He crumbled. “Shut up. I’m still figuring this out.”
“You put the batteries in the right way?”
“Yes, I put the batteries in the right way,” he mocked as he flipped over the remote. “Oh, maybe this?”
Scottie clicked the slider on the back of the remote from OFF to T.
The television flickered, then changed to a blue screen. White text appeared in the upper right corner reading:
SCANNING — 1%
“Holy crap!” Scottie said, turning to his sister with the expectation of unrelenting praise. Instead, Hannah was looking at her phone.
“Mom and Dad are running late. They said we are on our own for dinner.”
“Hannah!”
She looked up to see Scottie staring at her, then nodding to the TV.
SCANNING — 4%
“Oh,” she said. “Good job.” She took a seat on the couch.
Scottie jumped into the seat next to her, watching the screen with pure joy.
SCANNING — 6%
The room was silent as both siblings watched the progress ever so slowly increase.
Scottie looked at the remote and noticed the small LCD screen was illuminated. In faint 8-bit letters on a grey screen, the words “SCN%” appeared.
He laughed. “Dang, this thing’s old!”
Hannah looked up. He pointed to the screen.
“Looks like an old cell phone, doesn’t it?” he said, more than asked.
“Sooooo,” Hannah said. “… How exactly do these things work?”
“Never really seen one so I don’t know. The guy who had one online just said that it gives you all the channels in your region.”
“No shit,” she said, nodding her head in thought. It had been eight months since their father discontinued their cable subscription, and both the Miller siblings missed their trashy TV shows and sitcoms.
It took twenty minutes to complete — twenty agonizing minutes. The slow crawl it had taken seemed to drag them along, raising their expectations during the final 5 percent, until finally…
SCANNING — 100%
PLEASE ENTER PIN: _ _ _ _
“You got to be fucking kidding me!” Scottie said staring at the screen.
“Here. Gimme the thing,” Hannah said as she snatched the controller from his hands. “It’s probably all zeros-“
“It’s not going to be-“
“We’re in,” she said as she tossed the remote back to her brother.
“Huh,” he said. “Nice job.”
The TV displayed a setup screen; simple and antiquated.
Language
Restrictions
Reset
“What language you feel like?” Scottie asked Hannah. Her annoyed stare gave him his answer.
“Okay then,” he said as he selected his choice and moved on.
“Restrictions… on or off?”
“Off,” Hannah said. “I don’t want to get limited from HBO or something like that.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said making the change.
He skipped Reset and selected DONE to complete.
Moments later, the TV flickered again and the news appeared with the word Standard in the upper right corner for a few moments. The tiny screen on the remote read “STANDARD”.
“Hmmm,” Scottie said. “Well the picture is far clearer than I was expecting for the old connections.” He raised the remote and clicked the up arrow.
Drama appeared in the upper right corner of the screen, then faded. The News remained, then cut to commercial.
“Huh,” he said, then clicked again.