Who's On The Line?

After Dial H #3, I thought the dials were connected to Abyss, because Nelson saw someone during an aborted dialing, and Manteau said she could sense someone else on the line, getting closer.

After issue #4, it would appear I was wrong. Ex Nihilo is using a dial, but Abyss doesn't seem interested in it in the slightest.

I did think of something else, what Manteau said about the mysterious "O", who was involved in every early attempt at telephones. Exchanging information with all these scientific minds, looking for something else. There's also what Manteau said about how it's important to remember who you are every time you dial. That it's Nelson, not Boy Chimney or whoever. Which suggests maybe the heroes are real, in some sense, that they're called in from some other world and share space with the dialer. That's why Nelson would remember a fight with a Rake Dragon he never had. Because wherever he came from, Boy Chimney did have that battle.

Could it go both ways? Could someone from Nelson and Manteau's world have been lost in the heroes' world, maybe like Adam Strange being Zeta-Beamed to Rann, only they were never sent back? Maybe that's what "O" is after. It occurred to me that "H-E-R-O" could be "HER O". O could have been trying to find some way to get "her" back, and the dials are the closest approximation they could manage. The dial pulls someone from that world, but it's aiming blind. However, perhaps she's able to sense it, home in on the dialing to find her way home.

Or O could be calling someone for a ride. O could be the one lost, trying to contact its people.