"The Sounds of Earth" Returns to Earth, Now for Sale
Old story, written in 2021
This was originally written for a writing class I took over the Summer in 2021. Some of these stories had prompts, which are noted after the story along with other comments.
“BREAKING: VOYAGER PROBE GOLDEN DISK STOLEN AND UP FOR BID”
“’THE SOUNDS OF EARTH’ RETURNS TO EARTH, NOW FOR SALE”
“VOYAGER DISK VOYA-GONE”
The headlines flashed by as I mindless flicked through stations in my dimly lit room. The TV was the only source of light. It cast a dead blue-gray light on my face as I looked on with a similarly dead gaze. I couldn’t believe it. The golden disk on the Voyager 1 probe, millions of miles out into space, had been stolen. The worst part was, I think I did it.
…or at least helped. Finding a job as a fresh out of college with a bachelor’s in astrophysics was way harder than I thought it would be. The only gig I could find was this bounty on some calculations to be paid in bitcoin. I assumed it was all hypothetical stuff for some kind of science fiction project. What they wanted to do seemed impossible. They wanted to send a small ship with several people from Earth to just outside the solar system, rendezvous with Voyager 1, and then make it back all in the span of a few days.
The fact they were paying in bitcoin should’ve been the biggest red flag. Honest businesses sure as hell don’t pay you in crypto. You do that if you want to be untraceable. You do that if you want to stay away from the law. Criminals pay in crypto. I’m not a criminal. At least I wasn’t until they actually stole the damn disk and damned me for unwittingly colluding with them. But I didn’t question it. I needed that money. My college loans weren’t going to pay themselves. Neither was my food, my rent, my car… You get the picture.
So there I was, working away at the problems like a machine. There were a lot of things to solve. There was also a lot of money on the line, to be paid in full only upon completing everything. There was also a very strict non-disclosure agreement. I couldn’t tell anyone about this job, what kind of work it involved, or even that there was an NDA involved. For three days I locked myself away from the rest of the world. I could have asked for help on things, but like I said, I needed the money. I ignored calls, messages, knocks on my door, and even the one knock on my window. My parents were obviously worried sick.
“Why weren’t you answering any of our calls? We thought you might’ve gotten sick …or worse!” My mother exclaimed over the phone.
“I’m alright, ma,” I calmly replied, “I was really busy with a small job.”
“What kind of job doesn’t even let you call your own mother?!”
“...I can’t tell you. Like I legally am not allowed to say.”
“Oh, did you finally get that gig with NASA?”
“Not exactly.”
“You can tell me who you worked for. I’m your mother for crying out loud!”
“I honestly don’t know who it was for. They really wanted it to stay hush-hush.”
“Did they at least pay you well?”
“Oh yeah, definitely. Weird thing was that they paid in bitcoin.”
“Bitcoin?”
“...yeah.” In retrospect, I probably shouldn’t have said that.
“You better not be selling drugs!”
“I’m not, ma! I’m not!”
“What good was getting that degree if you can’t even put it to use!”
“I was using it ma!”
“Doing what?!”
“Like I said, ma, I can’t say!” At this point I was pleading to a brick wall. A very, very angry brick wall.
“What kind of work were you doing that’s so important that you can’t tell your family about it!?” I decided it might’ve been good to break the NDA just a little bit.
“Fine. It was some kind of bounty on a bunch of astrophysics calculations.”
“Oh, so you were teaching terrorists the right way to launch missiles?”
“What? No! It looked like some kinda sci-fi stuff. They were for some things that’re impossible to do.”
“Oh, so for something like a movie?”
“I don’t really know. But I really shouldn’t be saying anything further.” That seemed to explain things well enough for her.
“Alright, if you say so.” The conversation then went on to some more personal, and very much more unrelated, matters.
Finally, I settled on the auction channel. That’s where they were selling the funny gold circle. The disk sat in a plain, clear glass box on a foam cushion. It was slowly rotating on a plastic circle on top of a wooden podium surrounded by cameras of all shapes and sizes. Everyone wanted to get a picture of the disk. The crowd was enormous. The auction hall wasn’t built for this capacity. Bidders, reporters, and spectators spilled out of the room into the hallway were all staring at the disk, mesmerized. I watched on in horror as the fruits of my labor unveiled this desecration of the human legacy in space.
The final bid was 50 million dollars. It went to some oil mogul who’ll probably keep it locked up in his house over his fireplace or use it as a very expensive coaster. That’s what I thought anyways, before his mansion got raided by the FBI and the disk was recovered. Seems like they didn’t want to make a big scene in the auction hall. Shortly after the disk was back in the government’s hands, it was analyzed and proven to be the real deal. The search was on for the perpetrators.
A very solemn looking man addressed the situation to the people. He was apparently from the FBI. Even they didn’t have a clue who took the disk, but they were looking. With every syllable he said, dread shot through my veins.
“What if they found me?”
“What would they do with me?”
“Would I be charged for the theft if they couldn’t find anyone else?”
“Was this all a setup?”
“Am I the fall guy here?”
Just then, there was a knock on the door. A very strong knock. Followed by a
“FBI, open up!”
The door then exploded open as troops stormed my apartment. As I was being dragged up from my couch, I watched as they tore through my things, ripped the hard drive from my computer, and crammed all my work and notes into plastic bags. I decided to stay silent the whole time. I didn’t want to say or do anything that could make this situation any worse than it already was. I was cuffed and thrown into the back of an armored van. I was the only one in there. Maybe I was the scapegoat after all…
“...and that’s how I ended up here.”
“And that’s all you know, and all you had to do with the operation?” Asked a very stern looking man in a plain suit. He was wearing dark, reflective sunglasses inside. Inside a very dimly lit room made of brick and one-way glass.
“Yeah, that’s everything. I swear I had no idea what they were gonna do, or if it was even possible!”
“You really don’t know who you were working for?”
“None. Honest.”
“Hmm…” The man got up and turned around. He pressed something near his ear and murmured something to, seemingly, himself.
“I have word that you’re free to go for now. We’re going to keep your hard drive for further investigation, but you’ll get it back soon.”
“Okay.”
“Also, since this is part of an active investigation, you can’t tell anyone about this.”
As I left the interrogation room, I was blindfolded, and driven back to my apartment. The driver handed me my phone. There were 10 missed calls from my mother. Maybe being blamed for stealing the disk was a better fate.
This one also didn't have a prompt. I'm not too fond of this one. I rushed it out and it was also my first attempt at writing from this perspective. I learned shortly after writing this that Bitcoin is actually pretty easy to trace since all of its transactions are public records. I've had the idea of doing some kind of story involving stealing the Voyager disk for some time.