Blake's and Joanna's patience is wearing thin, waiting for Olly to come back and tell them what got him so gobsmacked about what was on Abie's TV. "Where the hell is Olly?" says Joanna.
"Well, he went to Abie's, so it could be anything from getting wasted, to getting abused, of course he would want one particular type of abuse."
Joanna shoots him a look.
"Not that I would know," he says.
"Well he better get back here and let us know what he saw," says Joanna.
The door swings open, and Olly rushes in, heading straight for the TV that's still showing Ent News.
"There's the man," says Blake.
"Dude, what was on her TV?" Joanna asks.
"Tonight's Ent News," says Olly, solemn, staring at the TV, awestruck.
"By 'tonight's Ent News', you mean…" Blake asks.
"I mean, Abie's TV's showing regular, on-the-date Ent News, that is, Ent News for today, the 17th, totally different than what we have here, even Richard and Constance are dressed different."---Of course, Richard and Constance are the Ent News hosts---And now, there's a moment of silence as everyone takes in the weight of this.
"Then what the hell is this?!" Joanna asks, motioning to the TV, with the news caption on it reading; 'Oscar Awards Tomorrow', and the hosts, the differently dressed Constance and Richard, don't seem to be fooling around.
"Exactly what it looks like," says Olly, then making a solemn pause … "TV from the future."
They all stare at the TV, awestruck.
"Well, I'll be damned," says Blake, then also making a solemn pause… "How in the world is this even possible?" Then it comes to him that Olly might be shitting them about what was on Abie's TV, "Or, maybe he actually set this whole thing up," Blake thinks, "as his own crazy idea of a massive prank … With Ent and their machinery?! Naw, Olly-boy doesn't have that kinda influence … or money. Where does that leave us? Well, still, maybe he's shitting about what was on Abie's TV. Hmm."
"Better not be shitting us about what was on Abie's TV," he says.
"My friends," says Olly, solemnly, "I shit you not! Even if really I were shitting, you win at this point, for calling it, you win, but let's all keep an open mind here. This paranormal phenomenon has chosen us as it's hosts, and we'll be damned if we don't do everything in our power to preserve it until we resolved its potentials."
"I agree with the man," says Joanna. "Like seriously, guys, this is the craziest thing I ever seen. It's starting to feel like I'm dreaming…" She now reflects to herself as to how there would be no point asking real life opinion from people in a dream, and hints a smile. She decides, for better or worse, to pinch herself, "Nope, not dreaming."
"You pinched yourself?" says Olly. "Why would anyone wanna wake up from this?"
"Well, I wouldn't wanna be stuck here," says Joanna, "and then wake up years later, to a life where I wasted all those years and achieved nothing."
"Good point," says Blake. He also pinches himself, and he ain't dreaming. "Olly, you better pinch yourself before you wasted your life even more here."
They can't help but laugh. And they should also think about how it makes no sense to ask someone to check if they are dreaming. What does that make you? A figment of their mind? Then how come you have a mind of your own? And if someway somehow they're actually dreaming, and then wake up, what happens to their presence with you? They leave a corpse? Wouldn't that stress you out? The subject crosses their minds, but there's a bigger issue at hand.
"The real question," says Joanna, " is, how or why's this happening?"
"Okay now I'm getting chills," Blake is genuinely spooked by the occurrence, but now he gets an idea. "Guys, d'you know what this means for us?"
"What's it mean?" they ask.
"It means money!" Blake smiles, "We're gonna be rich!" He looks around for the remote. "Lemme just tune in…"
"What?!" Joanna snaps at him, "Are you frigging kidding me?! No one's touching the TV or the remote! We're leaving this thing just the way it is! Anything anybody does could disappear this phenomenon that's come upon us! This opportunity!"
"I agree with the woman," says Olly.
"Now, where that remote?" Joanna looks around and finds the remote under the coffee table. She very carefully picks it up, not wanting to push any buttons accidentally. "I gotta lock it up, before any of us does anything stupid." She takes it to a cabinet on the far side of the room, and locks it up. "There. Now, there can be no accidents." She heads back for her seat.
Blake begins sarcastically applauding her, "Bravo. Bravo." She takes her seat. "Bravo." He now stops applauding. "You done?" says he, to the forbidding Joanna. "Now listen, in fact, I should say this in reverse, so you two don't put me off before I even get a chance to say anything. Joanna said it herself, this is an opportunity, and we gotta milk it for everything it's worth, and that everything, is sport betting. Think about it, imagine this we're the sport news channel, we'd be unstoppable, we will become gods. And that is why, we have to at least try the sport news channel. Wouldn't you want the transcendent excitement?"
"No, thank you, sir," says Joanna. "It ain't worth it. It ain't worth the risk."
"I agree with the woman," says Olly. "It ain't worth the risk, man! What we have here is good enough."
"Good enough?!" says Blake. "Good enough for what? Don't you guys wanna be rich? How the hell are we gonna get rich off this shit?" He motions to the TV. On the Ent News, the caption reads; 'celebrities with botched tattoos.' And it shows this celebrity with a tattoo that reads; 'siht happens,' another with, 'God firts.' Blake and co can't help but chuckle.
