Chapter 15
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President Odonnell had tried to prepare himself for how the alien ambassador would look, even considered the possibility that he would look human. But the idea that the ambassador would look exactly like him, that he couldn't prepare for. The Secret Service agents were also shocked, but they tried to remain their composure.
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Ambassador: Sorry for the cliche of the big reveal, but I couldn't help myself.
Odonnell: I don't understand. Are you a shapeshifter?
Ambassador: Not exactly. This is how I looked, a long time ago, when I was alive.
Odonnell: You're what, a parallel universe version of me?
Ambassador: I am glad you've read comic books, because otherwise this would be much harder to explain.
Odonnell: And go back to the part where you were dead.
Ambassador: We are indeed from different worlds, but they're not exactly the same. Imagine if John Kerry had been elected in 2004, or John Mccain in 2008. My world was just, older than yours. I became president in 2020 when terrorists bombed the capitol, and I was the designated survivor. Only Wallace Brady wasn't president before me, it was Jeb Bush. I left office in 2025, and lived until 2045.
Odonnell: And yet you're here now?
Ambassador: I am.
Odonnell: How?
Ambassador: You didn't teach science, but you know that energy can never be created or destroyed, it can only transform.
Odonnell: Which means it stands to reason that our energy, our soul, does not cease to exist upon our earthly demise, nor did it come into existence at the moment of our creation.
Ambassador: One reason why I always believed in an afterlife. It's real, and more complicated than simply Heaven and Hell. Things are changing.
Odonnell: I've noticed.
Ambassador: The barriers between worlds, between life and death, are breaking down. That's why we fled, and make no mistake, this evil is coming for you and yours as well.
Odonnell: How is it we look exactly alike. Thousands of years of evolution, it makes no mistake that we'd have the exact same genetic material.
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At this point the ambassador nodded to his friend, who removed his robe and began speaking. He called himself father Lucci.
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Lucci: You're right, it makes no sense that two different worlds woud be so similar. That they would have so many of the exact same people. It would take a higher power, somehow guiding conceptions, manipulating genetic material. I am one of these higher powers.
Odonnell: You're God?
Lucci: Not even close. But if I may explain this story, I think I can answer at least some of your questions.
Odonnell: I'm all ears.
Lucci: Very well. A tale to be told, begins thus.