Firewall (Magic Born)

by Sonya Clark

But not the U.S. and the handful of other countries with anti-magic laws. Reading the overseas reports that came across his desktop in Ranger headquarters in Virginia could be hugely frustrating. It was true that when Tuyet deserted, the program was nearly shut down for fear of how the populace would react if it got out that Washington still utilized witches. But there was also quiet chatter from other corners of the capital that the Magic Laws were coming to their end date whether people liked it or not. The U.S. couldn’t continue to live under the economic sanctions imposed by the world’s leading governments because of the Magic Laws.

  Hayes wanted to believe that those in power would make the right decisions. He knew that probably made him naïve, but he needed that belief. He’d dedicated his life to that belief. Turned away from Tuyet because of that belief.

  The heat settled in, driving him back inside. He left the tablet on the dresser, refilled his coffee and sat on the small sofa. How early would be too early to go see her? And how would he make up for the hash he’d made of things yesterday? Wearing the glamoured bracelet had been a stupid idea. He had to do better, think things through better, or he was going to blow it with her again. Conjuring the past was no way to let her know he wanted a future with her.

  At least he could admit the truth to himself now. He wasn’t taking her in. There had never been any real chance of that. If she didn’t want him, he would help her get out of New Corinth and off of Talbot’s radar. After that, back to an empty apartment, a job he hated, colleagues who didn’t trust him. If Talbot didn’t buy whatever cover story he tried to sell to explain Tuyet’s disappearance, there was always the civilian version of a pointless existence. The thought of it soured the coffee in his stomach.

  But if she did want him, what then? She was a fugitive. There was no magic spell to fix that. If they were going to be together, it would mean turning his whole life inside out.

  And because he couldn’t get a handle on that just yet, he went back to his research.

  He could find little about TMG’s internet-security division. Most corporations used their internet-security personnel to prevent various types of hacking. If anybody connected to the ordinance had the ability to use trancehackers to block uploaded content though, it would be TMG.

  Hayes didn’t know anyone who worked for the media conglomerate, but he did know someone who worked in internet security elsewhere. Yolanda Gibson, his former warrant officer, now enjoyed a high-paying civilian job and not getting shot at. They still kept in contact. She called him on Christmas because she knew he’d be alone. He called her on her birthday to tease her about being older than him. They weren’t exactly close, but he cared for her and deeply appreciated that she hadn’t abandoned him as so many had when his career blew up in his face. She might not know anything about TMG, but if she did, she would share the information. He fired off a quick email and thumbed the sleep button on the tablet.

  The coffee could no longer disguise the fact that he hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Find food or go talk to Tuyet? He’d be less likely to make an ass of himself by hunting up a plate of enchiladas, so he chose that.

  * * *

  Laura was in her mid-thirties but looked older. She perched on a stool in front of a black cloth backdrop, hands fluttering nervously in her lap. Paula began by showing an older video to demonstrate how well she could hide a person’s identity in postproduction. That helped soothe Laura’s worries. What helped more was Paula’s manner, calm and soft-spoken. Open to listening. She had a gift for setting people at ease. Knew when to ask questions and when to be quiet.

  Tuyet hovered in the background. This was the second interview of the night and neither had been any fun to witness. Laura worked in a tiny Korean grocer in Rockenbach and lived alone in a studio apartment five blocks away. Every Friday as soon as her shift was over, she joined the protest. The sign she carried read We Want Our Children Back.

  Paula took her place on the other stool and raised the camera. “Are you ready?”

  Laura nodded. “How do I start?”

  “How old were you when you had your baby?”

  Laura drew in a deep breath. “I was twenty-four. My husband and I were careful, very careful. But I got sick and you know what antibiotics do to the pill. So it wasn’t planned. I mean, I worked in a clothing store in Midtown back then. He worked for a landscaping company. We didn’t have a lot of money. We were happy though. We were happy.”

  Paula let the silence stretch. Tuyet tried not to fidget.

  “He was scared. I mean, I was too. We used to go to Sinsuality all the time. Go shopping in the bazaar. So we knew some Magic Born and, you know, it was no big deal. It’s not like we were scared of them or anything. So we weren’t scared of having a witch baby because of that. We were scared because it would mean we couldn’t keep our baby.”

  “What happened after the DNA test? To you and your husband?”

  Laura tugged on the frayed cuffs of her sleeves, eyes downcast. “He drank a lot. The clinic gave me a prescription, these pills to keep me calm. When they stopped renewing it, I started buying it in Rockenbach from this girl I knew. Well, it wasn’t always the exact same pills, but they all had pretty much the same effect. I would take two of them and just kind of coast for a while, you know. I could go to work, do the laundry, whatever. I could handle it, as long as I was numb.” She looked directly into the camera. “I stayed numb for a long time.”

  Tuyet stepped out of the room, unable to stomach any more of it. That woman’s daughter would be about ten years old now, either living in the zone orphanage or adopted by a witch parent. A witch parent who would be the only parent the girl knew. Was one of the women that marched every Friday aching with loss over a little girl only three months old? Danika Bazarov had been delivered into the arms of adoptive parents who would love her fiercely. Tuyet hoped Laura’s daughter had been so lucky.

