The Genius Who Almost Ended the World Over a Breakup

This guy almost ended the world over a girl. In the fictional city of Concrete City, Delaware, Bill Ding was born with a date that shouldn't even exist—February 30th, 1955. From an early age, he seemed to bend rules without trying. He dominated every school science fair and became "National Inventor of the Year" in 1972. Teachers expected him to change the world. No one realized how close he'd come to doing exactly that. In his senior year, Bill fell in love with a girl named Holliday. To him, she was everything. Days before graduation, he discovered she'd been cheating on him with his best friend. The betrayal shattered him. Bill disappeared without a word. He wasn't seen again until 1986. That year, he resurfaced as the mysterious new owner of a skyscraper in downtown Concrete City. The top floors were sealed off and converted into a private lab. Strange shipments arrived at night. Windows glowed with odd light. People whispered about "whatever Bill was building up there." In 1988, he unveiled it. On the balcony of his tower, Bill Ding turned on a black hole generating machine. As the swirling dark void began to form in the air above the city, his voice blared through speakers: "Holliday, if you are out there, this is your fault." The gravity of his own invention pulled Bill into the growing void. He vanished. Police eventually forced their way into the lab and managed to shut the machine down before it could devour anything else. Concrete City survived. Bill didn't. He was never seen again. In the end, the boy genius finally did what everyone expected: he tried to change the world. He just almost ended it in the process.