Firewall (Magic Born) (20 page)

Chapter Twenty-Six

It took time and care but Tuyet managed to find Channing’s desk without having to talk to anyone. The cubicle was little more than a place to fill out reports. There were obvious signs that he shared the space with security guards who worked other shifts. His only personal effect was a small digital image of himself in uniform with an older couple she assumed were his parents. She didn’t know much about his life, but she did know he’d done well in the military until joining the Rangers. Once there, he’d never meshed well with the rest of the team. Gibson tolerated him partly because it was her job, partly because it was the kind of person she was. Hayes did his best to maintain an icy professionalism once it became apparent there’d be no removing him from the squad.

Tuyet felt no temptation to feel sorry for him and his solitary existence. No one had forced him to do the things he’d done. Providing support for a witch team member while they were trancehacking was an integral part of any mission. Channing had failed at that by choice and it had put Halif in a coma. Even if that could somehow be chalked up to an error in judgment, the subway bombing was deliberate. Of those twenty-nine dead the night of the last riot, twenty-one of them had drowned when the tunnel flooded.

Tuyet sat to take a closer survey of the desk. A docked tablet and thin detachable keyboard were the only visible items. Drawers on the side of the desk were locked. Another thing she recalled about Channing: he had a lousy memory for details. She placed her palm over the lock on the drawer labeled with his name and pushed her will into the mechanism. It popped open.

Gum, a small amount of cash, a set of wireless earbuds, two pens and a blank pad of sticky notes. She peered closer, examining the sides of the drawer. Stuck to the inside front, just under the lock, was a note.

Bingo. Scribbled in Channing’s uneven handwriting was a series of random letters, numbers and punctuation marks. He’d done a terrific job of selecting a password with a high level of difficulty, but that lousy memory of his had tripped him up.

Tuyet booted up the tablet and logged in. Channing’s work schedule and circuit for the week was the first thing she found. Good. She called up a map of the building and studied the layout. With so much time between now and dawn, she would have to stick as close to his routine as possible.

She checked a few other things before putting the tablet in sleep mode, then grabbed the pack of gum, locked the drawer, and left. Time to go play security guard.

* * *

An hour before dawn, the Southside factory was packed wall-to-wall with people. Hayes stood with Lizzie, Nate on her other side. An elder from FreakTown stood on the remains of an old desk, her hands in the air and her eyes closed.

“May the Goddess protect us. May the Goddess walk side by side with us. May the Goddess hear our pleas for freedom, for our children.” She spoke the prayer slowly, the words weighted with intent. Energy rippled through the gathering, akin to the sharp taste and scent in the air before a lightning storm.

“May we succeed in making our voices heard. May we greet the dawn with courage.”

Many of the people in this crowd would be injured, Hayes knew. Some would not make it home. New Corinth had been pushed to this moment. He understood that on an intellectual level, but he didn’t have to like it.

“Through fire and earth and air and water, we draw strength.” The elder paused for a long moment. When she resumed speaking, her voice was a fraction louder. Stronger. “Through neon and concrete and electricity and our very selves, we draw strength.”

Hayes snapped his eyes up then around. A murmur rose from the crowd—confusion, shock and here and there pride.

“May we stand together, Normal and Magic Born. United.” The timbre of her voice changed again, grew heavy with emotion. “This is our city too. At dawn they’ll know it.”

The murmur became a rumble. Lizzie squeezed his hand. Hayes glanced over to see her doing the same to Nate.

“With love and light we march together. May we give each other strength to face this dawn. Blessed be!”

A chorus of “Blessed be!” and other declarations filled the huge space, along with foot-stomping, hand-clapping, chanting. Nate pushed through the crowd to the front and spoke to the elder and a handful of others. Hayes stepped closer to Lizzie, his brows coming together as he watched her face.

If even he could feel a hint of the magic in the air, what must she be feeling?

“Lizzie?”

She rubbed her face and shook slightly. “It’s okay. I can handle this.”

That was good, but the protest hadn’t even started yet. Hayes kept his mouth shut and gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile.

* * *

Tuyet returned to the basement security office. She locked the door behind her, adding a layer of magical warding for added protection. While the tablet woke up, she took out the tiny earpiece in her pocket that would allow her to hear Hayes and put it in place. She trancehacked in, the familiar blue-white of cyberspace a soothing balm to her nerves.

