The Gate Traveler

After Sonak stormed out, I turned to the others and commented with a raised eyebrow, “Even for a redhead, that was excessive.”

Al’s brow furrowed in confusion as he tilted his head slightly. “What is the correlation between his hair color and his actions?” he asked, looking genuinely puzzled.

I chuckled lightly, trying to ease the tension. “On Earth, there is a consensus that redheads are temperamental.”

Mahya rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. “That was not temperamental but plain stupid,” she commented, shaking her head in disbelief.

“Yeah … I don’t think that was a redhead trait. That was a Sonak trait,” I said.

Al’s face remained serious as he leaned forward. “Are we still committed to carrying out the plan?”

I sighed deeply and ran a hand through my hair. “Yeah,” I said, exhaling. “Idiot or no idiot, they’re still holding a Traveler captive, and we need to get him out.”

Al nodded thoughtfully. “Under those circumstances, I require a secluded location to concoct the sleeping potion.”

“Why secluded?” I asked.

Al’s expression turned grave. “As soon as I initiate the brewing procedure, those in close proximity will become drowsy and fall into a deep sleep.”

Mahya’s eyes widened with surprise. “Really? It’s that strong?”

“Yes,” Al confirmed, his tone proud and condescending at the same time. It impressed me he even managed that.

“How secluded?” I asked. “Give me a distance measurement that the potion won’t have an effect.”

“A distance of fifty meters away from the closest person should be adequate,” he replied with certainty. “Additionally, the location should possess the necessary facilities for brewing substantial amounts.”

“Pots and stuff, or only gas burners?” I asked,

“Only gas.”

“How long do you need?”

“A week should suffice,” he said firmly.

I looked online for places to rent or sell outside of Vegas, but close enough that we wouldn’t have a problem getting there, and found a diner for sale on Interstate 15, ten miles from Vegas. After meeting with the owner, I rented it for two weeks. When I told him it was for a cooking seminar, I had to pay extra to cover potential damages, but it was worth it. The location was perfect—secluded, with no people around, but close enough for our needs.

Al informed us he would need to stay on site to babysit the potion, so after dropping him off and arranging a comfortable sleeping space for him, I returned to the hotel and started a research project online about the Nellis Air Force Base.

First, we needed to get on the base and scout where they kept the Traveler. Mahya thought she found a potential solution to this problem. It turned out that public tours or community events allowed limited access to the base.

I called the Public Affairs Office (PAO) to register but found it wouldn’t work. They did offer tours, but those tours involved a background check. Not a good idea for us.

“Mahya, I don’t think we can risk the official tour route,” I groaned, sinking deeper into the couch with slumped shoulders. “They want a background check. That’s a hard pass.”

She sighed. “Yeah, I felt it was too good to be true. But we can’t just give up. There has to be another way.”

“What if we sneak on the base?” I suggested. “We turn invisible, sneak past the guards, and start the search by the Gate. He has to be nearby, right? It just makes sense.”

She nodded slowly, considering it. “It’s risky as hell, but it could work. If we can feel the Gate, we should be able to feel him too.”

“Yeah, that’s our best option.”

“And if their fancy anti-magic field affects us?” she asked, a worried look crossing her face.

Rubbing my chin, I pondered it. “I don’t think it covers the entire base. We’ll go in under the cover of night, and the second we feel any magic interference, we back up.”

With a nod of agreement, we geared up for our mission. After renting a car, we drove to the base to look for a place to park and start our scouting mission.

That night, under the cloak of darkness, Mahya and I ninja-sneaked our way into Nellis Air Force Base, counting on our invisibility spell to keep us off the guards’ radar. The air was tense as we skulked through the shadows, dodging security patrols and surveillance cameras, just in case. I felt like James Bond in a spy movie, sneaking into a Nazi base to gather information.

Starting near the Gate, where we figured the Traveler would most likely be, we combed every nook and cranny—buildings, storage units, and places we probably shouldn’t have been. But found nothing. There were a lot of guards outside on patrol, but with our invisibility, we could navigate around them. To be on the safe side, we didn’t approach the actual building with the Gate. Those soldiers worked around an active Gate and caught a Traveler, so we didn’t want to risk it.

“Any luck?” I asked Mahya mentally as we scoured yet another building.

“Nothing.”

We kept at it, checking every hiding spot we could think of—hangars, offices, even the outer edges of the base. We used our speed to the max to get from one place to another. The base was enormous. Hours slipped by as hope dwindled with each empty spot we turned up.

“We’ve been everywhere. I don’t get it,” Mahya’s mental voice sounded disappointed.

It was really frustrating. “I’m stumped, too. But we can’t throw in the towel just yet. Let’s do one more sweep through the main complex.”

We retraced our steps, hitting up all the key spots with fresh determination. As the sky began to break with dawn, we had to admit defeat.

