His glass was almost empty and he turned his attention towards the bar. It stood out against the dark surroundings. That’s how the club made their money—people buying drinks. Get them thirsty and they would spend. The loud environment raised energy levels, getting people to dance and sometimes fight. But fighting deterred customers, so big beefy bouncers patrolled the patrons looking for the possible troublemakers. Maybe the muscle men should wear glasses. Then they’d see the clouded red auras indicating negative energy and deep-seated anger and know who to keep watch on. Amber people? They would be outnumbered. Green? He laughed to himself. Wouldn’t be any here unless they were on a mission to save the lost. There were plenty of lost here. Wiley loved them. He loved the red people. His kindred.

Wiley waved his arms over the scene before him. “Don’t you just love it.”

“Why do we do it?”

Sarge was on a different page. “Do what?” Wiley asked.

“I understand why. We’re really working to this myth that the man up in the sky is waiting for a certain number of believers to be reached before he’ll come back.” He turned to look at some ladies dancing.

“A myth?” This man wasn’t scared of God.

“I believe we’re using the myth for leverage. We just want to rid the world of—”

“You’re not scared of God?” Wiley’s throat croaked from having to speak louder.

Sarge turned, eyes raised in shock, in a how-dare-you-interrupt-me look. “God? No such thing. I’m surprised you believe.” He took a long sip of his beer. Simmering his anger.

“But God’s the reason I want to get rid of the amber people. I don’t want him coming back.”

“Anyway, we’ve digressed. You’ll like the new strategy.” Sarge took another sip, shorter this time. “The clue: it’s a quicker way to get rid of your amber friends. And a lot of them.”

* * *

Jack had some strange dreams. He reflected on them as he drove to work. People floating up in the sky. Erica and Johnny floating away, waving to him. Not sad faces but happy faces. Why weren’t they sad about leaving him? A voice had spoken and said there would be no more sadness.

On his way to his desk, the superintendent waved him into his office and ushered him to a seat. Jack looked up at the Keystone Cops poster near the filing cabinet. The superintendent once told Jack it was there to remind him not to take his job too seriously. That was an impossible task, although the poster did bring brief relief to those that looked at it.

“Sorry about all this, Jack. But do you have any idea why your fingerprints would have been forged?” The superintendent brushed away a crumb or something near his keyboard and moved his takeaway coffee cup out of harm’s way.

“No idea.”

“Inside job, of course. An inexperienced officer, I would say. Someone who doesn’t know too much about the forensic sciences.” A beep came from his monitor. He briefly looked up and the message was enough to raise his eyebrows. “But why?”

“It all happened quickly. Someone was watching my actions. It must be linked to something. A discovery. But I didn’t even know I was on to anything. Weird.”

“But we’re onto something now. The health authorities have done their job. All the poisoning victims received some goods from the same person.”

Jack nodded. “I think I know who. I went for a head-clearing walk down to King George Square early yesterday morning. I sat and watched the comings and goings. A man was handing out what I assumed were samples. I actually saw him give something to Sally.” A small cough surfaced.

They sat in silence as reality kicked in. “She’s such a great person. So friendly. Words … that’s all they are … words.”

The superintendent stood up and walked around to Jack. He placed his hand on his shoulder. “She’s not gone yet. Best we get this man.”

Jack composed himself. “I’ll check out the CCTV for the square. Find out who he is and where he went.” Jack stood.

“With the fingerprints, Jack. I have an officer looking into it.”

His boss picked up his coffee cup. Jack turned to leave.

“Wait. I had a takeaway coffee cup in my car before I went into Sally’s apartment block. It wasn’t there when I came back, and I don’t remember removing it. Let the investigator officer know that. That cup could be the source of the forgery. Maybe the forger left some fingerprints behind.” Jack tilted his head towards the Keystone Kops poster, raised his eyebrows, and then headed towards the door.

“Jack.”

Jack turned around.

“This thing in the sky is starting to get serious. I’m sure all is okay and the world isn’t coming to an end, but people seem more fragile these days—there’s a lot of doom and gloom about. I’m expecting panic to start creeping in soon. Be careful out there.”

“Thanks, sir. I will be.”

