Still laughing at his own joke, he turned back to the open box, catching sight of something tucked beneath the wires.
“Oh, hold-up,” he said, dropping the bundle and rummaging deep within the container. He pulled out a small device, roughly the size of a hardbound book. Its smooth metal painted a matte black and wrapped in a power cord. Flipping it over, he found a rectangular remote taped to it, simple but crude in design.
Seeing his interest had been piqued, Hannah rolled onto her side to get a better look.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Scottie frowned, turning it over. “I’m… not quite sure,” he said. “I think it’s something for the TV based on these connections, but there is no brand name or anything so I don’t know. Weird that it has a remote, though.”
He flipped the remote over in his hands. The little controller appeared to take the minimalist route. On the front was a small LCD screen and three buttons; Up, Down, and something that had a handwritten “ENTER”. Flipping it over, he saw the bottom had a small copper plate and above that, a little sliding switch with three positions: Off, T, R.
“It’s kinda weird,” Scottie said. “Whatever this is, I think he made it. Ages ago at that. No branding at all, and the remote feels homemade.”
“Sounds exciting,” Hannah said mockingly. “You should probably just-“
“Oh shit! I think I know what this is!”
Hannah raised an eyebrow as her brother smiled, pleased with himself.
“… I think… I think this was a black box!”
“What? For like, airplanes?”
“No-no-no-no.” Scottie was finding it hard to hide his excitement. “This was a thing they used to use back in the day to connect to the TV or Cable box and unlock all the stations. Kinda like pirating TV. I read about it on a forum a while ago.”
His sister rolled her eyes. “Okay, Captain. That is quite a jump to make-“
“I’m gonna try it out!” he said blowing past her and making for the flat screen.
“Well, you have fun with your new toy. I’m gonna go take a shower.”
“Uh-huh,” mumbled Scottie as he tried to slide the big, bulky entertainment center from the wall to get to the cables.
“Try not to screw anything up, please. Mom and Dad should be home in like an hour and you know who they will blame.”
“Yeah-yeah, I’m good.” Scottie was in the zone.
Hannah shook her head and headed upstairs.
* * *
Chapter 2: There is Nothing Wrong With Your Television Set.
Scottie was turning on the TV when Hannah returned, fresh, clean, and in a pajama camisole with matching shorts, tied at the waist.
“You still at it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said as he shuffled four different remotes in his hands. “Took me a little longer to get the right cables, connections, and batteries for this little guy,” he said wiggling the new controller. “I think I got it all figured out… and there!”
With a click of the remote, the screen turned black.
The sound of a single person clapping filled the space. Turning around, Scottie found Hannah smirking at him with the world’s slowest applause.
“Oh Captain, my Captain,” she said laughing.