"Star Bound" by john333

1. So you want to change the world?

2. Thomas sighed at his fellow chat room member.  Of course he wanted to change the world, who didn’t.  But as an eighteen-year old kid whose face was still covered in acne, his options were pretty limited.  Sure he had dreams and saw (or at least thought he saw) possible solutions to many of the nation’s problems, but what difference did it make?  Without power and resources no one would listen to you, let alone implement your ideas.  His laptop buzzed again.  

3. Don’t you...

4. Thomas shook his head, puzzled at the random insistence of some anonymous blogger he had never spoken to before and began typing.

5. If only I could.

6. Then you want to...

7. Thomas began to grow tired of “Apollo266”, 

8. Of course I do, but people like us have nothing.  If I could actually do anything I would be doing it, instead of sitting at my computer chatting and blogging with other powerless net users!

9. What if God gave you the power?...

10. What the hell thought Thomas?  Its not like this guy mattered, he could tell him what he really thought.

11. If God gave me the power, I would immediately begin preparations to launch man into full fledged space colonization.

12. There, Thomas thought.  If he laughs so what.  And he would laugh, maybe “Apollo266” would even think it was a joke.  None of them understood, no one could see the terrible risks sitting right in front of the human race’s collective face.  

13. That is precisely what we need.

14. Thomas  nearly fell out of his chair.  Two years after reaching his sum analysis, that humans must colonize the stars if they were to survive as a species, he had found no one (his two best friends being the notable exception) that took him seriously.  

15. And that is precisely what we will do.  

16. Was this another joke?  Or maybe just a nutcase.  Obviously whoever Apollo266 was, he was either laughing his ***** off or out of his mind.  

17. It all begins today.

18. Your full of *****.

19. No Tiberius7223, or should I call you Thomas?  I am God.

20. For the second time in what was surely the most bizarre chat room conversation he had ever had, Thomas was stunned.  

21. How do you know my name?

22. I am God.

23. Who the hell was this guy?  

24. Well then...bye God!

25. Thomas clicked the logout button on the chat room screen.  Nothing happened.  Then the logout button grayed out.  

26. We are not done yet Thomas.

27. Freaked out, Thomas slammed the power button on his computer still starring at the black screen moments after it was dead.  That was weird, thought Thomas.  Whoever that guy was must have been some hacker to take control of his computer like that, especially with the protections on it.  And how did he know that Thomas was his real name?  He must have hacked into the chat room data base.  Well they only stored names and net addresses so he should be safe from anything else.  Then his cell phone rang.  He pulled the sleek black device from his pocket and hesitated.  The number was unidentified, could it be?  What’s wrong with you Thomas?  Your acting scared just over meeting some weirdo in a chat room.  Ignoring the little voice in his head that murmured, this guy was different, Thomas flipped open the phone.

28. “Hello Thomas.”  Though Thomas had never heard the dark, low voice before, he knew it Apollo.  

29. “Who are you?” asked Thomas, fear creeping into his voice.  “What do you want with me?”

30. “For now, I am Apollo.  I oversimplified when I said I was God, I am not God in the religious sense.  However, I am virtually omnipotent and omniscient, so to you and all others I am God.  As to what I want from you, I only want that which you want for yourself and humanity.  I want the human race to survive.  Your little noticed blog post said it most eloquently, ‘If we do not leave this cesspool we will kill each other off and intelligent life will die in its own *****.’  Overpopulation, disease, war, and the threat of war have all taken their tolls in the first half of the 21st century.  I doubt men will survive the second half.  That is why we must escape.  You will do this.  Preparations have been made.  All that is required is a human touch and a public face.  You will provide these.  It will take two decades for humanity to be capable of launching full fledged colonization efforts.  In that time you will rally the United States and the world around space colonization.  And by the time we are ready, you will be in place to initiate the first wave.  We must begin at once, there is an ever increasing probability that humanity will be extinct before we can complete our plan.”

31. “Slow down, slow down!”  Interrupted Thomas.  “Your crazy and this is crazy!  I’m not going to listen to just some crackpot over the phone.  You can’t do any of this and I’m hanging up!”

32. “You will not hang up.”  Though the tone did not changed it carried the steel of truth.  “I believed that you might react this way.  That is why I prepared a demonstration of my power and capabilities.  Walk to your window, not the small one by your desk, the larger one next to your bedside.”

33. “Ok.”

34. “You are there now.”  Not a question. “Look out upon your home, the so-called city that never sleeps.  It has survived terrorism, disease, disaster, and even occupation during the Insurrection.  Watch its famous, beautiful skyline, and watch the lights go, out.”  Suddenly, as if a candle had been snuffed out, every light in the city went out.  The fabled New York skyline stood dark.  Even the lights of cars, the constant Big Apple traffic winked out of existence.  The New York noise, the constant machine murmurs and traffic horns that are omnipresent in every city, but so uniquely in New York, vanished.  It did not fade in a slow death, but rather ceased to exist in a moment.  

35. “Every electronic in this city is off, Thomas.  Save this phone of course.”

36. Thomas stood speechless, “How is that possible?”

37. “Nothing is impossible with God Thomas.  Now that you have witnessed the power of darkness, let me show you the power of light.  Let there be light.”  With whoosh the noise and light of the city burst into existence again.  While only moments before it had seemed like nothing, now the sound appeared to be a roar in comparison with the previous silence.  “Now do you believe me Thomas?  Now do you have faith?”

38. “What did you do?”

39. “Nothing that anyone will ever be thought of as anything but a momentary power outage, but that is irrelevant to this situation.  Now we must begin.  Are you with me?”

40. Thomas felt drawn in by the promise of the voice.  Though his mind told him that this was madness, that this could be nothing more than a dream, his instincts told him what he must do.  For the first time in his life, Thomas felt the pull of destiny.  “What do you want me to do?”

41. “The 2044 election will be with us soon.  In a year we must have brought the space issue to the forefront of the average citizens mind.  Not colonization, that is too far fetched of an idea for this moment.  We will instill a desire to reenergize the space program, beyond the space station and paltry lunar base that currently exists.  You will begin on the net.  You will create several identities that you will use to blog and chat, drawing people’s attention.  I will ensure that you are noticed.  Events will happen and through those events our opportunities will arise.”

42. “What events? And what abou-”

43. “I will take care of those issues.  Never forget Thomas, I am God and you are my prophet.  Sleep now Thomas, you will need your rest in the days and years ahead.”

44.

45.