The Undercover Icing

I've had some inquiries about this, so for the record the answer is yes, most posts from last month were in fact written while under the influence of powerful hallucinogens. To Jim in Boise and Colleen in Austin, excellent sleuthing. Your hunch was right on. And to Cosmic Fred in Tallahassee, congrats once again on a very good batch.

It goes without saying that any posts written during the time period —including the one you're reading— should be taken with a grain of salt, or perhaps a slug of whiskey. Any antagonistic or confused feelings resulting from such posts should be directed at the drugs, not at me. If I could go back and rewrite them sober I would, but at this point it's too much work. I'm just going to let them stand as a testimony to whacked out rambling.

I have no memory of any events during my psychedelic bender, but I've been able to piece together a rough chronology by talking to friends and family. My photos from the time period have also been a great help. They show that I spent much of my time foraging in the nearby woods, often at very close range to the ground. Concurrently I was gaining short-term fluency in several foreign languages. Most importantly sources tell me that I was contracted by an intelligence service (not at liberty to reveal their name) to conduct surveillance on a secret cell of photographers, the clandestine group known as Lightleak.



For the intelligence community my hire made obvious sense. They'd been attempting for years to penetrate the group without success. I was a Lightleaker in good standing. Even in my compromised state I was the perfect agent to go undercover. Nay, I was better than perfect, for if everything went as planned I would forget everything afterward. HQ could wash their hands of me. But they hadn't counted on the photos.

My surveillance instrument was a one-time disposable camera preloaded with Kodak 800 ASA color film. During the film era these were quite common. We passed them out to guests at my wedding and they returned the best photos of the night. But that was many years ago. Now these cameras are on the wane. You can still find them here and there, and sometimes with the right hallucinogens they can be found here, there and everywhere. Which is where I found mine.

Sources tell me I attended the meeting where I passed the camera around the circle. Each suspect took a few snapshots before giving the camera to the next person. I made sure that each person was photographed at least once. Within roughly an hour the roll was exhausted. I had reached stage two successfully. The group still suspected nothing. I had them in the palm of my hand.

What the group didn't know is that this was no ordinary camera. Before the meeting I'd replaced the preloaded 800 ASA film with X-ray surveillance film designed to be read by a custom spy scanner. If you haven't heard of it, it's a special film that can photograph thoughts. Don't ask how it works. It's a long story. Just...trust me. I know what you're thinking and I was skeptical too until I saw the photos. They look normal at first but after being spy scanned they show thoughts. For example a normal looking photo like this:


Reveals its true nature when put through the spy scanner:


You can see how it works by examining the two photos above, and the pair shown earlier in the post. The spy scanner carefully analyzes the X-ray film, retains the image of the suspect, and replaces the background with the last photograph contemplated by the suspect. It's one of those amazing why-didn't-I-think-of-that tools that has folks kicking themselves for not inventing it. Which is exactly what the intelligence community wants you to think you didn't invent.

Men tend to try not-thinking about porn a lot, not always successfully. Male photographers are among the worst perpetrators.



That's right, boys. Drink up. There'll be no liquor nor conniving where you're headed, not after Operation Lightleak.

The film records thoughts of paintings as well as photographs. This person was thinking about the Mona Lisa:



Ka-ching! In the surveillance community we refer to that as actionable intelligence, the kind of inside dope that can bring down a terrorist cell or in this case, a nest of scheming photographers.

Sources tell me the meeting went great. I returned home afterward and transferred the spy scans to HQ. It was just what they had hoped for, yet not dared themselves to. I was in line for a promotion.

Then it got rocky. Apparently Lightleak caught wind of what I was up to (I'm still trying shed light on the source of the leak). Two weeks ago they infiltrated my lab and made the X-Ray photos revert back to their original state. If you look at the film now it looks just like normal. Gotta hand it to them. Very clever.



Now here's where it gets weird. Although my memory of that time period has been erased, somehow the background memories of the people in the photos were transferred to me. I gained memory of specific images as if I'd experienced them. And not just any memory. Photographic memory.

Using my new power I've been able match memories with the original film to recreate spy scans in Photoshop which look exactly like the pre-sabotage versions. The images shown throughout this post are in fact recreations. Which is great but only up to a point. The problem is that while they may be suitable for piecing together past events, they won't hold up in court. So the Lightleakers are walking around today scot-free as if nothing happened. And judging by my memory I can't be sure it did.

But as you might guess I have a plan to get back at them. The next Lightleak meeting is scheduled for this week. I plan to attend. Obviously I can't bring a camera this time since that would be too suspicious. So I'm planning to record the meeting entirely via photographic memory transfer. I know what you're wondering. How can the memory transfer occur even after the drugs have cleared my system? Honestly I'm not certain it will work, but I'm hopeful. I ran a quick transfer test yesterday on the dog and that was a success, so I've reason to be cautiously optimistic.



But I digress. At this point Lightleak is my secondary concern. My main priority is re-establishing personal credibility. I know it's not a problem here. I know you believe me. But many in the outside world don't. All these stories about drugs and X-rays. Show me the original photos, they say. As if that would prove anything. As if!

Unfortunately my intelligence contacts are among the unbelievers. They won't return my phone calls. They act like they've never heard of me, even after I've sent them the recreated photos multiple times. On the one hand I can understand their logic. I know how intelligence services work. It's all about plausible deniability, washing hands, etc. The last thing they want is to be tied to a hallucinating photographer trying to rebuild his recent past while orchestrating the downfall of Lightleak. Still, the abruptness with which I've been let go has caught even a seasoned agent like me by surprise. And I have to admit it hurts a little.

Which is why I've decided to go public with all of this now. If HQ thought I would slink home and forget about all of this they're mistaken (the past month excepted). Instead my termination has only fueled my determination. I'm hoping this post will exert public pressure on them to acknowledge the truth of these events. And if I can figure out what the hell happened last month in the process, that's just icing on the cake.