Max Mercer’s latest paying job began as a funny fortune cookie mystery and became a criminal investigation shortly after he ate the evidence. In his defense, nobody had labeled the plate. In everyone else’s defense, restaurant owner Mei Lin had said, “Please don’t eat the evidence,” twice.

Now she watched him chew.

“Was that the one about the jewelry store?” she asked.

Max stopped.

Somewhere beneath his scorched utility vest, his stomach accepted a promotion to evidence locker.

“How important,” he asked, “was the exact wording?”

A Prediction with a Police Report

Mei slid three paper fortunes across a booth at the Lucky Lantern.

The first read: A man with many watches will soon lose track of time.

“Henderson’s Watch Repair,” she said. “Burglarized Monday.”

The second read: Your neighbor’s silver will brighten another home.

“The Whitcomb house. Tuesday.”

The third read: A locked door is merely an invitation to someone with ambition.

Max frowned. “That one could be a motivational speaker with boundary issues.”

Mei placed the police report beside it.

“Three businesses. Same street. Wednesday.”

Outside, a delivery scooter backfired. Max ducked beneath the table, caught his goggles on a chair, and emerged wearing a napkin like a ceremonial bib.

“Good instincts,” said the rider entering the restaurant. “Usually it does that twice.”

The scooter backfired again.

Scooter Lee set down a cookie carton. His helmet bore a sticker reading I BRAKE FOR TIPS.

“Fresh batch from Carmine’s,” he said. “Also, your alley dumpster is smoking.”

“Your exhaust is pointing into it,” Mei replied.

“That would explain why it follows me.”

Max examined the carton’s invoice. Carmine’s Custom Cookies supplied restaurants, hotels, and tonight’s police charity banquet at the Grand Regent.

At last, a straightforward lead.

“I’ll follow the paper supply chain,” he announced. “Quietly inspect the printer. Find the source.”

Mei glanced at his mismatched gloves, duct-taped belt, and half-eaten evidence.

“Can you do quietly?”

“I can start quietly.”

Cookie Cutter Carmine

Carmine’s factory smelled of vanilla, warm sugar, and a business that strongly preferred cash.

Scooter brought Max through the loading entrance, introducing him as “the printer guy.” This was technically fair. During his government career, Max had stood near several printers. One had survived.

Inside, paper rolls fed a digital printer. Farther along, workers tucked the fortunes into warm cookies before folding and wrapping them. A conveyor carried the finished packets toward labeled delivery bins.

Mei followed with the suspicious slips sealed in a clear bag.

“I’m staying,” she told Max. “For chain of custody.”

She moved the bag away from his mouth.

A broad man in a spotless apron stepped from the office. He had slicked hair, a gold pinkie ring, and the expression of someone who charged interest on apologies.

“Carmine,” he said. “People call me Cookie Cutter.”

“Because of the cookies?” Max asked.

Carmine stared until the question withdrew itself.

Mei showed him the fortunes. “These arrived in my regular orders.”

“Printing mix-up,” Carmine said immediately. “Private novelty batch. I’ll refund you.”

He sounded less like a man hearing about burglaries than a man hearing about incorrect postage.

Then Max noticed two stacks of packing labels. Ordinary deliveries used blue. A smaller set used red crowns, matching a tiny symbol on Mei’s slips.

Beside them lay a routing sheet. Its columns listed locations, times, and assigned crews. Several addresses matched the police reports.

Max leaned closer.

Carmine laid a heavy hand over the page.

“Corporate team-building,” he said.

From the office, somebody shouted, “Boss, where do we put the stolen clocks?”

Carmine never blinked.

“Very competitive teams.”

The Quiet Inspection Gets Saucy

Carmine ushered the shouting employee into his office and closed the door.

Meanwhile, Mei photographed the routing sheet. Max approached the printer with the careful confidence of a man who had learned nothing from being fired.

Its screen showed three saved jobs: DAILY WISDOM, CREW RECALL, and POLICE CHARITY BANQUET.

He opened the recall job.

All crews: Report to [LOCATION] at [TIME]. Bring all tools and collected goods. Await Carmine. No exceptions.

Beneath the message sat the red crown.

“They aren’t predictions,” Mei whispered. “They’re orders.”

The restaurant deliveries provided cover. Certain customers collected marked cookie packets containing the next assignment. A few had slipped into ordinary cartons, giving Mei an accidental preview of the crimes.

“So the cookie is the envelope,” Max said.

“Yes.”

“And I ate the envelope.”

“And the letter.”

Max reached for his phone. His elbow struck a sample cup of sticky plum sauce beside the keyboard.

The sauce poured between the keys.

The screen flickered. Max grabbed a packing card to scrape it away, inadvertently dragging the banquet’s venue field into the open recall template.

GRAND REGENT — TABLE EIGHT — 7:30 P.M.

“Don’t press anything,” Mei said.

“Absolutely.”

He set down the card.

It landed on PRINT ALL.

The machine began producing fortunes with the enthusiasm of a government office discovering a new form.

Max tried to lift the sticky card. Instead, he pulled the keyboard off its shelf. His boot caught the cable, and he toppled backward onto the conveyor.

“I’ve found another problem!” he called.

The belt carried him toward packaging.

A Funny Fortune Cookie Mystery Goes to Dinner

Max traveled through the factory feet first, collecting wrapped cookies in his vest pockets.

A labeling machine slapped HANDLE WITH CARE across his forehead.

“Finally,” he said. “Clear instructions.”

Mei hit the conveyor’s emergency stop before he reached the carton sealer. Max slid another six inches and came to rest against a box marked ASSORTED NUTS.

She looked at the box, then at him.

“Don’t,” he said.

Behind them, the independently powered printer kept running. Workers filled the waiting orders with the fresh slips. Red-crown packets went into the crew delivery trays; the remaining cookies filled the banquet cartons.

Scooter appeared with his trolley.

“Seven regular stops, then the Grand Regent. Are these ready?”

Max saw the stacks gathering beside the conveyor he had just obstructed. Hoping to undo one small inconvenience, he loaded every finished tray onto the trolley.

“Ready,” he said. “Possibly ahead of schedule.”

Scooter wheeled them out and strapped the load onto his cargo scooter.

Only then did Mei catch a loose fortune drifting from the printer.

She read it aloud.

“All crews: Report to Grand Regent, Table Eight, at seven-thirty. Bring all tools and collected goods. Await Carmine. No exceptions.”

Max looked toward the departing scooter.

Its exhaust coughed.

“That’s the police banquet,” he said.

“Yes.”

“How many police?”

“It’s their banquet.”

The office door opened.

Carmine saw the screen, the sauce, and the fortune in Mei’s hand.

For several seconds, his face attempted to leave without him.

“Where,” he asked, “are my deliveries?”

Outside, Scooter backfired a second time.

Table Eight Is Expecting You

Carmine snatched his car keys and ran.

Mei immediately called Detective Pickles, sent him the photographs, and explained the altered orders. Then she drove Max to the Grand Regent.

“Shouldn’t we chase Carmine?” Max asked.

“We’re going to the same place.”

“Right. Efficient.”

Across town, Scooter completed his usual stops. At a pool hall, a pawnshop, and several other collection points, Carmine’s crew members opened their marked cookies.

Each message carried the boss’s familiar red crown and favorite closing threat: NO EXCEPTIONS.

At the pool hall, a burglar named Vince studied his slip.

“Why a hotel?” asked his partner.

“Inventory meeting.”

“With all the stuff?”

“Last time you questioned him, he made you count every stolen cuff link.”

His partner fetched the van.

Meanwhile, Detective Pickles stood near Table Eight in a suit that looked disappointed to attend. Beside him, volunteers arranged donated gardening tools and gift baskets for the charity auction.

He opened a cookie from an older basket.

Lower your expectations.

Then Max entered wearing a shipping label on his forehead.

Pickles folded the fortune.

“Ahead of you.”

Mei showed him the new message. Pickles read it twice, then quietly alerted the officers around the room. Two moved toward the exits. Others stayed seated near Table Eight.

“Let me confirm this,” he said to Max. “You redirected an entire burglary crew here?”

“I was trying to wipe up sauce.”

Pickles took a slow breath.

“Of course you were.”

The Burglars Bring Their Own Evidence

The first burglar arrived at seven twenty-eight carrying a velvet sack and a crowbar.

A volunteer pointed him toward Table Eight.

“Auction donations?”

“Depends what Carmine calls them now.”

Next came two men with framed paintings. Behind them, a woman wheeled in a suitcase that ticked with the combined anxiety of forty stolen watches.

Soon, the entire crew stood beside the auction display, comparing identical instructions.

“Lot of cops,” Vince murmured.

His partner surveyed the room. “Must be a good cover.”

Detective Pickles approached.

“Evening. What have you brought us?”

Vince opened a ledger. “Full inventory. Carmine gets particular about receipts.”

Pickles inspected a watch with an evidence photograph open on his phone.

“And these came from Henderson’s?”

“Every last one. Tell him we didn’t hold anything back.”

Across the room, Carmine burst through a service entrance.

“Nobody say another word!”

Everyone turned.

“Those are my watches!” he shouted. “And my silver! You idiots were supposed to bring them to the warehouse!”

Pickles tucked away his phone.

“Thank you for clearing up the ownership structure.”

The crew looked at Carmine. Then at their cookies. Then at approximately sixty people professionally equipped to spoil their evening.

Vince shut the ledger.

“I’d like to complain about the instructions.”

Carmine bolted for the service exit.

