2026-05-08 21:59:22Ethan woke to the sound of his Nokia phone's alarm that tinny, obnoxious ringtone he'd deleted years ago. No, not years ago. Twelve years from now.
Marcus Beni was still snoring on the other side of the cramped dorm room they'd been assigned for senior year. Ethan had been planning to move off-campus with Derek in the fall, but the lease hadn't kicked in yet.
He shot upright in bed, heart hammering, and stared at the cramped dorm room around him. Posters on the wallet The Dark Knight, some indie bands he'd forgotten he liked. His roommate Marcus Beni's side of the room was a disaster of textbooks and dirty laundry. The air smelled like cheap ramen.
New York University. Senior year. May 15th, 2014.
"Holy shit," Ethan breathed. His hands were smooth, unscarred. No gunshot wound in his side. He looked down at himself skinny, unimpressive, wearing a ratty NYU t-shirt he'd gotten at a college fair. He was twenty-two years old again.
[WELCOME BACK, HOST]
The blue screen materialized in front of him, translucent, visible only to his eyes. Text scrolled across it with that same mechanical precision.
[REBIRTH SUCCESSFUL]
[DATE: MAY 15, 2014]
[HOST STATUS: LEVEL 1]
[AVAILABLE POINTS: 0]
[FIRST QUEST LOADING...]
"This is real." Ethan's voice was different,younger, without the bitterness that had hardened it over years of failure. He touched his face, his arms, confirming his existence. "This is actually real."
The System's voice echoed in his mind, dripping with sarcasm. "Congratulations, you've mastered basic observation. Yes, it's real. You're twenty-two again, with all your memories intact. Try not to waste this gift by being the same doormat you were the first time around."
Ethan stood up, legs shaky, and walked to the mirror above his dresser. The face staring back at him was both familiar and foreign, younger, unmarked by the stress lines and defeat that had carved themselves into his features. But his eyes were different now. Harder. Behind them lurked years of knowledge, betrayal, and fury.
"What happens now?" he asked.
[QUEST INITIALIZING]
[FIRST REVERSAL QUEST: DEFEND YOUR FUTURE]
[OBJECTIVE: Today at 3 PM, Derek will ask to "borrow" your cryptocurrency research notes for his "economics paper." In the original timeline, you agreed. Derek used your research to create the foundation of Crypto shield, the platform he pitched to investors in 2016 and sold for $45 million in 2019.]
[MISSION: Refuse Derek's request and protect your intellectual property]
[REWARD: 100 Points, Skill Unlock: Enhanced Perception Level 1]
[FAILURE: -50 Points, Regression Risk Increased]
[TIME REMAINING: 7 HOURS, 23 Minutes]
Ethan's jaw clenched. Derek. Of course the System would start with Derek. The memories flooded back at 3:00 PM in the library, Derek approaching with that friendly smile, asking for help with a "research paper." Ethan had handed over months of work without question because they were "friends."
"I was such an idiot," Ethan muttered.
"Accurate assessment," the System replied. "You were a people-pleasing doormat who confused being used with being liked. But that's why we're here, isn't it? To fix your spectacular failures."
A knock on the door interrupted them. "Ethan! You awake, man? We're gonna be late for Henderson's lecture."
Marcus Beni, Ethan had forgotten about him. His college roommate who later moved to Seattle after graduation, and they'd lost touch. Good guy, terrible with money, but loyal in a way Derek had never been. Seems the dude was awake from his sleep with all the snoring as Ethan smirked such a guy .
"Yeah, I'm up," Ethan called back. He grabbed clothes from his closet, his mind racing. Seven hours until Derek's betrayal, version one. This time would be different.
The morning passed in a surreal haze. Sitting in Professor Henderson's marketing lecture, Ethan found himself analyzing everything through the lens of future knowledge. Henderson's examples about emerging social media platforms? Ethan knew which ones would dominate and which would crash. The girl in front of him checking F******k on her laptop? That platform would lose its cultural relevance in less than a decade. The guy beside him taking notes on an iPad? Apple's stock was about to explode.