* * *

Wiley woke up and struggled to open his eyes. His eyelids were heavy and crusty from sticky matter that had them almost glued together. And where was he? It took him a while to work out he was on the floor, staring up at a bed. His bed? No. A different bed.

He moved his tongue around in his mouth. He needed something to wash away the horrid taste lingering there. Why had he decided to crash on the floor? Or was he just too drunk to get into bed? He grabbed a bedpost and lifted himself up. Bedposts? His bed didn’t have bedposts. Wait. He’d been relocated. Sarge had organised a new bed in a new apartment. Sarge got him drunk. Was Sarge the one who had got him here in the early hours of the morning?

He sat on the edge of the bed, looking down. There was a stain on his jeans. He must have crawled at some point. He’d need to clean that because he had no other clothes. A wave of panic swept over him. Where was his backpack? He looked around. It was resting near the door. Thank heavens. He closed his eyes, took some deep breaths and held them for a few seconds. He’d been told that was the best way to handle panic—slow breathing told the brain to calm down and relax. With his eyes closed, he felt calmer and alert. It sounded like peak hour outside with the traffic noise. What was the time?

He looked around for his phone on the floor, next to some pamphlets. Must have gathered them up in his drunkenness. They may have had meaning in his drunken state, but he doubted they would have any meaning now—particularly with the state of his head. He bent down to grab his phone and the pamphlets and nearly fell off the bed. He placed the pamphlets on the bed, waited for the spinning to settle, and looked at the time. Nine o’clock on the dot.

Out of curiosity he grabbed one of the pamphlets. It was advertising an event. A world-famous evangelist was coming to Australia to save the lost. He chuckled. The evangelist might light a spark, but it would soon go out for most people. Why would anyone want to hand their life and their money over to someone else? That’s what those evangelist types wanted people to do. Give them your money and your time—no wonder the spark goes out.

He started dry heaving. It passed. He went to screw up the pamphlet when he noticed some scribble along the side. He opened his eyes wider to decipher the scribble, still feeling the last clutches of the muck that had glued his eyelids together.

This is how we get rid of a lot of amber people.

He looked at the other pamphlet. It had an image of a pizza box being carried by a drone. A yellow sticky note was stuck to the cover. He reached for it.

We just need to change the payload.

The words were signed off with an average attempt at drawing a smiley emoji.

A surge of excitement attacked his alcoholic haze.

10 - A conspiracy

Jack found his way to his desk, started his computer, and looked around his desk space as he waited for the software to load. He gave a wink to a photo of Johnny that sat under one of his computer screens and grabbed his note pad and pen from his top drawer.

He started doodling, waiting for his thought patterns to kick in. The software loaded. Finally. He logged into the investigation system and brought up his draft report on the river incident—still plenty of work to do. First, he’d glance at the reports put in by his investigation team before the mid-morning team meeting. There was a file note from the officers who visited the parents of the suspect. Only a mother by looks of it, and she had a few words to say.

A sad case. They found him wandering in the desert, miles away from his vehicle which was burned to the ground. He hadn’t been the same since and then was lost to the drugs.

Mother thinks he was abducted by aliens or something like that. He would go outback regularly to stargaze. His mother believes they got him. Perfect storm. Middle of nowhere, no people. Maybe did some experiments on him. But then it could have been a government thing—acover-up. Maybe he ventured into some secret forbidden zone, like that place in America, Area 51. That was in a remote desert location. He used to tell her stories about things like that.

She said he kept talking about an amber person. She wondered who or what that was. He said something big was coming. She needed to move into the country, away from the city. But the drugs destroyed him and now destroyed the life of another family. Someone is responsible. Someone sent him off the rails.

The mother’s comments brought life to the conspiracy theory Jack had joked to Johnny about. Surely not, but this was sad. He felt for the mother. The officer had checked out related records on the system.

There were some notes on file that indicated parts of the man’s story had elements of suspicion attached to them. He did belong to some amateur astronomy club which disbanded for whatever reason. His computer hard disc crashed, and he had regrets that he wasn’t a cloud man. Too many conspiracies going around. He even believed his computer was tampered with. Lack of resources and a change of priorities took the investigators away from the case. Even an element of conspiracy there.