Max stepped backward to give the pursuing officers room. His utility belt caught the handle of an empty serving trolley and rolled it across the doorway.

Carmine struck it at thigh height, tipped into its upper shelf, and sailed three feet into a tower of empty dessert boxes.

The crash silenced the banquet.

Max winced.

“Sorry! That was supposed to help you get through!”

Pickles cuffed Carmine while nearby officers secured the crew and their obligingly labeled inventory.

From beneath a box printed A SWEET ENDING, Carmine glared at Max.

“Who trained you?”

Max considered his former government employer.

“They’d prefer I didn’t say.”

A Fortune Max Can Believe

By nine o’clock, the police had recovered the stolen goods, secured the crew’s ledger, and sent officers to Carmine’s factory.

The charity auction resumed after volunteers removed several donations whose owners had not actually donated them.

Scooter stayed for dinner.

“Best delivery shift I’ve had,” he told Mei. “Seven stops, one banquet, complimentary noodles.”

At Table Eight, Detective Pickles opened his notebook.

“For my report, what was your intended strategy?”

“Follow the paper supply chain. Quietly inspect the printer.”

Pickles looked at the sauce on Max’s glove.

“And the banquet?”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen… but I’ll take it!”

Mei handed Max his payment envelope.

“You saved my restaurant’s reputation,” she said. “And helped catch the people using my deliveries.”

Max brightened.

“So you’d recommend me?”

“I’d describe you accurately. People can decide.”

She placed one final cookie beside his plate.

Max cracked it carefully, removed the paper, and held it up where everyone could see.

“Learning,” he said.

The fortune read: Your greatest contribution is yet to come.

Pickles reached across the table and quietly moved the sauce out of reach.

The Misfire — Every plan backfires… into success.

Would you trust Max with your next mystery—or just your takeout order? Tell us in the comments, and explore more Chaos for Hire adventures on The Misfire Comics.

The post The Fortune Cookie Felony: A Funny Fortune Cookie Mystery appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

Max Mercer had twenty-three minutes to return a rental bicycle. That should have ruled out another funny Amsterdam superhero adventure. Unfortunately, a criminal mastermind, twelve robotic cargo bikes, and a goose with no respect for traffic signals had other plans.

His phone vibrated.

RETURN REMINDER: Additional charges may apply.

Max studied the message with the expression usually reserved for bomb countdowns.

“Not this time,” he whispered.

After Scotland, his travel insurance company had added a question specifically about bagpipes. He could not afford another financial setback.

He tightened his borrowed rain poncho over his scorched utility vest. Then he checked his supplies: one broken signal detector, half a cheese sandwich, and a bicycle lock thick enough to restrain a small submarine.

All he needed was the rental office.

Across the street, a banner read:

VAN BLOOM INTERNATIONAL FLOWER AUCTION — RETURNS AND DELIVERIES AT REAR.

“Finally,” Max said. “Clear instructions.”

Baron Bulb Plants a Very Expensive Scheme

Inside the auction hall, Anika Van Bloom raised her gavel over a room full of wealthy collectors.

“Our next lot is the Midnight Empress collection. Six exceptionally rare tulip bulbs.”

At the back, Baron Bulb adjusted his purple velvet jacket. His lapel held a fresh tulip. His expression suggested he charged admission to smell it.

“Begin the bidding,” he murmured into his cuff.

Three hired bidders raised their paddles. Fake overseas accounts joined them on the screen, pushing the price higher. Across the room, an unsuspecting collector leaned forward.

The Baron smiled. By closing time, genuine buyers would have paid enormous sums for ordinary bulbs in impressive boxes. The rare originals already sat inside his cargo fleet behind the building.

False bottoms concealed a second prize: stolen hardware wallets and recovery records belonging to the auction’s international clients.

His autonomous bicycles would carry everything to a canal warehouse. From there, a private boat would take him away.

“Quiet transport,” he told his assistant. “No getaway drivers. No witnesses who demand a percentage.”

Outside, Max looped his rental lock around the nearest sturdy metal rail.

The rail belonged to the lead cargo bicycle.

Its screen lit up.

TRAILER ATTACHMENT DETECTED.

“Very welcoming,” Max said.

He went inside to find someone who could process his return.

Meanwhile, a goose crossed against a red light. Bicycle officer Bram Bell stopped and pointed at the signal.

The goose stared at him, then entered a one-way lane going the wrong way.

Bram opened his notebook.

“You again.”

The Wrong Desk and the Wrong Destination

Max reached the auction floor just as Anika announced, “Do I have ninety thousand?”

He raised his rental receipt.

“Ninety thousand to the gentleman in the emergency poncho.”

Max lowered his hand so quickly that he punched himself in the sandwich.

“No. Sorry. Bicycle return.”

Every head turned.

Baron Bulb noticed the ski goggles, mismatched gloves, and duct tape. He recognized Max from a security briefing titled UNPREDICTABLE INTERFERENCE: DO NOT PROVIDE MACHINERY.

The Baron immediately spoke into his cuff.

“Move the fleet. The Misfire is here.”

Anika leaned toward Max.

“Sir, this is a flower auction.”

“That explains the prices. I thought your late fees were ambitious.”

An assistant hurried toward the rear exit. Max followed, assuming someone had finally found the bicycle department.

Outside, the lead cargo bike rolled forward. His rental bicycle lurched after it, still chained to the rail.

“Oh, good. Automated returns.”

Max jumped onto his saddle before it could scrape along the ground. The cargo bike stopped at the loading gate, its navigation screen asking for confirmation.

He leaned across and entered the address from his receipt.

Unfortunately, he typed 18 Bell Yard instead of 81 Bell Yard.

The screen offered BELL YARD — SERVICE ENTRANCE.

Max tapped it.

CONVOY DESTINATION UPDATED.

Behind him, eleven cargo bicycles rang their bells in perfect unison.

“Lovely,” he said. “They’ve accepted the return.”

Baron Bulb burst through the loading doors.

“Stop those bicycles!”

Max glanced back.

“I’m trying to! That’s the whole transaction!”

The loading gate opened. The fleet accelerated.

The Baron lunged for the final bicycle, landed across its cargo box, and departed with his expensive shoes pointing at the sky.

A Funny Amsterdam Superhero Adventure Takes a Wrong Turn

The convoy followed a route through the auction’s canal-side demonstration grounds. Ahead stood a restored windmill beside a new automated delivery checkpoint.

A sign read:

SMART LOGISTICS FOR A GREENER TOMORROW.

Max’s tomorrow was already looking expensive.

His rental bicycle wobbled beside the leader, tethered by the heavy lock. He rang his bell politely.

“Excuse me. Could we downgrade to a less urgent return?”

At the checkpoint, a waist-high sensor arm reached toward the convoy. A yellow device clipped to the lead bike blinked in response.

Max ducked beneath the arm.

His poncho did not.

The fabric caught on the sensor housing, stretched tight, and pulled Max backward. He grabbed the yellow device for balance. Its clip snapped.

The poncho tore free with a noise like an angry parachute.

Max shot forward clutching the device. Meanwhile, the trailing fabric slapped the checkpoint’s large demonstration button.

FOLLOW-BEACON MODE ENABLED.

Every cargo bike turned toward him.

He looked at the blinking gadget in his glove.

“Is this my receipt?”

The lead bike swung across his front wheel. His rental lock slid off its open-ended rail, freeing him with a metallic clank.

For one glorious second, Max thought the problem had solved itself.

Then twelve cargo bicycles pivoted together.

FOLLOWING LEADER.

“I’m fairly sure I’m the customer!”

At the rear, Baron Bulb hauled himself upright and stabbed at his remote.

MANUAL OVERRIDE REQUIRES STATIONARY VEHICLES.

“Then make them stationary!”

PLEASE STOP THE CONVOY TO CONTINUE.

The Baron made a sound normally associated with garden equipment swallowing a fork.

Max pedaled harder. Every cargo bicycle followed.

Above the checkpoint, one surviving scrap of poncho fluttered from the windmill sensor like a tiny flag of surrender.

The Goose Has Right of Way

Officer Bram Bell heard the bells before he saw the convoy.

Max rounded a corner with his torn poncho flapping behind him. Twelve cargo bicycles followed in a precise line. A purple-clad man clung to the last one.

Bram lifted his radio.

“Possible theft in progress. Multiple bicycles. One extremely distressed aristocrat.”

Before dispatch could answer, Anika called the police. She had opened a presentation box and found a supermarket bulb with its discount sticker attached.

“Baron Bulb has stolen the collection,” she said. “And something is wrong with our clients’ secure storage cabinet.”

Bram watched the Baron slap at a bicycle that refused to acknowledge his social standing.

“I believe I have your suspect.”

Ahead, Max approached an intersection. The light turned red.

He braked. So did the fleet.

The Baron finally raised his remote in triumph.

Then the goose stepped into the crossing against its signal and bit Max’s shoelace.

“We discussed boundaries!” Max shouted, kicking his foot free.

The light changed. He accelerated before the goose could renegotiate.

The fleet moved. The Baron’s override screen vanished.

He stared at the bird.

“You feathered administrative obstacle!”

The goose took this personally.

It ran after the last bicycle, briefly overtook it on the wrong side, and attacked the Baron’s dangling cravat.

Meanwhile, Max’s phone announced, “Your destination is ahead.”

A blue sign pointed toward a courtyard. Beyond the open gate stood bicycle racks, uniformed staff, and a service window.

At last. Professionals.

Bram rode alongside him.

“Sir, take the next entrance.”

“Is that the return desk?”

