Negative Return
by J. C. Miller
“Good morning, Captain,” the computer answered in a familiar-sounding voice. Andrew thought it sounded like the British-accent option for Google assistant. “Is there anything I can do for you?”
Tatiana was in the next room, receiving a similar exchange. Mission Control had been very selective in sharing information. They knew this going in, and in an almost two-hundred year period, it was assumed that wars and disasters and family deaths would happen. Even with the limited information, it was clear that something happened to Tatiana’s country when the updates started to come exclusively from NASA.
As assumed by Mission Control, they fell in love on the trip to another star and back, two specialists chosen to spend twenty years together based in part on psychological compatibility profiles. Knowing that a couple of centuries would pass on Earth during their journey, NASA believed the closeness expected to develop would help them to handle the shock of returning to Earth. NASA was not wrong. They had plans for a life together in retirement. Andrew knew he was a very wealthy man.
When they entered the solar system, NASA began providing substantive updates on what they missed. They had summaries of wars, pandemics, technology breakthroughs, and family obituaries. Andrew had video greetings from relatives born a century after the last person he knew died and deathbed messages from people he had known. In discussions with NASA leading up to the mission, they debated how Andrew should be paid given the time dilation. They reached a compromise: a smaller amount but paid up front. Andrew had decided to put the magic of compound interest to work.
At just about any return above inflation, Andrew would have an obscene amount of money after all these years. He was strategic about it. Andrew setup high-yield savings accounts at eight different banks in three currencies. And to anticipate the unexpected, he set up the latest financial AI tools to move his funds and rebalance as needed to ensure his future returns. Just about every possible scenario meant he was a billionaire. Andrew and Tatiana didn’t have to worry about how to re-integrate into a changed society.
NASA’s new AI system had taken some time to load, requiring new compression software first. Mission Control offered the update once the light delay was below fifteen minutes. Andrew was excited to use it. Generative AI had undoubtedly advanced in the centuries of travel, but NASA’s instructions indicated that this came loaded with all his information from his heritage accounts on Earth. Andrew was allowed to use it for personal purposes rather than the tightly-controlled, mission-specific communications they’d faced in the last twenty years.
Andrew knew what he wanted to ask about first: a topic he didn’t feel comfortable raising with Mission Control: “Can you check my bank account balances?”
“Yes, Captain, I can help you with that. I have all of your personal and historical financial information.”
“Great, then please tell me my balances. Or my net worth, I guess, if it’s invested...differently...I don’t know the word, I want to know how much money I have.”
“Thank you. You do not have any open accounts. Your net worth is—”
“What!” Andrew cut the machine off. “Did you say I have no money?”
“Correct.”
“And no accounts?”
“You do not have any open bank accounts or investments.”
“Wait.” Andrew swallowed a curse. He calmed himself and set out to work the problem.
“Does your information reflect that when I left, I had a sizable balance?”
“Yes, it does, in eight accounts.”
“Okay, so what happened to my money? I left instructions for conservative investments. That money shouldn’t be gone.”
“According to your account history, you began receiving dormant account fees.”
“Please explain further,” Andrew seethed.
“Approximately two years after you left, each of your accounts began charging a dormant account fee because you had no transfers in or out. The fees were offset by the interest earned for the first three years. Then during a period of low interest rates, the fees exceeded your interest and began to erode your principal. When interest rates went up again, the dormant account fees also rose, and other fees were imposed. Approximately forty years ago, your balances officially were overdrawn.”
“You’re saying my accounts are worth nothing?”
“I said they were overdrawn or negative. However, the banks are no longer able to collect this debt due to the statute of limitations. The balances are now zero.”
“Okay. But this doesn’t make any sense. I purchased a life-time license for the financial advisor AI suite. It was supposed to move my money out of accounts with heavy fees and rebalance things. I put in all my preferences. The stuff works. I tested it myself. Do you have a record of that?”
“Yes, and I can confirm that your license is still active.”
“Then why the hell didn’t it work? How am I broke?”
“Shortly after you departed, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission promulgated consumer protection regulations covering all Americans. For your protection, financial AI was not able to move money or change accounts without your explicit authorization for each move.”
“Seriously? For my own protection they turned off the features I needed, and now I’m screwed? My net worth is now zero because some bureaucrat tried to protect me?”
“That’s not correct.”
“Oh?” Andrew replied, holding back the rage as he tried not to imagine what his new future would look like.
“You have a large unpaid tax lien for the interest earned before your accounts went negative. The tax due continued to accrue interest in favor of the government. The statute of limitations was suspended during your voyage.”
Andrew sighed. He looked out the window for a solid minute before screaming.
Copyright © 2025 by J. C. Miller
