He tapped it.

He blinked. Then he laughed. Then, because he was a man of questionable judgment and deep nostalgia, he clicked the download link on his dusty, cracked iPod Touch 5th generation.

The last thing Marcus saw before the battery died was the Deleted for Good row refreshing. A new title appeared, one that hadn’t been filmed yet:

Thumbnails. Grainy, fisheye-lens footage. His own bedroom. His own face, reflected in the dark screen of the iPod, looking down at the device. Another thumbnail showed his living room. Another, the back of his head from an impossible angle—behind him, where no camera existed.

Three days later, a nondescript package arrived at his apartment. Inside: a brand-new iPhone 16, with a single app pre-installed. The icon was black, with a glowing white ‘N.’