Bram looked at the stolen cargo, then at Max.

“Today it is.”

Special Delivery for the Amsterdam Police

Max coasted into the police courtyard and stopped beside the service window.

The lead cargo bicycle parked behind him. Eleven more arranged themselves in two neat rows, each keeping its sensor pointed at the beacon in his hand.

Officers closed the gate.

Baron Bulb dropped from the final cargo box, straightened his jacket, and tried to look like a man attending a charitable luncheon.

“I would like to report a kidnapping.”

The goose squeezed through the closing gate.

The Baron climbed back onto the box.

Bram approached Max.

“May I have that device?”

Max surrendered the beacon.

“Absolutely. I don’t want the premium package.”

The officers secured the bicycles and opened the cargo compartments. Inside sat labeled trays of rare tulip bulbs. Beneath them, the false bottoms held the missing digital valuables and the Baron’s auction records.

Anika arrived as an officer lifted out the Midnight Empress collection.

“They’re all here.”

She turned toward Max.

“You recovered the entire shipment.”

“I was told to use the rear entrance.”

Baron Bulb pointed an accusing finger at him.

“He sabotaged a transport network worth millions!”

Bram examined the open cargo box.

“And delivered the evidence in numbered containers. That was considerate.”

Anika folded her arms.

“You replaced my rare tulips with bargain bulbs?”

“The packaging was exceptional,” the Baron said.

Two officers led him away. He tried to maintain his dignity until the goose tugged his cravat through a gap between their legs.

Max winced.

“Sorry about your scarf.”

“It is a cravat!”

“Sorry about your cravat situation.”

Behind them, a cargo bike chimed.

DELIVERY COMPLETE.

The Most Expensive Free Bicycle Ride

An hour later, Max stood outside the correct rental office beside Anika and Officer Bell.

Anika had explained the recovered tulips. Bram had explained the arrests. Max had explained that the scratch on the bicycle was probably already there.

The clerk checked his screen.

“You’re late.”

Max closed his eyes.

“He brought an international criminal to justice,” Anika said.

“That’s very nice. Six euros.”

Bram cleared his throat.

The clerk sighed and waived the fee.

“But the promotional poncho was company property.”

Max looked down at the two strips of plastic hanging from his shoulders.

“How promotional was it?”

“Twelve euros.”

Anika paid before he could negotiate himself into a mortgage.

Outside, a local photographer asked how he had identified the Baron’s escape route.

Max considered the question.

“I entered the wrong address.”

The photographer nodded appreciatively.

“Misdirection.”

“Mostly direction problems.”

Bram handed him the heavy bicycle lock.

“You forgot this.”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Max said, looking back toward the police station. “But I’ll take it.”

Across the street, the goose stepped past a NO ENTRY sign and boarded a sightseeing boat.

Bram reached for his notebook.

Max gently lowered his hand.

“Let it go. That one has international connections.”

The Misfire — Every plan backfires… into success.

Missed Max’s previous disaster? Read Chapter 4, The Loch Ness Mess, then explore more International Man of Mischief adventures on The Misfire Comics.

The post Tulip Bubble Trouble: A Funny Amsterdam Superhero Adventure appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

“Mostly snacks,” Max said. “One thing that might open garage doors.”

“Does it?”

“Not garages I recognize.”

Three hours earlier, the city’s most accidental hero had stopped a runaway tram by trying to validate his parking. Now Channel 11 wanted an exclusive interview with The Misfire.

Max wanted to go home before anyone checked the parking meter.

His plan fit on one index card: read two prepared sentences, thank the real heroes, and leave.

Across town, a villain adjusted a silver microphone and prepared to take control of every television in the city.

Only one of them had rehearsed.

Two Sentences, One National Incident

Dana Deadpan sat behind the news desk with the calm expression of someone who had reported three sinkholes and her own divorce without changing her tone.

“Relax,” she told Max. “This is a friendly interview.”

“Will there be questions?”

“That is the traditional obstacle.”

Max checked his index card.

I’m grateful everyone is safe. The real heroes are the emergency crews.

Underneath, he had written: DO NOT EXPLAIN THE PARKING.

A makeup artist approached with powder, examined his scorched boots, mismatched gloves, and duct-taped vest, then quietly returned with a lint roller.

Nearby, meteorologist Stormy Weathers guarded a sleek silver box beside the weather console.

“Our prototype voice modulator,” Stormy explained. “It keeps weather alerts clear over interference.”

“Does it work?”

“It made the pollen report sound like a hostage negotiation.”

Before Max could ask whether the pollen had escaped, a floor manager pointed toward his chair.

“Live in five.”

Max sat.

Something beneath him clicked.

Camera Two lunged forward on its motorized pedestal.

“Four.”

He shifted his weight.

Camera One tilted toward the ceiling.

“Three.”

Max reached under his leg and found a remote with more buttons than his last apartment had electrical outlets.

“Two.”

He tried to put it down.

The camera zoomed directly into Dana’s left nostril.

“One.”

Dana looked into the remaining usable lens.

“Good evening. Tonight, an unusually close look at local journalism.”

Max waved.

The remote clicked again.

Behind them, the giant studio screen displayed a photograph of a casserole.

A Funny Superhero Television Interview Goes Off Script

“Max,” Dana began, “how did you stop that runaway tram?”

Max raised his index card.

“I’m grateful everyone is safe.”

“Of course. But witnesses say you launched a parking kiosk through a bakery window.”

“The real heroes are the emergency crews.”

“Were they operating the kiosk?”

Max turned the card over.

It offered no support.

Meanwhile, beneath an overpass, the Broadcaster stood inside a black communications truck surrounded by monitors. His velvet cape hung from padded shoulders, and a chrome headset curved around his carefully moisturized jaw.

On a secure video call, Precision studied the station schematics.

“The emergency transmitter is yours,” she said. “Begin the subliminal signal at ten exactly. Keep it beneath the normal audio.”

“Soon, every mind in this city will obey my voice.”

“Your instructions are to open the municipal vault and erase the security logs.”

“And subscribe to my premium channel.”

“No.”

“An audience must be cultivated.”

“An arrest must be avoided.”

On his largest monitor, Max stood up too early.

Precision leaned forward.

“Why is Mercer there?”

The Broadcaster glanced at the screen. “Human-interest segment.”

“Abort.”

“It’s a man holding a piece of cardboard.”

“Yes,” Precision said. “That is how these things begin.”

Back in the studio, Max spotted what appeared to be an exit beside a large green wall.

Unfortunately, it was the weather set.

On viewers’ screens, his green vest vanished into the map, leaving his head, gloves, and a packet of cheese crackers drifting over the county.

Stormy stepped into frame.

“We’re seeing a confused system moving east.”

“Is this the hallway?” Max whispered.

“Not since renovations.”

Max backed through a cold front and knocked the weather console with his belt.

The regional radar began a full diagnostic sweep.

Stormy watched a new panel open.

“I’ve been asking engineering to enable that for six months.”

“Happy to help,” Max said.

He stepped sideways and accidentally forecast his own head making landfall on Thursday.

The Broadcaster Interrupts This Disaster

At ten o’clock, every studio monitor flickered.

The Broadcaster’s face replaced the weather map.

“Citizens,” he announced, “your regularly scheduled programming has ended.”

Dana touched her earpiece.

“Is this the mayor?”

A low pulse slipped beneath the villain’s voice.

Across the city, viewers stopped reaching for their remotes. In the studio, the floor manager straightened. A camera operator stared ahead. Stormy began smoothing the same corner of his tie.

Max frowned at the monitor.

“Is that our next guest?”

“I am the Broadcaster.”

“Nice to meet you. Sorry I ran through your weather.”

“Silence.”

“Absolutely. I’ve already used both my sentences.”

Inside the truck, Precision’s voice cut through the secure call.

“Mute his microphone.”

“He is apologizing.”

“That is the dangerous phase.”

The Broadcaster ignored her.

“First, you will listen. Then, you will obey.”

Max knew the feeling. His former government supervisor had opened every staff meeting that way.

He unclipped his microphone, hoping someone more qualified could take over.

The cable caught on a snack pouch.

He tugged.

The microphone sprang free, bounced off Stormy’s mug, and dropped directly into an open service slot in the control console.

A sharp pop cracked through the studio speakers.

Everyone flinched.

Stormy stopped adjusting his tie.

“Why am I saluting the humidity?”

Max crouched beside the console.

“I think I dropped journalism in there.”

He tried to brace himself on the desk. Instead, his mismatched glove landed squarely on the silver voice modulator.

A blue light blinked.

LIVE VOICE PROCESSING: ENABLED.

The Broadcaster’s image grew larger.

“Do not touch that equipment.”

Max looked up.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt your interruption.”

His apology came out in the deep, rolling voice of a cathedral experiencing stomach trouble.

Sorry Seems to Be the Loudest Word

The studio shook.

Inside the console, Max’s fallen microphone rested against an exposed monitoring speaker. His voice looped through it, fed into the modulator, and returned louder.

“SORRY.”

A second version followed, several octaves higher.

“SORRY.”

Then a third, sounding like a disappointed submarine.

The Broadcaster grabbed his headset.

“What are you doing?”

“Apologizing,” Max said.

“STOP.”

“Sorry!”

The console howled.

Across the city, the villain’s hidden pulse broke apart beneath a rapidly multiplying chorus of remorse. Viewers blinked, shook their heads, and wondered why they suddenly felt guilty about changing channels.

At a municipal security desk, a guard stopped halfway through unlocking the vault controls.

