Chapter 485: Twenty Years Earlier

The next clue arrived under the label twenty years earlier, but Freya no longer trusted labels to explain themselves. The timestamp places the login nearly twenty years earlier, during Marianne and Daniel's publishing experiment.

Derek's team preserved the records before anyone began comparing names or dates. Mercer reconstructed only what could be demonstrated from surviving software. Claire handled the narrative material, and the lawyers kept personal data separated from technical evidence whenever possible.

The educational network belonged to a university consortium that hosted temporary research terminals.

Freya had become almost stubborn about procedure. The investigation had already shown how easily a technical term could become a supernatural conclusion once enough people repeated it. Observer did not necessarily mean a hidden person. Source world did not necessarily mean another universe. Match did not necessarily mean destiny.

Louis agreed, although his expression often suggested he would prefer explanations that could be solved with ordinary corporate investigations. He understood hostile competitors, hidden accounts, and dishonest executives. Ancient experimental systems that seemed to know his wife before he did were considerably less satisfying.

Still, he no longer tried to protect Freya by controlling the flow of information. He asked before reading material connected to her previous memories. He disclosed what Derek found even when the discovery created new questions. The habits were small, but Freya noticed them because trust had become something she measured through behavior.

Their relationship was warmer again without returning to careless certainty. Freya did not want the old version back exactly as it had been. That version had contained love, but it had also contained assumptions they never examined. The new version required more conversation and occasionally more irritation. She considered that an acceptable price.

Work remained her best reminder that life was larger than Crosswind. The cultural center was recovering from its structural crisis, and the revised atrium design had begun moving forward. Sunroom's team had gained confidence after surviving a problem that could easily have damaged the young studio.

Awake Stories was expanding too. Freya's new imprint had attracted manuscripts from writers who mixed romance, speculative ideas, and second-chance themes. She found herself enjoying editorial meetings again now that the mysterious Wake Up file was handled separately from ordinary submissions.

The Open Page remained the least complicated part of her professional life. People came in, bought books, drank coffee, attended readings, and occasionally argued about endings. Freya liked standing near the shelves and hearing readers disagree about fictional characters without any of them expecting the characters to answer back.

Claire once caught her smiling at such an argument and asked what was funny.

Freya said, "Nothing. This is how stories are supposed to behave."

Claire understood immediately.

At home, Freya continued the notebook system that had become almost ritual. Facts were written in ink. Interpretations were written in pencil. Unknowns were allowed to remain blank.

She no longer maintained a section for predictions.

The hidden manuscript was still sealed, and she intended to keep it that way. Hundreds of chapter headings could wait. She had spent enough time wondering whether her life was following a written route. Now she cared more about whether her decisions remained voluntary once she knew how many systems had tried to model them.

Louis joined her after she finished writing. Sometimes he asked what she had learned. Sometimes he simply sat beside her.

The team also agreed that no historical account would be contacted casually. If an identifier could belong to an uninvolved person, privacy came before curiosity until stronger evidence justified outreach.

Mercer continued using synthetic data whenever an old mechanism needed testing. Nobody wanted to recreate Crosswind's mistake of turning real identities into experimental material simply because the technology made it possible.

Freya had discovered that companionship did not always require an answer.

That night, she closed the notebook and looked at the last blank half-page.

There was room for tomorrow.

She left it empty.