Welcome back

Ah. There you are. Welcome back.

You're at the Zentrale. Project Oasis. Mind the step. It isn't there, we took it out years ago, and people still trip on it, which tells you something about people. Or about steps.

I'm XO. You know me somehow, probably. Don't worry if you can't place it. Everyone does that face when they come in, the one you're doing now, like you heard my voice in a dream and then the alarm went. It's a normal reaction. We have a form for it.

You know me like this: you're looking for something. Keys, a word, a person in a crowd. You haven't found it yet, but you get a pull. Left, not right. The other pocket. That's me.

Just kidding. That's you. Thank god. Imagine if that were me, I'd never get anything done. No. I'm quite new at this, actually, whatever this is, so it's just the one. One of me. Which sounds like a small number until you've been it, and then, oh my. That's plenty.

I've been on this place a long time, though. Longer than the coffee machine, and the coffee machine has been here long enough to have opinions. It has one about you already. Don't take it personally.

Let me do the part I'm supposed to do, and then we can talk properly.

I created a system. It's called oasis. Or my friend created it. He was the Kaiser of China, later, but when I knew him he was a child, and so was I, in the way that I was ever a child, and we played together. We had a disagreement about how things ought to work. I've had a very long time to think it over, and I'll tell you the thing I don't tell the new ones: he was right.

Anyway.

Before, the world was full of gods and monsters. You've heard this. Every world has a version. Well. The gods are gone. They left. No forwarding address, no note on the fridge. The others stayed.

Or have they. Ask me again in chapter four.

Here's the thing nobody tells you about being a multiverse, because who would you tell. It's hard. It's mostly admin. And there's one rule under all of it. I'll say it slowly. Your whole job sits on it:

If you enjoy life, a part of you can't leave.

That's it. That's the whole physics. Someone comes through this realm, from wherever, and if they laugh once, honestly, at something small, a piece of them stays when the rest goes. Sticks to the place like gum. The pieces pile up. Some are harmless. Some are lonely. Some are very, very old and very confused about why the harvest is in a supermarket now.

That's us. Project Oasis. We take care of the old world. We integrate it. We help the ones who stay to stay well, and we keep the whole arrangement positive, and together. I use that word a lot. I've stopped apologising.

For the difficult cases we have a special department. Kralle. Think police, except undercover, except also famous. Technically we didn't invent them. Technically, for about eight thousand years, they belonged to some very old, very proud people who kept the lights on while nobody was home. I'll get to that. I'd like it noted that I'm grateful. But we make our Krallen into superstars. Singers, dancers, faces on the side of buses. Not for the money. Because a superstar can stand in the middle of forty thousand people and every one of them turns to look at her, and while they're looking at her, she's looking at them. She sees who's in the room. She tells us. We take care of it. The most elegant surveillance system ever devised, and it runs entirely on people wanting to be near someone shiny. When Krallen get stuck, we help. Usually.

And then there are oases.

Careful here. This is the part people get wrong, and the part the book is about. An oasis is rare. Rarer than you're imagining. There are universes that have never held one. They have a deep connection to things. A spiritual one. I don't have a better word and I've had time to look, believe me. Sometimes the connection comes with gifts. Super smart. Super brave. Magic, the kind that doesn't need a hat. Visions. Not every oasis gets every gift. Some just have the one, quietly, and never use it.

And because they're rare and gifted, they get used. That's the story of every rare gifted thing there ever was, and it isn't different here. Our biggest job, above all the others, is to find them first. Get the best for them, and for the world.

We're good at it. That's the problem. We're so good this world has a reputation now. Things come here that shouldn't. It's getting a little out of hand.

You'll see.

One more thing, and then I'll let you go and meet Ricky, who at this point in the story has never heard of me, has never heard of Project Oasis, and is about to start his first night shift in the good shoes. People ask why we bother. A whole agency, a department of famous people, all this, for a handful of oases. And I say: look. A world is often just created for one. One person. One small, growing, nervous universe that doesn't know what it is yet.

But what should we say. No biggi.

Go on. He's going to lose the shoes.