He looked down at his hand.

Then he put his sandwich back where it belonged.

Inside the station, Dana removed her earpiece and laid it carefully on the desk.

“For viewers just joining us,” she said, “a man in gardening gloves appears to have defeated television.”

Precision slapped both palms against her workstation.

“I told you to mute him.”

The Broadcaster stabbed at his controls. His hijacked emergency link was pulling the feedback straight into the truck’s transmission system.

He cut the studio feed.

The signal kept screaming.

On his screen, a helpful notice appeared.

EMERGENCY BROADCAST LOCK ENGAGED.

Below it:

THIS FEATURE PREVENTS UNAUTHORIZED INTERRUPTION.

Precision read the notice.

“You installed a lockout on your own override.”

“For security.”

She closed her eyes.

Max finally managed to reach the microphone cable.

Unfortunately, it had wrapped around the console’s chair wheel.

He pulled.

The chair rolled into his knees.

Max sat down hard.

From the remote still in his back pocket came a small, decisive click.

Every studio camera turned toward him.

Dana glanced at the nearest lens.

“And now, complete coverage.”

Stormy Weathers Predicts Scattered Arrests

At the weather console, Stormy noticed a bright red smear cutting across the diagnostic display.

“That isn’t a storm.”

Max froze.

“Is it my head again?”

“No. It’s interference.”

The station’s experimental radar interference tracker had marked the source of the unauthorized transmission. As the feedback flooded the hijacked link, the red smear narrowed into a location beside the canal.

Stormy overlaid the street map.

“There. Under the Riverside overpass.”

Dana looked toward him.

“Can you confirm?”

Stormy enlarged the traffic-camera feed from the nearby intersection.

A black truck stood beneath the bridge. Its roof bristled with antennas.

The side read:

ORDINARY FLOWERS

Below that, in smaller lettering:

NO BROADCAST EQUIPMENT

Dana studied the image.

“That seems unnecessarily specific.”

She turned back to her camera.

“Police responding to tonight’s emergency may wish to visit the extremely ordinary flower truck beneath the Riverside overpass.”

Inside the mobile headquarters, the Broadcaster heard sirens.

Precision was already gathering her notes.

“Where are you going?” he demanded.

“To revise my contingency plan.”

“What does it say?”

“It used to say ‘If Mercer appears.’”

“And now?”

“‘When Mercer appears.’”

Her screen went black.

The Broadcaster snatched off his headset and lunged for the rear door.

Outside, a police officer ordered him to keep his hands visible.

“I demand a platform!” the villain shouted.

The officer pointed toward the step beneath the truck’s bumper.

“You’ve got one. Come down slowly.”

Back in the studio, Max freed the microphone.

The feedback stopped.

Silence settled over the room.

Then the loose microphone dropped from his glove and landed in Stormy’s coffee.

Stormy watched it sink.

“That was my backup coffee.”

The Hero Who Wanted to Be the Sidekick

By ten seventeen, police had arrested the Broadcaster, the emergency transmitter belonged to the station again, and the city had returned to ignoring local television voluntarily.

Dana faced Max across the news desk.

“You disrupted a subliminal attack and exposed the villain’s location. How did you know the voice modulator would cancel his signal?”

Max looked toward Stormy.

Stormy folded his arms.

Max looked toward the floor manager.

The floor manager held up a handwritten sign.

DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING.

Finally, Max found his index card beneath a cracker.

“The real heroes are the emergency crews.”

Dana waited.

“And Stormy,” he added. “He found the flower man.”

“For once,” Stormy said, “a forecast led directly to an arrest.”

Dana turned to the camera.

“Tomorrow, we’ll examine whether the city owes its survival to courage, advanced technology, or a man sitting incorrectly.”

Max leaned toward her.

“Did I do okay as the sidekick?”

For the first time all evening, Dana almost smiled.

“You’ll hear from our insurance company.”

Across town, Precision opened a fresh document.

MERCER RESPONSE PROTOCOL

She typed one sentence:

Never allow him near a microphone.

After a moment, she added:

Or furniture.

At the station, the producer hurried onto the set.

“The clip is everywhere. We’d love to have you back for a weekly segment.”

Max stared at her.

He had prepared no sentences for this.

“I should probably check with the real heroes.”

“We’ll call it Totally Part of the Plan.”

Behind him, a camera pivoted, clipped the weather desk, and knocked an entire bowl of promotional stress balls onto the floor.

Max looked down at the remote protruding from his pocket.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen… but I’ll take it!”

Dana watched the stress balls bounce past her shoes.

“Coming up at eleven,” she said, “damage.”

The Misfire — Every plan backfires… into success.

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The post News at Eleven, Disaster at Ten: A Funny Superhero Television Interview appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

Max Mercer had handled kidnappings before. Usually, he caused them by accident. However, this was the first time anyone had hired him to rescue a victim with four legs, a championship pedigree, and better hair than most movie stars.

This funny detective story with a dog began at 9:17 on a Thursday morning. That was when a white limousine stopped outside the basement office of Chaos for Hire. It blocked two parking spaces, one fire hydrant, and the only sunlight that had reached Max’s window all week.

The rear door opened. Countess Natalia Barkova stepped onto the sidewalk in a silver coat, dark glasses, and enough diamonds to interfere with local radio reception. An assistant followed her carrying an insultingly well-groomed white poodle on a velvet cushion.

The poodle looked through the basement window and sneered.

Max had never seen a dog sneer before. Somehow, this one had mastered it.

“Mr. Mercer,” the countess said as she entered his office, “I require discretion, courage, and complete competence.”

Max swept three broken gadgets and half a pastrami sandwich into his desk drawer.

“You’ve definitely come to the right building,” he said.

The countess placed a photograph on his desk. It showed a magnificent silver Borzoi standing beside a trophy taller than Max. Around the dog’s neck glittered a wide platinum collar covered in red, blue, and clear stones.

“This is Grand Duke Maximilian Volkov the Third,” she said. “Maxi to his friends.”

“Great name,” said Max.

“He disappeared from his grooming suite this morning. The Metropolitan City Dog Show begins at noon. He must be found before the championship parade.”

The poodle gave a tiny cough that sounded suspiciously like laughter.

“And the collar?” Max asked.

“Priceless to my family,” said the countess. “Worth one million dollars to my insurance company.”

Max opened a fresh case file and wrote: Find rich dog. Avoid losing rich collar. Do not pet poodle without written consent.

Then he underlined the word dog twice. He was officially a detective.

The Experimental Scent Scanner

Max’s plan was simple. That should have worried everyone.

He removed a device from his utility belt. It resembled a television remote taped to a toaster. Three colored wires dangled from the back, while a green radar screen blinked on the front.

“The G.R.I.T. Experimental Olfactory Acquisition Tracker,” Max announced. “I found it in a box marked ‘Rejected Prototypes—Do Not Activate Near Ham.’”

The countess lowered her glasses. “Does it work?”

“It beeped at a meatball once.”

Max needed something that carried Maxi’s scent. The countess handed him a silver hair from the missing dog’s monogrammed brush. He opened the scanner’s sample chamber and carefully held the hair above it.

At that exact moment, the office radiator coughed.

The desk drawer popped open. Max’s pastrami sandwich sprang free, bounced off the filing cabinet, and slapped against the scanner. The dog hair floated harmlessly into Max’s coffee.

The scanner chirped.

SCENT ACQUIRED: PASTRAMI. CONFIDENCE: 112%.

Max wiped mustard from the display before the countess could read it.

“We have a trail,” he said.

The scanner led them through three alleys, across a flower market, and into the lobby of the Grand Regency Hotel. Every few seconds, it emitted a triumphant beep. Max followed it past the grooming suites and directly into the hotel kitchen.

There, the device pointed at a lunch cart.

“Decoy,” Max whispered.

The poodle rolled its eyes.

Its name, Max learned, was Lord Chauncey of Kensington. Chauncey belonged to the countess’s sister and held two national obedience titles. He also wore a blue bow that remained perfectly level, even when he yawned with contempt.

The scanner suddenly shrieked. A squat brown bulldog had appeared beneath the lunch cart. Before Max could react, the dog grabbed the pastrami sandwich from his coat pocket and bolted through the kitchen doors.

“Maxi!” Max shouted.

Countess Barkova stared at the bulldog’s stubby legs and enormous head.

“That is not my dog.”

“He may have changed his appearance.”

“He has changed breeds.”

“Criminals are getting very sophisticated.”

Max chased the bulldog into the street.

The Wrong Bulldog Knows the Right Way

The bulldog moved like a runaway ottoman. He barreled between pedestrians, slid under a produce stand, and sent twelve cabbages bouncing into traffic. Max followed while apologizing to everyone, including the cabbages.

Chauncey trotted behind him without disturbing a single hair.

The scanner locked onto the sandwich in the bulldog’s mouth. Its arrow pointed forward as the dog crossed Sudbury Avenue and disappeared through the swinging door of a laundromat called The Clean Getaway.

The sign beneath the name promised: We Remove Every Stain—No Questions Asked.

“That seems reassuring,” Max said.

Inside, washing machines churned along both walls. A motorized overhead conveyor carried plastic-wrapped clothes toward the back room. Behind the counter stood a broad man in a lavender suit. His shirt collar rose high enough to provide weather protection.

“No dogs,” the man growled.

Chauncey stopped at the threshold and looked offended that anyone might classify him as one.

The bulldog swallowed the final bite of pastrami and sat beside Max. A brass tag on his collar read DETECTIVE PICKLES.

