Chapter 684: The Metadata Problem

The discovery behind the metadata problem brought Freya closer to the question she had carried since the morning she woke among piles of expensive bags and clothes. Mercer finds the timestamp format does not match any clock standard used by the old Crosswind servers.

For once, nobody in the room rushed to name what the evidence meant. Derek preserved chain of custody. Mercer duplicated the technical environment. Evelyn described only what she personally remembered. Claire stayed away from interpretive language until the underlying records were catalogued.

It contains an offset field the software could store but could not normally generate.

Freya appreciated the caution more than she could explain. She had spent years living with a conclusion that felt obvious from the inside: she had died in one world and awakened in another. Yet personal certainty was not the same as proof, and she did not want everyone around her reshaping science merely to validate her experience.

Louis had stopped needing a neat explanation too. Earlier in their marriage, he had responded to uncertainty by building contingencies until uncertainty looked manageable. Project Wake offered no such comfort. There was no contract he could renegotiate and no competitor he could buy out.

What he could do was remain beside Freya while the evidence became stranger.

That was enough.

The public fallout from the Hale investigation continued in the background. Several consortium companies had placed executives on leave, authorities were reviewing financial records, and Victor's attorneys denied that he directed any unlawful pressure campaign. Freya avoided commenting beyond verified facts.

She had no desire to win a media war by becoming careless with the truth.

Sunroom's cultural center was approaching completion. The repaired atrium now held temporary lighting tests, and photographs showed warm pools of light across old brick and new steel. Freya visited the site whenever she needed to remember that complicated things could become beautiful without pretending the damage never happened.

Awake Stories was preparing the first releases from its new imprint. The work continued without requiring Freya to turn her own mystery into content. She had made that boundary clear, and the editors respected it.

The Open Page remained ordinary in the best possible way. Readers bought novels without asking whether fiction could cross realities. Writers complained about deadlines. Someone always left a coffee cup on the wrong shelf.

Freya treasured every mundane irritation.

At home, she and Louis talked more openly than they ever had during the early years of their marriage. The conversations were not always romantic. They discussed legal updates, work schedules, whether the refrigerator needed replacing, and how much of the Project Wake evidence Freya actually wanted to see.

Louis asked instead of deciding.

Freya answered instead of assuming he should know.

The improvement sounded embarrassingly simple when reduced to those two sentences.

It had taken them years.

The hidden manuscript remained sealed. As the investigation approached the possibility of explaining her awakening, the temptation to read ahead briefly returned. Freya could have opened the remaining chapter titles and searched for clues about what happened next.

She did not.

A predicted future would only become another variable inside her choices.

That evening, she opened the notebook that had followed the investigation for so long. Facts filled most of the latest pages. Possibilities occupied fewer lines than before. Unknowns remained.

Mercer repeatedly reminded the group that unexplained evidence was not evidence for whichever extraordinary theory they preferred. It was simply evidence whose mechanism remained unresolved.

Evelyn accepted that standard despite the personal cost. Project Wake had been her work, and she did not want its failures romanticized into achievements it had never been designed to accomplish.

Freya touched the blank space beneath them.

She no longer needed every blank filled immediately.

For the first time since awakening, the mystery seemed capable of producing an answer.

And for the first time, Freya knew she would be all right even if it didn't.