  It was something the birth parents who marched never talked about. They wanted their children back, but what if those children were in loving homes in FreakTown? Who kept the child? If they were old enough to choose, how could they possibly be expected to make a decision like that? The last thing anybody wanted was more families torn apart, but if by some miracle the Magic Laws were overturned, issues like that would have to be carefully navigated.

  Tuyet certainly didn’t have any answers. She’d grown up in the orphanage in Gehenna. Any way out was a good way, whether it was birth parents, adoptive parents or the Magic Rangers. She took the escape she was offered and hadn’t been back to that hellhole since. Not even for the underground had she been willing to do that.

  With a sigh she pulled out her phone and sat on the floor. No messages from Hayes. She didn’t know how to feel about that. It was probably for the best if they both forgot about that kiss. She found a book to read and settled in to wait. If this interview was anything like the first one today, it would take a while.

  * * *

  It was early evening before Gibson returned the email. Hayes read it standing on the corner a block from Tuyet’s apartment.

  Heard you got sent on some kind of special assignment to New Corinth. I’m still looking into details about TMG for you, but I can tell you this: Scott Channing has worked there for a year and he recently transferred to the local NC station. Keep your head down, Hayseed.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Hayes forced himself to relax before he broke the phone, blinking sweat out of his eyes. Did Channing and Talbot have
any communication? Hayes had no allies in Virginia who could help him find out. He badly wanted to know how Talbot had gotten that video of Tuyet to start with. If Channing knew or even suspected she was here, he might not turn her in.

  He might just kill her.

  Hayes typed a quick message to Tuyet. Channing in city. Can u run trace? Then he continued on down the street, past her building. He’d booked his hotel under his own name. Channing could have already seen them together.

  The suck was about to get suckier.

  * * *

  Tuyet eased through the streets, a bag of groceries in each hand. The back of her neck prickled a warning. She was being followed, and not by Hayes. Every instinct she had screamed danger. She looked around as casually as possible, seeing nothing. If she turned around to look, it would tip them off. So would running, and depending on how long they’d been following her, so would bypassing her apartment. She shifted the bags so she could carry them in one hand and reached into her pocket for her phone.

  Someone behind her in the crowd stumbled into her, then moved off to her left. A hand wrapped around her upper right arm in a bruising grip.

  “Well, if it isn’t my lucky day, Caron.”

  It was Scott Channing.

  Chapter Fourteen

  2064

  Hayes dropped a hand to Tuyet’s neck, running his fingers through her hair. Her sobs were the only sound in the room, that and the ticking and beeping of machinery. Halif lay comatose and heavily bandaged in the bed.

  “Permanent vegetative state” was the last thing he remembered the doctor saying before she left the room.

  “This isn’t right.” Tuyet swept her hair from her face and looked up at him. “He should be at peace.”

  “I know.” He could barely get the words out.

  “This isn’t living, Dale.” She turned back to Halif and took his hand, so lifeless and still, in hers. “This is hell.”

  She broke apart then and finally, after days of holding it in as best he could, Hayes let himself break with her. He gathered her in his arms and they cried together, their grief so strong it filled the small hospital room like poisonous air threatening to suffocate them both.

  In time they stilled, but they clung to each other for a little while longer. A few stolen moments of solace weren’t enough. They never were. By the time Gibson knocked on the door, they were standing apart.

  The warrant officer entered the room. She placed a hand on Tuyet’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry,” she murmured.

  Hayes said, “Where is he?”

  Gibson was reluctant to answer. “In the waiting room at the end of the hall.”

  If he’d been able to feel, it might have been rage that sent him out of his friend’s hospital room and down the hall. Fury. Hatred, even. But grief had carved such a wide, deep hole in him that right in that moment, Hayes couldn’t feel anything.

  Channing sat slumped in a chair wearing an expression of supreme boredom. Hayes dragged him up by the throat and shoved him against the nearest wall. “You were told to cover him. Why did you disobey orders?”

  Channing struggled to free himself. “Let me go!”

  Hayes squeezed harder. “Why did you leave him on his own?”

  “Fuck you!” Channing kicked at Hayes, catching the side of one foot.

  Hayes slid awkwardly on the slick floor, losing his grip on the other man’s throat. Footsteps sounded from behind. Hayes ignored them, raising his fist.

  Gibson grabbed it and forced his arm down. “Don’t do this.” She stepped between the two men.

  “Go back to the room,” Hayes said, eyes on Channing.

  “This isn’t going to help Osman. You want something done, do it right.” She placed her hands on his shoulders and shook him, forced him to look at her. “Captain.”

  Channing glared back at him with all the rage Hayes wouldn’t let himself feel. Just below the surface of it was something uglier.

  “Captain Hayes,” Gibson said.

  Hayes moved away from Gibson and spoke to Channing. “Why did you ignore a direct order and leave your team member without any cover?”