“See?” Max said. “He’s with law enforcement.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “That’s the owner’s dog. Pickles ain’t a detective.”

Detective Pickles growled at the back room.

Max’s scanner growled too, although that may have been a loose fan.

“Mr. Malone, I presume?” Countess Barkova said from the doorway.

The man froze.

Max had not known his name. Nevertheless, he nodded as if this development matched a flowchart in his head.

Suds Malone owned twelve laundromats, three car washes, and a nightclub where every table required dry cleaning afterward. Countess Barkova recognized him because he had tried to buy Maxi’s collar at a charity auction the previous month.

“Sentimental collector,” Suds said. “Now take the dogs and scram.”

Detective Pickles slipped between his ankles and charged through a curtain marked EMPLOYEES ONLY.

Max followed. After all, the only detective on the case appeared to have a lead.

A Funny Detective Story With a Dog—and Too Much Soap

The back room did not contain laundry.

It contained money.

Hundred-dollar bills hung from drying racks. Uncut sheets covered long tables. Industrial printers hummed beside tubs of green ink, while three men in aprons fed stacks of blank paper into a machine.

“Gift certificates?” Max asked.

“Counterfeit currency,” Countess Barkova replied.

“I was going to guess that next.”

Suds Malone shoved past the curtain and slammed his palm onto a red button. Metal shutters dropped over the windows. The front door locked. Two counterfeiters advanced with laundry bags pulled over their heads like masks.

The eyeholes did not line up.

One walked into a folding table.

“Nobody leaves,” Suds announced.

“That’s all right,” Max said. “I parked in a loading zone, so my car may already have left without me.”

He reached for a smoke capsule on his utility belt. Instead, he grabbed the scent scanner. Its loose wires tangled around the overhead conveyor’s control lever.

Max stepped backward.

The lever snapped down.

Every clothes hook in the building lurched forward at once.

One caught Suds by the lavender jacket. Another hooked a laundry cart. A third snagged Max’s trench coat and lifted him off the floor.

“Totally part of the plan!” Max shouted as the conveyor carried him toward an industrial pressing machine.

Chauncey sat safely beneath a table. Somehow, his bow remained level.

Detective Pickles chased the dangling pastrami wrapper in Max’s pocket. He jumped, missed, and crashed into a pallet of detergent. Boxes toppled in a neat row toward a fifty-gallon drum labeled ULTRA-CONCENTRATED.

The final box struck the drum’s valve.

A blue stream shot across the room.

It hit a high-pressure hot-water hose, which whipped free and sprayed the detergent into every open washing machine. Foam burst from the doors. It rolled across the floor, climbed the tables, and swallowed the counterfeiters up to their waists.

Then something strange happened to the money.

The green ink began to run.

The Counterfeit Cash Washes Clean

Blue soap streaked across the counterfeit bills. Benjamin Franklin’s face stretched, frowned, and slid off the paper. Serial numbers dripped into the floor drains. Within seconds, half a million dollars had transformed into damp white rectangles.

“Water-soluble ink,” Countess Barkova said.

Suds looked horrified. “It was cheaper!”

“That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Max said as the conveyor swung him over the foam. “But I’ll take it!”

Suds tore free from his jacket and lunged toward a small computer near the printers. He yanked a red, bone-shaped flash drive from the machine.

“Without this,” he yelled, “you can’t prove anything!”

He threw it toward an open washer.

Detective Pickles launched himself through the air.

The bulldog caught the drive before it reached the spinning drum. He landed in the foam, vanished for two seconds, and emerged with the plastic bone clenched between his teeth.

Max gave him two thumbs up. This caused him to lose his grip on the conveyor.

His trench coat ripped down the back. Max dropped into a laundry cart, which rolled downhill across the wet floor. It struck the control panel and raised the metal shutters.

Sunlight poured through the windows.

So did six police officers.

They had followed a river of green ink flowing from the laundromat into the street. Detective Pickles trotted to the first officer and deposited the evidence drive into her hand.

The drive held printing templates, account ledgers, delivery schedules, and a folder named DEFINITELY NOT CRIMES.

“Good dog,” the officer said.

Pickles sat proudly.

Max climbed out of the cart wearing only one sleeve of his trench coat. The rest had disappeared into the conveyor system.

“Case closed,” he said.

Countess Barkova crossed her arms. “My dog is still missing.”

“Case slightly ajar.”

Then Chauncey barked for the first time.

Everyone turned.

The poodle pointed his perfect nose toward a narrow service passage behind the drying racks. Silver hairs clung to the doorway.

At last, Max’s scanner displayed something other than pastrami.

SCENT ACQUIRED: EXPENSIVE CONDITIONER.

The Million-Dollar Collar

The service passage led to an alley behind the laundromat. There, Max found an empty dog carrier, a torn grooming ribbon, and several diamonds scattered beside a storm drain.

They were not decorative crystals. They were flawless, unregistered stones worth far more than one million dollars.

Suds stopped pretending he knew nothing.

His counterfeit business had served as cover for a smuggling operation. An accomplice at the dog show had replaced Maxi’s costume collar with a nearly identical one set with real diamonds. Suds planned to steal the collar after the parade, move the stones through his laundromat deliveries, and return the dog before anyone noticed.

However, the swap went wrong. Maxi escaped from the groomer. Suds grabbed him outside the hotel, but the Borzoi slipped his carrier when Detective Pickles attacked the getaway van for trespassing near the laundromat.

“Pickles has strong opinions about parking,” a police officer explained.

The countess stared at the loose stones. “I thought the collar held glass.”

“That explains why the insurance company only valued it at a million,” Max said.

The collar itself was gone. So was Maxi.

The city dog show would begin in twenty minutes.

Max followed the scanner through the alley. The signal looped around two dumpsters, stopped at a delicatessen, and directed him toward a pastrami delivery truck.

“I believe your machine is still tracking lunch,” said the countess.

“It’s very committed.”

They hurried back to the Grand Regency. Countess Barkova searched the grooming rooms. Police officers checked the loading docks. Detective Pickles inspected every catering cart with professional dedication.

Max stood beside the main arena and tried to think like a championship dog.

This produced no useful ideas, although he suddenly wanted someone to brush his hair.

An announcer’s voice filled the hall.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the championship parade will now begin!”

The Dog Makes an Entrance

Lord Chauncey entered the arena first.

The poodle floated across the carpet like a cloud with legal representation. The audience applauded. Judges leaned forward. Not one hair moved out of place.

Chauncey reached the center platform, stopped, and looked toward the emergency exit.

Then he barked twice.

The door swung open.

Grand Duke Maximilian Volkov the Third strolled into the arena.

The silver Borzoi wore Max’s missing trench coat draped across his back like a cape. One sleeve trailed behind him. Soap bubbles sparkled in his fur. Around his neck, the diamond collar flashed beneath the lights.

The crowd rose to its feet.

Maxi had followed Max’s coat after it shot from the laundromat’s conveyor vent. The garment smelled like pastrami, mustard, smoke capsules, and poor decisions. To Maxi, apparently, it smelled like home.

The Borzoi crossed the arena and stopped beside the countess. She wrapped both arms around him.

Detective Pickles arrived a moment later with a catering sausage in his mouth. He sat beside Maxi as camera flashes filled the room.

The judges held a hurried conference. Technically, Maxi had missed his scheduled entrance. Technically, Pickles was not entered. Technically, no rule covered a contestant arriving in evidence from an active federal investigation.

The head judge took the microphone.

“For extraordinary composure under unusual conditions, we award Grand Duke Maximilian the Judges’ Medal. We also present Detective Pickles with a special prize for civic service.”

Pickles received a blue ribbon and ate it.

Chauncey placed second. His expression suggested that society had collapsed.

One strand of hair fell across his left eye.

Max considered that the day’s most shocking event.

Every Plan Backfires Into Success

Police recovered every diamond from the collar. They also arrested Suds Malone and dismantled his counterfeiting network. The evidence drive led investigators to three hidden print shops, two offshore accounts, and a sandwich shop that had never passed a health inspection.

Countess Barkova paid Max his full fee, plus a bonus for recovering the dog, the diamonds, and what she called “the dignity of the Barkova name.”

She also handed him a silver lunch box.

Inside waited a fresh pastrami sandwich.

“For your next investigation,” she said.

“Hopefully, I won’t need it.”

The scent scanner beeped from his utility belt and pointed at the sandwich.

Detective Pickles lifted his head.

Max backed toward the exit.

“Easy, Detective. The case is over.”

Pickles charged.

Max ran through the dog show with the bulldog at his heels. He tripped over Maxi’s discarded grooming ribbon, ducked under a display table, and accidentally unplugged an illegal dog-tonic booth. A hidden panel fell open and revealed forty bottles of banned performance enhancers.

Security officers blew their whistles.

The vendor tried to escape. Chauncey stepped into his path, perfectly poised and magnificently smug. The man stumbled into a stack of empty kennels.

Max looked at the newly exposed evidence, the cheering crowd, and the bulldog eating his sandwich.

“Wait,” he said. “Did I just save the day again?”

Chauncey sneezed on his shoe.

Max nodded. “Fair.”

He left the arena without his coat, without his lunch, and without any idea how the police report would explain him.

Behind him, Detective Pickles barked once.

It sounded like case closed.

The post Chapter 4: The Million-Dollar Mutt: A Funny Detective Story With a Dog appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

Every funny Loch Ness monster adventure needs three things: cold mist, questionable evidence, and at least one tourist willing to mistake a floating log for a prehistoric reptile.