Everything was an opportunity now. Every conversation, every decision, every interaction was a chance to rewrite his failure into success.
But first, Derek.
At 2:45 PM, Ethan positioned himself at a table in the main library with his laptop open, pretending to work on a paper. His cryptocurrency research notes months of analysis on Bitcoin's potential, blockchain security protocols, and the theoretical framework for a decentralized exchange platform were saved in a folder on his desktop.
In the original timeline, he'd had them in a printed binder that Derek had "borrowed" and never returned.
This time, everything was digital and password-protected. Ethan had spent the lunch hour transferring all his research to an encrypted cloud drive and deleting it from his laptop. The only copy existed in a place Derek couldn't access.
At 2:58 PM, Derek walked into the library.
Ethan's hands tightened on his laptop, years of rage crystallized into cold focus. He forced himself to breathe evenly, to appear casual, to be the Ethan Hayes that Derek expected, naive, eager to help, pathetically grateful for attention.
Derek spotted him and smiled, that easy, charismatic smile that had fooled Ethan for years. He was handsome in that effortless way. Some people had good jawline, styled hair, expensive clothes that somehow never looked try-hard. His father owned a tech consulting firm, and Derek had always had money, connections, and confidence.
"Ethan! Hey, man." Derek slid into the chair across from him, setting down his messenger bag. "I've been looking for you. You got a minute?"
"Sure." Ethan kept his voice neutral, his expression open. Inside, he was counting down the seconds until he could watch Derek's face change.
"So, I'm working on this economics paper about emerging financial technologies," Derek said, leaning forward with practiced sincerity. "Professor Michaels wants something cutting-edge, you know? And I remembered you mentioned you've been researching cryptocurrency stuff. Bitcoin and all that."
"Yeah, I've done some research on it." Ethan's tone was carefully mild.
"That's perfect, man. I was wondering if I could borrow your notes? Just to help me understand the basics, get some sources, maybe quote a few of your insights. I'll give you credit in the bibliography, obviously."
In the original timeline, Ethan had been so flattered that Derek remembered his "boring crypto obsession" that he'd handed over everything immediately. Derek had taken the binder, promised to return it in a week, and Ethan had never seen it again. By the time Ethan realized Derek was building something with his research, it was too late. This time, Ethan let the silence stretch. He watched Derek's confident smile hold steady, watched the
expectation in his eyes the absolute certainty that Ethan would say yes.
"No," Ethan said simply.
Derek blinked. "What?”
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Chapter 94: Forty-Eight Hours
The short interest filing came out on a Tuesday.Joy caught it at 6:50 AM, before Ethan had finished his coffee."The signal Reyes described," she said, sliding a printout across his desk. "Two broker accounts, same report, filed through FINRA's short interest portal at 5:48 yesterday afternoon. The market hasn't opened yet—but it will in forty minutes." Ethan read the report. It was clean on the surface, formatted correctly with the account identifiers embedded in the header exactly where they belonged. But it showed short interest in three of Hayes Capital's disclosed positions running at 3.8 times actual volume.It was a fabrication designed to spook the market, manufacturing the appearance of a crowded exit before one had even begun."The conversion window opens in forty-eight hours," Ethan said."Yes."He looked at the two account identifiers—the same ones Reyes had given him a few days ago. He had already had Carmen document them and file the record under privilege. He held a t
Chapter 93: The RICO Setup
Carmen called at 7:02 AM. "I read it," she said. "We need to talk in person. Not on the phone." "I'll be there in twenty minutes," Ethan replied.When he arrived, the office was quiet. Murphy, Joy, and Felix were not in yet. Carmen sat at the conference table with printed photos laid out in three neat rows.She looked up. "This is a RICO setup on purpose," she said. "The person who designed it knew how to make each part look legal on its own. The links between them exist, but they are only clear if you can prove everyone planned it together." "Can you prove it?" Ethan asked."With Reyes's documentation? Yes. Without it? We would waste over a year in court, and they would take apart the shell companies before we could act ." She tapped the middle row. "But there is another problem. This document shows how they attacked. It doesn't show who profits from the other side. And until we know that—""We can't know what the real target is," Ethan finished.Carmen set down her pen. "What do y
