It was a
typical summer morning in Niceville. The sun was shining, the birds were
singing, and Ben Moser was at home watching the local news. Ben always watched
the news, in case something important happened, which was a rarity in a town
like Niceville. In fact, just the previous day when Ben watched the news he
learned that the town had been voted #1 for friendliness and safety in the
country. You see, everyone in Niceville was… well, nice, and thusly, everyone
was safe.

            This
morning was quite different however. After a pretty typical news report that
boasted the number of honor roll students at the local schools, there was a
sudden interruption. The TV screen turned black for a split second before the
image was revived and – “Ahhh! What is that hideous creature on my screen?!”
Ben screamed in terror as he drew his legs against his chest and began to rock
back and forth.

            “Hello,
Niceville, I hope you’re having a nice day,” the face on the screen smirked. “I
know I am. I’m having quite a nice day because today is the day I have taken
over your town! And now that I have done that, I will take over the whole
entire world!” The evil being then threw his head back, lifted up his hands and
laughed manically.

            “Who is
this evil man?!” Ben asked in horror as he clutched to a pillow from his couch
and trembled with fear.

            “Now you
may be wondering – who exactly is this very attractive man of power that I wish
to follow?” the image of the screen asked.

            “Not
exactly,” Ben trembled.

            “Well my
name is Brian the King, and I am your ruler!”

            Ben gasped
a ghastly gasp as a revelation came upon him. He quickly grabbed his computer
and his Bible, and began researching on the evil creature known as Brian King.
He stumbled across Brian’s auto-biography on Wikipedia, but it proved to be
completely worthless. He then found, however, another source that gave Ben just
the information he was looking for. And with that, he opened up his Bible and studied
the verses that were highlighted orange throughout. When he finished his
research, Ben dropped his Bible and gasped, “This man must be the antichrist!”

            Ben,
confused and afraid, was unsure of what to do. Before he had time to take
action, Ben heard the nauseating voice coming from the screen again: “Well
residents of Niceville, since I am unable to take over the rest of the world as
easily as your town, and I’m merely losing patience, I am going underground
with seven beautiful young women and starting over as all of you are crushed to
death from the impending asteroid hurling down to Earth this very moment! I
wish the best of luck to all of you!” The screen zapped to black again, and Ben
changed the channel to see what was happening. 

            “It appears
that there is an asteroid heading straight for earth,” stated a scientist clad
with thick glasses and a white lab coat that stood in front of an audience,
pointing to a globe. In his monotone drone he continued, “It will take
approximately thirty minutes for it to get here, and the direct impact will
take place in Niceville, Tennessee, but will destroy most of the
Earth within a matter of minutes.” As journalists on the screen began to
bombard the scientist with questions, Ben dropped the remote control and gaped
in horror.  

            “I’ve got
to talk to Nathan! He’ll know what to do!” With that, Ben flew out of his house
and ran two doors down to his neighbor Nathan Moore’s house. Ben flung open
Nathan’s door and began shouting for him.

            “I’m down
in the basement!” Ben heard a faint call from below. Ben quickly spotted the
stairs leading down the open door of the basement and soared down there,
leaping over three steps at a time.   

            When Ben
arrived, he quickly noted Nathan’s calm nature as he sat as his desk reading.
He then frantically posed the question: “How in the world can you calmly sit
here reading your books when the world is going to be destroyed in-” Ben
checked his watch, “twenty-eight minutes?!?!?!”

            “What are
you talking about, Ben?” Nathan looked up from his books.

            “Well
first, the antichrist was coming to take over the world, and now he’s going to
an underground shelter to protect himself and seven beautiful women while the rest
of us are crushed to death by the asteroid that is heading straight for
Niceville in-” Ben checked his watch again, “twenty-seven minutes!!!”

            “An
asteroid?!” Nathan’s eyes grew wide.

            “Yeah man,
that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! We’re all about to die!” Ben let out
a quick sniffle and threw his arms around his neighbor. “I always loved you,
man.”

            “Oh spare
me the mushy stuff, Ben,” Nathan rolled his eyes. “I know how to stop the
asteroid from coming down and crushing all of us. I’ve been studying on it for
years, okay?”

            “You do?!
Well can you do it in-” watch check, “twenty-six minutes?!”

            Nathan
shrugged. “No problem. Just grab that satellite over there in the corner, I’ll
grab my laptop, and we’ll blow this baby up to bits.”

