His power developed in adolescence, just as the electronics boom was beginning. Everyone owned a computer, the were not only in every household but just about in every room, and if you couldn’t navigate the internet, you couldn’t get by in society. This particular person was quite unlucky. Or at least he thought he was.
If it was the intense electricity in the air from living by a power plant, the magnetic field his house was on growing up, or perhaps the headphones he was listening to while in the womb, mutated cells waited in his body to activate.
When he had his first computer in high school he was glued to it, staring at the monitor hours on end, his face blue with its light. This began activating the dormant cells. Instead of converting food to energy the body could use, like other cells, these made energy that emanated from his body, disrupting any electrical feed around him, usually damaging electrical devices.
While his powers were developing all electrical devices around him began to malfunction. Batteries would die suddenly, lights would burn out faster, and worst of all, his computer never lasted longer than a month.
In an age when knowledge was at your fingertips, and instantaneous was the only way, computers were key.
Nobody was considered a computer nerd anymore. If you couldn’t understand the jargon, or refused to learn, you were the outcast, the dinosaur. But he had more than the average knowledge, and more than the average skill.
After graduating high school he attempted to build his own computer. Bought all the parts separately, and they were all the best. Despite his superior knowledge and skill, his computer never lasted. It couldn’t fight against the constant bombardment of disruptive energy he emitted. Power sources died, video cards fried, hard drives became corrupted, and he became more and more frustrated, he couldn’t understand what was happening.
