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Project Nemesis
"Lens Flare Phenomena"

It's been an hour and fifteen minutes. A kind of stress pressure has begun to form in the back of Corey's head, warning him he's been goofing off on duty for too long.  Chris usually grabbed him about now. He should try to busy himself with something important. But this chair he found was deceptively comfortable. And maybe it was the iconic image- FBI agent in a dank, dark basement mulling over a pale bench, lit by a single desk lamp- But he couldn't pull himself away.
        The building was secured hours ago. It was a drug raid gone bad. Rumor had it SWAT got pulled in. Some of them got killed. Young idiots on both sides, maybe. Very uncharacteristic for a small joint like this, though. Corey tended to ignore the rumors and hype Chris brought with him whenever they got called into something, trying to make something sound more interesting and weird than it actually was. But something weird was definitely going on, adding a tingling excitement as he basked in the hollow, yellow light.
        Over twenty-six thousand in coke confiscated? Check. Underage sex slaves? Okay, sure. Pirated DVDs of the Lion King? Bonus. Hell, make it kiddy porn and it'd be a mash-up of pretty regular nightmares, stereotypical to the 9-to-5 job. Then they found seventy plus corpses in the freezer. Shit just got weirder from there. Definitely weirder. Before you knew it, Tony gives you a ring at 2 a.m., and you're walking through caution tapes to a genuine asylum of absurd correlations. Chris was with Amber, going through a weapons cache that'd make any militant militiaman orgasm, hidden in the walls on the second floor, apparently conjoining with the next building over through a pulley system. Even Tony was rumored to be in the building, on the top floor, where there was a penthouse shagpad, complete with disco ball, deco art, and a dialysis station filled with hundreds of vials of blood. Apparently there was a live tiger up there also. Jace and Corey followed a cadre of 'coppas' into the depths, following a trail of fiber optic wire that was more Corey's tech-side specialty, which apparently led into a straight up superhero wonderland cave, full of Batman like gadgets and appliances and an armored car.  At the beginning of the steps, however, Corey got distracted by this nondescript desk, and as he began to linger by it, he was abandoned by the others to it and its hundreds of enticing faces.
        Distracted again, he leaned forward in the chair to a stack of said faces, and pincered a polaroidesque photo between his gloved fingers. A picture of some kid on a grassy knoll, his mug taking the left third of the shot. His face was calm-smiley, just a little too ambivalent to be smug. Tan brown, shaggy hair. Pretty boy with deep, entrancing hazel eyes. This kid looked into the camera, but didn't seem to see it. Artsy. Charming, even. One of dozens of fantastic 'creative arts major' style images- from social media printouts to family portraits taken out of the frames- once strewn about all over the desk, like a starving college student was cramming for a project the night before it was due, renting out the basement apartment under a mafia clownhouse.
        Corey set it back into its bunch out of the five stacks he had immediately compiled from the bunch when he was alone at the desk. It was a subtle case of OCD.  He pulled out a Facebook printout from another. He long ago gave up forming anymore rhyme or reason to them; and after numbing himself with complacency going through them a second or third time, he found he was enjoying perusing them. This piece- He'd call it, "The Gang". He giggled to himself at the campiness. Six highschool teenagers, underage drinking. Officially- morally, even, now that he was older- he opposed it. But he wasn't above acknowledging he saw himself in it. One of the girls even resembled his wife- ebony skin, straight hair, pounding a bottle of jack like a champ.
        This he considered a moment, while he blindly fished out a photo with his other hand, then held them juxtaposed, futilely looking for the link. It was a perfect example of the impossibility for finding one. This new photo he got from the 'last' pile. 'Pile #5.' When he began trying to sort the mess of images, he started by trying to recognize patterns. Indeed, the university homework was the first and only thing that came to mind- some thesis on youth maybe?- until he had found this one earlier.
        It was a dramatic still of a woman outside a leveled building, buckled to her knees, mid-blood curdling scream, a la Mary Ann Vecchio, eyes closed- Somehow you could still see the tears streaming in the dust. Somehow, you could smell the death she had seen crushed out of the tower behind her.
