Chapter 5

Ian McEugen of the Centre of Conspiracies was close to ripping his hair out and felt like unplugging the telephone and throwing the thing out of the sixth floor window. His sidekick Dan was sat on a cosy chair with his feet up on the table, a glass of beer in his hand and a cold, damp facecloth covering his eyes and forehead. All afternoon and evening calls had been coming in concerning the extraterristial crash in Salisbury, each caller wanting to explain his own special theory of how it got there, or of how it tied in with already existing theories. It was nearly half one in the morning, and everytime they thought it was over, some new insomniac rings up.

„Why the hell did I pick night shift again?“, Dan murmured, not moving.

„You didn't, you were assigned it.“

„Oh yeh..“

The phone rang again, and this time Ian just looked at it. With each ring the little red light on the receiver lit up and flickered for the duration of the ring. It blurred as Ian stared at it, mesmerized.

„Are you not going to answer that?“, came Dan's voice.

„Are you?“, Ian retorted.

„Hey, you're the phone guy tonight. I'm the research guy.“

„Fat lot of research to be found in that facecloth of yours.“

Dan sighed and pulled the cloth off his face. „Alright.. alright.. I'll go back to looking up more videos.“

„And no porn!“ His colleague warned him. He reached out for the phone, but just as he did, it stopped ringing.

„Oh.. bugger.“

„I'm sure you're very disappointed.“

Ian leaned back again, regarding the telephone warily. At that moment, his mobile started ringing in his pocket, and he jumped. He slipped his hand in and pulled it out, squinting at the display. Of course, his mobile number hadn't been made public, so he was wondering who was calling him at this hour of the night. It had to be someone he knew.

It was; it was the farmer whose crop circle field had been demolished just under twelve hours ago.

„Hey Ian, did you not hear the phone ringing a minute ago?“, the farmer asked before Ian could even greet him.

„I.. did, but I missed it. Barely. I literally had my hand on the receiver when it stopped.“

„Ah. Oh well. I thought I should ring because something really bizarre just happened.“

„You mean, more bizzare than a crop circle appearing in your field, and more bizarre than a giant snooker ball with the density of a ping pong ball completely demolishing it a couple of weeks later?“

„Well, not more bizarre per se, it just adds in with the total bizarrness.“

„Uh huh.“

„It's gone.“

„I.. what?“

„The ball. It's gone. And so is the hole it should have left. And so is the crop circle. My field is just as it looked like two weeks ago.“

Ian paused a moment, wondering whether he had heard right.

„You're kidding.“

„No I am indeed not.“

„You mean... authorities came and picked it up?“

„And filled in my field and ironed it nice and flat too? Why of course. NO, I mean, it was there one minute and gone the next. I swear I had sat down for fifteen minutes and I glanced back out of the window, and there it wasn't!“

„But how is that even possible?“

„I have no idea, but I felt you were the right person to inform. Well, I suppose I should notify the police, or they'll turn up tomorrow and think I've stolen it or something.“

„Yes, you should.. and at first light tomorrow I'll come down and look at the site, before I head to bed. Okay?“

„Alrighty. I won't be going anywhere. Unless whatever took that ball decides to come back for me. Now I'm not a believer in conspiracies but that is just plain weird.“

„I completely understand.“ Ian surpressed a yawn. He was really tired, for no apparent reason, though probably from listening to countless people all evening long.

„Byebye then.“

„Cheerio.“

Ian hung up and stretched.

„So what's up?“, Dan asked, mindlessly clicking his way through random links.

„Well that mysterious object seems to have gone.“

„.. Gone? What do you mean?“

„I mean gone in every meaning of the word. If there are more than one meanings, I mean.“

„But how?“

„That yet remains a mystery. I'll run around after shift to investigate.“

Shift didn't end for another five hours or so, so Ian sighed and sat back in his chair, taking a bite out of his already half eaten sandwich, that he had left on his desk. He took up a piece of notepaper he had been writing notes on from diverse phone calls, and tried to piece information together.

