You open the box...

Placing the box on your knees you quickly flip the lid open and feel another latch separate, vapor pours out from the inside of the box obscuring its contents. With a sense of anticipation you reach in. You feel something smooth and metallic. Eventually you get purchase on one of the item’s edges and lift it free of it’s sarcophagus.

You’re underwhelmed to say the least. The item in question is a simple slab of metal, Aluminum you think, roughly 6”x2”, half an inch thick. It’s completely plain except for 2 strings of alphanumeric characters, each roughly 30 characters long, carved into the slab.

“What the hell is this?” You say with a mixture of confusion and disgust, wracking your brain for how this could be valuable. Nothing immediately comes to mind and despite recent events, your mood begins to sour. Was your uncle fucking with you? He was an asshole. When you were a kid and he lived with you and your mom for a while, you accumulated a laundry list of grievances.

Like that time he sold your Quantum Johnson rookie card to buy some meta-weed, or when he spent hundreds on pay-per-view VR Porn and let you take the blame, the worst was when he stole your 16th birthday credit chip from grandma and used it to bet at the Techquestrian race track. You know what, fuck uncle Martin, you think and dismissively toss the slab back into the box, closing it haphazardly and sticking it in your desk drawer.

You applied to enough postings earlier, you decide to go get a late lunch with Barry and tell him about this stupid box. He was also supposed to tell you about this new spaceship startup he’s been obsessing over. Their products are quite likely out of your price range but maybe they’re hiring.

You touch the voice control on your BAP (Biolense Access Point) and tell it to call Barry. Ironically, before the command completes Barry calls you, a notice unobtrusively appearing in the upper right corner of your vision.