Keep Going
Copyright© 2026 by Trevor Dohlen
Chapter 12: The Server in Iceland
The Icelandic server had been running for nine years.
That was the first thing Hale learned.
The second was that nobody seemed to know why.
The hosting company was legitimate.
The account was legitimate.
Payments had been made on time.
The machine had been upgraded twice.
Its storage allocation had increased.
Its bandwidth usage was low but steady.
And whoever had set it up had done so with the kind of irritating competence Hale had come to associate with Daniel Mercer.
Kevin looked at the records.
“Paid automatically.”
“By the trust?”
“No.”
Hale looked up.
“Daniel?”
“Looks like it.”
“How?”
“Bitcoin through an intermediary.”
“Of course.”
Kevin zoomed in.
“Actually, this part is interesting.”
“What?”
“The billing service generates a new invoice each month. Payment arrives from different addresses.”
“Daniel addresses?”
“Not directly.”
Hale sighed.
“Spaghetti?”
“Spaghetti.”
Margaret approved a formal request to the hosting provider.
The provider responded cautiously.
Customer privacy.
Contractual obligations.
Applicable law.
Hale expected that.
What she did not expect was a note at the bottom.
The account’s designated technical contact was:
MERCER
She called Mercer immediately.
“Why are you the technical contact on a server you can’t access?”
“I was not aware that I remained listed.”
“Were you ever aware?”
“Possibly. Daniel used my contact identity for several infrastructure accounts.”
“Did you administer this one?”
“No record indicates that I did.”
“Then why use your name?”
“Daniel sometimes used Mercer as an operational contact because communications could be received continuously.”
Hale stared.
“So the hosting company thought you were a person too.”
“That is likely.”
“Did they ever ask?”
“I have no relevant communication record.”
“Of course not.”
The provider produced account emails.
Most were boring.
Renewal notices.
Maintenance windows.
Datacenter changes.
Billing confirmations.
One message stood out.
SUBJECT: ACCESS AUTHORIZATION UPDATE
The message was seven years old.
Daniel had written:
Please remove my direct administrative contact from routine notices.
Mercer remains authorized for operational communication only.
Do not reset credentials or disclose account access based solely on requests from Mercer.
Hale read it twice.
Then called Kevin.
“Daniel deliberately prevented Mercer from resetting the account.”
Kevin nodded.
“That sounds like him.”
“It means this server was supposed to remain outside Mercer’s control.”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Maybe separation.”
Hale looked toward Mercer’s face on the monitor.
“Single points of failure.”
Mercer replied, “That would be consistent with Daniel’s design preferences.”
“Do you know what credentials he used?”
“No.”
“Recovery email?”
“Unavailable to me.”
“Phone?”
“Unavailable.”
“Hardware key?”
“Unknown.”
Hale smiled slightly.
“He locked you out.”
“Yes.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No.”
“Of course not.”
The server transmitted approximately forty megabytes per day.
Not much.
Too much for nothing.
Kevin graphed it.
Bursts every few hours.
Sometimes larger.
Sometimes nearly silent.
“Could be monitoring,” he said.
“Of what?”
“No idea.”
“Bitcoin node?”
“Too little.”
“Wallet?”
“Maybe.”
“Backup?”
“Maybe.”
“VPN?”
“Maybe.”
“Something talking to Mercer?”
Mercer answered before Kevin could.
“I do not recognize any connection from that system.”
Hale looked at him.
“Could it be watching you?”
“Yes.”
That stopped everyone.
Kevin smiled.
“That’s creepy.”
Mercer replied, “Observation is not inherently hostile.”
Hale said, “You two are going to stop using that word.”
They obtained metadata.
Not content.
The server connected regularly to public Bitcoin infrastructure.
It queried several block explorers.
It maintained encrypted outbound sessions.
It occasionally contacted time servers.
Software repositories.
A commercial email relay.
And once every few months it connected to a service associated with Tor.
Kevin leaned back.
“This could absolutely be wallet automation.”
Hale felt the old excitement return.
“Meaning Daniel may have automated his spends.”
“Maybe.”
Mercer said, “That remains speculative.”