The Centre of Conspiracies was an institution founded by a man who started out collecting conspiracy theories and making them sound as factual as possible, and made up a history of theories that had actually come true, to back up the fact that any conspiracy could be true, if it wasn't too far fetched. Somehow this institution had been given the thumbs up by the English goverment and how had it's headquarters in an important building of important offices in London. The most important current conspiracy was, of course, that of the 2012 apocalypse. Many many theories of what will happen, and when it would exactly happen had made it to their database, and the whole conspiracy was growing frightfully each day, and making more and more sense in a major part of it. And everything, EVERYTHING that happened that seemed out of the normal, anywhere in the world, was reported to them.

Just recently had the sudden amount of disappearances been linked to the apocalypse too, but the Centre hadn't found anything sustainable about that theory yet. Why on earth would disappearing young women have to do with the end of the world? Unless ALL women disappeared, leaving none for the men to procreate with, which would ultimately lead them to die out eventually, thus meaning the end of the human race. That was in fact the linkage that had been made to the apocalpyse, but that theory didn't tie in with the countless others that said the world would suddenly end on one day.

That was what Ian was there for, apparently. He had been told he was the best worker of them all, being able to link two very different things together by using the most obscure paths possible to get there.

Right now he didn't feel very competent though, he just felt sleepy and wanted to forget his job and go home and sleep forever, until the world ended.

Luckily that night only one more call came in, and finally it was time for their shift to end. Dan and Ian parted ways, and Ian got in his car to make the long drive over to Salisbury in the South West. Why he had agreed to „drop by“ he did not know, the drive would take a couple of hours, three maybe, or more, depending on the early morning traffic. He must have been really sleepy at that time. And so had the farmer been, since he didn't object to Ian „dropping by“ either. Oh well, maybe he could rent a hotel room somewhere or something.

The drive was tiring, and he hoped he wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel. Normally it was a fifteen minute drive home and then he'd fall into bed and float to dreamland within the half hour, and sleep till mid afternoon. Now he was on the way to wrecking that day's schedule, and he was hoping he'd get at least a couple of hours sleep before he had to make the drive all the way back to London.

A stop at a petrol station somewhere along the way was obligatory; he filled himself up on coffee, and his car on unleaded, and picked up a paper. The headlines were that of the mystery ball; of course none had yet reported of its disappearance, since that was probably just being discovered and reported about now. Tomorrow's headlines would be about nothing else.

Finally, he arrived at the farmer's house, feeling very weary and glad the long journey was over. The farmer rushed outside upon hearing the car's engine – hard to miss when his living room wall didn't exist anymore – and came up to Ian to shake his hand.

„I'm so glad you could make it.“

„I'm surprised I did.. listen, next time I agree to „drop by“, make sure I'm in the proximity of wherever it is I want to visit, will you?“

„Oh god. Yes. How careless and thoughtless and mindless of us.“

„Indeed. So.. about this mystery ball.. or lack thereof!“

„Come, come.. I'll show you the field.. I can't explain it. When I woke up this morning I wondered if I had dreamt it all, but I went and checked and it was true. It's gone, vanished.. just like I wished last night!“, he added, remembering his words to the police officers.

„Ohye, maybe you rubbed it and a genie came out.. maybe it was a wishing ball.“, Ian said, somewhat sarcastically, but failing to use the sarcasm tone due to his tiredness.

„Okay, that goes beyond believeable“, the farmer answered, failing to see the joke.

Ian sighed, not wanting to correct him. Instead he just followed him around the side of the half wrecked farmhouse.

„How did you sleep?“, he asked, looking at the house.

„Oh, sleeping was no problem, my room is on the far side and undamaged. We have the dogs to keep off unwanted visitors or stray farm animals.“

Ian nodded. „I see.“

They went around the side of the house, and the farmer gestured towards the field.

„There. See for yourself.“