The others all carried the contraband phones smuggled in by Silver Wheels, to aid in what would likely be the most intense trancehacking of their lives. Her first message went to Vadim, who held down the west position of their circle. “You there, comrade?”

“Yes,” he answered immediately. “Let’s get this party started.”

Tuyet smiled. “Calla?”

“You bet.”

“Jason?”

“Oh, my God, I’m so glad the wait is almost over. My ass hurts from sitting here half the night.”

Calla’s laughter bubbled through the chat room.

Tuyet held her breath for a moment. “Silver Wheels, are you there?”

The mirrorball-helmet avatar entered the chat. “Locked and loaded, Caron.”

She’d never had a chance to have that talk with Hayes. Too late now. She sent a message to his phone, hoping their hastily put together patch to include him worked.

* * *

Hayes started as a buzzing began in his ear. He pressed his finger to the earpiece, not that that would help. “Snow?”

Nate climbed onto the desk that moments ago had been occupied by the elder. “All right, listen up!” He clapped his hands several times and whistled.

The din calmed. “Does everybody have a glamour? If we missed anybody, now’s the time to speak up.”

A few people raised their hands and were directed to a spot at the far wall behind the desk, where the witches who’d been crafting the glamours were gathered.

The earpiece crackled again. “Snow, can you hear me?”

Lizzie said, “Is it not working?”

“All I’m getting right now is static,” Hayes shook his head. “We should have stuck with actual texting.”

Nate rattled off a series of instructions that would likely not be followed. Some of these people just wanted to march and shout, but not all. Not by a long shot.

“—trying to calibrate it but it’s a little wonky with so many people on our little intranet here. Just hold on a minute.” Tuyet’s voice snapped and popped in his ear, the volume bouncing painfully.

“Copy that.” Hayes nodded at Lizzie. “It’s working now, sort of. They’re calibrating it.”

“I just hope they don’t calibrate you into a busted eardrum.”

Hayes frowned. That hadn’t occurred to him. He hated last-minute missions and the clusterfuck they inevitably created.

“Okay, how about now?” Tuyet was a sweet whisper in his ear, as perfect and clear as if she leaned against him.

“Good, that’s good.” He grinned. “So, can everyone hear me?”

“Yes,” Vadim said. “So please do us all a favor and save the dirty talk for later.”

“You’re no fun, Vadim.” That was Calla.

“Not today, I’m not. How’s my lady, Hayes?”

Hayes glanced at Lizzie, who appeared outwardly calm. Except for her eyes, which were a little wider than normal, and darker than they’d been an hour ago. “She’s good. Ready to do this.”

Calla said, “What’s Nate doing?”

“Giving orders.” Hayes waved his arm to get Nate’s attention. The other man met his gaze and raised his eyebrows. “How soon?”

Tuyet answered. “Silver Wheels is closing the circle right now.”

Hayes swallowed the question on his tongue. “Give me a countdown.”

“Five.”

Hayes raised his hand, fingers spread.

Nate yelled, “Okay, this is it. Wheels up in five!”

“Four.”

Hayes lowered his thumb and Nate shouted the number.

“Three.”

Adrenaline surged through his body. He stood on the balls of his feet, swaying slightly.

“Two.”

Shouts came from the crowd but he couldn’t make out the words. Lizzie trembled. The tail of her braid lifted for several seconds. Hayes gaped but she didn’t seem to notice.

“One.”

“It’s go time, Hayseed,” said a familiar, masculine voice, one he’d thought he’d never hear again. The last pieces of the puzzle Hayes had been putting together fell into place with the sound of that voice—Silver Wheels was Halif Osman. Hayes had no time to react or let the enormity of the revelation process. Halif said, “Wheels up!”

Nate shouted, “Wheels up!”

Across the massive factory floor, people from all over New Corinth—all ages and races, Normal and Magic Born, from every neighborhood in the city, all types of jobs and educations and economic backgrounds—activated their glamours. A sea of mirrorball helmets flashed brilliant color in the rundown, grungy space.

The wide shipping-bay doors opened and the first of the protesters stepped outside. It was go time.

