Jacked Read Free

revealing an open doorway behind it. “I wouldn’t want Mrs. Wills to hear it. That nosy, old bitty will want to know what I’m hiding and she’ll tell everyone in San Jose if she finds out.”
    The woman next door to Keisler was more than willing to pass on the least bit of gossip she heard and it didn’t matter to her if it was true or not. Tar tried to avoid her as much as possible.
    “I found what you wanted,” he said.
    Keisler’s eyes flew wide and he clapped his hands like a happy child.
    “I can’t believe it! Tar, you are a miracle!” The man walked to a table and cleared space for Tar’s backpack. “Does it work?” He laughed and slapped himself on the forehead. “Of course it works! You found it. Do you know what’s on it?”
    “No, I didn’t have any way of banging on it where I grepped it,” Tar said as he reached into the pack and brought out a black, plastic box with an outlet cord. “There weren’t any connecting wires lying around in the shop. Do you still have the other ones I grepped a few months ago?”
    “Ah, let me see…” Keisler went to a stack of boxes and rummaged through the contents. “Hmm, they were, ah! Here they are!” He brought back three wires that were connected so that three plug-ins were on each end.
    Together they fit the wires to the box, and then to the back of an old television set in the corner of the room. Keisler hooked the box up to the closest outlet.
    “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.”
    Keisler turned on the television and the box. A series of numbers flashed across the front of the box but, after a full minute of waiting, nothing appeared on the television screen except for black lines.
    “Damn!” said Keisler. “It’s not coming through. Can you do anything with it, Tar?”
    Tar frowned and grabbed the box with both hands. He closed his eyes and let his mind flow through the tingling in his palms. A minute later he let go and sat down in a chair.
    “It should work, Mr. Keisler. Maybe everything on it is 404. Or maybe there was never anything saved in it, maybe it took all its pictures from the air.”
    “You’re probably right.” Keisler sat down on the end of the small sofa and looked like he was going to cry. “I didn’t realize how much I wanted you to find one that worked. You know, just a reminder of how it used to be.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Keisler looked up.
    “It’s not your fault, Tar. I had trouble getting these things to work even before The Crash.” He laughed. “One time I called a repairman and found out I just had it on the wrong…” His voice trailed away.
    “The wrong what, Mr. Keisler?”
    “The wrong channel, boy!” The man leaped up and grabbed a much smaller box from the top of the television set. He began pressing buttons on its face.
    “Channel, what channel? Three? No, four!”
    Suddenly a new picture popped up on the screen. Now a bunch of words could be seen.
    “Aha! It works! Oh my god, Tar! It works.” Keisler plopped down on the floor and sat cross-legged only about three feet from the television. “Okay, let’s see what we’ve got.” He read down through the list, occasionally reaching over and pressing buttons on the front of the box that Tar had brought to make the words move up and down on the screen.
    “The memory on this DVR must be full. Almost 500 hours of shows are on here. Here are some talk shows, hmm, some news broadcasts. Wonder what they thought was important enough on the news to keep? Ah, a bunch of movies—oops, there’s one you’re not quite old enough to watch.” The man smiled, nodding his head and winking at Tar before looking back at the screen. “Looks like whoever had this before was a science fiction fan. There’s a bunch of shows from the Finding Home series. It was about a spaceship that had to search for a new planet for people to live on after the Earth was destroyed. Oh, my! It can’t be!” Keisler whirled around. “This has every episode of Firefly !