Right after James clicked on the option, his auditory nerve was overloaded with random thoughts floating around him, causing him to almost vomit blood. He immediately turned it off. "Oh my god, what was that?" He thought astonished.
James did not understand why his telepathic ability would behave like that. Usually, when he activated it casually, it would only listen to one thought at a time at a targeted person.
James looked at the three imaginary options and pondered. The second option was a slider labelled 'radius' which was numbered one meter to one mile, and the default option was five hundred meters.
No wonder he almost died. James used his thoughts to lower the range to the lowest. He then turned it on again and braced for the worst. But nothing happened. He opened his eye and turned his head, but there was no overloading feeling.
"Come on, come on, show your self you indescribable fool. You think you can camp like that and shoot me without knowing where you are hiding?"
James traced where the thought came from, and it led him to Josh, who was playing a game on his hand-held console. James did not mind much that he can read people's thoughts he disliked it. Listening to the dark side of humanity sure messes with his mind, so he stopped himself from using this ability.
However, what made James curious was the third option, which enabled him to manipulate thoughts. James have no idea what it meant, but he decided to give it a try.
He subtly looked over Josh and squinted his eyes. "Stand down", James thought. Josh suddenly stopped moving the controller for a moment, before hastily trying to control his avatar. By the looks of his face, he was killed in the game.
"What the f**k? How was that possible? This guy cheated because I would not be looking at him shooting me!" Josh screamed and slammed the console to the sofa.
James was surprised it worked. 'Damn bro, I can alter a person's thoughts!', James was astounded. He could not imagine what would happen if someone invented such an ability to control people's thoughts. If, say a nation had this ability on its hands, the damage that will be caused with being unimaginable.
When James finished throwing his tantrums, he sat down wearily and looked at what James was doing. Seeing that he was idle, Josh glared at him angrily. "Why are you not doing your assignment? You think I would eventually leave right?" Josh vented his anger on James. James once again ignored him and resumed what he was doing.
"Mom! James is not using your laptop for anything!" Josh screamed, causing James heart to skip a beat. "What? Wait hold on", Maribel shouted from over the kitchen.
James looked at the laptop screen, and a bunch of windows containing random articles was everywhere. If Maribel would see this, he would be in trouble. He thought of a way to get out of this, but Maribel had already left the kitchen and headed in James direction.
"What did James do honey?" Maribel queried standing akimbo. Just then, James remembered something. He immediately selected option three and flicked the switch on.
"When I was playing my game, I caught James.....uhh..... researching on what happened to the scientist during the Chernobyl incident. What?" Josh was dazed after saying that. Maribel, confused looked at James and asked, "Was that not your assignment?" James nodded. Maribel then looked at Josh with a bored expression.
"Josh, why did you call me all the way from the kitchen when I was preparing for dinner?" Josh, who seemed to be confused, tried to defend himself. "No, no, that's what I meant to say. What I wanted to tell you is that I saw James..... enjoying his research on the Chernobyl event that happened more than fifty years ago. What the hell!" Josh was enraged.
James was very tempted to laugh, but he held himself. This thought manipulation was working better than he imagined. All he just needed was to look at the person he was listening to and project whatever he wanted to the brain of the person. It was a terrifying power.
Maribel scolded Josh, before heading back to the kitchen. Josh became angry and kicked James legs furiously. "You stupid orphan, I know you did this, and I will expose you again like I expose you watching those filthy things on the web." Josh sneered, glaring at James like he wanted to swallow him.
Ever since Josh tainted his reputation, he had sworn not to talk to him ever again. James did not respond to Josh, as he kept typing away on his laptop. Josh was furious at the ignorance, so he grabbed the laptop from James' grip and raised it.
"Come on, come get it. Let me see who is taller between us." Josh sneered as he closed the laptop and stood still, waiting for James to react. James did not do anything, nor did he look in Josh direction.
'I wonder if I can manipulate the thoughts that control emotions' James wondered. If that was possible, then it would be equivalent to controlling someone remotely.
Seeing that Josh was bullying him, he had no choice but to do that. James dug through Josh's memories and looked for anything that would trigger any of his emotions. He saw the word 'Moonster' that trigger his anger, he saw 'love letter' that triggered his infatuation for girls, and he saw 'night-night' that triggered deep sleep.
All these things would be useful, but it was not applicable at this moment. He then noticed an inconspicuous word hidden in his sea of memories which said 'BoomBox Transfruit'. This word was very confusing. He had no idea where Josh must have heard that from, but when he saw the trigger, he was delighted. He immediately said 'BoomBox TransFruit' in his mind, and transferred it to Josh's brain.
Without any expression, James stopped playing with the laptop and gently placed it on James lap. He then sat next to James and stared at the laptop.
It worked! He could not believe that it worked. James roughly guessed that that word caused him to take total control of Josh like he was hypnotized.
James immediately opened the laptop and logged into his freelance site. This effect would last until James says the word again, and it would snap Josh out of his daze.