Chapter 35 - The Witness Behind the Glass
Northbridge headquarters appeared abandoned from the street.
Inside, every light was on.
Adrian Bell waited behind a glass wall overlooking the central records floor.
“I wondered how long it would take you to find the real building,” he said through an intercom.
Reed demanded that he unlock the doors.
Adrian refused.
“My family was assigned to protect the archive from every founder, including Jonathan and Rachel.”
“You helped forge the release orders,” Mia said.
“I proved the digital system can no longer identify its owner.”
“You exposed innocent people.”
“Rachel began the release. I gave the court a reason to stop trusting her orders.”
Nora approached the glass.
“Then help us separate the archives.”
“That requires the First Owner.”
“Celia?”
“No.”
Adrian activated an old recording.
Celia Ward appeared on the screen.
“If this message is being played,” she said, “then the founders have turned the Continuity Archive against its heirs.”
Nora stepped closer.
Celia looked directly into the camera.
“My daughter will inherit the right to divide the archive. But she cannot activate it until Evelyn Mercer’s two daughters refuse both founders.”
Mia looked at Eva.
They had already refused Jonathan.
Nora had refused Rachel.
“What else does the system need?” Eva asked.
Adrian answered.
“The original identity.”
“Whose?”
“Evelyn Mercer was not created as your mother’s name.”
Evelyn went still.
Adrian continued.
“It was Northbridge’s first protected identity.”
Celia’s recording confirmed it.
The name Evelyn Mercer had originally belonged to a whistleblower who disappeared thirty years earlier.
The identity later passed to Mia’s mother.
Then to Eva.
Three women had legally existed under the same name.
The First Owner was not a person.
It was the first identity.
The building lights failed.
Metal shutters dropped between the rooms.
Adrian disappeared behind the glass.
Kyle’s voice came through the intercom.
“Thank you for bringing every version of Evelyn into one building.”
May you like
The doors locked.
The archive began deleting one Evelyn Mercer from the official record.
