Rick finished typing. “I’ve isolated the file. The only way to kill it is to play the actual, legitimate, high-bitrate version of the episode over it.”

“Uh, Rick?” Morty squinted. “I just downloaded a file called ‘rick_and_morty_s06e06_720p_hdrip.mkv’ from a pirate site on the dark web.”

The episode didn’t start with a cold open. It started with a file transfer.

On screen, a low-resolution Rick looked directly at the camera. His eyes were just two black pixels.

Suddenly, the garage lights dimmed. The real Rick spun around. “Morty, what did you do?”