[Dick, after a short pause, spoke quietly into the mic:]“Jackie? You… crying? What happened?”
[Jackie, her voice breaking]“They destroyed humanity’s first interstellar mission!
That’s… that’s just cruel!”
[Her voice trembled like someone whose childhood had just been taken away]“Voyager disappeared… like… seven hundred years ago.
Scientists said it was dissolved by meteor dust…
that it turned into atoms…
that nothing was left…”
[She sniffed]“But it turns out…
that poor little probe just kept flying… all these years…
slipped through a wormhole—
carrying our message…
our hope…
our dream…”
[Her voice cracked]“Until it ended up in the path of… these…
IDIOTS who just went and—”
She couldn’t finish.
Dick, realizing it was time to step in, cleared his throat and steadied his voice
“Hey… sweetie… what the hell do you think we’re doing here, huh?
We’re doing the same damn thing—
broadcasting a MESSAGE to the whole damn galaxy.Think about it.
You’re the continuation of Voyager’s mission.
Just with a better voice… and a lower chance of crashing into cosmic dumbasses.”
[A faint smile returned to Jackie's face—just for a moment]“Dear listeners,” Dick continued, “you don’t understand how sensitive our Jackie really is.
If I dropped dead right here, drooling on the mic,
she wouldn’t care.But some flying bucket dies—
and suddenly it’s THE TRAGEDY OF HUMANITY.That’s why we love her.
Alright… let’s keep going.”
Blindy, still in shock:
“THIS IS FUCKED!
We… we fucking destroyed the FIRST human artifact
that was supposed to represent us to alien civilizations!Now all they’ll see are fragments—
and think we’re SAVAGES,
fucking failures who barely made it out of our own solar system!Oh great DeGrasse… what would you even say if you saw this?..”
He took a breath, then muttered:
“Probably something like—
‘That’s why the universe keeps expanding…
to get the hell away from idiots like you.'”
Zeros didn’t even blink.
“Blindy, are you actually an IMBECILE?
While that rusted relic was drifting around,
you filthy animals already managed to trash half the galaxy.
What the hell are you even talking about?”
He paused briefly, as if processing something.
Then snapped his head toward him.
“And seriously…
who the fuck is this Neil deGrasse Tyson you keep quoting every damn time?”
Blindy froze—like he’d just been caught naked in a temple.
He slowly turned toward the burning remnants of Voyager, took a breath, straightened up, and declared with absolute reverence:
“He is…
the greatest of the great, Zeros.
A sage.
A philosopher.
A scientist.
A MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD THE UNIVERSE
like he had a BLACK HOLE living in his house instead of a cat!”
Zeros snorted.
“So… just a regular human with a ridiculously big mouth?”
Blindy threw his hands up.
“NO!
He’s the kind of guy who explained things so simply,
even the DUMBEST people could understand!
He knew everything—
about stars, time, atoms, galaxies…”
Zeros let out a slow breath.
“You talk about him like he was Astrophysics Jesus.”
Blindy waved him off.
“No, pal, you don’t get it…
This guy explained the universe in a way
even my brain could understand and go:‘Damn… that actually makes sense!'”
Zeros began slowly disabling his auditory module.
“I simply do not give a shit.”
But Blindy was already gone, fully committed.
“He said, like—
if you imagine the age of the universe as ONE YEAR,
humanity would only exist for… the last fourteen seconds!”
Zeros activated sarcasm protocols.
“Fourteen useless seconds
where the universe basically farted you into existence.”
Blindy placed a hand over his chest.
“He was teaching us humility. Wisdom. Responsibility.
He said:
‘The universe doesn’t owe you meaning.’
You know what that means?”
Zeros muttered, without hope:
“That you are a worthless organism?”
Blindy lit up like a prophet of absolute stupidity.
“NO!
It means I don’t owe ANYONE SHIT!
My life is SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN BULLSHIT!
He said I can do whatever I want!
Screw up, not pay debts, forget to turn on the fuel pump—
THAT’S COSMIC LAW,
backed by science!”
Zeros replied coldly:
“So your religion is justifying your own incompetence?”
Blindy straightened up proudly.
“It’s called DEGRASSIANISM™, asshole.
We believe in the wisdom of Neil the Wise.
In his great teachings.”
He raised a finger and began preaching like a podcast prophet:
“Here are some teachings of the great astrophysicist:
‘The universe owes you nothing…
so you don’t owe anyone either.’‘If the universe is huge, I am nothing.
If I am nothing, nothing depends on me.
If nothing depends on me—then I can drink all day along…’‘We are not better than the universe—we are part of it.
We are in the universe, and the universe is in us.
Very sexy.’‘We are all connected:
to each other—biologically,
to Earth—chemically,
to the universe—atomically.’So you and me, you piece-of-shit droid—we’re connected. You get it?!
‘There is nothing shameful about not knowing anything.’
See? Even if I’m an officially certified idiot… that’s normal.
‘If you feel bad—look into a black hole.
And the hole will look back.’‘We are all just stardust under someone’s feet.'”
Blindy was about to continue—
but Zeros cut through the stream of spiritual stupidity like a blade:
“I am 221% certain you have distorted every single one of his quotes, you absolute moron.”
He turned his sensor toward the control panel.
“Get us to the Feather Station.
Let’s finish the mission.
My quantum neural processing unit is overheating…
purely from interacting with you.”