The word of the day was: pareidolia
The garage was a mess of tools, metals, and things she couldn’t name. Sitting in the centre, soldering a tiny circuit board, was her best friend. “Jayne, what are you doing now?” She was sitting cross legged in front of what looked like a steampunk microwave the size of a small car.
“I figured it out last night. Just like Doc Brown, I was in the shower and boom I fell, and when I woke up I had it.” Jayne’s curly brown hair was all over the place and she had a large bruise on her temple.
“So instead of going to the hospital with a possible concussion, you built a time machine?” Miranda tried to sound scolding but it struck her both as typical and a little funny.
“Oh Picard,, no! I’d never even try. Time is too fragile and yuck.” She shook her head in disbelief. “I created a way to see into alternate realities.”
“Is this about Mal?” That was Jayne’s ex. They’d been together for four years, but after one too many nights tinkering in the garage, Mal left.
A horrified look crossed Jayne’s face and she replied, “Absolutely not. Obsessing over the path not taken would only lead to madness. I figured out a way to see the media from alternate realities.”
“Are you sure you’re not just staring into that thing and seeing what you want?”
Sighing loudly and dramatically, Jayne replied, “These are crisp, high definition, media from another reality, not some pareidolia.” Standing up and brushing off her dirt covered jeans, she took a USB drive from the machine and gestured to her friend to follow her.
They sat down on the couch in the living room and Jayne put the USB into the TV. She navigated to a file called, “1.06-Dead-Or-Alive.mkv” and pressed play.
That’s when Miranda cued in to what was happening. “You said media from another reality? You broke the laws of physics so we could watch—”
She was cut off by the intro music, “Take my love, take my land…”
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