            Ben did not
have time to question Nathan’s logic and quickly followed orders. Within
moments, the two were out in Nathan’s front yard, connecting the satellite
contraption to Nathan’s PowerBook. Nathan was reviewing his notes, which he had
aptly titled, “How to Destroy an Asteroid Heading for Earth” as Ben alternated
between looking at his watch and looking at the sky. “Twenty minutes left!” Ben
screamed in horror as he dropped to the ground and covered his head.

            “Alright, I
think I remember everything now,” Nathan said nonchalantly as he closed his
notepad and began to type furiously.          

            “What are
you doing?” Ben asked, cautiously uncovering his head and slowly sitting up.

            “I’m typing
in the asteroid’s coordination points in the Destroy an Asteroid program I
developed.”

            “What will
that do?”

            Nathan
looked at Ben point-blank. “Destroy the asteroid.”

            “Well I
know that! But how?! All we have is your little PowerBook and this hunk of
metal!” Ben motioned to the satellite.

            “The
information I put into this program will channel through to the satellite,
which will then use the sufficient lasers and whatever else necessary in order
to target the asteroid and destroy it, diffusing all its particles throughout
space… except…” Nathan’s voice trailed off as he smirked and continued to type
in a furious matter.

            “Except
what?!” Ben asked more than once, but Nathan did not respond, so Ben gave up
and decided to trust his friend.

            At the
fifteen-minutes-until-doom point, Nathan asked Ben to remember some
coordinates, which Ben repeated to himself over and over again until Nathan
asked for the recollection of them. It was at the ten-minutes-until-doom point
when Nathan said, “Well here goes nothing,” and pressed the return key on his
PowerBook. Ben held his breath in anticipation, expecting a fancy light show
and a giant explosion to occur. Instead, all he saw was a single green laser
reaching for space, and nothing more.

            “Oh no!
We’re all going to die!” Ben wailed aloud as he covered his head once more.  

            “No man,
that’s it,” Nathan reassured Ben, shifting the position of his laptop so that
Ben could see the screen. The image on the screen was a beautiful sight: a live
capture of the single green laser reaching space and successfully destroying
the asteroid, blowing it to pieces! Ben watched in awe and amazement as the pieces
scattered throughout space, no where near the earth, except –

            “Hey
Nathan, where’s that one piece going?” Ben pointed to a hefty size of asteroid
left over that was headed towards the earth.

            “Remember
those coordinates I gave you?”

            “Yeah.”

            “Well I
tracked down the antichrist with my GPS system and was able to manipulate the
movement of the asteroid’s blown up parts just enough to save some action for
Mr. Brian King.”

            “How did
you know Brian King was the antichrist? I don’t remember telling you.”

            “You
didn’t, but I’ve been reading up on Brain King in my studies lately, and it’s
been quite clear to me. And now he’s about to be in for one heck of a
surprise.”

            “Will he
die?” Ben asked, hopeful.

            “Probably
not. But he’ll be severely crippled by the impact and the world will be able to
bring justice to him.”

            “Cool,” Ben
nodded in approval.

            Nathan
quickly brought up the Internet, just in time to catch the live news coverage
of the asteroid chunk crushing Brian King in his underground haven. Ben cheered
victoriously as he gave Nathan a high-five.

            Within a
matter of seconds, vans from various news stations screeched in front of
Nathan’s yard, journalists jumping out and surrounding Nathan, wanting to know
just how exactly he saved the world and severely crippled the evil Brian King.
Nathan insisted that it was no big deal, but of course Ben gushed about what a
hero Nathan was and how he needed to be put in charge of National Security.

            And so that
summer day in Niceville that started out just as typical as any other ended
with the proclamation of Nathan as an national hero and the execution of the
short-lived dictator and evil antichrist Brian King. Nathan was honored with a
parade, millions of dollars, and Brian King’s seven beautiful women. Nathan,
however, decided he only wanted one of them, the lovely Rachael Meyer who had
abhorred the evil dictator. So the two were wed and resided in Niceville, just
two doors down from Ben. And Ben was also honored for his assistance to Nathan
and became a diligent student of Nathan’s notes so that he too could one day
save the world with a satellite and a PowerBook if ever needed. So Niceville
returned to its normal, safe state, and everyone lived happily ever after…
except Brian King of course.

The End.