‎Chapter 19: A beacon in the darkness

Leonardo ran through the grounds, panting and staggering again and again. Again and again he stopped and looked at a device wildly assembled from an obsolete car navigation device and parts of a desk lamp. He had created many of the connections as a material illusion, but he hadn't had time to construct everything from scratch.

Samanael ran behind him and occasionally stopped him from running into a tree with a strong tug on his arm when he looked at his device again before coming to a final stop instead of where he was running to: "Couldn't you have thought of that a little earlier?"

"Hey, we only recently figured out about the maintenance tunnels. And I only found out about the attack by the Mandates an hour or two ago. A firefight with live ammunition with almost a dozen students slightly injured..."

He broke off, panting, staggered a few more steps until he came to a halt and then leaned exhaustedly against a tree while he caught his breath. As soon as he had recovered a little, he looked at the small display. He froze, slapped it lightly and cursed: "The connection to Zunylamia has been lost. One of the navi's circuits must have come loose. I'd need a scanner and my workshop to find the fault. And then it would take hours."

Samanael put a reassuring hand on his shoulder: "Put that away."

Then she called over her shoulder, "You can show yourself, Jake."

The student, who emerged from behind a tree with a somewhat sheep-eyed look on his face, was wearing comfortable black jeans, black jogging shoes and far too many firearms. Holsters under his arms, hip holsters and... even for Leo, recognizable holsters just above the ankles. Although he had enough other problems, Leo wasted a moment wondering about this. Actually, ankle holsters were meant to be inconspicuous. The spy novels he'd loved reading until he'd realized that the secret agent outfits and the pointlessly overly complex plans of everyone involved defied all logic. He recognized him immediately: "Jake? Have you been following us?"

"Since you set out." He crossed his arms in front of his chest and bowed to Samanael with genuine reverence, "How did you notice me? I thought I'd gotten the hang of keeping out of sight by now. And I certainly didn't make any audible noises. I didn't step on any dry leaves or branches, I have extra soft soles on my shoes and I kept my steps exactly in Leo's rhythm."

Samanael smiled and motioned for him to stand up. She was visibly embarrassed by the gesture of worship. Even though she knew how it was meant: "To sneak is to pretend to the world that you're not there. That's a kind of lie. And I'm very sensitive when it comes to noticing lies. At least now that we're out of the university grounds."

"Now that I'm officially here, how can I help?"

"We've lost track of the Mandates. Did you learn to read tracks during your combat training by any chance?"

"Not very good yet, but they really haven't gone to much trouble." He pointed to a half-footprint of a smooth shoe sole that could be seen close to a bush. And to another one a few steps further on: "They jumped from stone to stone here, but then they just kept running. And they've been moving in the same direction for a while now. If you hadn't been following the trail in wild zigzags, you would have noticed it by now."

Leo dropped the illusion spell that kept parts of his device in reality. The real components broke apart and Leo carelessly dropped them on the forest floor. As he turned to walk on, he bumped into Samanael. She gave him a stern look and pointed at the garbage he had just left behind: "Haven't you forgotten something?"

"We're in a hurry, must this... ok. Okay. Already on it."

He quickly collected everything and put it in his pocket. Then he ran after Jake and Sam. Ten minutes later, he was almost out of breath again when the two stopped abruptly in front of him. Jake threw himself onto all fours and scrambled silently through some bushes. Samanael followed him only a little louder. As Leo followed them, he earned scowls from two directions for the noise he was making. Fortunately, it made no difference. When he could see out the other side of the bushes, he saw the last Mandates in tattered suits staggering across the clearing, exhausted and visibly demoralized. Their destination was obvious. Half a meter above the ground was a hole five meters in diameter in the air. As if punched out of the background. Leonardo reached into his pocket and pulled out a pistol. It had started life as a toy gun and then made friends with two air cartridges, a cream dispenser and a pipe from the local DIY store. Leo stuck a spindle-shaped object the size of his little finger into the barrel, raised the gun and hesitated. Jake coughed softly and held out his hand. Leo looked at him for a moment, then raised the gun himself. It would have been a laugh if he couldn't hit a target five meters away. He just had to get the tracker into the opening. How difficult could that be? He took careful aim... and fired. Small pieces of the improvised air pistol were torn off, one of the air cartridges flew off in a high arc over his shoulder. In his mind, he went through the construction again and decided to make a few small improvements. Meanwhile, the bullet flew unerringly towards the lower edge of the target hole... and then passed just a hand's breadth below it.