Max Mercer supplied a fourth thing.

An international incident.

He had come to Scotland for the Great Loch Ness Folklore Festival, a three-day celebration of legends, local food, traditional music, and gift-shop merchandise depicting Nessie in hats she had almost certainly never worn. Max wanted a quiet holiday. His last several trips abroad had involved explosions, secret organizations, and one customs officer who still believed Max had tried to smuggle a grappling hook inside a fruitcake.

This time would be different.

He had rented a kilt, bought a festival pass, and promised himself that he would not touch anything labeled EXPERIMENTAL, CLASSIFIED, or DO NOT INFLATE INDOORS.

By eleven that morning, he had broken two of those promises.

The third was waiting for him beside the loch.

The Cow Had Already Reached a Verdict

Max’s rented kilt came with six pages of instructions.

He had read the first page, which explained that the pleats went in the back. The other five pages appeared to concern prohibited activities, security deposits, and what the rental shop called “reckless ceremonial use.” Max folded them into a small square and used them to stabilize a wobbly table at a tea stall.

The kilt itself was green and blue tartan. It hung slightly crooked because Max had fastened one buckle through a belt loop on his utility vest. His mismatched gloves, scorched boots, ski goggles, and duct-taped shoulder pad completed a look that was less “Highland hero” and more “lost luggage assembled into a person.”

Festival visitors loved it.

They kept asking to take photographs with him.

“Are you one of the performers?” asked a little boy wearing a foam Nessie head.

“Only accidentally,” Max said.

Near the livestock enclosure, an enormous Highland cow watched him through a curtain of copper-colored hair. A wooden sign identified her as MORAG — FESTIVAL AMBASSADOR AND THREE-TIME BEST FRINGE WINNER.

Morag chewed slowly.

Max waved.

Morag stopped chewing.

It was the most judgmental silence Max had experienced since his last government performance review.

“I know,” he told her. “The boots don’t match the kilt.”

Morag continued staring.

“One of them is waterproof.”

The cow looked away as if the explanation had made everything worse.

Across the festival grounds, a cannon boomed. A dark object sailed over the crowd, trailing oats and onion.

It struck a hay bale with a wet, triumphant thud.

The crowd erupted in cheers.

“Six hundred and twelve feet!” shouted an announcer. “A new festival record for Angus Thundercheeks, Highland haggis-hurling champion!”

On a nearby field, a massive man in a tartan athletic sash raised both arms. His beard was braided into two handles, possibly for safety. Behind him stood a siege engine constructed from timber, steel springs, and what appeared to be part of a tractor.

Angus bowed to the crowd.

“Distance is temporary!” he roared. “Thundercheeks is forever!”

The cannon had not been a cannon. It had been Angus releasing the catapult.

Max applauded. Morag did not.

She had apparently seen better.

Professor McCracken Loses a Buoy

At the water’s edge, Professor Fiona McCracken was preparing a public sonar demonstration titled LISTENING FOR LEGENDS: SCIENCE BENEATH THE SURFACE.

She wore rubber boots, a red raincoat, and the expression of a woman who had spent twenty years explaining that sonar could not identify a monster’s species, intentions, or preferred souvenir mug. A row of monitors displayed the underwater contours of Loch Ness. Beside them sat cables, speakers, and several bright yellow buoys.

One buoy was missing.

“Nobody leaves the dock,” Fiona announced. “My research unit has disappeared.”

The tourists froze.

“Is it dangerous?” someone asked.

“Only to my department’s budget.”

Fiona pointed toward a small yellow dot drifting several hundred yards offshore. The buoy bobbed near a patch of mist where a dark, curved shape occasionally rose from the water.

The crowd gasped.

Camera shutters clicked.

A souvenir vendor immediately changed a sign from POSSIBLE NESSIE SIGHTING SHIRTS — £15 to CONFIRMED NESSIE SIGHTING SHIRTS — £25.

Fiona adjusted her glasses.

“That shape is mechanical,” she said. “It has a regular propulsion rhythm, a metallic echo, and absolutely no respect for restricted research equipment.”

Max had stopped to listen because the word “missing” triggered his sidekick instincts. He did not consider himself the hero in most situations. Heroes arrived with plans, matching gloves, and insurance. Max mostly held things while other people shouted.

“I can retrieve it,” he offered.

Fiona looked him up and down.

Her gaze paused at the taped shoulder pad.

“Are you certified for water rescue?”

“I watched half of a safety video.”

“Which half?”

“The credits.”

Fiona opened her mouth to refuse. Then the dark shape turned toward the buoy. A narrow metallic neck rose through the mist, dipped beneath the yellow float, and pulled it underwater.

Her monitor filled with static.

For half a second, another image appeared beneath the interference: a long, smooth hull resting over a cable trench on the bottom of the loch.

Fiona’s expression changed.

“That isn’t a festival prop,” she said.

She enlarged the sonar image. Mechanical arms extended from the hull and clamped around a thick underwater line.

“That is the North Caledonian Financial Link. It carries encrypted market traffic between data centers. Someone is physically tapping it.”

Max nodded as if this made perfect sense.

“So Nessie has gone into banking.”

“Nessie is a submarine.”

“That seems harder to put on a T-shirt.”

A Funny Loch Ness Monster Adventure Gets Complicated

Far below them, Captain Kelp watched Max on a periscope monitor.

Captain Kelp was not a real captain, and Kelp was not his real name. He had chosen both because “Mr. Barnaby Sproat, freelance infrastructure criminal” lacked menace. His uniform featured brass buttons, seaweed-green epaulets, and a peaked cap decorated with a silver squid.

He commanded the Silent Dividend, a compact stealth submarine built to intercept financial data before it reached the market. With a few seconds of advance knowledge, Kelp’s partners could buy, sell, and vanish with millions before anyone discovered the physical breach.

The submarine’s greatest defense was its camouflage generator. Flexible panels distorted its outline, while a telescoping periscope wore a mechanical Nessie head. If anyone glimpsed it, they saw exactly what they expected to see: a monster, a shadow, or an excellent reason to purchase a commemorative tea towel.

Kelp’s first officer enlarged the image of Max.

“Sir, facial recognition found a match.”

Onscreen, Max was attempting to tighten his kilt and had accidentally attached himself to a folding chair.

“Who is he?” Kelp asked.

“Max Mercer. Alias: The Misfire. International reports connect him to collapsed criminal networks, exposed covert operations, and an improbable number of damaged vending machines.”

The first officer opened another file. Its threat assessment contained only four words:

DO NOT PREDICT HIS BEHAVIOR.

Kelp leaned closer to the monitor.

Max stood, dragged the chair three feet, noticed the problem, and apologized to it.

“A calculated performance,” Kelp whispered. “He wants us to underestimate him.”

Onshore, Fiona unlocked a red equipment case.

Inside lay what looked like a set of bagpipes made from orange emergency fabric. Reflective strips covered the bag. The pipes were hollow plastic, and the mouthpiece carried a warning label.

Max read it aloud.

“Inflatable Emergency Bagpipe. For maritime deployment only. Pull drone, inflate bladder, and—”

“Pull cord,” Fiona corrected.

“The print is smudged.”

“It is not.”

The device had started as a student engineering joke. Fiona had improved it into a compact flotation system with a waterproof radio, emergency beacon, and directional hydrophone. Once deployed, it could carry two adults or one adult plus an irresponsible amount of equipment.

“Take the small rescue boat,” Fiona said. “Paddle to the buoy, clip this bagpipe to it, and tow it back. Do not inflate the bag unless the boat sinks.”

Max repeated the plan.

“Boat. Buoy. Bagpipe. No inflation.”

“Correct.”

“Simple.”

Morag mooed from behind them.

Max looked over his shoulder. The Highland cow had escaped her enclosure and now stood beside the equipment table.

She stared at the orange bagpipe.

Then she stared at Max.

Fiona followed her gaze.

“Does that cow know you?”

“She has concerns about my process.”

The Emergency Bagpipe Becomes a Boat

Max pushed the rescue boat into the water, placed the bagpipe in the bow, and climbed aboard.

The boat remained tied to the dock.

He paddled vigorously for nearly a minute before noticing that the scenery had not moved. Fiona untied the rope without comment. Morag watched from beside her, radiating vindication.

On his second attempt, Max made steady progress across the loch. The festival music faded behind him. Mist wrapped around the boat. Ahead, Fiona’s yellow buoy surfaced, disappeared, and surfaced again as something below dragged it through the water.

Max leaned over the bow with a retrieval hook.

“Easy,” he murmured. “Totally normal buoy situation.”

The mechanical Nessie head rose six feet from the water beside him.

Its black eyes contained cameras. Water streamed from metal teeth. A speaker hidden in its throat emitted a roar assembled from a lion, an elephant, and what sounded like a malfunctioning leaf blower.

Max startled backward.

His boot landed on the rescue boat’s inflation valve.

The boat had an inflation valve because it was not, as Max had assumed, made of rigid rubber. It was an emergency inflatable, and the valve had not been properly secured.

Air escaped with a long, disappointed hiss.

The boat folded inward.

Max grabbed the orange bagpipe.

“Boat sinking,” he said. “Now inflation.”

He pulled the emergency cord.

Nothing happened.

He pulled one of the plastic pipes.

The bagpipe exploded into a raft.

Orange fabric burst around Max, lifted him into the air, and swallowed the collapsing boat. The drones became oarlocks. The chanter extended into a paddle. Two emergency pipes shot upright behind him and began producing a continuous bagpipe note powered by the inflation canister.

