleepy little town and strike out on her own, and maybe her professional success would finally be enough to offset her disappointing personal life. All she needed was to keep doing the same job she’d been doing for one more week and make sure nothing went wrong.

Easy.

Jade made her way down Fourth Avenue, Radiohead playing on her earbuds as she watched the mingled tourists and New Yorkers navigate their way into shops and office buildings. The karma-sensing ability she’d inherited from her father showed her a flurry of multicolored lines stretching down the street, flowing into each doorway and zipping out in front of the oblivious pedestrians. All of those people were interconnected, every path and plan and destiny, and they didn’t even know it.

On the sidewalk ahead, there was a tangle of karmic paths, one line blinking an uncertain bright blue to indicate it was about to be interrupted by free will. She focused on the blue line out of habit, despite the fact that this wasn’t her catchment area. She could have kept walking and ignored the snag, leaving the resultant karmic imbalance for Mark Tillman to clean up, but she was in such a good mood that she didn’t mind helping out, even if it would benefit Mark. Besides, it would gain her a little good karma of her own if she helped him, and with her pending promotion review, she could use all the extra karmic benefits she could get.

The reason for the snag became apparent as she approached the middle of the city block. Two men stood in front of an apartment building, deep in conversation. The first man wore an immaculately tailored suit and had a shimmering red karmic path that indicated he was standing exactly where he was supposed to be in order to receive a negative consequence. The other man’s path was an eye-searing shade of blue, warning karmic enforcers about a potential interruption that needed addressing.

Jade slowed down as she reached them, taking a moment to appreciate the first man’s well-tailored and obviously expensive suit while she removed her headphones and shoved them into her bag. She angled herself toward the man with the disrupted karmic path, bumping into him as she passed them.

“I’m so sorry,” she began, and then cut herself off as she feigned recognition. “Oh, it’s you!”

“It was my fault,” Interrupted Path Guy replied, turning away from Expensive Suit Guy to face Jade as he reached a hand out to steady her. “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

“Don’t be silly,” she laughed, thickening her southern accent intentionally as she tossed her hair over one shoulder and smiled at him. “We met at that thing last week.”

“Oh, right, that thing.” He clearly had no idea what she was talking about, which made sense because she was lying through her teeth. Still, she’d used this tactic hundreds of times over the past several years, and rarely did she encounter a man who wouldn’t play along with almost anything in order to hold the attention of a beautiful woman.

“Yeah, it’s good to see you, uh…”

“Sara,” she lied. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“No, I do,” he insisted, taking a step closer to her, which also led him a step away from Expensive Suit Guy. “How have you been, Sara?”

“I’m great. Actually, I’m glad I ran into you. I need your opinion on something. Unless you’re too busy?”

She looked pointedly from him to Expensive Suit Guy and back. He shook his head, abandoning his friend in favor of following Jade several more steps down Fourth Avenue.

“I’m not busy at all. See you, Steve,” he added with a vague wave over his shoulder, and Jade smiled in satisfaction as the bright blue of his path shifted to a medium shade of green. He was headed for a positive consequence, then, and her intervention had been successful in keeping his free will from interfering with his karmic plan. A glance at his aura showed her the same shade of green. Without checking her Karma Division app, she couldn’t know his exact account balance, but she suspected it was at or about positive 0.35, which indicated he was generally a good sort of guy. He was also cute and tall and devoid of a wedding ring.

She waited a beat longer than she usually would have to end the encounter, hoping she might suddenly fall head over heels in love with him, but all she felt was a nagging ache in her left ankle that told her she’d been wrong to wear her new flats to walk halfway across the city.

“Oh, well,” she sighed aloud, and Interrupted Path Guy gave her a questioning look.

“What?” he asked.

“You know what? I think I have you confused with someone else,” she said with a brief smile. “Sorry to waste your time.”

“Wait, I—”

His protest was drowned out by the gleeful shrieks of three school-aged children who came tearing down the sidewalk, their hands full of brightly colored water balloons. Jade already knew what was going to happen, but she still enjoyed the shocked expression on Expensive Suit Guy’s face when one of the little girls stumbled and dropped her armload of water balloons, breaking them open on the ground at his feet and soaking his wool trousers.

“Damn it, get back here!” he shouted as the children took off and his karmic path reset to a neutral white, his consequence delivered.

“Good thing we weren’t standing in the splash zone,” she pointed out to her now-silent conversation partner, shaking her head as she watched Expensive Suit Guy wipe uselessly at his wet pants. “It’s a shame about the suit, though.”

She continued on her way without waiting for Interrupted Path Guy to reply, her curls bouncing around her shoulders as she headed toward her own catchment area. The next office building had a long expanse of mirrored windows, and she used the reflection to watch as Interrupted Path Guy looked away from his friend’s sartorial mishap, glanced briefly after her, and then took off in the other direction. The shimmering line stretching out in front of him remained a cheerful shade of green, his own karmic plan back on track after his brief unexpected diversion. She would have to tell Mark he owed her two: one for the well-heeled guy she’d delivered to his intended negative consequence, and another for the cute but hapless guy she’d redirected back onto his rightful path.

ade reached her own territory nearly an hour later, stopping once to do a minor karmic intervention and twice to window shop as she walked through Rockefeller Center. A promotion to account specialist would also mean a raise, and she was looking forward to it with unabashed greed. When she’d moved to New York, she’d insisted on supporting herself without her parents’ financial assistance. It earned her respect from both of them, particularly her father, but she missed being able to buy designer goodies without having to spend all day searching thrift shops to find them at a discount.

After glancing at her watch to make sure it wasn’t too late to drink coffee, she decided to stop at the Starbucks down the street from her apartment. Her phone rang when she was less than a block away, and she smiled when she saw the caller ID.

“Hi, Daddy. I was just thinking about you.”

“Good afternoon, Jade Ann. I understand congratulations are in order.”

“Keeping tabs on me?” she laughed. She should’ve known he would read her annual performance results the moment they were posted in the Karma Division database.

“Celia Rodriguez is a perfectly good account supervisor, but you worked for me long before you worked for her,” he reminded Jade, who felt her shoulders straighten as her posture improved automatically in response to his ‘supervisor’ voice. “I’m proud of you. You’ve worked hard to get to where you are. You deserve this promotion.”