[ WP ] What we once knew about history is incorrect . The tower of Babel was a space elevator . What actually happened ?

She smiled and put her hand on my own. The waitress arrived a moment later, breaking the connection but she smiled as she pulled away, taking a sip of warm coffee. She was smart and funny and into me. One of those things was not like the other. 
 
 `` So you work as a historian?'' she asked. 
 
 `` Kind of.'' 
 
 `` But you're an engineer.'' 
 
 `` Yeah.'' 
 
 `` How does that go together?'' 
 
 `` It was an accident really. A favour to a friend.'' She smiled at me and I felt a boost of confidence. She actually cared. She wanted to hear. `` He was trying to work out an old painting, an old irrigation system that he had n't seen before and did n't know if it could work. I took the picture, recreated it in CAD and made it for him.'' 
 
 `` You made it?'' 
 
 `` First working version in three thousand years.'' 
 
 `` Impressive.'' 
 
 I smiled, she laughed. 
 
 `` After that it was just a game. Find an old manuscript or diagram and make it work. My master's was a recreation of a steam engine, only it was based on a design that predated Watt's engine by nearly two thousand years.'' 
 
 `` What are you working on now?'' 
 
 I looked around sheepishly, but it was later and the diner was empty except for us and the waitress. She put her hand on my own again and looked into my eyes. She was beautiful, with the features of a persian princess and the most amazing laugh I'd ever heard. 
 
 `` Ever heard of the Tower of Babel?'' 
 
 `` Sure,'' she said. `` Legendary tower they built to reach Heaven before God smashed it to the ground.'' 
 
 `` That's the one.'' 
 
 `` But it's just a myth right.'' 
 
 `` What if it was n't?'' 
 
 `` I do n't understand.'' 
 
 I began to fidget beneath her hands. This was normally the point my doctoral advisor would tell me to stick to sextants and chronographs. But she was eager. She'd be intrigued at best, laugh at worst. 
 
 `` I think it was real. A tower, one that was built taller than any building ever know. The materials they had back then, they were millennia ahead of where we are even now. We're only just learning how to make Damascus steel. It's not beyond the realm of possibility that they could construct something so tall, they'd reach the limits of the breathable atmosphere.'' 
 
 She looked at her watch and for a moment I worried I'd lost her. What was next,'oh I forgot I have to be somewhere', just a simple'I'll call you'? She put her small purse on the table and in that moment I was crestfallen. 
 
 `` Have you told anyone else?'' she asked. 
 
 `` Only my advisor. He said it was a waste of time and threatened to pull my doctorate if I pursued it.'' 
 
 `` And no-one else knows?'' 
 
 She was looking at me now. Staring. She was n't smiling. I reached for her, but her hands retreated to her purse. 
 
 `` No. Why?'' 
 
 She sighed and pulled out a gun. It was odd, blocky, with blue lines and a small patchwork of holes for a muzzle. 
 
 `` I do n't understand,'' I stammered like an undergrad. 
 
 `` You're right,'' she said with resignation in her voice. `` Or partly right. We did build a tower and we did reach... somewhere else. But it was n't destroyed by any God. At least none we've met.'' 
 
 `` What...'' 
 
 `` You have two choices,'' she said. `` Option one, I take your memories from you. You go back to college and pick a new project, a new obsession. You will not remember any of this.'' 
 
 `` Will I forget meeting you?'' 
 
 `` Option two,'' she said, ignoring my question, `` is I take you there.'' 
 
 `` Where?'' 
 
 She rolled her eyes and I regressed to the level of a first grader. 
 
 `` We've come back. The Towers we've built now are very different. But they still serve the same purpose.'' 
 
 `` You'll show me?'' 
 
 She hefted the gun and pointed it at my chest. 
 
 `` I'll go, I'll go!'' I stammered. 
 
 `` I know,'' she said and fired.
