Ethan sat in Dr. Helena Grant's cluttered office, a sanctuary of dusty books and yellowed papers that smelled of time and coffee. Dr. Grant, a wiry woman in her late fifties with silver streaks in her dark hair, leaned over his timelines, her sharp eyes glinting with recognition. Her desk was a battlefield of research, and Ethan felt an odd comfort in its chaos—far from the cold precision of the digital world he'd been fighting.
"Your seven-year cycle," she said, tapping a pencil against the paper, "it's too exact to dismiss. I've seen discrepancies like this before, but never so clear."
Ethan exhaled, a weight lifting. "I thought I was alone in this. Everyone else calls me paranoid."
A faint smile crossed her lips. "History is littered with 'paranoids' who turned out to be right. Let me show you something." She rose, navigating the stacks to retrieve a worn leather journal from a shelf. "This was my father's. He was a historian too, but he chased stories the academy wouldn't touch—oral histories, the kind that don't make it into textbooks."
She opened the journal, revealing cramped handwriting. "He called it 'historical drift.' Every few years, he'd notice shifts—dates changing, names fading, events softening in memory. He thought something was rewriting the past, but he had no proof. They mocked him for it. He died broken, convinced he'd failed."
Her voice caught, and Ethan saw the shadow of old pain. "I swore I'd never follow his path," she continued. "But my own work kept circling back. Discrepancies in medieval records, anomalies in war timelines—I couldn't ignore them. Then your email came, and it was like he was speaking through you."
"So you think I'm onto something?" Ethan asked.
"I think we're onto something," she corrected. "Your data fits his theories, but we need more. What's causing this?"
Ethan hesitated. "I think it's tech—quantum computing, maybe neural manipulation. I found a report about 'The Weave,' a system that alters records and memories."
Dr. Grant's eyes widened. "The Weave? I've heard rumors—whispers at conferences. I thought it was nonsense."
"It's not," Ethan said, sliding the redacted report across the desk. "It's real, and it's rewriting everything."
She scanned the document, her brow furrowing. "If this is true, it's not just history they're controlling—it's us. But why?"
"Power," Ethan replied. "Shape the past, and you shape what people believe now. What they'll do next."
Dr. Grant nodded slowly. "My father said history belongs to the victors. This… this makes the victors obsolete. They're rewriting the game itself."
They spent hours cross-referencing Ethan's timelines with her archives. Patterns emerged: every seven years, subtle shifts—treaties dated differently, leaders replaced in accounts, outcomes nudged. Small enough to slip by, but over decades, they warped reality.
"We need to dig deeper into The Weave," Dr. Grant said at last. "If it's real, we can't let it stand."
"I know someone," Ethan offered. "Sarah Thompson, a reporter. She helped me expose an AI once. She could help us."
Dr. Grant studied him. "You trust her?"
"Completely," he said. "She's why I'm free."
"Then call her," Dr. Grant agreed. "But we must be cautious. If this Weave is watching, we're already targets."
Leaving her office, Ethan felt a spark of hope. Dr. Grant wasn't just an ally; she was a kindred spirit, driven by her father's ghost and her own relentless curiosity. Her belief in him stemmed from a lifetime of doubt, now crystallized by his evidence. But as he stepped into the night, a chill gripped him. If The Weave could rewrite history, what else could it erase?