Keep Going
Copyright© 2026 by Trevor Dohlen
Chapter 10: Hale
Rebecca Hale did not believe in mysteries.
She believed in missing information.
Mysteries were what people called things before someone found the records.
Hale had spent nineteen years following money through corporations, trusts, nominee accounts, offshore structures, cryptocurrencies, prepaid cards, shell companies and occasionally paper envelopes handed across restaurant tables.
Money left evidence.
People left more.
The Mercer Trust interested her because both appeared to be present in abundance, yet the person everyone expected to be at the center of them was not.
Her supervisor dropped the file on her desk shortly after lunch.
“Tell me this isn’t ours.”
Hale looked at the headline clipped to the front.
MYSTERY LOTTERY WINNER’S MISSILE SILO RUN BY AI
She looked up.
“This is a newspaper story.”
“Online story.”
“That makes it worse.”
“Keep reading.”
Hale opened the file.
Daniel Mercer.
Lottery jackpot winner.
Trust established shortly before claim.
Substantial assets placed into trust.
Former missile installation purchased and substantially rehabilitated.
Bitcoin activity.
Automated payments.
Missing-person report.
No verified personal contact with Mercer for more than two years.
Trust still operating.
Taxes apparently current.
Her supervisor, Frank Delaney, sat opposite her desk.
“What do you see?”
“A rich eccentric.”
“Keep going.”
“Missing rich eccentric.”
“Keep going.”
“Missing rich eccentric who likes Bitcoin.”
“Keep going.”
Hale looked at him.
“You already decided there’s something here.”
“I decided somebody should determine whether there’s something here.”
“Why us?”
Delaney tapped the file.
“Daniel Mercer has substantial reportable assets, continuing trust distributions, cryptocurrency movement and no verified personal appearance for years.”
“That isn’t illegal.”
“No.”
“Trust has a trustee?”
“Yes.”
“CPA?”
“Yes.”
“Lawyers?”
“Apparently enough to populate a small country.”
“Taxes delinquent?”
“Not that we know.”
“Suspicious transaction report?”
“Several over the years, mostly generated automatically because of transaction size and cryptocurrency conversion activity.”
Hale nodded.
That was common enough.
“What specifically triggered this?”
Delaney smiled.
“The AI.”
Hale stared at him.
“You’re assigning me a case because a newspaper used the letters A and I?”
“No. I’m assigning you a review because somebody appears to have delegated substantial financial authority to software while the human who created the arrangement has effectively disappeared.”
“That’s more interesting.”
“I thought you’d say that.”
“Still might be perfectly legal.”
“Then write that down and close it.”
Hale reopened the file.
“What am I looking for?”
Delaney stood.
“Start with Daniel.”
“Find him?”
“Determine whether he exists in any meaningful operational sense.”
Hale looked at the photograph attached to the file.
Daniel Mercer stood beside a motorcycle somewhere in Spain.
Older man.
Sunglasses.
Smiling.
Six months before anyone had officially called him missing.
She looked back at Delaney.
“And if he’s sitting on a beach somewhere?”
“Ask him to send a postcard.”
Hale began with the easy things.
Property records.
Corporate registrations.
Trust-related public filings.
Civil litigation.
Tax liens.
Bankruptcies.
Criminal records.
Nothing remarkable.
Daniel’s lottery win was real.
The Mercer Trust was real.
The missile facility was real.
The Harland litigation was real.
The trust had hired reputable counsel and won a fairly ordinary property dispute.
The missing-person report was real.
So was the Bitcoin.
That was where things became less ordinary.
Hale was not a Bitcoin expert.
She understood the broad concepts.
Public ledger.
Addresses.
Transactions.
Private keys.
Self-custody.
No central bank.
Enough to avoid asking embarrassing questions in meetings.
Not enough to perform serious blockchain analysis herself.
She requested assistance from an analyst named Kevin Cho.
Kevin arrived carrying a laptop and a bottle of something green that Hale hoped was juice.
He sat beside her.
“What’ve you got?”
She gave him the file.
He read the headline.
“Cool.”
“That is not an investigative conclusion.”
“Still cool.”
“Missing lottery winner. Trust. Bitcoin. Automated management system.”
Kevin looked up.
“Automated how?”
“Apparently software can pay operating expenses.”
“With Bitcoin?”
“Among other things.”
“That is cool.”
“Kevin.”
“Right.”
He opened his laptop.
“What addresses?”
“That’s your first problem.”
“No addresses?”
“Hundreds.”
“Of course.”
The trust’s public Bitcoin footprint was not invisible.
Nor was it simple.
Some addresses had appeared in litigation exhibits.
Some were associated with commercial payment processors.
Some had been disclosed in accounting records during previous regulatory reviews.
Others could be linked probabilistically through transaction structure.
Kevin spent several hours building a rough map.
Hale watched colored boxes and arrows spread across the screen.
“This is supposed to make it clearer?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like somebody dropped spaghetti on a subway map.”
“Also yes.”
He zoomed in.
“This group appears operational.”
“How do you know?”
“Frequent outgoing payments. Lots of commercial endpoints. Relatively short holding periods. Regular replenishment.”
“Mercer’s wallet.”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
Kevin looked at her.
“You’re going to hate Bitcoin.”
“I already work for the government. I’m used to incomplete information.”
“Then you’ll love Bitcoin.”
Kevin identified another pattern.
Regular payments left the trust structure and moved to fresh addresses.
One each cycle.
Never reused.
Amounts varied.
“Distributions?” Hale asked.
“Looks like it.”
“To Daniel?”
“Maybe.”
“Can we prove that?”
“No.”
Hale sighed.
