Mister Dent

[Jacob2431]

-----Hello, this is my first chapter of the short story I am working on. It's about a anti-social boy who gains an ability to command technology, and will use it to anonymously help the CIA take down terrorists, dubbing himself "Mister Dent." Please bear with me, this is the first short story I have attempted to create----


Chapter 1: genesis
Dalton sat in his desk chair staring deeply into his computer monitor browsing the internet. He does this several hours each day escaping reality into the online world, leaving behind his solemn life for several hours. Searching, reading, watching, playing, all of which impossible in the real world. This is his safe place where no one could bother him, his place of solitude. Except one person:
"Dalton! Stop gluing your eyes to that screen and take out the trash!"
That was the sound of his mother yelling from the other room as if he was on the other side of a mountain. With an unhappy groan he reluctantly rose from his chair and strategically moved through the clothes and PC parts scattered on his floor and made it to the doorway. Of course the trash can was crammed with soda cans and TV dinners, his ultimate meals that he has started to enjoy. One thing was certain, getting out of this shoddy run-down apartment was top priority, after graduating high school of course.
He wished so much for that to happen and had ambitions of starting a company an becoming a billionaire. He even prayed to every god he could think of - after watching several Japanese anime.

Then while playing one of his MMO's he got an excruciating pain in the front of his head and started seeing what looked like several hologram images of phones, PC desktops, street cameras, and even satellite images, swirling throughout the room in a rotating motion all around him. He reached out and his hand passed through one of them and the hologram expanded. It was showing a surveillance camera of a bank, with people in line, and the small fake trees standing next to the counters and people getting impatient, ready to yell at anyone who stopped the flow of the line.
"This has to be a joke." Dalton whispered.
His mom started opening the door and he jumped back startled and tripped over his spare extension cord. Dalton’s mother entered the room, “I knew it! You were watching adult videos again! I caught you in the act!” the holo screens continued to revolve, some of them seamlessly passing through her body and appearing once again.
“What? Knock next time, and no, I wasn't watching that stuff!” It was true; his character on his PC screen was still sitting in the same location when he had his mind attacked.
“Well I’ll catch you again one day, also clean up your room. It looks like a tornado came through.” It was the corny Tornado phrase all mothers use and all children despise. She started walking out of the room when Dalton suddenly spoke up.
“Hey mom do you see all of this?” he motioned towards the holograms in the air.
“Yeah its your messy room now clean it up before you go to school tomorrow!”
He realized that the monitors were only visible to him. He thought, I’m going to have some fun with this. The next day when he drove to school he figured out one more perk to his ability: he could not only control cameras, but ANY electronics. He flipped through radio stations, activated the windshield wipers, turned on his headlights all using his mind. However using this consecutively took a toll on his brain and gave him headaches. This made him realize; if I’m going to get better, I need to keep using it, and get used to the side effects.
As he got to the school parking lot, most people were getting out of their cars and heading towards the building, when he spotted the group of upperclassmen that tease him constantly in between classes in the hallways. Just then an idea came to mind. Using his mind he formed an image of each of their cars, and commanded the cars to activate their alarms and lock the cars so that the “unlock” button on the keys have no effect. The guys rush to their cars and try with all of their strength and non-existent brain power to stop the alarm, while all of the other classmates are laughing and videotaping it, to later upload to the internet. Dalton just keeps walking with a smug face, and a feeling of superiority and power; aside from the nose bleed he just received for straining his powers.

----Hoped you liked it! Not sure if I should keep going, some feedback would be great :D

[abnormalalien]

Hmm, at first I was skeptical because this is somewhat beyond my typical scope of genres. However, I felt that this has a lot of potential. There are some grammar issues, most importantly the switch between tenses. For example, the first two sentences: "Dalton sat in his desk chair..." (3rd person past tense) and "He does this several hours..." (3rd person present tense). I think if you were to choose one tense and stick with it, the narrative would flow a lot smoother. Most stories do well with the 3rd person past; in my opinion, 3rd person present is much more difficult. Don't let that discourage you though, if you really want to do present tense, go sentence by sentence and find the best way to replace past tense verbs with adequate present tense versions. The temptation there would be to use is/has too often.