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Samanael poked him wordlessly in the side. Jake shook his head contemptuously and spoke very quietly and slowly: "An immovable, barn door-sized target... Blind... Drunk... With one arm behind his back... with the left hand... backwards over the shoulder... After a rollercoaster ride... I would still have hit that."

Leo guiltily pulled his head down between his shoulders and made an apologetic gesture. As always, Samanael kept to the point: "And now? Do you still have a spare transmitter?"

While Leo shook his head, Jake pulled out a heavy pistol and changed the magazine with lightning-fast, practiced grips.

Before anyone could ask a question, he raised his gun and fired twice in close succession. The first bullet whizzed right under the edge of the dimensional portal in the same place Leo's bullet passed. The bullet exploded on impact. Dust, stones and dirt whirled around. Beneath it, a small silver object flashed in the sun as it was hurled back in front of the portal. The second explosive projectile exploded a short distance in front of the portal. The second blast threw the transmitter right into the portal. Before Leo or Sam could say or do anything, Jake had put his gun back in its holster with a gesture barely visible to the eye and pulled his two fellow students down into cover. Not a moment too soon, because in response to his shots, the bushes and trees around them were riddled with bullets from semi-automatic weapons. A bullet whistled right over Leo's head. After a few volleys, the firing stopped. Jake waited a few more seconds and then pulled a small mirror out of his pocket, attached it to a telescopic pole, held it up and peered over his current cover: "Okay. Everything's fine. The last mandate just went through. The portal is already blurring at the edges... It's gone now."

Leonardo pulled up and peered over curiously: "Damn! I wanted to have another good look at that!"

"Thou shalt not curse." Samanael mumbled it without much conviction. You could see a little disappointment in her as well.

Leo rummaged in his pockets as he stumbled down to where the mandates had disappeared. He pulled out a scanner and concentrated for a moment. The footprints were clearly visible and disappeared completely without a transition at one point, so he could see exactly where the portal had been. He looked at the displays on his scanner and then shook his head. He concentrated: "Create... multispectral frequency modulator with a suitable interlink connection."

A flashing piece of electronics appeared as a physical illusion in his hand. He smiled with satisfaction for a moment and then plugged it into the scanner he was holding in his other hand. They joined together with a satisfying click. A bright buzz sounded as he waved it slowly through the air in front of him without taking his eyes off the tiny screen. As soon as a characteristic beep sounded, he held his hand still. Then he muttered an analysis spell. A transparent rectangle full of mathematical symbols and graphics appeared in the air in front of him, which he stared at for a while. His lips moved silently as he did some complex calculations in his head. The display changed and he looked at it thoughtfully. Until Samanael lost his patience: "So, what? Did it work?"

The illusion of the floating screen disappeared and the addition on his scanner also dissolved into glittering sparks. He hesitated for a moment. Then he nodded cautiously: "I think... Yes. Yes, it should have worked. Unless they found our transmitter on the other side and switched it off. Or took it to another dimension."

He took a look at his cell phone and called up the navigation software. He memorized the coordinates and sent them back to the university as a text message. Then he put the device in his belt pouch.

Samanael patted him on the shoulder: "What's next?"

"The boys are bringing a dismantled dimensional portal over in the school's truck. We measure the residual frequency of the dimensional portal that has just closed here and build a portal with the same frequency. Then we'll weaken the dimensional boundaries enough for our fellow students to get through from the other side."

"So all you have to do is find an exit from the most escape-proof dimension, find your way here through a network of wormhole maintenance tunnels halfway across the universe and make your way through this portal with your bare hands." Sam tried his best to sound optimistic, but as usual, he had a lot of trouble pretending.

"You said it. The path can't be far, the tracker is sending a signal that Jane's cell phone can pick up and track, and I've taught Norman a spell that makes the portal detectable. The three's aura is still charged with the Warshok frequency of the local universe, so if they get close enough they'll practically break through the weakened space barrier on their own. Unless I've miscalculated. And unless there are facts I don't know. So there's practically nothing that can go wrong." He winced as he realized what he had just said. The other two looked at him in near horror and all three looked around cautiously in all directions. Jake voiced what they were all thinking, "Did you have to say that?"

Leo winced, "Then we'd better get reinforcements before we go any further."