"Well if only you'd watch sports more often like every regular man instead of this celebrity nonsense, this woulda happened to the sport channel and not this," she motions to the Ent Channel. Rightfully so, Blake hardly ever watched sports. He finds it too uniform, monotonous, and homogeneous. Of course he may every now and again, check the scores and results, but that's it. He doesn't need to catch in on the action. He'd rather watch something of organized entertainment and humor, as opposed to something that could go any which way. Or, in fact no way at all. His good old friend, Sam, once took him to a Major League Soccer game. Blake himself was looking forward to it, hoping to learn something new, or meet some chicks. Except, the game was deadlocked throughout, and it ended zero-zero, and there were no cheerleaders, scarcely any female fans, and the few there were were very masculine and aggressive, and one of them found a way to pick a fight him, breaking his nose. So, Blake made up his mind to never try to uphold stereotypes or keep up with fellow dudes at the office. He's just gonna go ahead and do the things he's actually attracted to, as much as he wants, not minding what his peers are up to, even if when his bros at the office are fervently talking and arguing about sports, he wouldn't have anything to say or contribute. And to him, that is that. "Who gives a damn?" he thinks. He now says, "Well forgive me for not being intrigued by a show of men climbing and rubbing against each other."
Joanna rolls her eyes.
"Guys," Olly calls, "we can still make money off of this. Even if it won't be as much or as easy as if we had this on the sports channel, it'll still make us stinky rich."
"Go on," says Blake and Joanna.
"All these info we're getting," Olly motions to the TV, "is extremely valuable because they haven't happened yet, and by all reasoning, they're surely gonna happen. So, they are news, exclusive news, and in fact a clear, detailed exposition of the future of celebrities and the entertainment world. We can tell the future of celebrities, and make accurate predictions about events, and people are gonna see that all our postulates come true, and they'll wanna know what more we've got. They're gonna get hooked."
"Yeahhh," says Joanna. "But we gotta think of a way to stay totally anonymous. People can't know where the info's coming from, they could destroy it."
"Right," says Blake, "We're gonna publish the info anonymously on the internet. We're gonna take absolute care that no one can trace us. Olly, that's your department, you can build a secure, untraceable website for it, right?"
"Whoa," says Olly, "this is hardcore stuff, for it to be absolutely untraceable demands a whole lot of expertise and rigor. I can probably do it, but it's gonna be a helluva task."
"Come on, man," says Joanna, "You're the one always bragging about how you're an honors student. An honors student of Computer Science ought to be able to do something like that fairly easy."
"Come on," says Olly, "you said yourself-" he now does air quotes, " 'student;' Which means, I ain't learned everything thing yet. Now, I said I can build the site and make it absolutely untraceable, even though I'll need to crack some textbooks, but I know I can do it."
"Better," says Joanna.
"Great," says Blake. "And I already have a name for it, that's how smart I am…"
"Go on," says Olly. "We're gonna call it 'God's plan.' God's plan dot com."
"Yeahhh," Joanna and Olly nod.
"It's perfect," says Blake.
"Hey," says Joanna, "no need to toot your horn on this, anyone coulda come up with that, it's the obvious name to call it."
"And yet," says Blake, "you ain't come up with it, I did. Just be happy you married a creative genius."
"Are we married?" says Joanna.
Blake now faces Olly, solemn, "Now Olly, you're sure you can make the website absolutely untraceable, right?"
"Yeah, if there's anytime for me apply the skills I've gained from hard work and perseverance, it is now. Now, that it will benefit me beyond my wildest imaginings."
"Great," says Blake, "It's just if people traced it back to us, there could be consequences that'll destroy us, we could even go to jail."
"Jail?!" says Joanna. "How? Have any of you done anything I should know about."
"Well," says Olly, "if we can keep Blake's pedophilia under wraps, we'd be pretty clear on that front." That evokes laughter from everyone except Blake. Has he actually done anything before?
"Ha ha ha," says Blake, "very funny. Now listen, here's how we could go to jail: Well, if we predicted an unfortunate event like someone getting killed or harmed, and someone traced it back to us, the authorities will be inclined to think we actually perpetrated it. Even if it's something harmless we predicted, we may not know it's linked to some crime or mystery, and then the cops will blame us. After all, how did we get to know about it before it actually happened? That is why God's plan dot com, must be absolutely untraceable."
"Makes sense," says Joanna. "We don't breathe a word of this to anyone," continues Blake.
"Right," says Olly. "I'm absolutely sure I can make the site absolutely untraceable. So, rest easy, my friends."
"Thanks, man," says Blake, "We never tell you enough how incredibly valuable you are to this family…"
"You never tell me at all."
"Yeah, well, I'm telling you now. You are very useful to us, and we appreciate everything you do for us."
"Awn, you guys are gonna make me cry," says Joanna.
"You're welcome, Guys," says Olly. "I appreciate everything I do for you too."
