The screen flickered. A window opened, but it wasn't a directory. It was a live feed from his own webcam. But the Elias on the screen wasn't sitting in a dark room. The Elias in the video was standing in a sunlit office, wearing a suit he didn't own, shaking hands with a CEO he had only seen in magazines. The prompt returned: COMMIT CHANGES? (Y/N)
Elias smirked, his fingers hovering over the mechanical keyboard. He typed: Mainframe of Global-Sec Bank.
The terminal cursor blinked like a dying star in the corner of Elias’s bedroom. Outside, the rain lashed against the Seattle skyline, but inside, the only sound was the hum of a cooling fan struggling to keep up with a download that shouldn't have existed.
Elias looked at the sunlit version of himself—successful, happy, powerful. Then he looked at the blinking cursor, waiting for his command. He hit 'Y'.