[Jacob2431]

Ok, thanks. I will try to use 3rd person past. Hopefully it will fix all of this.

[Jacob2431]

Ok, here is the next chapter, where things start picking up. Hope you enjoy.

Chapter 2: Contact
After school ended for the day, Dalton decided on how he was going to train his mind to withstand the strain needed to do larger actions with his newly attained power. He had a very expensive top of the line RC car that his grandma gave him several years ago, and weights for his dumbbell going up to 50lbs. The weights were attached to the top of the RC and Dalton’s theory was using his mind as the remote control, he would make this toy drive for as much time as possible each day for weeks. So he did, and after weeks three he could go through the house and change channels while starting the microwave for his instant ramen, and turning off the lights for the movie airing on TV. It was as easy as walking, but this wasn’t enough for him, so he had chosen to do something that would transform his future. He had always wanted to be some kind of hero, or famous person known for changing the world for the better, but never thought he would get the chance until now.
The power he has allows him to input simple to complex commands into the monitors like: “Turn on this microwave” to “Turn the TV on to channel 29. Set the brightness to 20, and the volume to 75/100.” But he realized that this does not even scratch the surface. I need to make myself famous and show it. He took on the name Dent because he would make a dent in society and would try to be remembered forever.
“Monitor, Hack into the CIA database and show me the computer of whoever holds the most influence.” The floating monitor showed the desktop and another showed the webcam that was off. “Turn the webcam on and make it fill his desktop screen, but make it impossible to turn off, however distort my face and run a voice altering program so it’s impossible to distinguish me.” A Third floating monitor displayed the pixelated face of Dalton. The man who was sitting at his desk leaped back in surprise and spilled his coffee all over the carpet. Dalton closed his eyes and was sorting quickly in his mind on what to say “Monitors, tell me his name.”
-Derrick Shaw-
He then turned back to Mr. Shaw who was swearing up and down at the pixel faced Dalton.
“Who do you think you are, interrupting my break time!?” he shouted.
Dalton replied “Er…uh….I’m Mister Dent, and I would like to be of service for you in the future. I can change this world much faster than any people under your command.”
“Do you think I’m really supposed to believe this, just because you can hack my computer?” He was sitting there with a smug look on his face. Under Shaw’s desk was an alert button he pressed signaling everyone in the same department to immediately stop their work and start trying to trace Dalton’s whereabouts. At the same time Dalton got a surge of pain in his mind and chills go down his spine which he had automatically deduced what was happening. “Monitor, make sure this doesn’t get traced, my life and the safety of my family depends on it. -This will action could override your mental capacity and will strain your mind unlike anything you have done before, are you sure this is what you want to do?-
“Yes! Do it now!”
-Roger-
Dalton inferred the reason for the strain was because the CIA had several people working on tracing his location, which makes it faster for them to find Dalton, so the monitor had to go into overdrive to keep the hackers fooled. I must figure out a way to grab this man’s attention, without knocking myself unconscious from the mental stress. “Monitor, stream Mr. Shaw’s desktop to all of the desktops on his floor.” Suddenly Dalton’s room was filled with floating monitors showing every employees dumbfounded face.
“I am Mister Dent and I would like to cooperate with the CIA to combat terrorism and take down enemies of the U.S. My power is legitimate. As you can see, your “elite tracing skills” are ineffective. For a peace offering I will give you the location of one of the men you have been searching for, for the past 20 years in two days. After that, I will return to Mr. Shaw’s desktop in at the end of those two days to hear your answer of whether you want to join forces or not.” After that Dalton told the monitors to sever the connection, but not before taking one last look at Shaw’s, once radiant delight filled face to now angry teeth grinding look of defeat.
“Monitor, send the people tracing me to several fake IP’s without putting too much stress on me.”
-Roger-
Dalton dropped triumphantly on top of his bed after taking several painkillers. Now I have to get the location of the terrorist. This should be interesting.