The Ten Step Plan To End The World

It was first covered on the morning news. A man had been hit by a car in the middle of the street, but he didn't die.

Jack of course didn't care, even though his parents were shocked and awed by the sight on the television before them, the tired teen shoveled his cereal into his mouth and then proceeded to use the same trick he had every day for the past month to stay home. He rustled the jacket in the closet, lifted the heavy backpack, and opened the front door, all as loudly as possible.

"I'll see you guys later!" he shouted, as though he was actually going to leave. Instead he slammed the door shut and set his backpack down, silently going to his room. He doubted that they even noticed, especially with whatever amazing thing they had just seen on the television.

He sighed and flopped down into his nice cushy gaming chair with blue racing stripe. A gift from his parents because they thought that he was some kind of shut in gamer. Jack snickered at the thought. Gaming had distracted him once, but was nothing more than escapism now. Instead he tinkered with technology and software. His latest creation was made from his cell phone, which he had broken down for parts.

"It's not like the damn thing was getting used." he muttered to himself as he finished screwing on the housing for a chip that he had designed himself. It was made to run software telling the camera to adjust it's lens every so often in order to accomplish his real goal, to create an analytics program capable of taking in its surroundings and responding accordingly.

He set the camera down, and pinched the bridge of his nose. Why was he trying to do this in the first place? What was the point? He absently looked towards the jar where he had kept his knives. He used to have quite the collection, but now the jar only held pens and pencils. Although science and technology came easily enough to him, he had never understood others capacity for philosophy, and discussions on morality. He knew what the "right thing to do" was, it had been ground into him by his parents, and his teachers, and most commonly, the other children around him. But he didn't understand why it was the right thing to do.

Jack threw himself back to the computer project, thoughts like that were what had caused his episode last year. It was better to throw himself into his work. He turned the computer on and connected the camera by cord.

The image of his rather dreary bedroom flickered into blue light from his monitor. Jack shifted his focus from the monitor to the camera immediately in front of him and back, once again testing to see the details of how a human eye processed and analyzed an image. A quick glance over the code he had spent hours slaving for, and he made his decision.

"Let's do this thing." he said quietly to himself, hitting enter and running the program. All it was made to do, was reduce a three dimensional space, into mathematical terminology. An optical measuring tape if you will. Eventually he wanted to add other senses, allowing for him to see everything in the simplicity of mathematics.

It was through the computer screen he first noticed it. A small bulge in the blanket, growing taller, then shorter again, as though it were crawling. He hardly processed that the program was working, as he watched the bulge transfer between 15.24 centimeters wide, and 7.62 centimeters tall, to exactly the opposite, 7.62 wide and 15.24 tall. Then the pink colored bulge revealed itself from under the blankets. It seemed to be mucus like in make, yet alive somehow.

Suddenly its measurements began to condense. "What is it doing?" flashed across the scientifically minded Jack, when instinct kicked in. It was getting ready to pounce. Jack lunged for a jar filled with knives that were not there. Although the possibility of weapons was no longer there, the motion did allow him to escape the blob. Which had extended nearly 60 centimeters in its lunge. He watched in fascination as it landed and expanded across the floor like a freshly fallen raindrop.

"This is a bad idea." Jack thought to himself, as he steadied his stance, and stealthily grabbed the lid from his desk. The mucus seemed discombobulated for a moment, as though dispersing in that manner had left its senses confused.

"Makes sense." Jack said to the mucus, "If you are an amoeba like creature, your sensory system would be all jumbled up after an attack like that."

Oddly enough the pink mucus began to take more of a reddish tint as it began to condense once more.

Jack smirked when the mucus pulled the same jump a second time. Straight into the jar.

"You're lucky you know." he said, in a cynical tone. "If you weren't as weird as you are, I'd go full survival of the fittest on you. But as it is you're a curiosity, and it'd be a shame not to experiment on you."

The mucus began to turn a sickly yellow, and Jack cocked an eyebrow.

"you." he said, as the mucus turned blue and cowered at the far side of it's jar. "You're sentient aren't you?"

Suddenly the whole blob turned grey and condensed into a simple viscus liquid.

Jack shook the jar a little. But the creature inside did not respond. "Hmm, guess it passed out."

But the thought that he had just met another sentient creature was already racing through Jacks mind, excitement moving throughout his body. Schemes on how to communicate beginning to form already. The shock interrupted Jack without warning. "Damn," he thought, "it already knows my language." The thought sent shivers throughout his body. It was obviously sentient, which meant whatever it was, had clearly studied humanity before introductions were made.