He was inside.
“Wrong,” Solarick grinned. “That was the patch . That was the sanitized version for public consumption. You clicked the .mkv, kid. The master key. The raw stream. Which means you get to see the episode before they cut out the part where the fourth wall bleeds.”
“Don’t worry,” said Solarick, patting his shoulder with a hand made of corrupted pixels. “You’re not trapped. You’re just a new character now. Congratulations—you’ve been retconned into the B-plot.” Rick and Morty - S06E01 -Solaricks-.mkv
Leo clicked play, leaned back in his worn gaming chair, and waited for the familiar Adult Swim static. But the screen didn’t flicker to life with the usual theme song. Instead, a single line of green text appeared:
On it, Rick (C-137) wasn’t fighting Rick Prime. He was staring directly at Leo. He was inside
And somewhere in the infinite dark, Rick C-137 was still aiming that portal gun, whispering:
The Solarick clapped. “See? That’s the version Adult Swim buried. Because if viewers knew they could be watched back … they might stop watching.” That was the sanitized version for public consumption
“I’m the Solarick ,” it said. “The debugger of broken episodes. Season Six, Episode One. You watched it before, right? The one where Rick prime shows up? The one with the portal reset?”
[DECRYPTING INTERDIMENSIONAL CABLE FEED...]
The screen flickered. The Solaricks.mkv file began playing in earnest. But Leo wasn’t watching anymore.