Dawn broke over New Corinth.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Tuyet tested the first layers of security, finding them fairly simple to beat. She didn’t do anything more than look around yet. They would need to punch through the firewall in one massive rush of power, so there was no point to pressing the issue too early and setting off alarms.

That would happen soon enough.

Vadim broke the nervous silence. “I can feel the energy levels increasing. It’s a bit like an esbat night in Sinsuality, only more chaotic.”

“I wish they hadn’t picked daybreak for this,” Calla said. “I won’t get much by drawing on neon at this time of day.”

Tuyet said, “You’ll get enough, and you can help the others. Jason, how are you doing?”

“This is amazing. I’ve never focused on concrete and steel like this. It’s not only incredibly strong, it’s steady. Solid.” He laughed. “You guys gave me the easy one.”

“Silver Wheels?”

“Police frequencies are starting to get busy. They noticed as soon as I knocked the CCTV cameras offline.”

“What’s the status of those cameras?”

“Still offline. They’ll need a witch to untangle the hex I put on that system, and as far as I know, NCPD doesn’t have one.”

The official start of the business day was yet to come but Tuyet already saw an uptick in traffic in TMG’s intranet. “What about eyes on the ground? Have they been spotted by patrol cars yet?”

It took a moment for Silver Wheels to answer. “They’re about to reach Midtown. Patrols have radioed in.” His avatar ran through shades of orange and pink. “They’re really caught flat-footed by this. I don’t know whose idea it was to come in from Southside instead of Rockenbach, but it’s working out great.”

“That was Duane Mendoza,” Tuyet said.

The protesters would soon be meeting the earliest of rush-hour traffic. That was the only part of the route she didn’t like, crossing the belt of highways that served as the demarcation between Midtown and the poorer, rougher sections of the city. The group had backup plans to take surface streets if the highways were deemed impassable, but that would likely mean splitting the mass of people. That would, in turn, give authorities a better chance at running them down.

“Hayes,” she said. “How’s it going?”

No reply.

“Hayes, you there?”

A burst of static exploded in the chat room. “
Shiiiit!
”

Tuyet sighed. That couldn’t be good.

* * *

Hayes dove for the kid, caught him at a run and hit the ground rolling. The semi that almost hit them both blared its horn as it hurtled past. The kid shoved Hayes away and jumped to his feet.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Watch where the fuck you’re going, you little assmonkey.”

The kid shot him the finger and ran off to rejoin the protesters.

“You’re welcome!” Hayes shouted at his back. Wet warmth and pain let him know his face had eaten some gravel when he hit the ground.

Nate and Lizzie broke from the line and jogged to his side. Lizzie said, “You have a real gift for dealing with children.”

Hayes frowned at her as he stood.

“Your glamour’s messing up,” Nate said. “Half your face is uncovered and the other half is identifiable under the magic.”

Hayes continued to frown as he inspected the bracelet. The charm was cracked in half, barely holding on. “Screw it.” He took it off and shoved it in a pocket.

Nate handed him a length of gauze from a pack on his back. “We’re going to have to move to the surface streets. There’s way too much traffic here already.”

Hayes wiped the blood from his face and tossed the cloth. “That’s gonna make this harder.”

“Maybe we should split up,” said Lizzie. “Each of us take different routes and meet back up at City Hall.”

“No,” Hayes said.

“But—”

He raised one hand. “Look, I get that your natural instinct is to lead. I think it’s fair to say that goes for all three of us. But we have a different purpose than this protest. We need to stay together and remember that purpose.”

Nate made his opinion known with a discreet nod.

It took several beats longer but Lizzie agreed as well. “Then let’s not worry about staying with the crowd. It’ll be safer, less likely we’ll get caught, and we can take a direct route to City Hall.”

Hayes said, “How close do you need to be to pick up on all this energy?”

“The moon would probably be close enough.”

Nate put a hand to her shoulder briefly. “Is it bothering you?”

“That’s not the word I would use,” she said. “Let’s go.”

Hayes checked in with Tuyet, then the three of them headed for City Hall.