        It was one of the several jarring photos- compared to the idyllic pictures of children in diapers cooing to the Land Before Time series in the backdrop, or coeds enshrining their swan-song in a kiss. If he could hazard a guess, he'd estimate one in nine photos was a horrific expose of damnation- then immediately followed by birthday cake shenanigans and adult grandkids with grandma.
        He recognized some of the darker ones. This was the "KOIN Center Woman", slightly altered with some red circle markings from a pen. Several were other infamous captures of the Portland Natural Disasters, akin to this one- and he was willing to bet some others he didn't recognize were also, just less known. Maybe completely unknown- a lot appeared to be originals, and understandably unpolished and gruesome. Was this guy- this mafia basement, starving college student- there? Certainly not all the darker, edgier ones were from the PQD. One was baffling- He fumbled to trade the KOIN Center for it, spinning in his seat to rummage through Pile #5. He started mumbling his names for them off. All from the Disasters. "The river. The 'Shipwreck in the OMSI',"- that was disturbing enough to remember the formal title. A chillingly professional examination of some bodies in a forest- this probably not PDQ. "Kid on a knoll-"
        Corey paused again. He 'knew' he'd seen this one before. He hesitated to put down Facebook boos gang, mentally chastised himself, and put the knoll kid to the side- no, in front of the respective pile, Pile #5.
        Here it is. Purple light outside a blackout in Times Square. Couple peoples' shadows barely recognizable. And a hard mark in red ink smearing four circles around... black spots, maybe. It was a shitty photo. But Starving College Student found something important in it. Several somethings, all circled.
        When he first started milling through the photos, he realized there were legitimate, maybe even intentional categories. He had started to categorize by scene. Happy against not happy. Then quality shots (an exotic, hot chick posing in a gay strip club) to poor shots- some thankfully poor (pack of guys streaking through a park). Negative versions obviously existed- the pristine corpse shots images compared to these Time's Square phantoms with oversaturation and no flash.
        But then he noticed the markers. They were all pre-coded before Corey got here, with five predetermined categories. Even this Facebook pic was from Pile #2:  a small, nondescript nudge of a red dot hidden in the lower left. With the exception of the first pile, which had no markings, each following was noted with immediately inexplicable red-marker striking. All in Pile #2 had a single red dot- usually lower left for the frame of reference.  This had a slash- sometimes small, almost indicating a point or a plane- sometimes large, marking the entire photo, as if to discard it. Fourth had a single circle, usually center. And five- where admirably most of the 'angsty avant-garde' and morose content was placed- which had two to too many circles, clearly trying to draw attention to findings. These findings, however, like the knoll kid he had found again, didn't seem to find anything worth noting found. Both of grassy-knoll-kid's terrifyingly clear hazel eyes were circled, a cloud was circled, the horizon on his green knoll circled, and a sunspot deformity- all circled. Contrast with the KOIN woman, her knees, the rubble behind her- circled. But also a particle of dust, making it look like a tuft of cumulous through the smoking ruin. Circled.
        The knoll kid...
        Corey set the other photos down and began cycling through the first stack... There. Knoll kid. Two photos of knoll kid. He put the clean, unmarked photo next to the Pile #5 edited version, and moved the lamp to stare down at them.  ... Same kid, definitely... ... Same photo... Not same photo. The cloud is a little off. Kid's expression is even more aloof in the first. Red dot in lower left- Wait. It's from the wrong pile.
        Corey instinctively picked up Pile #2- Yes, he got this from Pile #1, but should've been with Pile #2. He motioned to pick up the belligerent photo when his thumb lost pressure control and- splash- Pile #2 slipped into a Pile #On the Floor. "Fuck." He kicked himself, and bent around his chair, not actually levitating out of it- heard some laughter upstairs, and checked his watch on his right wrist, its hand still clutching the one-red-dot photo of grassy-knoll. "FUCK," he growled again. Wasted way too long on this shit. He bent low again to reconstruct the pile...