Chapter 92: Someone I've Had Dinner With
Reyes made coffee without asking.He moved through the apartment with a steady, calm rhythm — like someone who had waited so long for something that now it didn't faze him. The place was simple. Not empty like Hayes Capital's office, but free of the usual things people collect to feel settled. No photos. No art. Just a clean, well-kept emptiness."How long since you left the Peralta setup?" Ethan asked.Reyes set a cup on the table between them. "Operationally? Eighteen months. Nominally?" He sat down. "My name is still in the filing. Which is why I've been here rather than somewhere with a better view.""Waiting for Yates to decide what to do with you."Ethan asked "Waiting for whoever showed up before Yates made up his mind." Reyes looked at him calmly. "I didn't know which one it would be.”"And now?""Now I know you found me before he did." He turned his coffee cup in his hands once — a slow, deliberate rotation. "That means the external pressure is ahead of the internal timeline
Chapter 91: Controlled Demolition
The weekend passed at work.Ethan ran the Reyes thread backward through everything Joy had pulled, laying it out in his notebook the way a surgeon lays instruments before an operation — not because he needed to look at each one, but because the arrangement revealed the logic.By Sunday night, Ethan understood how it all fit together.Gabriel Reyes had been Warren Yates's first builder. He taught Yates how to set up companies with just enough legal distance — Wyoming shell companies, Delaware holding layers, figureheads who couldn't be questioned because they didn't officially run anything. Yates used that knowledge to build Heron. He made Reyes a part owner because Reyes was both the promise and the protection — a man who knew where the escape routes were because he had designed them.The problem was that Reyes also knew where all the proof was.And if Yates was building a defense using Harlan Cross — getting ready for an SEC investigation, shielding his compliance team, creating a le
Chapter 90: The Other Chair
Friday morning came in gray, the kind of overcast that settled over the city like a held breath.Ethan arrived at his desk by six in the morning. He already knew the Yates schedule by heart—the sheet Victoria gave him the night before. He wasn’t studying it for facts. He was staring at it because something about dinner bothered him.Table for two. 7:30. Reserved under Yates’s own name, not his assistant’s.There were two reasons a man at Yates's level made his own reservations. Either the guest was personal, or the guest was someone he couldn't document.Those weren't the same thing, but they could both be true.He texted TJ at 6:12 AM: Thursday night. Yates dinner. Midtown steakhouse — Smith & Wollensky on 49th. Need eyes on the second chair. Whoever's in it.TJ's response came back in nine minutes: Already on it. Had someone on the block last night. Still pulling photos — give me two hours.He set down the phone and opened his notebook.Below the Victoria entry from the night before
Chapter 89 : Someone Who Knows
Later. The office was dark except for the window light — city glow diffused through glass, the far towers printed in amber and white. Victoria was sitting on Murphy's desk rather than lying on it, her blouse rebuttoned with two buttons wrong in a way she clearly hadn't noticed. He noticed and didn't say anything.She was looking at the whiteboard again."You built this whole thing from a startup app," she said."Not whole. Not yet.""No." She glanced at him. "But you know where it ends, don't you. You already know."He was quiet."Most people who work like you," she said, "are running from something. All their moves are about defense." She picked up the marker he'd left on Murphy's desk and turned it in her hand. "But not you. You move like you already know the map.”"Intuition."he said "It's not intuition." She set the marker down. "I've been CFO for a company run by one of the more calculating people I know. I can tell the difference between someone who's smart and someone who know
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