Timothy Shane

When Timothy accrued his latest failed date to toss in the pile he remembered going home that Thursday with a shriveled energy drink in hand and a wet coat. He'd fallen into bed with a thump and soon the evening sun drifted under the earth. When it finally vanished, nighttime had arrived and, in his room, a mysterious new item.

0000:_

"What?" was Timothy's eventual grumble, scratching his bedhair free of tangled fabric.

"Timmy!"

"Coming!" The boy's eyes flicked to the door. After a few seconds, they returned to the strange, dusty machine at his desk. A desk that, just the day before, had nothing on it, in a room that contrarily was just as messy as it was then, and before then, and before that. His old desktop would've occupied the desk, but ever since his older sister Beth accidentally spilled a carton of milk on it, it never quite got past the boot-up screen. Space was made in the shed for it a day later.

Beth apologized by getting him new headphones the next day, which he accepted. He didn't hold grudges against his family, after all; there were six of them total, including his mom, a pretty black-haired woman with a tight, thick body to shoot loads for, a stern but understanding businessman of a father, and three siblings, his older brother, Brian, a techie currently working in Silicon Valley, Beth, who was now in a college out-of-state, and Samantha, his younger, a little too cute high school sister. Though currently, she was sleeping over at her friends', so it was just him in the house to spread the wonder of youth.

Timothy's eyes blinked, before he finally pulled the chair and sat in front of it, a hand going down to scratch his upper hairy thigh underneath his white boxer shorts. A mundane white tee clung to his torso, and his frazzled, brown hair decorated his head like a lopsided tree ornament. He was Timothy Shane -- not a looker, not a banger, not a genius, not exceptional.

A rusty keyboard with fat keys sat before the bulky computer's buzzing screen. He scanned the monitor for any sign of damage. Despite being an old-looking machine, it was otherwise in adequate shape.

"Timothy, school is starting in 15 minutes!"

Timothy grunted. Was it that late? He looked at his watch to check the time, but by doing so, accidentally pressed his elbow against a random smattering of keys.

The screen flashed. A new text window appeared in front of Timothy, and he stopped to read it.

New user detected.

"Huh." Timothy folded his arms. Turned out this thing had more going on than he thought. Speaking of thoughts.

Another window appeared.

Please enter user's name.

Cautiously, the barely awake teen began tapping his name into the bar. "This better not be some secret CIA fluke or something..."

User name not found. Saving user's name to data stores.

After another second, another flash.

Would Timothy Shane like to remember the changes made by this user?

Timothy laughed quietly in disbelief as he typed in 'Yes'. This was a treat. He wondered if his nerd friend Gary had something to do with this.

The text box disappeared. It seemed to take longer than usual, when, finally,

Welcome, Timothy Shane. How would you like to change the world?

"Change... " Timothy creased his lips and narrowed his eyes as a bird chirped outside his window and he leaned back into his chair. "...the world?"