“Welcome home, Doug.” Oman let go of me and took a few steps past me. “Welcome back to Prime.”
The implication hit home immediately. I felt like retching. “How?! What do you mean back to Prime? We can’t come back to Prime. I am dead!”
“Your soul is gone from Prime, yes, but that does not mean that you cannot come back. How absurd. Its the same part of the rest of the Verse. Think of it as a single note in the symphony of the universe… it has its central role, it has its place, but it is not outside of things.”
“It is absolutely absurd! What is to stop me, or anyone, from going back to my old life?”
“That is the beauty of creation, Doug. You could try, but you would not be able to. The design prevents it, you would look different, act different, be different. Your very presence is different. In fact, you would find it so frustrating and unattainable, that you would give up, and move on to some other part of the Verse. Things are far more interesting out in the shadows.” He turned and smiled widely. “Unless you care about Prime more than anything else.”
I stepped up next to him and audibly gasped. I could see the Hollywood sign off to the right, the urban sprawl in every direction, and the constant dirty nasty haze hovering in the air. I could see the slow pulse of traffic everywhere. “We are in Los Angeles?”
“Yep, it is. Early December. Isn’t it beautiful? Truly a city of Angels.”
“Not really… how can it be December? I was just here… a couple days ago. It was May.”
Oman smiled again, a creepy smile, and I could see overly long canines. “As a friendly point of advice between future friends, Mr. Gates. Don’t share your deathday with others. And be careful about details of your previous life on Prime.”
“Why?”
“Oh, this and that. Don’t worry about it. Just take the advice for what it is. Now come. Let me show you my problem.” He grabbed my wrist and he stepped out into an alley next to a restaurant.
“Won’t people see us jumping in and out?”
“Not at all. Remember Prime is where the rules are tightest. Our jumping about violates the rules, so it is a negated perception. People just don’t notice. There are some caveats of course, but that is not all too important right now. That young lady right there. See her?”
“Yes I see her.” She was about 5’5″, brunette-ish and pretty in a surfer girl kind of way. She had an apron on and about 15 glasses on a tray held above her head with one hand. She was confidently talking to one of her coworkers without her arm moving or flinching. It looked odd, but maybe she worked out. Who was I to say, she probably was just good at her job.
“She is not supposed to be here. I want you to find out why, Mr. Gates.”
“Odd request coming from an… Angel… Oman. Why wouldn’t she belong here?”
“Because that young lady is my daughter, Mr. Gates.” He sighed.
“How can she be your daughter? Angels can have children?”
“Of course they can. Haven’t you ever read a bible?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Agnostic.” I grimaced.
“Feel the fool?” He asked.
I shrugged nonchalantly.
“The conditions have to be right for a daughter of man and an instrument to be born. Just right. One could say, astronomically right.”
“How do you know that is your daughter?”
“Because certain things link an instrument to their own. I have only ever had one. And she is standing over there. A creature I loved more than everything, and a creature that was lead to her own end. The world and all the worlds since have been poorer for it.”
“So your daughter isn’t wandering the shadows of the Verse?”
“She was taken by the Colos. She was lost to the whole of reality.” Oman frowned heavily.
“And you remember? I thought the Colos obliterated all memory of a person.” One of my eyebrows slanted up inquiringly.
“You have been talking to someone, haven’t you? You keep surprising me, Mr. Gates.” He flickered (?) for a moment. It was subtle, just the faintest of changes in how he was standing. Like a bad connection on a tv… the picture adjusted momentarily, and Oman still stood before me, but his position was different. Out of place. I could hear another sigh. “I remember. The instruments of the Authority have long memories that the Colos cannot touch.”
He raised a finger and pointed at the waitress moving among the tables.
“That is my Imaria. I can see her for what she is, Mr. Gates. She is my daughter. She is impossible. Yet she is here. And you need to find out why.”