He needed that firmware. Without it, the vintage display he’d salvaged from the industrial wrecking yard was nothing more than a heavy slab of glass and aluminum. He’d spent three days scouring Chinese mirrors and Russian FTP sites, dodging malware and dead ends.

Tell me which direction to take, and I'll write the next chapter.

Then, at 3:14 AM, a notification chimed. An anonymous user on a tech-archivist board had posted a direct link to a private cloud drive. Found it, Leo whispered.

The screen didn't show a splash logo. It didn't show a "No Signal" box. Instead, the 1366x768 resolution flickered into a perfect, crystal-clear feed of Leo’s own room.

The screen pulsed. The resolution seemed to sharpen, the pixels knitting together until the glass surface looked less like a display and more like an open window. The figure on the screen pressed its palm against the glass, and Leo felt a sudden, freezing draft hit his face.