  “The situation was under control. The guards were unconscious. Osman was in the system.” Channing rubbed his throat. “There was nothing more for me to do so I went to check out the storage rooms. There was no way to know that guard would wake up.”

  “Which is exactly why we don’t leave them unprotected while they’re trancehacking! That’s when they’re at their most vulnerable, and you know that, you stupid fuck. That man is full of bullet holes and in a coma because of you.”

  “There was no way to know!”

  “You disobeyed orders and you left your teammate unprotected. You are done, Channing. I’m gonna have you brought up on charges. I’m gonna do everything I can to get you thrown out of the Rangers on your worthless ass.”

  Hayes turned and walked away, ignoring the stares of medical staff and people in the waiting room. Ignoring Channing too and his sputtering, angry threats. None of that mattered. He paused outside of Halif’s room, leaned his forehead against the door. The sound of Tuyet crying softly reached him.

  Channing had disobeyed orders but Hayes had given them. Instead of coordinating the op himself and sending Gibson to work with one of the witches, he’d done the same thing he always did. Gibson running the show, Halif and Channing as support, Hayes and Caron on point—that was how he always did it. He used the excuse of wanting to be in the field but it fooled few. Yes, he was better in the field than Gibson. Yes, she was better at running their mobile op command than he was. But Hayes knew deep down that he would have configured the team the same way no matter what. It allowed him to both work with Tuyet and keep Channing away from her.

  There was no escaping the feeling that his hands were dirty on this too.

  Hayes couldn’t go back into that room, not feeling this way. He took the elevator to the parking garage and climbed onto his bike. He’d been in such a hurry to make the meeting with the doctors, he’d grabbed the wrong helmet. The last time Halif had come over to ride the V10, he’d left his mirrorball helmet. Swearing, blinking away tears, Hayes jammed it on his head and sped away.

  2067

  Tuyet swung the two grocery bags into Channing, hoping the soup cans hit him in the face. She had no intention of waiting around to see. He cried out, digging his fingers into her upper arm. She twisted her body to escape his grip and pushed through the crowd.

  Where the hell Channing had come from, she had no idea. One thing she was sure of: he wasn’t working with Hayes. The two men hated each other.

  There would be time to figure out what was going on later. Right now she had to lose Channing and warn Hayes. She raced through an alley, peeling off her jacket as she ran and leaving it on the ground. A stream of people flowed past the mouth of the alley. She slipped into the crowd and headed in the opposite direction from where she’d come, away from her apartment.

  Two blocks. Three. No sign of him. Tuyet moved as fast as she could without attracting attention from patrol officers. She swiveled her head constantly, scanning faces in the crowd. Her phone vibrated. She had it set to do that for contact from only a handful of people, so she took it from her pocket and read the new message. Channing in city. Can u run trace? Too late for that now.

  Tuyet spotted him half a second before he found her. A nasty grin creasing his face, he pushed and shoved his way in her direction. She looked around for options, finding none. Too many cops, way too many civilians, still too much daylight. Her best bet was to lose him again and head for the tunnels.

  She took advantage of a hole in the crowd and darted across the street just before he reached her. He kept pace on the opposite side, the grin still plastered to his face. Chann
ing was dangerous when he got reckless. It had caused problems on missions at times, but there’d always been someone to stop him from going too far. This time it would have to be her.

  Three more blocks, then a side street with considerably fewer people. The sun hung low in the sky, slowly giving up its last bit of golden light for the day. The river’s industrial tang replaced the greasy smell of fried food. Tuyet glanced behind her. No sign of him, but she didn’t believe for a second that she’d lost him. She focused on the phone still clutched in one hand, sliding part of her awareness into a working trance. The vivid neon night world of cyberspace superimposed over the grunge and dirt of this sparse section of Rockenbach, too close to Riverside and its nightshade dens for anyone to consider it remotely safe. Quickly, she sent a reply to Hayes followed by an emergency beacon to Silver Wheels.

  The tunnel was close, but she didn’t want to risk exposing the entrance. Channing needed to be unconscious before she made her escape.

  “I know you’re out here, Caron,” he called from somewhere to her left.

  She slipped around the side of an empty building missing most of one outer wall, then crouched to examine the debris on the ground. Trash, broken concrete and rebar, little bits of unidentifiable stuff. The most useful thing was a chunk of concrete big enough to hurt but still small enough to hold in one hand, with a foot of rusted rebar sticking out. She didn’t want to kill Channing though. Not unless she absolutely had to.

  “Then come and get me, you little bitch!” She picked up the concrete chunk.

  “Don’t you worry, I will. Been waiting a long time for this.”

  “You couldn’t beat me before. What makes you think you can now?” Energy flowed beneath the ground, a river of power she itched to call to her fingertips.

  “You don’t have anybody to protect you now. No Hayes to keep the big bad wolves away.”

  She laughed loud enough for the sound to carry to him. “What makes you think Hayes was protecting me from you? It was the other way around, you idiot.” One good hit was all she needed, either with the concrete or magic.