It was two and a half hours of walking before the setting sun saw Jarin to his front door. His parents, glued to the television, had hardly noticed his absence, so he simply walked upstairs to his computer. If he bothered them with the troubles of his accident now, he'd never get away with any time left to examine the file he'd so cleverly copied. He made it, finally. There, at his computer, he knew the answer to his questions was only a few clicks of the mouse away.

"Jarin?" came the voice of his mom.

"Yeah?"

"Jarin, have you see the news?" she asked, her voice weak. "Come here, you have to see this."

It was all Jarin could do from groaning. The file was there, right in front of him on his screen, taunting him while he was dragged away.

"Can it wait?" he pleaded.

"Jarin, I'm serious. Come see," she said with a note of finality in her tone. Frustrated, pushing himself from his desk, Jarin lumbered back out of his room and downstairs where he was faced with a most startling news.

"--The worst tragedy since September eleventh 2001," the newscaster decided. "For those of you just joining us, half an hour ago there was an explosion aboard the International Space Station." The reporter touched her ear. "I'm getting word now that the decay of the station's orbit is increasing, and it's... oh my god." The camera lost focus on the reporter and adjusted it's sights toward the sky.

A bright light had appeared in the sky. Not like a star, very few of which were visible in the late evening light, but like fire. Jarin and his parents watched the television in silence.

"I'm sorry," said the reporter, who had been struck speechless by the new light in the sky. "Folks at home, this is a sad day. Reports are now coming in: the International Space Station, a symbol of global unity..." she paused, and the camera attempted to re-focus. "The International Space Station is now burning up in the atmosphere."

"It's those damn terrorists!" shouted Jarin's dad unceremoniously, rising from his seat and storming across the living room, only to turn back to the TV. Jarin was spared a rant about what terrorists think about by the high-pitched ringing of the phone, which his dad promptly answered.

"Hello?" A pause. "No, this is Al... yes, he's here, one second," he said, turning and handing the phone to Jarin before storming back to the couch.

"Hello?--"

"Tell me you're watching the news," came the voice of Sarnrei from the other side of the phone.

"Yeah, what happened?"

"They don't know. But Jesus... it's falling into the atmosphere Jarin!"

"Yeah, I see it," Jarin replied. To escape his dad's ranting, he'd ventured into the kitchen where, through the large picture window, he could see a bright point of light in the distance. A long, meaningful silence was held over the phone before Sarnrei finally said anything.

"Did you look at the file?" The question was so unexpected Jarin had to take a moment to process it. Truthfully, he'd completely forgotten about the file waiting for him upstairs.

"No, not yet. I got... distracted."

"I thought you went straight home?"

"Yeah..." Jarin paused, briefly checking over his shoulder for eavesdroppers, but by the sounds in the other room, his parents were still occupied arguing about terrorists. "I sorta got in an accident. My car's totaled."

A long silence followed again, this time less meaningful and more awkward. "Wow, this has been an interesting day," Sarnrei remarked. "What is today, anyway? I'm marking this one down: The day things went to hell." Funny under other circumstances, perhaps, but neither of them laughed. "Are you alright though? I mean, I assume so, since you're home watching the news."

"Yeah, I walked home. I'm fine."

"You walked? You should have called, I would have given you a ride."

"Called you with my cell phone?" Jarin often complained about his lack of a cell phone.

"Well, a phone somewhere else. A store maybe?"

Jarin suddenly felt quite foolish. There had been a convenience store on the corner. "It's alright," he dodged. "Thanks though."

"So I assume your parents don't know yet?"

"No, they've been..." he paused, catching something about 'godless liberals' from the other room. "...distracted." Jarin's eyes remained fixed on the point of light in the distance, growing gradually closer to it's final resting place. "My dad's on a spiel about terrorists..."

"He thinks this was intentional?"

"Apparently." He shrugged, despite the fact that Sarnrei couldn't see him. "Hey, Sarn, look I'm gonna go take a look at that file, alright?" he asked, glancing again at the doorway. "I'll have the news on up there, but I really want to have some time looking at it before my parents find out about the car."

"Alright," he said. "Call me if you find anything, yeah?"

"Sure thing," he said. "Later."

Jarin lingered in the kitchen and watched the billions of dollars in scientific equipment plummet toward the horizon before finally managing to pry himself away from the horrific sight.

At last, he could see the file that had been taunting him since early that afternoon. He flicked on the TV and changed to the news channel. The caption at the bottom read "LIVE: ISS CRASHES ON US EASTERN SEABOARD" and the pictures that filled the screen were chaos. People were screaming as large flaming pieces of debris fell from the sky and showered the area.

"Just a few minutes ago, the first pieces of debris from the International Space Station began to fall into the ocean here just off the coast here," said the reporter, yelling over the calamity. What appeared to be a large section of hull slammed into the ground not far from him, as he and his cameraman mutually decided that perhaps the story was best reported on from another place.

This was not the target of Jarin's attention at the moment. Distracted, his excitement somewhat diminished, Jarin stared at the file, and promptly picked up the phone to call Sarnrei.

"Hello?"

"Hey Sarnrei," mumbled Jarin.

"Hey. You found something?"

"Well... sorta." Jarin looked at the file again, as if it was lying to him.

"What do you mean 'sorta'?"

"Well..." His eyes scanned over the document, which was seeming more and more like an awfully silly thing to kill someone over. "Apparently there's some secret government that none of us know about, and that key organizations are under the control of an AI program trying to keep this secret. Some stuff about aliens, too."

There was a long pause.

"What?"

"That's what it says."

"...I think that's probably not the motive behind how he was murdered, Jarin," he said, but Jarin continued reading anyway. "I mean... that's kinda... that sounds like it's from a story or something. Was Zit an aspiring writer or anything like that?"

"I don't know," said Jarin, growing more and more disappointed the further he read, his attention wandering more and more to his frustration that he drove too fast and totaled his car for this.

"You think you can get me a copy of that?" Sarnrei asked, disappointment resonating even in his voice. "I mean, there's some pretty compelling evidence that there's something fishy, but that's out there even for a conspiracy theory."

"Yeah. In the meantime I should probably let my parents know about the accident."

"Yeah, good luck with that," said Sarnrei. "You want me to let Mia and Chris in on the file?"

"Yeah, sure," he replied. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Good luck."