I managed to ‘walk’ back to my office.\u00a0 I walked for about 6 blocks in LA before I pulled it off though.\u00a0 And the ‘blocks’ in LA are flipping humongous.\u00a0 My legs were burning by the time I managed to find my way back.\u00a0 Good thing too, because I felt a small measure of panic when I tried the first thousand times with no success.\u00a0 How I did it so quickly the first time is beyond me.<\/p>\n
Just lucky?\u00a0 As soon as I managed to step back onto my street, 17th by the way, I pumped my fist a few times like Rocky.\u00a0 Its the eye of the tiger, its the thrill of the fight, risin’ up to the challenge…\u00a0 of our survival?\u00a0 No that’s not right.\u00a0 Eh, close enough. It felt like survival once I got back.\u00a0 I mean those blocks were looooong, man.<\/p>\n
My office was the same office that I had left, and strangely, it started to feel like home already.\u00a0 That couch though, sorry Tony, but that couch will have to go.\u00a0 It is just plain nasty.\u00a0 If it was from the 1950’s, I would be shocked.\u00a0 I was guessing it was older than the United States.\u00a0 Shit was old,\u00a0 and not in a good way.<\/p>\n
Out of habit, I emptied my pockets, but found that the keys and the wallet were missing. I panicked for the second time.\u00a0 I stepped outside my door again, and patted my pockets.\u00a0 Wallet and keys were there.\u00a0 I pulled them out, held them in my hands and crossed the threshold again.\u00a0 No steam, no smoke, no magic.\u00a0 One second, wallet and keys in hand, the next, poof. Gone. I stepped back out of the threshold into the hallway, and felt my pockets again.\u00a0 Wallet and keys.<\/p>\n
I am an unwitting David Copperfield with the objects in my own pockets.\u00a0 I shut the door slowly while I shook my head in mild disbelief. Something to chalk up to the mystery of the Verse.\u00a0 I’ll figure that one out later.\u00a0 For now, I will get to work. Best place to start is to reread the open cases and talk to Tony.<\/p>\n
PrimEstates vs Authority; V. Hale; and Miles vs Takai.\u00a0 Tony said the last one was minor. Start there.<\/p>\n
Miles vs Takai.\u00a0 John Miles had incurred a damaging debt from Takai of the Angelus.\u00a0 He was looking to dispute it.\u00a0 Otherwise he was Colos-bound.\u00a0 It did not say that explicitly, but I picked up on the gist.\u00a0\u00a0 Sounded like I just needed to hear both sides and pick who was right.\u00a0 Simple enough, I guess.<\/p>\n
v. Hale was odd.\u00a0 It was a dispute between Michael J. Hale against himself?\u00a0 How the hell did that work?\u00a0 The dispute was over a commitment made to the Authority, yet the Authority was not a party to the dispute, and the commitment was not explained or mentioned.\u00a0\u00a0 The details were super thin, probably will have to talk to Mr. Hale myself to even get a clue on that one.<\/p>\n
PrimEstates vs Authority was a much larger file.\u00a0 A lot of pages with precedents and exceptions noted about the history of access to Prime for those that had departed.\u00a0 PrimEstates was a corporation of sorts that was looking to open super high end real estate markets on Prime to the highest bidder of those off-Prime in the verse.\u00a0 Essentially allowing ‘rich’ dead folks to have real estate on Prime.\u00a0 Of course, the fuckers were trying to find a way to take it with them. That made no sense either, but it probably would as I went along. (I hoped.)\u00a0 It seemed there were very strict rules about how Nexters (the term for Prime souls that had died and moved on) interact with Prime.\u00a0 My experience was so far contrary to most of the rules cited, but then again, Chuck had pointed that out right away.<\/p>\n
Then the 800lb gorilla slowly, meekly, raised his hand and the big question finally, somehow, managed to barge its way into my conscious thought.<\/p>\n