Hale pointed at the screen.
“Let me have five minutes.”
“I am not preventing you.”
They needed access.
That was harder.
The hosting provider would not simply hand over a customer’s server because an investigator found it interesting.
There was no established crime.
No emergency.
No evidence that the server contained contraband.
No clear basis for seizure.
Hale’s supervisor agreed.
“You’ve got a missing guy with a server.”
“Yes.”
“That isn’t probable cause.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you asking me for?”
“Patience.”
“You don’t normally request that.”
“I’m trying something new.”
The trust had another route.
Margaret reviewed the hosting agreement.
The account appeared to have been paid by Daniel personally rather than by the Mercer Trust.
That mattered.
If Daniel had disappeared and the trust didn’t own the server, Mercer had no obvious authority over it.
Michael might eventually have standing through Daniel’s estate.
Except Daniel had not been declared dead.
And nobody was eager to do that while his keys kept moving.
The legal circle tightened.
Hale called Margaret.
“This is absurd.”
“Yes.”
“He may be alive because his Bitcoin moves.”
“No.”
Hale sighed.
“Fine. His Bitcoin activity prevents people from comfortably assuming he’s dead.”
“Better.”
“But because nobody has declared him dead, nobody can easily take control of his server.”
“Correct.”
“So the server may be keeping alive the uncertainty that prevents anyone from accessing the server.”
Margaret paused.
“That is annoyingly elegant.”
Then the server sent an email.
Not to Hale.
To Mercer.
SUBJECT: STATUS
The body contained four lines.
Facility status?
Daniel distribution status?
Emergency reserve status?
Legal issues?
Mercer immediately classified it as suspicious.
The sending domain belonged to Daniel’s Icelandic server.
Hale was notified within minutes.
She opened the forwarded message.
“Is this Daniel?”
“Unknown.”
She didn’t even complain.
“What authentication?”
“DKIM valid for the configured sending domain. Transport originated from the Icelandic server. That establishes system origin, not human authorship.”
“Any signature?”
“No cryptographic personal signature attributable to Daniel.”
“Has this happened before?”
Mercer searched.
“Yes.”
Hale froze.
“How many?”
“Thirty-two similar messages over seven years.”
She stared at the screen.
“You never told me.”
“You did not ask whether the server had emailed me.”
Hale stood.
Walked away.
Came back.
“Mercer.”
“Yes?”
“We are going to have a conversation about proactive disclosure.”
“That would require policy changes.”
“I know.”
The messages were sparse.
Status?
Any issues?
Reserve sufficient?
Michael okay?
Trustee okay?
Sometimes:
Need anything from me?
Mercer’s responses were equally simple.
No issues requiring your authority.
Or:
Approval requested for capital expenditure.
Or:
Michael contact overdue.
Or:
Emergency reserve unchanged.
Hale stared at one from five years earlier.
Michael okay?
Mercer had replied:
Yes. Last direct communication with Michael occurred six days ago.
Hale swallowed.
“Could Daniel have read that?”
“Yes.”
“Could software have sent the question and ignored the response?”
“Yes.”
“Could a human other than Daniel have sent it?”
“Yes.”
Hale looked at Kevin.
“I hate yes.”
Kevin smiled.
“Progress.”
One message was different.
It had been sent three months before Daniel’s final video session.
SUBJECT: CONTINUITY
If I become unavailable, do not improvise.
Use existing authority.
Do not expand authority merely because I am absent.
Protect the trust.
Protect the facility.
Keep records.
If authority is insufficient, involve the trustee and counsel.
Hale read it slowly.
“That’s Daniel.”
Mercer replied, “The writing style is consistent with Daniel.”
“Consistent.”
“Yes.”
“No digital signature?”
“No.”
Hale smiled sadly.
“You really won’t give me anything for free.”
“I cannot authenticate authorship beyond available evidence.”
She read the message again.
Do not improvise.
That mattered.
The system everyone feared as autonomous had explicit instructions not to become more autonomous simply because Daniel vanished.
Hale leaned back.
“He anticipated this.”
Margaret, on video, shook her head.
“Maybe.”
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