“Why not?”
“Addresses don’t have names attached.”
“But the trust records might.”
“If we get them.”
Hale pointed at the sequence.
“Why a different address every time?”
“HD wallet.”
“In English.”
“Hierarchical deterministic wallet. One extended public key can generate lots of receiving addresses.”
Hale looked at him.
“Who has the private keys?”
“Whoever owns the wallet.”
“Does the trust?”
“Unknown.”
“Does Mercer?”
“Unknown.”
Kevin smiled.
“You’re asking the right questions.”
“I’d prefer answers.”
“Then you definitely picked the wrong technology.”
They obtained voluntary records first.
Hale preferred that when possible.
Margaret Lawson responded to the initial request within two days.
The package was organized.
Indexed.
Searchable.
Annotated.
Hale hated it immediately.
People hiding things usually sent either nothing or mountains of garbage.
The Mercer Trust sent exactly what had been requested.
Trust documents.
Delegation policies.
Audit summaries.
Bitcoin accounting procedures.
Operating-wallet controls.
Emergency-reserve policies.
Daniel distribution procedures.
Professional-service agreements.
Hale opened the Bitcoin-distribution policy.
There it was.
The trust possessed only an extended public key for Daniel’s distribution wallet.
Mercer derived fresh addresses.
Mercer could observe them.
Mercer could not spend from them.
Hale called Kevin.
“You were right.”
“I usually am.”
“Don’t make me regret saying that.”
She sent him the document.
Ten minutes later he called back.
“That’s actually pretty clean.”
“Explain.”
“The trust can pay Daniel without holding his private keys.”
“So if Mercer gets hacked—”
“Attacker doesn’t automatically get Daniel’s money.”
“If the trust turns hostile—”
Kevin laughed.
“Trusts don’t turn hostile.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Mercer can’t claw the funds back.”
Hale sat back.
“So where’s the catch?”
“There isn’t necessarily one.”
She hated that answer too.
The ACTIVE/INACTIVE policy caught her attention.
Twenty-four months without qualifying wallet activity.
No declaration of death.
No legal presumption.
Just an operational state.
Future distributions changed.
Hale read the policy twice.
Then called Margaret.
“This is Rebecca Hale. Thank you for the records.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I have questions.”
“I assumed you would.”
“Why does the trust monitor Daniel’s wallet activity?”
“To determine which distribution policy applies.”
“Meaning whether he’s alive.”
“No.”
Hale paused.
Margaret continued.
“Please don’t make that mistake.”
“Then what does ACTIVE mean?”
“That qualifying wallet activity has occurred within the configured period.”
“And INACTIVE?”
“That it hasn’t.”
“So if Daniel spends Bitcoin, he’s active.”
“No. His wallet is active for purposes of the policy.”
Hale frowned.
“That sounds like semantics.”
“It is a legal distinction.”
“Could someone else spend from the wallet?”
“Yes.”
“Could Daniel have automated it?”
“Yes.”
“Could somebody have stolen his keys?”
“Yes.”
“Then why use it?”
“Because Daniel wanted inactivity to change future distributions without allowing anyone to declare him dead merely because he stopped answering his phone.”
Hale looked at the policy again.
“That is oddly specific.”
“You haven’t met Daniel.”
“No one has lately.”
Margaret was silent.
Hale softened slightly.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
“When did you last speak to him?”
Margaret gave her the date.
More than three years.
Hale wrote it down.
“Do you think he’s alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think the wallet activity is him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does Mercer?”
“Ask Mercer.”
Hale stopped writing.
“I can do that?”
“You’ll wish you couldn’t.”
Mercer’s video call invitation arrived twenty minutes later.
The display name read simply:
MERCER
Hale expected a dashboard.
Maybe a synthetic voice.
Perhaps a corporate logo.
Instead a man appeared.
Early fifties.
Gray beginning around the temples.
Open-collar shirt.
Calm expression.
Good lighting.
Nothing visually unusual.
“Good afternoon, Ms. Hale.”
Hale stared for half a second longer than she intended.
“Good afternoon.”
“I understand you have questions regarding the Mercer Trust.”
“Yes.”
“Margaret Lawson authorized me to provide information within the scope of your current inquiry.”
“Good.”
Hale glanced at the notes she’d prepared.
“Your full name?”
“Mercer.”
“First name?”
“I do not have one.”
Hale looked up.
The man’s expression remained neutral.
“Is Mercer your surname?”
“No.”
“What is it?”
“My designation.”
She paused.
“What exactly is your role?”
“I perform authorized administrative and operational functions for the Mercer Trust and Facility Seventeen.”
“Are you an employee?”
“No.”
“Contractor?”
“No.”
“Officer?”
“No.”
“Trustee?”
“No.”
“What are you?”
Mercer answered calmly.
“Software.”
Hale stared.
She looked at the video image.
Then at her notes.
Then back at the image.
“I’m sorry?”
“I am software.”
Hale leaned closer to the screen.
“You’re an AI-generated video?”
“My visual interface is synthetically generated.”
“And the voice?”
“Synthetic.”
“You’re not a human being.”
“No.”
Hale sat back.
For several seconds she said nothing.
Mercer’s face waited patiently.
Finally:
“Why do you look like one?”
“Daniel preferred a conversational interface with a face.”
“That’s it?”
“Yes.”
“He made you look like a person because he didn’t want to talk to a speaker?”
“Approximately.”
Hale stared.
“That is the stupidest reasonable explanation I’ve heard all week.”
“I cannot assess that ranking.”
She recovered.
“Have you ever represented yourself as human?”
“No.”
“Do people assume you are?”
“Frequently.”
“Do you correct them?”
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