The sound rolled across Loch Ness like a goose declaring war on the moon.

Festival visitors turned toward the water.

Angus Thundercheeks lowered the haggis he was autographing.

Morag closed her eyes.

On the submarine, Captain Kelp gripped his command chair.

“Acoustic attack!” he shouted.

“Sir,” said the first officer, “I believe those are bagpipes.”

“There is no difference at this range!”

Kelp ordered evasive action. The Silent Dividend accelerated. Its mechanical neck swept past the raft just as Max stood to untangle the paddle.

The silver pin on his rented kilt caught the periscope.

The tartan tightened.

Max looked down.

The periscope moved away.

So did the front half of his kilt.

Max grabbed the fabric with both hands.

“Excuse me!” he shouted. “That has a deposit!”

The submarine dragged the raft into the mist.

Captain Kelp Catches a Kilt

Captain Kelp watched the towline form on his exterior camera.

The Misfire’s kilt had wrapped around the mechanical monster’s neck, covering its cameras and binding the periscope at a crooked angle. Behind it, the inflated bagpipe raft skipped across the water with Max clinging to the tartan.

“He has boarded us without boarding us,” Kelp said.

“Should we stop?” asked the first officer.

“That is what he expects.”

“Should we continue?”

“That is also what he expects.”

“Perhaps he would like the kilt back.”

Kelp glared at him. “No elite operative risks his life for a rental deposit.”

Outside, Max risked his life for a rental deposit.

The raft bounced over the wake. Each impact made the emergency bagpipes change pitch. Max tried to free the fabric with a broken multipurpose gadget from his utility belt. Its scissors folded the wrong way and cut through the strap holding Fiona’s waterproof radio.

The radio dropped into the raft and activated.

“Max?” Fiona’s voice crackled from the speaker. “What is happening?”

“Good news. I found the mechanical Nessie.”

“And the buoy?”

“Emotionally, I feel we’re getting closer.”

Fiona tracked the raft on sonar. The submarine was turning toward the center of the loch, where it could dive beyond the range of the festival’s rescue boats. The stolen buoy remained fixed to its stern.

“You are attached to the submarine,” she said.

Max looked at the stretched tartan in his hands.

“That explains the resistance.”

“Let go.”

“I signed a rental agreement.”

“Max, they’re tapping a financial cable. These are cybercriminals.”

Max considered the mechanical monster, the hidden submarine, and the men who were stealing market data beneath a folklore festival.

“So they’re not performers?”

“No.”

“That makes the roar machine feel dishonest.”

Fiona told him to activate the emergency beacon. Max pressed the largest button on the radio. Instead of the beacon, he switched on the raft’s directional sonar transmitter.

His next words blasted through the water and struck the submarine’s hull.

“Hello? Criminal submarine? Could you slow down, please?”

Inside the Silent Dividend, Max’s voice erupted from every acoustic-monitoring speaker.

The first officer went pale.

“He’s inside the communications system.”

Kelp stared at the ceiling.

“Of course he is.”

Angus Thundercheeks Fires for Glory

Onshore, the festival crowd had decided the chase was part of the entertainment.

The announcer stood on the reviewing platform with a microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, the mysterious orange piper has engaged Nessie in single combat!”

The crowd cheered.

Fiona grabbed the microphone.

“It is not Nessie. It is a criminal submarine.”

The crowd cheered louder.

“This is not a reenactment!”

Someone shouted, “Very immersive!”

Fiona pointed to her sonar monitor, which now displayed the submarine’s full outline and the illegal cable tap. A uniformed police sergeant assigned to festival security finally understood that the professor was not contributing dramatic narration. He called for marine support and ordered the parade route cleared.

Unfortunately, the grand Nessie procession had already begun.

Decorated boats moved along the shore. A pipe band marched onto a temporary floating causeway. Children carried green sea-serpent puppets. The festival queen rode on a wheeled papier-mâché monster with eyelashes, a crown, and better posture than Max.

Angus Thundercheeks climbed onto his haggis catapult.

“The beast has challenged our festival!” he declared.

“Do not fire food at the submarine!” Fiona shouted.

Angus placed his championship haggis in the launch cradle.

“This is not food,” he said solemnly. “This is sporting equipment.”

He turned the catapult toward the loch.

Fiona stepped in front of it.

“You cannot hit a moving periscope from this distance.”

Angus smiled.

“You have never seen the Thundercheeks Invitational.”

Before Fiona could stop him, Morag wandered behind the catapult. The Highland cow had followed Max’s scent, or perhaps the smell of oats. She leaned against the aiming lever to scratch her shoulder.

The catapult rotated seven degrees.

Angus released the trigger.

The machine boomed.

The haggis rose over the festival in a majestic arc.

Every camera followed it.

Out on the loch, Max finally loosened one fold of his kilt. The freed fabric snapped across the mechanical Nessie head and turned it sideways. The submarine veered.

The haggis descended.

It missed the periscope.

It struck a small fin behind it—a fin that housed the camouflage generator’s external cooling array.

The haggis burst.

Oats, spices, and criminal engineering entered into a brief but decisive disagreement.

Blue sparks raced down the hull. The optical panels flickered. For several seconds, the Silent Dividend alternated between invisible submarine, giant monster, floating gift shop, and what appeared to be a sixty-foot image of Captain Kelp adjusting his socks.

Then the camouflage failed completely.

The sleek black submarine became visible beneath Max’s raft.

The crowd fell silent.

Angus raised one fist.

“Personal best,” he said.

Morag looked at him with mild approval.

It was more than she had ever given Max.

Max Says the Most Expensive Apology in Scotland

The failed camouflage triggered alarms throughout the Silent Dividend.

Captain Kelp ordered an emergency dive. Ballast tanks filled. The submarine began to sink, pulling the periscope, the kilt, the raft, and Max toward the dark water.

“I believe they’re diving,” Max said into the radio.

“Cut the kilt!” Fiona shouted.

Max unfolded his broken gadget. The scissors opened, spun loose, and flew into the loch.

“Working on a second option.”

Fiona studied the submarine’s sonar signature. Something about its command pulses looked familiar. Then she recognized the timing pattern.

“They stole my autonomous-research control software,” she said. “The emergency acoustic protocol is mine.”

Years earlier, Fiona had designed underwater drones for universities. After an intern accidentally sent one beneath a ferry, she had added a spoken safety command that forced every compatible vessel to empty its ballast and surface. The phrase was deliberately polite so ordinary conversation would not trigger it.

“What is the command?” Max asked.

“It doesn’t matter. Kelp will have removed it.”

“But what is it?”

Fiona told him.

Max pressed the radio button.

“Captain?” he called through the sonar transmitter. “I’m terribly sorry about damaging your monster, and I’m even sorrier about whatever the haggis did. If it isn’t too much trouble, could you please surface immediately?”

The submarine’s computer chimed.

LEGACY SAFETY PHRASE ACCEPTED.

Captain Kelp looked at his first officer.

“What legacy safety phrase?”

Every ballast valve opened.

Compressed air thundered through the tanks. The submarine stopped descending, shuddered, and shot upward.

Kelp lunged for the controls. They locked him out.

EMERGENCY SURFACE IN PROGRESS. THANK YOU FOR ASKING POLITELY.

“Override it!” he shouted.

“We can’t. The command has professor-level authorization.”

Kelp stared at Max’s profile on the monitor.

“He knew we stole the software.”

“Did he?”

“He apologized in the exact sequence needed to seize control of the vessel. Of course he knew!”

Above them, Max heard the raft’s bagpipes change from a battle cry to something closer to a kettle experiencing doubt.

The water beneath him bulged.

“Fiona,” he said, “I think the apology worked.”

The submarine erupted from Loch Ness.

The Monster Joins the Parade

The Silent Dividend breached directly beneath the festival’s floating parade route.

Hinged sections of the causeway lifted harmlessly aside as the submarine surfaced between the pipe band and the crowned papier-mâché Nessie. A wall of water soaked the marchers, spun three decorated boats in circles, and deposited a green sea-serpent puppet across the submarine’s bow.

Max’s bagpipe raft slid down the hull and stopped against the hatch.

His kilt remained attached to the periscope, where the torn tartan fluttered like a heroic banner with unresolved billing information.

For one perfect moment, nobody moved.

Then the emergency system blew the submarine’s hatch.

Captain Kelp climbed out, coughing and covered in haggis fragments. His seaweed-green epaulets had wilted. Behind him came three crew members with their hands raised.

They found themselves surrounded by police officers, festival security, two television crews, forty-seven camera phones, a pipe band, Angus Thundercheeks, and one Highland cow whose stare suggested that crime represented a serious decline in personal standards.

The police sergeant stepped forward.

“Captain Kelp?”

Kelp straightened his cap.

“You will address me by my maritime rank.”

“You don’t have a maritime rank.”

“Then I invoke the ancient laws of salvage.”

“You’re standing in the middle of a parade.”

“A maritime parade.”

The sergeant handcuffed him.

Fiona climbed onto the hull and recovered her buoy. Its memory contained a complete sonar record of the cable tap, the submarine’s identification signal, and Captain Kelp repeatedly ordering his crew to “steal faster.”

“This is enough to prove the entire operation,” she said.

Kelp turned toward Max.

“You calculated every variable,” he said bitterly. “The acoustic assault. The fabric entanglement. The ballistic haggis. Even the bovine targeting adjustment.”

Max looked at Morag.

Morag looked at Max.

“We had a difficult working relationship,” he admitted.

“Who are you?” Kelp demanded.

