“Welcome home, Doug.” Oman let go of me and took a few steps past me.\u00a0 “Welcome back to Prime.”<\/p>\n
The implication hit home immediately.\u00a0 I felt like retching.\u00a0 “How?!\u00a0 What do you mean back to Prime?\u00a0 We can’t come back to Prime.\u00a0 I am dead!”<\/p>\n
“Your soul is gone from Prime, yes, but that does not mean that you cannot come back.\u00a0 How absurd.\u00a0 Its the same part of the rest of the Verse.\u00a0 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.”<\/p>\n
“It is absolutely absurd! What is to stop me, or anyone, from going back to my old life?”<\/p>\n
“That is the beauty of creation, Doug.\u00a0 You could try, but you would not be able to.\u00a0 The design prevents it, you would look different, act different, be different.\u00a0 Your very presence is different.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Things are far more interesting out in the shadows.”\u00a0 He turned and smiled widely. “Unless you care about Prime more than anything else.”<\/p>\n
I stepped up next to him and audibly gasped.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 I could see the slow pulse of traffic everywhere.\u00a0 “We are in Los Angeles?”<\/p>\n
“Yep, it is.\u00a0 Early December.\u00a0 Isn’t it beautiful?\u00a0 Truly a city of Angels.”<\/p>\n
“Not really…\u00a0 how can it be December?\u00a0 I was just here… a couple days ago.\u00a0 It was May.”<\/p>\n
Oman smiled again, a creepy smile, and I could see overly long canines.\u00a0 “As a friendly point of advice between future friends, Mr. Gates.\u00a0 Don’t share your deathday with others.\u00a0 And be careful about details of your previous life on Prime.”<\/p>\n
“Why?”<\/p>\n
“Oh, this and that.\u00a0 Don’t worry about it.\u00a0 Just take the advice for what it is.\u00a0 Now come.\u00a0 Let me show you my problem.”\u00a0 He grabbed my wrist and he stepped out into an alley next to a restaurant.<\/p>\n
“Won’t people see us jumping in and out?”<\/p>\n
“Not at all.\u00a0 Remember Prime is where the rules are tightest.\u00a0 Our jumping about violates the rules, so it is a negated perception.\u00a0 People just don’t notice.\u00a0 There are some caveats of course, but that is not all too important right now.\u00a0 That young lady right there.\u00a0 See her?”<\/p>\n
“Yes I see her.”\u00a0 She was about 5’5″, brunette-ish and pretty in a surfer girl kind of way.\u00a0 She had an apron on and about 15 glasses on a tray held above her head with one hand.\u00a0 She was confidently talking to one of her coworkers without her arm moving or flinching.\u00a0 It looked odd, but maybe she worked out.\u00a0 Who was I to say, she probably was just good at her job.<\/p>\n
“She is not supposed to be here.\u00a0 I want you to find out why, Mr. Gates.”<\/p>\n
“Odd request coming from an… Angel… Oman.\u00a0 Why wouldn’t she belong here?”<\/p>\n
“Because that young lady is my daughter, Mr. Gates.” He sighed.<\/p>\n
“How can she be your daughter?\u00a0 Angels can have children?”<\/p>\n
“Of course they can.\u00a0 Haven’t you ever read a bible?”<\/p>\n
“No.”<\/p>\n
“Why not?”<\/p>\n
“Agnostic.” I grimaced.<\/p>\n
“Feel the fool?” He asked.<\/p>\n
I shrugged nonchalantly.<\/p>\n
“The conditions have to be right for a daughter of man and an instrument to be born.\u00a0 Just right.\u00a0 One could say, astronomically right.”<\/p>\n
“How do you know that is your daughter?”<\/p>\n
“Because certain things link an instrument to their own. I have only ever had one.\u00a0 And she is standing over there.\u00a0 A creature I loved more than everything, and a creature that was lead to her own end.\u00a0 The world and all the worlds since have been poorer for it.”<\/p>\n
“So your daughter isn’t wandering the shadows of the Verse?”<\/p>\n
“She was taken by the Colos.\u00a0 She was lost to the whole of reality.”\u00a0 Oman frowned heavily.<\/p>\n
“And you remember?\u00a0 I thought the Colos obliterated all memory of a person.”\u00a0 One of my eyebrows slanted up inquiringly.<\/p>\n
“You have been talking to someone, haven’t you?\u00a0 You keep surprising me, Mr. Gates.”\u00a0 He flickered (?) for a moment.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Out of place. I could hear another sigh.\u00a0 “I remember.\u00a0 The instruments of the Authority have long memories that the Colos cannot touch.”<\/p>\n
He raised a finger and pointed at the waitress moving among the tables.<\/p>\n
“That is my Imaria. I can see her for what she is, Mr. Gates.\u00a0 She is my daughter.\u00a0 She is impossible.\u00a0 Yet she is here. And you need to find out why.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
“Welcome home, Doug.” Oman let go of me and took a few steps past me.\u00a0 “Welcome back to Prime.” The implication hit home immediately.\u00a0 I felt like retching.\u00a0 “How?!\u00a0 What do you mean back to …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-short-story","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/discardme.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}