Lilianne sat at the makeup table and mirror in her bedroom, brushed her hair a few more times, decided it was hopeless as usual, and finally gave up.
She went over to the bed and picked the remote up again. It was so bizarre -- who would have sent her a remote, and why? She didn't even watch very much TV. While she was running through a list of relatives in her brain, she idly pressed one of the buttons on the remote.
The LCD screen lit up and text appeared: "Chronivac 5.0b Initializing..." What kind of company name was "Chronivac?" She sat down on the bed in order to examine the remote a little more closely.
As she sat down, the screen changed to read "Initial Setup/Activate MindLink to user?" After a minute or so, Lil realized that there was a green "yes" button and a red "no" button below the LCD, and it was waiting for her to press one of those. She really didn't know what the question was asking, but she figured she could go back in later and change the settings if she'd screwed something up. She pressed the "yes" button.
"Changes require confirmation?" Lil figured it would be annoying having to take an extra step every time she wanted to change channels or whatever, so she pressed "no."
"Changes alter reality?" That made even less sense than the first question. Of course if she changed channels, it would change what was really on the TV, or whatever. She selected "yes."
The screen changed to read "Setup Complete/User Locked: Liliaanne Miller." Okay, that was weird. Whoever sent this to her must have programmed it ahead of time. Maybe it was Kate, for some reason. As she tried to figure out why Kate would have sent her a remote control, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, her hair still not looking the way she wanted. Kate had great hair, dark brown and lustrous with just a little bit of a wave to it. Of course, Lil thought, if she had hair like Kate's, she'd try to grow it even longer -- heck, all the way down to her ankles if she could, and --
As she looked in the mirror, she could see her hair growing. She couldn't believe what she was seeing, so she reached behind her head and grabbed her hair with both hands. She felt the strands slipping through her fingers as they elongated, but there was something else. It felt thicker, yet somehow softer.
She stood up, and it felt like there was a heavy silken curtain attached to her scalp. She verified that her hair now reached almost to the floor, and only then thought to look down at the remote that was still in her hand. "MindLink Change Complete/Reality Altered," read the LCD screen.
And out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a difference to the background on her computer's desktop. It was a photograph of her and two friends, taken last summer. The photo was still the same, except that it showed her with the long hair she now possessed. A framed family photo from a couple years ago sat on top of her dresser -- yes, her hair had changed in that photo as well.
It shouldn't have been possible, but... She looked down at the remote once again, and decided it was either magic, or close enough.