“He’s either not here, or we can’t sense him because of the field,” I admitted reluctantly.

“We’ll find another angle. We have to.”

We left with heavy hearts, ghosting out of there under our invisibility spell, slipping back into the darkness to regroup and come up with a new plan.

When I woke up in the evening, I sat on the balcony drinking coffee, with my mind going round and round, trying to find a solution. Suddenly, all my hair flopped forward and covered my face.

“I have to get a haircut. My hair already reached the middle of my back,” I thought to myself and felt a giggle in the air. It wasn’t a sound but a feeling of mischievous glee.

Smiling, I sent a feeling of greetings to the wind. She ruffled my hair again in every direction. I continued to drink my coffee and suddenly froze, getting a crazy idea.

“Mahya,” I called, and when she came over, I said. “I think I have an idea. It might be a bit unconventional, but it could work.”

“What?”

“What if I ask the wind to look for the Traveler? Air is everywhere, and no field can stop it.”

She looked at me like I was off the rails for a few seconds, then said, “It’s worth a try. If you’re going crazy, at least we’ll get something out of it.”

I stuck out my tongue at her, and she started laughing out loud.

“We’ll have to do it near the base so I can direct the wind where to look, and you’ll have to watch over me so I won’t lose myself completely or start hovering. I don’t think I can do this with a split mind. Last time, I felt the split prevented me from fully connecting with the wind. I think that for such a complex task, I’ll have to connect with her completely.”

“What do you mean hovering?”

“Remember I fell into the water?” She nodded, so I continued, “It happened because I got completely lost in the wind and started hovering. The boat kept going, and I got left behind.”

She looked at me wide-eyed and said, “When you said you ran into a little problem, I thought you lost awareness of where you were and fell into the water. Are you telling me you can fly now?”

“Not exactly. I did hover, but it was for a few seconds, and I had no control.”

She didn’t look convinced, but didn’t press the issue.

We returned to the same parking spot from the night before, left the car, and crept towards the base again. I found a good place to settle down. Mahya held me by the shoulders so I wouldn’t start hovering, and I spread my senses to feel the wind, the air.

I felt the mana in the air and let myself sink deeper and deeper into the feeling. I kept reminding myself in the back of my mind, “Don’t lose yourself completely; you have a mission.” I felt the connection between us form, and I allowed myself to connect more while fighting not to lose my train of thought. As I neared complete connection, with the last remnants of self-awareness, I communicated to the wind a sense of searching, significance, loss, and friendship. I drew inspiration from my feelings for Lis, that feeling of close friendship, and sent that feeling, again with a sense of loss. And then again, the feeling of searching, of trying to locate what I had lost. During all this time, I tried to establish an area for the feeling, the area of ​​the base. As if to tell her this is where I lost what I was looking for. Then I sent her the feeling of a Traveler. That particular and unmistakable feeling of a Traveler. I repeated this sequence three times until I felt consent from her.

I sat there in a semi-trance while connected to the wind, and only Mahya’s hands kept me connected to the here and now. After an unknown time, I got a strong feeling from the wind of disappointment and a sequence of emotions that I couldn’t interpret. I sent her a sense of confusion, and again, I received a feeling of disappointment, emptiness, a desire to help me, and again a feeling of disappointment and sadness.

This time, I understood; she couldn’t find the Traveler and felt sad that she couldn’t help me. I sent her a feeling of love, friendship, appreciation, and thanks. I sent the sequence repeatedly, with an underline of, it’s okay, you helped me a lot. After some time, I felt the giggle again. She realized I wasn’t disappointed, caressed my cheek with a gust of wind, ruffled my hair for the last time, and the connection between us broke.

“He’s not on the base,” I said quietly to Mahya.

“You’re sure?”

“Positive. The wind was sad she couldn’t help me; she would have found him if he was here.”

I felt her shake her head, and she mumbled, “Wizards are crazy, the whole lot of them.”

I pushed her playfully. “Don’t say that. My crazy is handy.”

She put her finger to her lips and hissed, “Shhhh.” Switching to a mental speech, she said, “Let’s get out of here before they discover us.”

We started towards the car, and both stopped in our tracks. We felt a Traveler. After a moment, it was clear it was Sonak, not the Traveler we were looking for.

“Should we contact him?” Mahya asked me mentally, sounding less than enthusiastic.

“No. I’m not going to babysit his temper.” I sent her forcefully. It might have been too forceful. She was invisible, but I still felt her wince.

When we got to the hotel, I played checkers with Rue for a few hours, my mind going in circles as I tried to figure out where they could have moved him. I was so preoccupied that Rue won all the rounds without cheating.

After a while, I let it be and stop thinking about it. There was no point in driving myself crazy. We would start a new search tomorrow.