Hannah continued, in a loud whisper. “I didn’t know that meant we were gonna watch the Munsters fuck each other!”
“Well, technically, we didn’t-“
Hannah punched his shoulder. “Fuck off, you know what I mean.”
“I know, I know.”
He took a deep breath as Hannah put her hands on her hips.
“Scottie, it weirds me out. How the hell is it even doing that? It’s like whatever the feed is, it changes the genre. How is that possible?”
“Beats me. This is far from the thing I heard about. I think this dude who made it was either a freaking genius or way off his rocker.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Genius? Really?”
“Absolutely. Think about it. We don’t need cable TV when any station can be turned into whatever we want to see!”
“That doesn’t creep you out at all?”
Scottie shook his head. “No way. It’s not real. It’s just the TV. And you saw how many boxes are down there. I’m sure he wrote up instructions or something. I tell you what, tomorrow’s Saturday. Mom and Dad have an open house all day, so it will be just you and me here. Let me just mess around with it. I’ll leave it off the porno channels, but let me see if I can find out a little more about it. If you still don’t feel comfortable by tomorrow evening, I’ll reset the thing.”
For some strange reason… she said yes.
* * *
Chapter 3: To Boldly Go Where No Man Has Gone Before.
For Hannah, the following morning played out in a similar fashion to her brother’s the day prior. It was going to be a relaxed, casual day. Hell, she earned a day of rest after the bullshit morning the day before. If she wants to do nothing, fuck it, she’ll do nothing. If she wants to just wear her baseball shorts and sports bra, then by God she will. However, downstairs, it was a whole other ballgame.
After a lazy morning stretch, Hannah went downstairs and straight to the kitchen, lured by the scent of a pot of coffee. She poured a cup, fancied it up with some cream, then casually sipped it with both hands as she watched her brother in the adjoining room.
The living room looked like it had been turned over during a crime investigation. Papers were scattered, boxes were overturned, and Scottie was like a man possessed pouring over the contents of each item he found. She watched as he would move from box to box, marking the side with a pen and occasionally flipping through pages or rearranging stacks.
“How’s it going,” she asked.
Like a prairie dog, Scottie looked up, spooked by the sudden sound and tried to find the source.
“What? Oh! Hey,” he said. “Yeah, I may be a little over my head.”
“You don’t say.” Hannah chuckled as she blew a stream of air across her coffee. “Any luck finding the instruction manual?”
Resigned, he threw his hands in the air. “Honestly, I think it may be possible that there isn’t one,” he said. “If that guy made it, there might be a journal or something, but otherwise… Who really keeps instruction manuals, right?”
“Right,” she said, then took another slow, slurping sip.
“Right… But! But… I did find this!” he said, tripping over boxes as he made his way back to the couch. Tossing a pile of loose papers aside, he pulled out a college notebook.