        ...Grassy-knoll-kid? Corey did a double-take- in his hand, on the floor. He picked up with his left hand another of grassy-knoll off the floor. Still holding one-red-dot in his right, he repositioned it on the table. All three laid out. This new one had no marks. So he was half right- he put no mark in #2, and one mark in #1. Swapped them. Damnit Corey, always screwing things up. ...All three were mostly the same photo. But the subtleties... Grassy-knoll-kid is clearly aware of the camera in this one.
        Corey grabbed pile #3, dug through it with a purpose. Again! Grassy-knoll-kid, with a straight line streaking across his face in a muggy red. Corey put each in front of its respective piles- well, one-dot in front of where it would be if he hadn't dropped Pile #2 like an idiot. Then he perused #4.  Found him, with a single red circle around the kid's left eye. He put the fourth in its place, and stared.
        He checked through the piles again- no more of him; no other photos duplicated, but... Corey pulled out another Facebook printout from the first stack. Ten persons. One of which was definitely the girl from Boos Gang (his wife's doppelganger, her hair spiked at the tips, like low hanging black flower petals). Corey missed his wife. Left her in a rush three hours ago, dead of night, her clinging to him instinctively, not awake enough to be supportive vice needy. She still wasn't quite used to that- the midnight running out. It happened so much more rarely than they portrayed in the movies, probably because he was the nerd variety, not the ass kicking variety. He was ready to go home, but... There, in the Facebook photopost, next to his wife's irresponsible-youth-reflection on the couch, hand on her knee, between her and some crew cut angry guy with an arm around his shoulder:  Grassy-Knoll-Kid. His hazel eyes a little glared white in the flash.
        Sprawled around a giant couch were five guys and five gals. Corey had a habit of psychoanalyzing people. Bird of a feather meant that they would have some consistent themes. Were they jocks? Preps? College friends? No... No, the more he gazed, the more he realized something else bound them together. Too many of them were too uncomfortable outside of one or two other persons. They weren't friends. More like coworkers.
        Big, strong arms guy. Serious dude. Freak. Self-important alumni. Pretty girl (wifey). Hot girl. Fat chick. Quiet one. Then two in the center. Standing behind the couch, directly behind the grassy-knoll-kid, with a satisfied smirk, was a nondescript black-skinned woman, hair braided in dreads. And then grassy-knoll himself, a hearty smile of gold. These were what brought them together. The boss and the heart. A heart not looking into the camera really...
        Corey looked again at the five captions of Grassy-Knoll-Kid and their varying marks. The first, he knew he was being photo'd. The second, he seems to dislike it. Some discomfort. Third, he is plain... or maybe distracted. The line- the line that signified it was Pile#3 didn't cut through his face. It specifically seems to be marking the center of the two irises, and then a line conjoining them. Not a coincidence; the smudges are obviously a dot, dot, connect the dots. Fourth, single circle is around the eye, which has a little glare, but the expression is nothing more aloof. In the fifth, all the red circles, and the kid is looking at something else. Corey leaned close. What did he see? What did the knoll-kid see? What did Corey, himself, see?
        "He's cute."
        Corey bounced up startled to Tony and Amber. "Don't get up," Tony mused.
        "I was just-" Corey stammered.
        "What are they?" Amber asked, checking out the boy more now.
        "I'm not sure..." Corey tried to think of how to get out of the incoming ass chewing.
        "More photos..." Tony thought aloud.
        "More?" Corey blinked.
        "In the bird cage upstairs," Tony explained. "We found a safe, open. Full of these..." He picked up a photo- the No. 2- with his bare hand to Corey's chagrin. "...This kid is familiar."
        "One of the victims?" Amber asked.
        "No," Tony shook his head slightly.
        "Bodies?" Corey sighed, depressed.
        "No," Tony wondered. "... You remember the Quads?"
        "There are a few of those in here, too," Corey motioned to Pile #5. "Some of them are from media, but some are apparently amateur originals. Mostly the bloody stuff.... Why?"
        Tony stared longingly for a few more seconds before dropping the photo back on the desk. "A suspect."