Chapter 125: Mercer Makes Contact

Richard Mercer accepted Freya's unspoken challenge three days later. He contacted Louis's attorney and requested a protected interview in exchange for information about Project Northwind and Adrian's modern surveillance systems.

He did not ask for immunity because no criminal charges had yet been filed against him. He asked for guarantees that the meeting location would not be disclosed to Adrian.

Authorities were informed before anyone agreed.

Mercer appeared older and thinner than his old photographs, but there was no doubt he was Raymond Miles. He looked at Louis first, then Nadia, and finally Freya.

"You broke it in less than twenty-four hours," he said.

Freya's expression hardened. "The model?"

Mercer nodded.

He explained that Adrian revived Northwind years ago using modern behavioral data. The goal was not mystical prediction. It was probabilistic control: learn what people wanted, feared, and habitually did, then shape circumstances until the most likely choices served Adrian.

Mercer had built monitoring systems but claimed he grew increasingly disturbed when Adrian used them against Serena and Louis.

Freya asked why he didn't leave.

"Because I wanted to see whether the model could fail."

Louis's dislike was immediate. "So you watched people get hurt for intellectual curiosity."

Mercer did not defend himself.

After Stone Holdings collapsed, every model predicted the original Freya would leave within days. Instead, she cleaned the apartment, reduced spending, sold luxury goods, began working, and supported Louis.

At first Mercer assumed stress had caused a personality shift. But the deviations multiplied.

He compared Freya's language patterns from old public posts with her new writing. Vocabulary, sentence rhythm, interests, sleep schedule, and practical skills all changed at once.

Mercer concluded something impossible had happened, though he had no explanation for what.

Freya asked about the phrase "before she woke up."

Mercer admitted sending the photograph and messages. He had found Julian's old note and used its wording deliberately to test her reaction.

Louis's voice became dangerously quiet. "You frightened my wife as an experiment."

Mercer looked at Freya. "Yes. I'm sorry."

"You're not forgiven," she said.

He accepted that too.

Then came the revelation Freya had been waiting for. Mercer had never sent the novel to another world. He knew nothing about another world at all.

The mystery remained.

However, he possessed the final digital version of Nadia's Gentle Devotion narrative. Its metadata showed that someone accessed and copied it from Adrian's server on the exact date Freya remembered the online novel being updated in her previous life.

The timestamp matched to the hour.

No one in the room spoke.

Mercer could not explain the coincidence.

Neither could Freya.

But now they had something measurable: at the same moment a file was accessed in this world, the novel in Freya's old world had changed.

For the first time, the impossible connection had a timestamp.

Mercer offered server logs, source-code archives, and copies of the behavioral model in exchange for a formal cooperation process. Authorities and attorneys would decide what could be used. Freya cared most about the matching timestamp, but Louis reminded her that coincidence, however extraordinary, was still not an explanation. She agreed. For now, it was simply the strangest fact in a story already full of them.

Mercer offered server logs, source-code archives, and copies of the behavioral model in exchange for a formal cooperation process. Authorities and attorneys would decide what could be used. Freya cared most about the matching timestamp, but Louis reminded her that coincidence, however extraordinary, was still not an explanation. She agreed. For now, it was simply the strangest fact in a story already full of them.

Mercer offered server logs, source-code archives, and copies of the behavioral model in exchange for a formal cooperation process. Authorities and attorneys would decide what could be used. Freya cared most about the matching timestamp, but Louis reminded her that coincidence, however extraordinary, was still not an explanation. She agreed. For now, it was simply the strangest fact in a story already full of them.