“Hey, like you said, it’s 3:48 on a Tuesday morning, what else were we doing with the system?” The colonel laughed.

“Ah, facetiousness, wonderful. Why didn’t your boy just tell me it was running?”

“Sergeant Cyr wasn’t at liberty to tell you that, you are need-to-know on these things, and I decide what you need to know. Deal with it, son.”

Son … really, so we’re doing this now.

“Well, pops, now that I can see the file, this looks pretty significant, what do you say you give me file edit rights and I can start an analysis and write-up.”

The colonel paused a moment, then said, “The full data shows it isn’t as large as it seemed at first, just a bunch of debris. We are downgrading to potential atmospheric incident. Assigning file to your team now, you can have it.”

“So if it isn’t going to kill people then you aren’t interested, is that it?’

“Yes, son, that’s pretty much it.”

And the line died.

He was right, of course. It had potential: plenty of small pieces to burn up and create a bit of a show, but for the fact that they would probably be spread all over the place. Bits and pieces would slide in all over the globe, as its arrival was so oblique as to give all the random chunks of ice and rock long, arching trajectories. The few pieces that didn’t bounce right off our ionosphere would burn up all over the stratosphere like a handful of pebbles hurled, en masse, across a lake.

Neal got on with typing up the entry:

NOTICE OF ANTICIPATED ATMOSPHERIC PENETRATION

Time logged: 0344 MST

Date logged: September 20

Location: AMFPS85 Radar Array

Noted by: Neal P. Danielson

Note Type: First Contact [He just loved typing that]

Est. Date of Atmospheric Penetration: October 4

Est. Volume: 2.5 km3

Est. Mass: Not Enough Data to Calculate

Impact Probability: Limited, some debris

Est. Impact Location(s): Not Enough Data to Calculate

Incident ID: ColonelMiltonBlows

Chapter 2: Rude Awakening

The shades were drawn against the sun, and McDonald’s breakfast wrappers were strewn across the coffee table. In the studio apartment the full bed doubled as a couch for Neal’s limited friends. Also in the room were two unmatched armchairs, one an upright, stately number with a detailed, if worn, light blue and yellow floral pattern, and the other a puffy Naugahyde La-Z-Boy, its oversized pillows overhanging each other like the layers of fat that probably adorned its original owner. Both had been neighborhood front lawn acquisitions of a younger, even poorer Neal, and both were now covered in jeans, college tracksuits, and old T-shirts of once-cool bands: the apparent standard issue uniform of every research student Neal had ever met.