"Way to ruin the moment, punk," says Blake.
"Come on, you know that's where it was headed."
Joanna now faces Olly, "Now Olly, you know how you always go blabbing about any and everything to any girl that gives you anything that could be quantified in the very least as attention."
"Yeah, so?" says Olly.
"I swear to God, man," says Joanna, "If you breathe a word of God's Plan TV to anyone, I'll kick out of this house so fast, you'll have to have your shite on the sidewalk."
"Point taken," says Olly.
"But really," says Joanna, "I just wish it were the sport channel, though. Everything would be perfectly simple. It would be instant money." A moment of silence as they all fantasize about what it would be like if it were the sport news channel… And then she says, "How shortsighted and ungrateful of me to say that. Here we are with the grace of a lifetime, an absolute spectacle, and I'm saying it's not enough. It's thinking like that can wreck a person. Let's just make the best of this magnificent phenomenon we have." And then she gets an idea. "Hey! Guys, what if we got Ent to start showing sport updates, you know, game results."
Blake and Olly perk up. "How d'you mean, exactly?" says Olly.
"Well, we're not getting any sport news on this-" she motions to the TV, thinking what to call it, "future Ent TV, because the people at Ent have no reason to show sport news. It's not part of their programming. But if they had a good enough reason, say they stood to make a shit-load of money, then, I bet they'll readily add sport news, or even just game results to their programming."
Blake and Olly are extremely keen on this, their minds keep reeling, and they don't move a muscle.
Joanna continues, "Of course, it will mean we have to let the program director at Ent in on God's Plan TV, but of course it'd be worth it. What I'm saying in essence is: We have to influence the network. We have to get them to start giving sport updates. And it means the programs director down at Ent has to see God's Plan TV. They have to see what they stood to gain." Joanna has just dropped a bomb, and Blake and Olly are awestruck…
"Baby, that's genius!" says a wide-eyed Blake. He moves in, hugging and kissing her, extremely pleased with the prospect of unlimited money, "That's why I love you, you're amazing!"
" 'Course I am," she says.
"Awesome plan, sis!" says Olly "So now, we gotta start thinking of how to get to the program director and convince them.
" 'Them'?" says Joanna, "There's more than one?"
"Not necessarily. 'Them,' " he does air quotes, "as in when you don't know the gender…"
"Yeah okay shut up," Joanna cuts him off. "We'll do whatever it takes to convince them. Even if it means abducting and forcing them here to see the wonderful opportunity of a lifetime that is God's Plan TV. When they see what they stood to gain, they'd be thanking us for kidnapping 'em."
"Absolutely!" says Blake.
Olly nods, smiling. "Well, now that we know exactly how to use it, we gotta watch as much as we can, so we can maximize the benefit."
"You bet your ass," says Blake.
"We should even record it, so we don't miss a thing," says Joanna. "Of course, we do this with an external device, not connecting anything anyway to the TV and its apparatus."
"Right," says Olly. "I'll set up a camera to video the TV screen.
"Of course you know," says Blake, "it'd be wrong to publish any video of God's Plan TV. It would have counterproductive consequences."
"How so, exactly?" Joanna asks.
"If we showed people their future, and it's undesirable to them, they would try to avert it, and may even succeed. That'll put us out of business. But if we wrote subtle stories in which we don't even name names or specific places, people won't know it's they we're writing about. They won't try to avert their futures. They'll just go on living their normal lives, and when what we wrote happens, everyone will see that the blog predicted the future, and the blog will keep getting hits, and we'll keep getting rich."
"Right," says Joanna.
"And besides," says Olly, "if we published any video, the cops could trace us from the camera pixel signature. All they gotta do is scan for a match, and they'll see photos or videos taken with the same camera. Photos of us."
"Right," says Blake.
"We have to start right now," says Joanna, "we really don't know how long this is gonna last. I'm gonna start looking up the internet for the program director at Ent. I'm gonna find out everything there is to know about them. Olly, you go set up the camera to video the TV. No matter what you do, don't touch the TV.
"Right," Olly gets up to do just that.
"Honey," says Joanna, "you keep your eyes glued to the TV. Take notes. Take photos. You don't wanna miss, forget or get confused about anything."
"Yes ma'am," says Blake.
Joanna picks up her phone and begins looking up the internet for the program director at Ent. Blake just watches TV, chuckling, and Joanna can't help glancing at it, also chuckling. Olly comes into the room with a camera and tripod stand, probably equipment Joanna and Blake use for play or to make an extra income getting frisky for patrons online. Olly sets it up to video the TV screen. "Neat," says he, satisfied with the alignment and focus. Then he goes solemn, "Guys," Blake and Joanna turn, facing him, he solemnly continues, "this whole thing still blows my mind. I just wanna say I'm extremely honored to be part of this amazing opportunity. You see, it's not just about the money. It's being part of this amazing, transcendent experience. The spectacle of it. The splendor--"
"Shut up," Blake interposes, "you're interrupting my TV."
Joanna giggles, turning away from Olly who just stands there, frozen, speechless.