1 All endings start with a single step.

(The following story can be considered a sin against writing as it breaks the greatest rule of writing i know, show don't tell. )

Jack walked into his mobile home and paused to lean against the door and groan. It had been a tiring day at the plant and tomorrow wasn't looking any better.the petrochemical industry was booming currently and the plant needed every engineer it could get its hands on. The pay was amazing, or at least it would be if he hadn't gone through the trouble of acquiring a multi million dollar debt.

With a grunt he propelled himself off the door and stumped over to the fridge to grab a drink. Jack smoothly moved to sit on the couch in front of his tv and flipped the power button.

Static showed up on the screen then quickly cleared to show the local news station , only for some reason one of their national news anchors was on.

"This is Dan Daring here with NNC news to re- announce that the white house will be holding an announcement of global importance. In only a few more minutes we will be able to listen to a historic briefing from the president with such impotence guests as Gary Tillman, the genius entrepreneur and CEO of one of the worlds most powerful corporations.Please don't go anywhere as we will be right back with you after this break".

Commercials started playing and Jack idly wondered if he should go out to eat or just microwave something. As he sat there thinking the tv flashed an interruption message then quickly changed to a press room in the white house. Jack frowned as instead of a member of the government walking out, Gary walked up to the podium and started talking. "Good afternoon everyone," Gary spoke, " it is with pride that i am able to come before you all now to announce that my company, Future Sciences, has finished the design for a new energy source, cleaner and more energy efficient than today's nuclear reactors and with none of the environmental risks involved. It has been a long quest from when i first started my company designing a hovercraft that used actual gravity manipulation to fly, to our great space navigation technology letting us create a navigation program based on where we are in relation to the stars. Through new polymers for vehicles, and new exciting safety equipment to help with pilot high velocity maneuvers my company has been dedicated to pushing humanity forward as fast as possible. "

Jack idly flicked the power button to his computer then leaned back contemplating the past.

Jack grew up in the small town of Orange Texas. It was a town that existed solely to provide a nearby chemical plant with workers. His parents were both engineers so, while not rich, they were able to send him to the best local schools available. It was in kindergarten at age 4 that Jack first met Gary.

" Honey!! Wheres the green power ranger?" 4 year old Jacks mom yelled to his dad." Its his first day of kindergarten, he needs a toy!"

"Found it!" Jacks dad called as he ran down stairs carrying the plastic toy. Jack stood there drinking his apple juice box as his parents fussed over him on his first day of school.

In the car ride over, his mother told him over and over she and dad were going to work so he needed to be a good boy and wait for them to come pick them up later. Jack just nodded and laughed as he played with his green ranger. Arriving at the school he was quickly shuffled in and joined a large group of 4 year olds in a play area.

A boy walked up to Jack as he sat down to play and spoke, "Hey, my name is Gary what is your name?"

Gary was perfect, almost like an adult in a child's body he knew everything. Even Jack had liked Gary at first. That was until one month into kindergarten Gary picked his favorite 3 kids and started excluding everyone else. While all the other kids spent all their time playing, Gary put his three friends through a rigorous teaching course.

Jack, only 4 at this time, was jealous as his parents always called him special. So instead of playing, he pestered his parents that he wanted to learn. His mom hired a nanny who spent time teaching him to read, write, and do simple addition. Kindergarten ended and Jack entered first grade with Gary and his group. Working hard all year, he felt he was as great as Gary was, at least until second grade started. On the first day of second grade Jack learned Gary and his friends had tested out of second grade and were third graders now.

Jacks nanny became a full on home tutor, and any budding friendships died on the vine as his 6 year old self set a lifelong goal of beating Gary somewhere. Jack managed to test out of third grade at seven, but Gary had already tested out of fourth. Gary seemed to just be picking up steam as he fully graduated high school at 12 years old, making a record for youngest graduate. This gave him national attention and a full scholarship to any University on the planet. Gary chose Harvard university.

Two years later Jack graduated at age 14. Four years younger than the next youngest in his graduating class. Unfortunately, the world had moved on. Gary had shifted the worlds benchmark for what is genius so Jack just came across as pretty smart.

Jacks goal of being as good as Gary never stood a chance. Depressed, he had gone home with his parents and signed up for his moms university, Rice. Bereft without a goal, Jack turned to the degree his parents had, engineering, to at least support himself when he became independent.

In the TV Gary stopped talking and stepped aside for the next speaker. Jacks eyes widened as, in the tv, an actual alien walked up to start speaking. Standing a good half foot taller than the humans around it, the only major visible difference between the alien and a human were its 2 opposable thumbs per 6 finger hand, and two extra eyes. Jack idly noticed Gary was the tallest of the humans standing in the background of the news conference and this helped calm him down quickly. As alien started speaking in a fluent english Jack turned his eyes to his computer and double clicked the icon names Atlas. With the program started, Jack leaned back and continued thinking about his past as the alien on the TV droned on.

College, had been an entirely different animal for Jack. No longer stuck with the impossible goal of being better than Gary, he was able to stretch out and enjoy himself. Jack quickly got deep into robotics as a hobby, and by the time he graduated, had made several nice robot designs and programming breakthroughs for himself. His crowning achievement was a small robot the size of a laptop, and looked something like a roach. It's uniqueness came not from its size, but due to it being a replicant. His robot had the ability to take dirt, and over few hours build a working copy of itself. Days before graduation Jack tested it in his back yard and ended up with 4 laptop sized cockroach robots.

The only other hobby he got into was watching south park in college. He kept this hobby well into his first job at a chemical plant, and did little more than work and watch cartoons for two years after graduation. It wasn't until he watched the episode sending a whale to the moon that he got a hint of an idea that might actually let him get over his grudge about Gary.

With a goal of getting his robot to the moon, Jack started research into commercial space launches. Nasa was out as they were currently in a government low spending period. China and Russia were the next two but both their programs refused to do anything beyond the International space station. Jack eventually found that the Mexican Space Agency had rockets capable of one way trips and had one scheduled in the following year to put up satellites. Contacting them Jack learned that for the small price of ten million per pound, Mexico would be happy to throw something at the moon. Jacks robot weighed in at 4.5 pounds, putting it in a safe case brought its total weight to a solid 5. To get 50 million, Jack took out a house loan, and sold the house his parents helped him buy. He worked overtime at the plant as a technician pulling in time and a half pay at a 180 dollars an hour pay rate. By pulling every resource he had ever earned in his first 30 years of life, Jack came up with 50 million to put his replicator on the moon.

That was nine years ago Jack thought as he glanced at his computer. Atlas had finished booting up and not a grainy view of earth from orbit was showing on the computer screen with a small pair of crosshairs in the center. As the alien diplomat started wrapping up his speech, Jack scrolled and adjusted the programs screen until a large space ship, hovering in the upper atmosphere over the white house came into view.

"And it is with great joy that i am able to stand here before you today and announce that, due to the before mentioned inventions, humanity is no longer eligible for the young race protections of the galactic government." The diplomat concluded, " As such, we will the quickly sterilizing this planet for our future colony over the next few days".

Silence reigned in the press conference as Gary walked up and shook hands with the diplomat. Jack took one last swig of his beer then clicked enter onto his computers keyboard. 238,900 miles from earth, a ring of moon rock the diameter of a football field glowed quickly before evaporating as an oversized laser turned on. 1.25 seconds later, the alien ship lit up like it was in the center of the sun before quickly evaporating under the intense heat transferred to it from the moon based weapon.

"I think its time for bed" Jack murmured to himself as he stumbled up from the chair. He still had a 26 million dollar debt to pay.

End.