* * *

Tuyet skimmed across the top of a wave of police chatter. Dozens of 911 calls had already been made, with no indication they would slow down anytime soon. The first of the protesters had reached City Hall, or rather two blocks from it. Hundreds of police had been hastily called in to set up a cordon protecting the area.

She left the police net and surfed quickly back to TMG. The boundaries of the circle were set. The cone of power was building steadily. It was time for a test run. She fired off a terse message to the others and dove headlong deeper into TMG’s intranet, past where a low-level security guard would be allowed to venture.

The first layers of security fell easily. Vadim and Calla worked in the background to disable or at least delay any associated alarms. For the next level Tuyet launched a series of decryption spells. First, she made sure to try gaining access with Channing’s security code from his badge. It didn’t work, of course—he didn’t have that level of clearance. But it gave her grim satisfaction to leave a trail of breadcrumbs leading back to him.

One by one, the decryption spells produced results. Tuyet made her way through deeper layers of security, each one more complex than the last. Finally she reached what Silver Wheels had warned her about: a massive structure of code interwoven with spells, practically a literal firewall. It made her curious about the training of the witches who’d crafted this beast, but not enough to give it more than a second’s thought.

She tested the barrier. A backlash ten times stronger than the average warding spell nearly knocked her out of trance. She retreated to the chat room, for two reasons. One, in the hopes that any witches on the other side of that barrier were fooled into believing their spells were strong enough to deter this intrusion. Two, she wanted to talk to everyone one last time. They’d only get one shot at this run. It had to work the first time.

Tuyet waited until she’d sighted everyone’s avatar. “Okay, I don’t think there’s any way around it.”

“Brute force it is then,” Vadim said.

“As soon as we get the word from Hayes, we’ll start.” Tuyet checked the connection, finding it open but quiet.

Calla said, “Do you think it’s monitored? I mean, maybe they just set the spells and don’t keep watch.”

She had nothing to go on but instinct, but Tuyet said, “Yes, definitely monitored. So I may need some defensive help.”

Silver Wheels said, “I’ll start the spell to direct the energy. Tuyet, punch it and the virus through as soon as you can. Vadim and Calla, you be on standby in case she needs that defensive help. Jason, buddy, you just keep sending all the energy you can draw.”

Jason’s laughter lit the chat room in colorful sparks.

Tuyet checked the time, then glanced around the room in realspace. The door was still locked and it was early enough that no one had noticed yet. Even so, they didn’t have much time left. The regular workday would start soon. She needed to be out of TMG before that happened.

After one more check of the wards on the entrance, she returned to a deep trance state. A working trance gave her a watercolor view of cyberspace, all muted colors and soft sounds but still good enough to work with. Deep trance turned twilight to midnight, pastels to vivid neon, gave her the freedom to move from site to site with astonishing speed. It made cyberspace as three-dimensional as realspace, and every bit as dangerous. It was the closest to true freedom she’d ever experienced.

Tuyet had no trouble understanding why Halif had chosen to remain in the net as Silver Wheels rather than return to a broken body and a half life in a cage. She would have made the same choice, had it been her.

Hayes must have had so many questions about their friend and what happened to him. There would be time for answers once this was over.

Power crackled along electric lines all across the city. It reverberated through Tuyet’s consciousness deep in cyberspace, as well as her body where it sat in the basement of Tennant Media Group. She drew the energy to her, fused it with her own magic. The virus hummed like a live thing as it waited for her command. TMG’s firewall glittered before her, a tightly woven construct of mundane computer code and some of the strongest magic she’d ever seen.

She composed a message to Hayes, curious whether the text-to-speech program was sensitive enough to relay the tension trembling through her nerve endings. “We’re ready on this end. Tell Lizzie she can start at any time.”

“Cops...chasing...three...City Hall.” The message cut off abruptly.

Three miles? Three blocks? Were they in danger? Tuyet ran a quick scan of the police frequency. It was such a jumble of voices and static that she just as quickly shut it out, dismayed at how useless it now was. Equally dismayed at the chaos on the streets. They needed the power the march was creating, but they also needed it manageable enough for Lizzie to have some measure of control over it.

“What’s happening, Hayes?”

No answer.

“Hayes?”

A rustle of static, then a series of increasingly loud pops. It took a moment for Tuyet to identify the pops as gunfire.

“Hayes!”