‎Chapter 16: That means war!

Mandatus agents swarmed through the university campus in groups of two and forced their way into several buildings. Janitor Schickelgruber took a step to the side and shook his head indulgently. He was used to students running around madly. But the men were actually a bit too old to be waving toy submachine guns around.

Some students threw themselves to the side just as the Mandates fired a volley of warning shots into their path. Then they ran on towards the building of the Faculty of Transdimensional Transportation. The one in front bumped into the front door somewhat roughly, as he probably hadn't expected to come across a locked entrance. Without hesitation, he pulled a flat round object out of his pocket and attached it to the door with a built-in adhesive strip over the lock. He and his companion took a few steps back, then the lock exploded and the door flew open.

The janitor was speechless with indignation. His loud cry of protest only rang out when the two had already disappeared into the building.

He stared after them in disbelief for a moment, then tightened his posture and walked determinedly through the burst-open door after them. Although he saw the rear of the two intruders disappear up the stairs to the second floor, he turned left first and walked purposefully to a storeroom. He unlocked the door with his central key and then pushed the brooms, mops and vacuum cleaner aside to get to the back wall. A firm push on an unmarked spot caused the back wall to slide aside, revealing a rack of weapons and equipment. The janitor hesitated briefly and then took out a heavy assault rifle and the appropriate magazine. It took him two attempts before he had placed the magazine securely in the holder and it clicked into place correctly. Then he pressed a few switches next to the weapon holder that connected the in-house radio system to the hands-free system and took a radio microphone with him. He closed the secret compartment by pressing the clearly visible locking switch and stepped out of the storeroom. A few students, unsettled by the explosion, had just come around the corner, saw him grimly reloading his weapon and quickly turned back. He took a deep breath and then, holding the gun loosely in his right hand, pressed the microphone's talk button. All over the building and in the surrounding buildings, the loudspeakers announced: "Attention! Unknown intruders have entered our campus, shooting at regular students and breaking down doors. I advise all students and staff to lock themselves in their rooms and take cover until the all-clear is given. Students who have weapons or offensive skills and training are asked to help defend the university. Do not attempt to kill anyone and do your best to avoid further property damage."

He was just about to put the microphone away when he remembered something else: "Attention! Remember, according to university regulations, the use of bacteriological, chemical and nuclear weapons is prohibited on university premises."

Then he put the microphone in his tool belt for good and sprinted up the stairs. After a short search, he spotted the two intruders. They had just planted another explosive charge on the high-security door to one of the dimension transporters. He had to stop them! Not because he was afraid they might actually manage to get the door open. Swiss banks probably had weaker armored doors in their vaults. But they would certainly tear the thin wooden veneer to shreds and ruin the newly sealed parquet floor. He stood with his legs apart and pressed the butt of his rifle firmly against his shoulder, as he had learned to do during his military service. Then he pulled the trigger. Bullets whizzed through the air and hit the ground between and above the two surprised mandataries, who jumped to the side. While Schickelgruber picked himself up from the ground, he decided not to set the assault rifle to continuous fire in future. One of the clients had already drawn a slim and dangerously effective-looking submachine gun and fired. The janitor just managed to get around the corner and back into the corridor before the first bullets hit behind him. His pulse racing, he turned around, set the selector switch on his gun to 'single shot', put the gun firmly back on his shoulder and took aim at the corner.

"What's the situation, janitor?"

Still holding the rifle to his shoulder, he threw himself backwards and landed on his back. When he recognized the principal, he closed his eyes for a moment in relief and then stood up with some difficulty: "Report obediently, armed intruders in black suits are trying to break into the room with the dimension transmitter. They are armed with submachine guns and explosive devices. But..." He looked briefly at his wristwatch: "...they've been shooting back since 5.45 p.m.!"

"Good work. I'll take over here." The principal casually walked around the corner, ignoring the flurry of bullets that came his way. Every single one of the bullets misfired. Improperly packed gunpowder in the cartridge, bumps in the bullet, tiny twitches in the shooters' muscles. Chance and chaos swept the attack harmlessly out of the way. The wall behind him began to show its outline. Then the firing died down. The Mandates looked at him in open horror. "You can drop your weapons now and leave, or you can try this again. Your choice. Free will and all that."

The two dropped their submachine guns clattering to the floor, pulled handguns from their holsters and placed them next to them. Principal Argus nodded in satisfaction, stepped aside a little and then made a welcoming gesture in the direction of the corridor from which he had come. Only after they had carefully walked past him and turned their backs to him with relief did he pull a taser from his concealed holster. Without warning, he fired an arrow into each of their backs, trailing a thin wire behind him. Both spun around in surprise and then fell to the ground, twitching as 50,000 volts coursed through their bodies.

The principal briefly checked that they were both unconscious, then straightened up and closed his eyes. It seemed to flicker on his large round bald head: "I can't see them all... They are scattered everywhere and the veil is severely weakened by the interference fields... But wherever they encounter resistance, they immediately retreat... And in the direction of... They are coming here! This is their goal! Everything else is just a diversionary maneuver!"

