Curious, Elias ran the program. His screen flickered, then settled into a high-resolution, photorealistic feed of a living room. It was eerily familiar. The coffee table had the same scratch his uncle’s table had. The clock on the wall was ticking in real-time.

He realized with a jolt that he was looking at his uncle’s old apartment—the one that had been demolished three years ago to make way for a high-rise.

As he watched, a figure walked into the frame. It was his uncle, looking decades younger, sitting down with a notebook. Elias leaned in, his nose inches from the glass. His uncle looked up, directly into the camera, and smiled. He held up a sign that simply said: