The Ender was once again in her office, peering over a large map. This was not the patrol map she had worked on previously, that one and five future permutations of it had been completed just a day before. Naturally she'd have to scrap some of those permutations in the case of an extraordinary event but they did give her a bit of time to work on other things.
One of those other things was the map she was currently working on, it pictured the settlement closest to the Tower and the surrounding terrain. After her unsuccessful sweep of that prophet's hill she didn't have a choice but to stage a raid on the village itself. If she had recovered more detailed information on the whereabouts of the high-priority escapees she would have been able to just launch a series of covert operations to recapture or neutralize each of them.
The plan for the raid was more-or-less finished, it would be a joint effort between her own army and the human mercenaries. If anything, her language initiative had at least somewhat improved the working climate. The mercenaries would use their numbers to surround the village and cut off any escape attempt, then her own army would teleport into the central square and start sweeping every house from the center outwards, leaving no escape but walking directly into the waiting mercenaries.
If her calculations were correct, setting up the barricade would take approximately two days since it was important to move the mercenaries without anyone catching wind of the danger. It would be best if she went directly to the barracks and gave them the orders as soon as possible, while the troops moved she could still make refinements to her plan since most of it only concerned the sweep itself.
Just as the Ender was about to teleport away she heard a high-pitched human voice in her head. It said: "E-excuse me, Miss. We just detected another negative energy signature, this time directly in the village. Please meet General Issa immediately."
The voice was one of the Tower's telepaths, each department had one or two on duty at all times in case something like this happened. It really seemed to be urgent since this one hadn't bothered with "knocking" first, a direct link indicated the highest priority.
The Ender teleported into the headquarters of Dimensions where General Issa was already waiting, next to her was another human, male, the telepath apparently. The Ender tried to estimate his age and concluded that he had to be quite young. Natural telepathy was a rare talent in humans so they had to take what they could get.
General Issa spoke quickly, perhaps she was stressed. "Greetings. New negative energy reading, coming from somewhere within the closest village. I already talked this over with the Entity, you are to execute the raid immediately. Also take Dr. Mercury with you, having an expert on-site would help greatly."
Since this seemed to be a direct order from the Entity, the Ender wasted no time arguing over not having enough time to set up the barricade. They'd have to do without it, since they now had different priorities it seemed manageable, if they caught one or two of the high-priority escapees along the way that was already enough to get more information on the rest.
The Ender's next teleportation was a long one; reconnaissance was situated in one of the tallest spires of the Tower while the science lab was underground. Navigating the dimensional labyrinth that was the Tower was a nightmare, even when teleporting, but the Ender was used to it.
Dr. Mercury whirled around in surprise as the Ender appeared behind her workstation, it seemed like she was working on setting a gem into a screw-like metal piece.
Dr. Mercury breathed out slowly. "Oh, it's you."
Normally the Ender would have taken offense to such a casual greeting coming from a human but time was of the essence. Aside from that, Dr. Mercury had many traits that the Ender appreciated in her own kind, efficiency, ruthlessness and a healthy dose of pride. The two of them had worked together previously and she had found Dr. Mercury to be very reliable.
The Ender said: "Put on your combat armor, we're going to the closest village. Recon picked up another negative energy signature."
Nothing more needed to be said, Dr. Mercury had already sprinted over to the docking station for her armor. When she pushed a button mechanical arms started attaching parts of her heavy armor to the light armor she wore all the time. Once all parts were attached, two additional arms were mounted on Dr. Mercury's back, completing the set of four.
"Okay, I'm ready." She said.
The Ender took her arm and they both teleported into the courtyard where the enderborn army was gathered. They had already been informed by the telepath and were standing by, waiting for the signal.
The Ender raised her arm. "On my command!"
A moment later the army teleported to the village square, the sun was already setting so not many people were there, the few that were immediately took to running. Without anyone speaking a word the enderborn swarmed out, knocking on doors and breaking them down if nobody answered, sweeping house after house. The Ender remained in the square along with Dr. Mercury and a small group of guards.
Dr. Mercury spoke: "So, that negative energy reading. From what I hear they verified that the previous one was authentic. What will you do when you find its source?"
The Ender replied: "That's what you're here for. The soldiers have their own detector units but I'll need you to have a closer look and give some actual insight."
A few minutes passed until the first squad reported back with two humans in tow, it seemed that they had found some escapees, however none of them were high-priority. They quickly shackled the prisoners to the wooden platform in the middle of the square and then teleported away, reinforcing some of the other squads.
On the edge of the Ender's vision something moved, she quickly turned her head to see what it was. To her surprise it was a human slowly making its way towards her, head meekly turned towards the floor. The human looked quite odd, the Ender had never seen anything quite like it. It was quite short and had long, white hair and black skin and was wearing black robes. From the length of the hair the Ender could reasonably guess that this human was female but she had trouble deciding if she saw a tall child or a short adult.
The human said quietly: "Excuse me. Where am I?"
The voice was what convinced the Ender that this was in fact an adult, how old exactly she couldn't tell.
The Ender replied in her best human tongue, it was in her best interest to not scare away a potential recruit, humans with extraordinary appearance commonly had abilities that were useful Tower's operations. "You are in Nexus. How long ago did you come here?"
The woman looked up, her eyes were entirely red and even seemed to glow. If they had been purple then the Ender would have suspected this woman to be some kind of ender half-blood... but red? Red was definitely not a color of the End.
The woman said: "Not long ago. I don't know how though."
Dr. Mercury subtly pointed two of her mechanical arms at the woman, one carried a scanner, the other some kind of energy cannon. After a short moment Dr. Mercury whispered to the Ender: "She doesn't seem dangerous but there weren't any absorption events in the last few days."
This definitely was suspicious but the Ender kept on talking: "About where did you appear when you came to this world?"
The woman slowly pointed in the direction of a nearby forest. "Somewhere over there, in a clearing with weird trees."
This was getting a bit strange, the location matched up with a tunnel but there hadn't been any activity there… actually no, there had been no absorption events but there had been activity. That tunnel was the last point in the series of energy pulses that had started somewhere outside of the scanner range. There was definitely something wrong with this woman.
The Ender narrowed her eyes and said: "I'm not sure I entirely believe you."
Suddenly the demeanor of the woman changed drastically, she stood straight up and looked directly into the Ender's eyes. Her voice changed as well, all signs of weakness had disappeared and had been replaced with a supreme confidence that no language barrier in the multiverse could conceal.
She said: "I suppose I should have expected as much from the Ender. I heard only good things about you, less so about your employer."
Dr. Mercury tensed up, she said: "One wrong move and I'll shoot."
At this point the guards had also come closer, weapons at the ready.
The woman turned towards the scientist and smiled. "I don't think that would accomplish much."
Through clenched teeth Dr. Mercury asked: "And why exactly is that?"
The woman made a shrugging gesture with her arms. "Because I'm nothing but a shared hallucination you all are having."
Before the Ender even had a chance to be confused, the woman was already gone without a trace, just disappeared from one moment to the other. The only evidence that she had ever been there were her own memories.
Dr. Mercury seemed quite shaken, staring at her sensor readout in disbelief. She said: "I picked up another negative energy reading. Send some of your soldiers to that part of the town in case we need backup."