He pulled himself together and only now noticed the students peering cautiously around the corner: "Nice to see someone turn up. Get these two figures into a holding cell. And then make sure that the protective screen around the building is raised again. These intruders must have switched it off with a reality amplifier."

Without paying attention to annoying questions like: "What kind of holding cell?", he turned to janitor Schickelgruber: "Schickelgruber, for the duration of this emergency, I appoint you janitor general."

"Yes, sir! What is my mission, Rector Argus?"

"Get a few students from the Faculty of Tactical Overkill. Have them take whatever non-experimental weapons are handy and secure this building. I'll hold the fort until then."

"Yes, Mr. Rector!" He marched off with a somewhat exaggerated military stride. The principal went to the nearest window and scowled outside. Mandates were terribly predictable and even their diversionary maneuvers were screamingly obvious. But then again, they were often frighteningly effective. Their goal was clear. They wanted to capture or destroy the Gallifreynium reserves, trapping him and his charges here. Just as Mandatus had originally planned when he had designed the cosmic laws so that all dimension jumps, teleportations and similar means of travel that were not one hundred percent accurate would all lead to a certain place. To a solar system whose hyperspace was blocked by an interference field generated by the sun. No jump drive, no teleportation. And the gallifreynium, which functioned perfectly in the rest of the multiverse, wore out every time it was used due to the blockade. A dumping ground and a trap for all those who used gaps in the laws of nature to travel to other worlds contrary to Mandatus' plan. Something he considered extremely sacrilegious and tried to prevent with all his considerable resources. Fortunately, he could not change the laws of nature. Fixed was fixed. For all time.

He remembered how his master had reacted: in a different place, on the edge of order. In a system that had been spared Mandatu's attention long enough to return to a pleasantly chaotic state with just a little help. Where planets would otherwise have followed their orderly orbits, a formless cloud of rocks and ores swirled wildly. Among them was a chunk that sometimes slid through other rocks as if they didn't even exist, sometimes bounced off them and then simply smashed gigantic planetoids.

This was the current home of Eris. Constantly changing shape, he flowed through a large reception room as a wild, chaotic cloud. The unpleasantly stable state of the room was a concession to his servants, whom he received here to give them orders and listen to their reports.

One of these servants was standing in the room at the moment, listening to his master's words. The pitch varied from the unpleasantly high warbling of an opera singer to the deep booming bass of an elephant. The volume also varied greatly, so that he had to remain very attentive to understand everything.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"More and more of my followers have been disappearing lately. Mages who have just been taught teleportation spells by my servants, gone. Dimensional travelers, spacemen with exotic new faster-than-light drives, would-be time travelers, eccentric scientists... I've been following their path and lost track of them all in the same place. In a strangely isolated solar system beyond my sight. Mandatus must be up to something. Well, never mind! Argus!"

Addressed directly, the servant raised his head: "Yes, sir?"

The ever-changing voice rang out again: "Go there and make sure that all these beings work together, share their knowledge and then spread across the multiverse to carry my teachings to its far corners. Let them be the seeds of chaos that I will one day reap!"

"It's not even certain that they're still alive! And how am I supposed to get such different characters to work together? They come from completely different cultures and far different stages of technological development. Some of them aren't even used to the same laws of nature!"

"Think of something. Start a university or something. I don't care. But do it!"

Argus thought about this suggestion for a moment. Surely Eris had not meant his suggestion seriously. After all, it was not his way to give his servants useful hints. He demanded a certain result and either you achieved it or... Argus thought he saw a few bones swirling around in Eris' stormy cloud. The remains of a servant who had failed to live up to expectations? The longer Argus thought about it, the more he liked the idea. A university was a place where different people met and exchanged knowledge. Why not? He nodded humbly and left the room through one of the many portals.

"Would you like your hunting rifle, sir?" His butler's voice snapped him out of his memories and back to the present. "By the lord of chaos! What are you doing here?"

"After witnessing a shooting in the courtyard, I suspected that you might need your hunting rifle. I hope I haven't overstepped my authority..."

"James, I could snog you."

"That would be extremely inappropriate..."

"I was only joking. Give me the shotgun." The butler laboriously held the heavy gun out to him with both hands. The principal grabbed it with one hand and casually slung it over his shoulder. He had compared several gun catalogs until he found something that met his requirements at a specialist dealer for big game hunters in Africa. A couple of business administration students had been given the special task of getting the gun through customs and past the usual regulations for gun ownership shortly before their final exams. But every minute of sleep the students had missed had been worth it. At least for him.

