I handle extraterrestrial objects at NASA.

Up until now, I've been analyzing various rocks and materials from space, with my next

big project being analyzing soil samples from Mars.

Over the years, the excitement of handling items from space had worn off, and my job was

reduced to a simple routine I had to set up for examining and recording the features of

everything that was brought to my desk.

Recently, I was given a smooth piece of metal that had apparently been found floating in

orbit by the folks over at the ISS. When I first examined this hunk of metal, I was intrigued by

its seemingly man-made shape, like it was deliberately created by someone and launched into space.

It was no bigger than a small sleek laptop charging brick, and had smooth rounded corners

like pebbles in a river. It was an interesting find, and I was a little excited to examine this

object. And I was surprised that it being man-made wasn't ruled out, because there's a very

low chance that this device was naturally created. I was turning it over in my gloved hands when I

first realized that it had a small slit on the left side. My heart rate began to quicken.

Slipping a piece of paper into the slit caused the entire drive to start morphing.

The metal began to melt away like chocolate and molded into a different shape entirely.

Now, there was a simple circular hole on that side that, upon inspection, seemed to be endless as

I only saw a dark pit no matter how hard I looked inside. I backed away from the device as I realized

that I was working with technology so advanced it was beyond our understanding of physics and

chemistry itself. This needed to be taken to the higher-ups immediately. Somehow, through the whole

process of getting this out of space and onto my desk, no one had realized that this metal exterior

hid technological components inside. It also explained why this hadn't yet been taken away by

...