Firewall (Magic Born) by Sonya Clark Page B

treated there last night.” Rose was the councilwoman’s wife and ran one of the two public clinics in Rock.
    “Can they force her to give up that information?” The question came from an older man who glanced from Sheila to a law student who’d volunteered to help the protesters.
    Sheila gestured to indicate the student should answer. He said, “The clinic doesn’t bother with records on Friday nights anymore, partly because of that. Doctor-patient confidentiality should protect the clinic, but the police and the city can try other ways. Inspections and accreditation are things to worry about in the long run but for right now, all the cops can do is try to intimidate Dr. Copeland. And I think we all know just how much that’s
not
going to work.”
    Relieved laughter broke some of the tension in the room. Shelia let it go on for a moment before continuing. “We don’t talk much about what goes on after our people leave the protests. We try to pretend it’s a separate matter, that the rioting and violence aren’t a part of what we’re trying to do. But we need to be honest with ourselves. We’ve all been hoping that it would help spur the city into action, into doing the things that we want. We all know the agitators. The ones who light the fires and throw rocks and provoke the police into fights and chases. Just because they don’t sit at this table with us doesn’t mean anything. Anything.” She looked from one face to the next, meeting their gazes with the force of her own. “And it is not working.”
    Tuyet didn’t roll her eyes but it was a close thing. Every other month or so, the councilwoman advocated changing the protests. A different day of the week, different locations. Anything to put distance between the people the councilwoman thought of as legitimate protesters and the thugs who did battle with riot police. She didn’t want to admit that peaceful demonstrations and petitions were useless. Throwing rocks at cops wasn’t helping either, but Tuyet couldn’t blame people for expressing their anger.
    No longer interested in the meeting itself, she scanned the room for Jason Beckwith. He wasn’t there. She did find Duane Mendoza, who used to work for Vadim’s partner Lizzie Marsden when she was on the council. That was before her very public revelation that she was Magic Born. Tuyet slipped through the room quietly and knelt next to Duane.
    “Hey, have you seen Jason Beckwith?”
    He leaned over and whispered softly, “Sheila asked him to stay away for a week or two. Let things settle down.”
    Tuyet drew her eyebrows together. “What happened?”
    Duane pointed to the entrance that led to the kitchen. They left the area as unobtrusively as possible and huddled in the doorway. “Somebody accused him of being Magic Born.”
    “Why would someone do that?” Maybe half a dozen people knew that Jason really was Magic Born, but none of those people were part of Sheila’s semiorganized group.
    “Same reason anyone with that kind of money gets accused.” Duane shrugged. “There’s still a lot of anger over Lizzie. People assume it’s still going on.” He meant wealthy families bribing officials for fake Normal DNA tests for their babies. Tuyet agreed that it probably was still going on, all over the country. It was another thing that fed the rage in communities like Rockenbach, where no one had the resources to circumvent the Magic Laws. So far, Rock was the only place where people were taking that rage to the streets, but she didn’t think it would stay that way forever.
    “He’s using his money to help people here. Who do they think will resupply the clinic when the city says it’s not in the budget?”
    “I know,” Duane said. “But you can’t talk logic and sense to people when they’re that angry. Sheila’s right—it’ll blow over if he stays away from the meetings for a week or two.”
    “They’ll take his money but they don’t want to see his face?” She shook her