Chapter 7 - subject F.H.
Arthur took Franklin and Nathan to Mercer International headquarters before sunrise.
The sealed archive could only be opened from an offline terminal in the company’s original records vault.
Detective Cole accompanied them.
Inside the file were medical charts.
Franklin’s name appeared throughout.
SUBJECT F.H.
Male.
Age twenty-eight.
Trauma tolerance assessment.
Cold-circulatory stabilization.
Memory disruption following exposure.
Franklin gripped the edge of the desk.
“I never agreed to this.”
Arthur scrolled.
The consent form carried Franklin’s signature.
Franklin examined it.
“Forged.”
Cole photographed it.
Nathan scanned the dates.
The earliest entry preceded Franklin’s supposed employment at Northstar by nine months.
“What happened to you?”
Franklin rubbed his forehead.
“I don’t know.”
Then one phrase caught Nathan’s attention.
POST-INCIDENT RECONSTRUCTION REQUIRED.
“What does that mean?”
Arthur continued reading.
A medical note mentioned a laboratory accident.
Three injured employees.
One subject transferred overnight.
Franklin Hale.
Nathan turned toward his father.
“Do you remember a lab accident before you joined Northstar?”
“No.”
Arthur searched deeper.
A photograph appeared.
Franklin lying unconscious in a hospital bed.
Standing beside him was Arthur’s father, Charles Mercer.
And Evelyn.
Nathan whispered:
“She knew you before you knew her.”
Franklin’s breathing became shallow.
Another file contained handwritten notes from Dr. Samuel Keene.
F.H. displays selective memory gaps. Reintegration into team environment approved. Subject should believe employment begins March 1994.
Franklin sat down.
“My memories…”
Nathan touched his shoulder.
Franklin pulled away—not from Nathan, but from the fear inside himself.
For thirty years he had trusted the basic architecture of his own life.
Now that structure was cracking.
Detective Cole found a linked document.
PROJECT FRANKLIN OBJECTIVE:
Determine whether induced medical stabilization following catastrophic trauma can preserve cognitive function while allowing controlled alteration of contextual recall.
Cole shut the screen halfway.
“That’s enough technical detail for now.”
Franklin stared at Arthur.
“Your family did this.”
Arthur looked devastated.
“My father did.”
“You inherited everything he built.”
“And spent my life believing his charitable work saved people.”
Franklin laughed once without humor.
Nathan asked, “Why name the project after Dad?”
Arthur searched the project correspondence.
One email surfaced.
FROM: CHARLES MERCER
TO: SAMUEL KEENE
If F.H. remembers the original accident, terminate the program.
Franklin stared.
“What original accident?”
A second attachment answered part of the question.
A newspaper clipping dated October 1993.
MERCER FOUNDATION VEHICLE CRASH KILLS TWO ON LAKE SHORE DRIVE.
Franklin read the victims.
Daniel Hale.
Margaret Hale.
His parents.
He stood so suddenly the chair struck the wall.
“My parents died in that crash.”
Nathan stared.
Franklin continued.
“I was told a drunk driver hit them.”
Arthur opened the hidden accident report.
The Mercer vehicle had been transporting experimental equipment.
Franklin himself had been driving behind his parents.
According to the suppressed report, his car had also crashed.
Franklin suffered severe trauma.
His parents died at the scene.
Northstar doctors took Franklin directly from the hospital into the experimental stabilization program.
And afterward—
they altered his memory of the crash.
Franklin whispered, “I thought I arrived after.”
Nathan read further.
There was one more passenger listed in Franklin’s car.
Identity sealed.
Female, age 22.
Survived.
Arthur opened the authorization chain.
The survivor’s identity had been protected by Charles Mercer personally.
Nathan already knew before the name appeared.
EVELYN ROSS.
Not Evelyn Hale.
Evelyn had been in Franklin’s car the night his parents died.
May you like
Years before he believed he met her.
👉 Evelyn was with Franklin during the crash that killed his parents, meaning the woman he later married had been part of his hidden life from the very beginning.
