As the final frame approached, the "Fixed Elias" on the screen turned around and looked directly out of the monitor. He looked healthy, happy, and entirely artificial. He pressed his palms against the inside of the glass.

The computer speakers crackled one last time. "Seeding complete," a synthesized voice whispered.

Elias felt a cold, glass-like barrier press against his own face. He wasn't sitting in his room anymore. He was standing in a white void, his entire existence reduced to a series of keyframes.

The animation on the screen sped up. It showed "Fixed Elias" finishing his magnum opus, winning awards he hadn't yet entered for, and reconnecting with a father he hadn't spoken to in years. It was a perfect life, rendered at 60 frames per second.

It was a hand-drawn sequence of a room—specifically, his room. The detail was impossible. It showed the coffee stain on his rug from yesterday and the specific way his bookshelf sagged. In the center of the frame was an animated version of Elias, sitting at his desk, staring at a monitor.

But there was a catch. The torrent wasn't a gift; it was a swap.