Who the hell typed these briefs up?\u00a0 And if I was a mediator of some sort, and we are talking trillions of souls in the whole verse, then all the fights and disputes would come to me?\u00a0 How the merry hell did all that work?\u00a0 I am just one guy.\u00a0 Even with all the time in the world, only one guy could not solve every single dispute across all of time and space.\u00a0 I flipped through the file again, looking for some secretary or typist notes.\u00a0 Nada.\u00a0 I grabbed the next case and did the same thing.\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 Third one, again nothing.\u00a0\u00a0 Where the heck did the files come from?\u00a0 There was no typewriter that I had found in the office.\u00a0 These things came from somewhere then.<\/p>\n
I finally (finally) reached out and grabbed the map.<\/p>\n
“Hello?” Tony said.<\/p>\n
“Hey Tony. Sorry for taking so long.”<\/p>\n
“I don’t experience time in here like that, so don’t worry about it.\u00a0 You know how sometimes you get lost in thought and you don’t notice how quickly or slowly time is going by?”<\/p>\n
“Yeah.”<\/p>\n
“That is what being an abstract is like.\u00a0 No sense of time.\u00a0 Just thought.\u00a0 To me it could be a second since our last talk or million years.\u00a0 Doesn’t matter.\u00a0 What did you find out?”<\/p>\n
“I read the cases, and then a guy named Oman stopped by.” I admitted.<\/p>\n
“Oh, crap.\u00a0 I forgot about that.\u00a0 Did he explain what was going on?”<\/p>\n
“Yes.\u00a0 Seemed a little odd.” I said.<\/p>\n
“I didn’t have a chance to look into it.\u00a0 Sounded a little crazy.\u00a0 But I have seen plenty of crazy in my time.”<\/p>\n
“Yeah, I bet.”\u00a0 I didn’t want to tell the saint about my little encounter with the girl at the center of that ball of crazy.<\/p>\n
“What about the cases?\u00a0 Anything jump out at you?”<\/p>\n
“You could say so.\u00a0 Who the heck writes these cases?\u00a0 Am I the only Adjudicator?\u00a0 How can I possibly serve all the cases that pop up?\u00a0 Back in the legal system on Prime, there are millions of cases a year, probably billions.\u00a0 I can’t do that.”<\/p>\n
“True.\u00a0 You wouldn’t be able to.\u00a0 But the good news is the rate of cases is small.\u00a0 A handful a month.\u00a0 Most are minor.\u00a0 The system works pretty well.\u00a0 Of course, the Verse has had millennia to hammer it out.\u00a0 It better work well after all that time.”<\/p>\n
“How is a case made?\u00a0 Is there a complaint box somewhere?”<\/p>\n
Tony laughed. “Remember the career fair?”<\/p>\n
“How could I forget?”<\/p>\n
“There was a booth that you walked by for the Office of the Adjudicator right at the front.\u00a0 It employs a couple million people. Bureaucracy at its finest.”<\/p>\n
“Why don’t I share a realm with them then?”<\/p>\n
“You are where the buck stops, as FDR used to say.\u00a0 When something reaches you, it ends.\u00a0 When you end the case, how you end it is entered back into the Office, and future issues are alleviated before they reach you.\u00a0 What makes it all work is your impartial nature.\u00a0 You are separate because you have to be.”<\/p>\n
“So somewhere out in the Verse, there are millions of people supporting what I do on a daily basis?”<\/p>\n
“Yep.”<\/p>\n
“No pressure then.”<\/p>\n
“None at all.” Tony chuckled.<\/p>\n
“And these files just show up on my desk?”<\/p>\n
“Turn around.\u00a0 See the filing cabinets behind you?”<\/p>\n
“Yes.”<\/p>\n
“Its the first one.\u00a0 The top drawer.\u00a0 Pull it open.\u00a0 Take the new cases out.\u00a0 Put your closed cases in, push it shut.\u00a0 Done deal.”<\/p>\n
“That easy?”<\/p>\n
“That easy.\u00a0 Any questions about the open cases?”<\/p>\n
“I think I need to track these folks down and talk to them.\u00a0 So not much to ask.\u00a0 Do you have anything?” I said.<\/p>\n
“I hate to say it, but I am pretty certain I am fading. I can’t remember things.\u00a0 There are gaps… about my childhood. About my life.\u00a0 About everything.\u00a0 Don’t pick the map up again unless you need to really pick my brain… because every time you do, I become less.”<\/p>\n
“Great.”<\/p>\n
“I thought you would like that.\u00a0 Talk to you later, Doug.\u00a0 Good luck.”<\/p>\n
“Good luck?\u00a0 I have no idea where to start.”<\/p>\n
“Start at the beginning.\u00a0 See where it takes you.\u00a0 After all, you have eternity to figure it out.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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