He opened the barrel, inserted a cartridge, which his officious butler promptly handed to him, and fired. Only one shot at a time. But with special cartridges designed to stop elephants. No magic, no crazy physical tricks. Nothing the mandates could mystically protect themselves against. And their bulletproof vests would help them as little against the Teflon-coated steel shells as a raincoat. He pointed the gun out of the window to the right, seemingly without looking, and fired. Aimed precisely by some of his mobile eyes, he hit a client in the shin in a bush a good three hundred meters away. He turned his head, grinned and then reloaded, while the man he had hit struggled to crawl into the nearest bushes, pushing himself forward with one leg.

*

Jake looked around the shed while Wu strapped on two gun holsters and threaded extra magazines into their loops. He pointed to a three-meter-long telescopic pole with a small chainsaw at the end: "Wow, your ninja weapons are pretty damn cool! That thing looks like it belongs in Warhammer 40k or some similar sci-fi world!"

The Asian man looked at the device, visibly confused: "Jake San, that's just a pole pruner. A tool for removing branches high up on trees. Comes from the Hornbach DIY store right over in the city."

Jake pointed to a stick with an open cylinder at one end and a gas cylinder at the other: "And this isn't a flamethrower?"

"We use it to torch weeds between the paving slabs."

Jake lowered his head in disappointment, but then the Asian continued with a smile: "But if you press the switch here, you get a jet of flame of almost ten meters. But it only lasts for a short time because of the small fuel bottle."

Wu strapped another katana to his back, then signaled to Jake that he was ready. He hesitated briefly, then took the polearm from its holder on the wall and plugged in a battery that was ready and waiting.

*

Brunette math student Marie Johansson absentmindedly ran her hand through her short hair and then adjusted her glasses as she went through the mathematical equations on the top page of her thick notebook for the tenth time. She reached for the pencil she had tucked behind her ear, put the tip to the paper and hesitated. Then she put it back and leaned back on the park bench. The sun was shining unusually brightly today for the otherwise chilly season, so the university grounds were bustling with people. Students were milling about on all the park benches and steps. While she was wondering whether she should buy something from the small mobile ice cream stand, she noticed a couple of figures running between two buildings. Three guys in black suits with sunglasses, holding tattered and perforated briefcases in their left hands. The right hand of each was strangely wounded. Two showed makeshift bandages, the third held his hand tightly pressed to his chest. She couldn't see who they were running from at first, but a lance of flame hissed through the air just above their heads. Then one of the gardeners came into view, menacingly holding a weed whacker in front of him. Then that crazy gun nut Jake came around the corner. This time, however, he wasn't brandishing one of his various firearms, but waving a chainsaw around on a long pole as he ran after the suits, visibly excited and shouting battle cries. The gardener tossed his weed whacker aside and pulled something out of a side pocket in the same motion. A swarm of small jagged metal disks whirled silently across the square and two of them pierced the back of one of the fleeing men. The latter just cursed, but otherwise ran on unimpressed. Marie rolled her eyes in annoyance. LARPers. Now there were these live role-players on the university campus too. As if things weren't crazy enough here already. She strolled the few steps over to the ice cream stand and ordered a scoop of vanilla ice cream in a cone.

While she was looking for the change to pay, something hit her ankle. Her foot jerked back and she looked down in surprise as a few coins fell to the ground. Across the tarred path, an almost forearm-length fish hopped clumsily away. She picked up her money without taking her eyes off the fish. She looked around. There was no fountain or fishpond to be seen nearby. There were no natural rivers or lakes on the university campus. She grabbed a paper napkin from the ice cream cart, then took a few quick steps and grabbed the fish with the napkin in her hand. The fish's reaction was surprisingly minimal. Instead of thrashing about wildly as expected, it suddenly went limp. She looked at it more closely. Her father had taken her fishing a few times when she was young. She had always enjoyed reading her books in peace while the fishing rod hung peacefully in the water. She had always secretly removed bait, because if something did bite, it only disturbed her reading. Her father already caught enough.

The fish here looked strange. A herring. Dull scale color, the eyes... completely dull! The fish was dead! And had been for quite a while. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed carefully. No stench of decaying fish. It smelled more like smoke... It was a smoked herring! Up close, she noticed a regular light gray pattern along the belly. Someone had sewn its belly shut with little skill. He twitched his tail a little. She looked up at the sky with minimal amusement, rolled her eyes for the second time in a few minutes and shook her head in disappointment. Too bad. And with that, the mystery was solved. A smoked herring with a mechanism in its belly that moved its tail. She searched the body of the fish and found a small note made of white plastic foil, stapled to the fin, with the following text printed in tiny letters: "Experimental object: ZOM-B fish - property of Leonardo Darwinzki"

Darwinzki? She knew him by name. She had attended a lecture on irrational mathematics with him at the Faculty of Unusual Sciences. Hadn't someone told her that he had transferred to the Faculty of Magic this semester? But no. That was probably just gossip. Who would switch from serious research to superstitious folly like sorcery, demon summoning or homeopathy?

She dropped the fish, picked up her ice cream and wandered back to her park bench. Maybe someone else would stumble across the fish and find it funnier.