Character Intro: Techno-logical

Jobs were such a bore at times. Ben was sitting on an office chair slouched; his head rested on his hands. His other hand was on the mouse at his computer, clicking away. It was days like this he hated, where multiple round of first shooting games did not last him. He was taking a break from what he should be doing and surfing the web. Eight hours had already past and one more till five before he could leave. Time was moving so slow, he could actually feel everything moving around his at the same pace. He could feel and hear the second hand of the clock ticking.

The office was quiet because everyone else had to run errands. Ben was sitting in front of the monitor. He was dressed smartly with a long sleeved white shirt tucked in a belted pair of black trousers. He was huge in size, but that was how he was naturally built, like a giant. He had a jacket placed behind of him, hung on the head of the chair. He looked through his glasses, staring at the screen. His attention diverted when he suddenly heard two of his colleagues walked by. It was not eavesdropping if they were speaking loud. Apparently the two of them were talking about a television series where normal ordinary humans gain extraordinary abilities. Then they went on blabbing about a rumour about a webpage where one could actually gain abilities. It was interesting; interesting enough for Ben to keep in mind about. It was a win-win situation for him as well. If he did find out it was a false, he could prove them wrong. If he did find out it was real, which was quite illogical, he would have gained a new ability.

---

That same day after an hour ride home, he rushed to his room and slipped the black bag carefully off his shoulders. He headed for his worked desk which was in the corner of his room and took a sleeping laptop out from the bag. He booted his desktop and placed his laptop next to his dual monitors. His hands danced upon the keys of the plastic board. The sound of tapping filled his room. He came out for room once which was just for dinner and hid back inside the room again. He was fixated on the screen.

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Eventually, it became a habit. It was unhealthy. All he did was go to work, come back home and continue his research. He only came out when necessary, for food and such. He was good with using the search engine but not good enough to find out what he wanted. His dual monitor would display the search while his laptop had a game on whenever he needed to break away from his obsession, which was quite seldom.

Days passed. It turned to weeks. As time went on, he soon quitted his job. It was not because of his obsession but it was also because his college was about to start. However, because he did stop work, he had more time to do his research. His research, which he had been constantly working on, was almost completed. He could feel it.

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One day, at around six the morning, Ben rubbed his weary eyes. He was tired and should have been asleep a few hours ago but he managed to endure the exhaustion. He blinked his eyes, yawned and continued to click on his mouse. His mind was half dead as though everything he was doing was automated.

The dark dusk sky grew darker. Raindrops splattered on the window of his room. He could hear the storm which woke some of his mind. It was raining heavily and he was now half hoping that his new uninterruptible power supply, or battery back-up, was ready for the test.

Finally, he got what he was searching for. He clicked on the link for which he had been eagerly searching and the webpage loaded slowly. The loading bar at the bottom of his web browser inched slowly, teasing him. When the page finally loaded, the power in his room went out. The monitor went off for a split moment and it came back on with the same site. On the webpage, there was only a video. He loaded it and he played it and all he saw was some hypnotic and surreal images. In the end, the webpage redirected to another webpage which had a few words on it. After reading those words, even if he was not in the right state of mind, he knew that it made no sense at all. There were instructions which asked him to close his eyes and concentrate.

Lightning struck once more and a powerful thunder boomed near by. His uninterruptible power supply was running out of power. With nothing to lose, he did what the instructions were written but could not care less. Then, there was a humming sound, as though his computer had no more juice left. And then there was the sound of the whirring fan, as though his computer just came back alive again. He noticed there was something weird and he looked under his table to check on his uninterruptible power supply. He found out that his uninterruptible power supply was as dead as it could ever be. Confused, he did various his hand gestures. The computer in his room, as well as his flashlight placed beside him, responded to him even though he was not touching them.

"This is amazing," he said to himself, "I just learnt something new off the Internet."

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