Max climbed off the raft and tried to straighten what remained of his kilt.

“Max Mercer. Some people call me The Misfire. I’m mostly here on holiday.”

Kelp’s face hardened.

“No one is that incompetent.”

Max smiled apologetically.

“That’s very kind of you.”

The Clearest Nessie Photograph in History

The news photograph appeared online before Captain Kelp reached the police van.

A festival photographer had been tracking Angus’s airborne haggis with a long lens. She pressed the shutter at the exact instant the submarine breached. In the image, the flexible monster head rose above the mist, Max’s tartan streamed from its neck, green parade puppets curled around its black hull, and water glittered in the afternoon light.

The angle concealed nearly every mechanical detail.

It looked alive.

Within an hour, the picture had been labeled THE CLEAREST NESSIE PHOTOGRAPH IN HISTORY.

Fiona spent the afternoon telling reporters that it showed a submarine.

The reporters agreed, thanked her, and asked whether the submarine might have frightened the real monster into appearing.

Angus received a special medal for “precision haggis deployment in defense of national infrastructure.” He insisted that Morag share the honor. Morag tried to eat the ribbon.

Captain Kelp and his crew faced charges for cybercrime, cable interference, reckless navigation, theft of research equipment, and operating a mechanical monster without a festival permit. Authorities recovered the data tap before a single stolen transaction could reach Kelp’s partners.

Professor Fiona McCracken received funding for a new underwater-security program. She named its emergency protocol MERCER, which officially stood for Maritime Emergency Recovery Command and Expedited Resurfacing.

Unofficially, it meant asking nicely and hoping for the best.

At sunset, Fiona found Max beside the livestock enclosure. He was trying to complete an online damage report for the rental shop.

The form asked him to select the cause of loss:

• Normal wear
• Weather
• Animal interference
• Ceremonial combat
• Other

Max selected all five.

“You stopped an international financial crime,” Fiona said.

“The haggis did most of the technical work.”

“You exposed a stealth submarine.”

“That was Angus.”

“You forced it to surface.”

“I apologized.”

“And you recovered my buoy.”

Max looked toward the dock. The yellow buoy was safely tied beside Fiona’s equipment.

“Wait,” he said. “Did I just save the day again?”

Morag mooed.

Max nodded. “Fair. Group effort.”

By evening, every news report described The Misfire as an international operative who had infiltrated a Scottish festival, lured a cybercriminal submarine into shallow water, disabled its camouflage with a precision food strike, and captured its crew using a secret acoustic command.

The story became the most popular funny Loch Ness monster adventure the festival had ever produced.

Max knew the truth.

He had sunk the rescue boat, inflated the wrong bagpipe, caught his rented kilt on a periscope, transmitted an apology over an unsecured sonar system, and landed a submarine in the middle of a parade.

In other words, it had been a fairly restful holiday for The Misfire.

The post Chapter 4: The Loch Ness Mess appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

Every funny supervillain origin story begins with a choice. A brilliant criminal chooses revenge. A corrupt scientist chooses forbidden knowledge. A mysterious stranger chooses a dramatic cape with a collar tall enough to interfere with peripheral vision.

Max Mercer chose the wrong elevator.

In his defense, the directory in the lobby was confusing.

FOURTH FLOOR — TEMPORARY CONTRACTOR ORIENTATION

FORTY-FOURTH FLOOR — TEMPORARY CRIMINAL ORIENTATION

The second listing had been printed in very small type beneath a tasteful skull logo. Max never saw it. He pressed both buttons, got distracted by a vending machine that accepted expired coupons, and stepped out when the elevator doors opened.

That was how The Misfire reported for his first day as office support at Henchmen Local 404.

It would also be their last.

The Man Who Wasn’t on the List

The forty-fourth floor did not look especially evil. It had gray carpeting, inspirational posters, and a reception desk decorated with a bowl of peppermints. One poster showed a volcano erupting beneath the words SYNERGY: TOGETHER, WE CAN HOLD THE WORLD HOSTAGE.

Max nodded appreciatively.

“Strong branding,” he said.

Behind the desk sat a broad man in a black turtleneck. A name tag identified him as TERRY — PROBATIONARY HENCHMAN. He was sweating so hard that the ink had begun to run.

“Name?” Terry asked.

“Max Mercer. Temporary contractor.”

Terry ran one finger down a clipboard. Then he ran it back up. Then he checked the reverse side as if Max might have been printed there upside down.

“You’re not on the list.”

“That happens a lot.”

“If Madame Onboarding finds out I admitted an unauthorized person, she’ll turn me into an example.”

“Employee of the month?”

“An actual example. There will be slides.”

Max leaned over the clipboard. Every attendee had been assigned a specialty: getaway driving, sinister laughter, laser maintenance, ransom punctuation, or general skulduggery. Beside Terry’s name, someone had written Needs Confidence in red ink.

“First day?” Max asked.

Terry swallowed. “First legitimate criminal position. I used to steal lunches from the break-room refrigerator, but there wasn’t much advancement potential.”

“You’ll do great,” Max said. “Shoulders back. Firm handshake. Never microwave fish in a shared kitchen.”

Terry stared at him with the desperate gratitude of a man who had just received the first useful career advice of his life.

“You really are a contractor,” he whispered.

He handed Max a visitor badge, an orientation folder, and a nondisclosure agreement titled I PROMISE NOT TO TELL THE AUTHORITIES ABOUT ANY OF THIS. Max signed where Terry pointed. Under “criminal alias,” he wrote N/A, which Terry assumed stood for “Night Avenger.”

Then they hurried into Conference Room B before either of them could get fired, vaporized, or made responsible for refreshments.

Welcome to Henchmen Local 404

Thirty-seven aspiring criminals sat in folding chairs facing a blank projection screen. They wore an assortment of ski masks, tactical vests, laboratory goggles, and shirts that said ASK ME ABOUT MY EVIL PLAN. Several carried weapons. One carried a covered casserole dish.

At the front stood Madame Onboarding.

She wore a crimson business suit, steel-rimmed glasses, and an expression that could deny a vacation request at fifty paces. Her silver hair was twisted into a bun so precise that geometry teachers would have applauded. In one hand, she held a laser pointer. In the other, she held a clipboard thick enough to stop a crossbow bolt.

“You are late,” she told Max.

“The elevator stopped on thirty-two. Someone had filled it with ferrets.”

Madame Onboarding made a note. “Mammal deployment is on Thursday. Find a seat.”

Max took the empty chair beside Terry. The chair on his other side held a woman tied at the wrists and ankles with bright yellow extension cords. A strip of silver tape covered her mouth. She wore a municipal security badge identifying her as DR. LILA VOSS — DIRECTOR OF EMERGENCY INFRASTRUCTURE.

Max brightened. “You must be the team leader.”

Dr. Voss stared at him.

“Great commitment to the role,” Max whispered.

Madame Onboarding tapped the dead projector with her laser pointer.

“Welcome to Henchmen Local 404,” she began. “By the end of today’s seminar, you will understand our mission, our benefits package, and your individual role in plunging the city into a permanent state of obedient terror.”

Max opened his folder. The first page read SO YOU’VE DECIDED TO BECOME EXPENDABLE.

He frowned.

Temporary employment had changed since his last assignment.

“Before we reveal the master plan,” Madame Onboarding continued, “we will conduct introductions. State your legal name, criminal alias, felony specialty, and one fun fact about yourself. Participation is mandatory.”

One by one, the attendees stood.

“Ronald Peabody. The Human Invoice. Extortion. I make sourdough.”

“Janice Bell. The Night Screamer. Jewel theft. I foster kittens.”

“Doug.”

Madame Onboarding lowered her glasses. “And the rest, Doug?”

“Just Doug. Arson. I don’t like talking about myself.”

Max applauded after each introduction. Terry eventually stood on trembling legs.

“Terrence Barlow. No alias yet. Entry-level intimidation. Fun fact…” He glanced at Max. “I am learning to set healthy professional boundaries.”

“Excellent,” Max whispered.

When his own turn came, Max stood and adjusted his mismatched gloves.

“Max Mercer. Some people call me The Misfire. Troubleshooting, light electrical work, and accidental property damage. Fun fact: I can open most vending machines with a library card.”

The room fell silent.

Madame Onboarding studied him. “What organization sent you?”

“QuickStaff.”

Several henchmen gasped. A woman in a welding mask murmured, “Never heard of them. They must be covert.”

Madame Onboarding narrowed her eyes. “And what position are you seeking?”

Max checked his folder. The cover showed a caped figure standing above a row of smaller, disposable figures.

“Backup sidekick?” he guessed.

Madame Onboarding slowly smiled.

“Ambitious. I respect that.”

Dr. Voss made a noise behind her gag that sounded remarkably like a person trying to warn everyone in the room.

Max gave her an encouraging thumbs-up.

“Don’t worry, team leader. I’ve got this.”

The Master Plan Meets Ladder Safety

Madame Onboarding dimmed the lights and pressed the projector’s power button. Nothing happened.

She pressed it again.

The projector responded with a weak click and the smell of overheated plastic.

“Who knows audiovisual equipment?” she demanded.

Every henchman looked away. Terry pointed at Max.

“Our new backup sidekick does.”

Max did not, technically, know audiovisual equipment. He knew that projectors had cords, computers had holes, and connecting the right cord to the right hole was mostly a matter of persistence and acceptable insurance coverage.

“I can take a look,” he said.

He crawled beneath the presentation table. A jungle of wires connected the projector to a laptop, a wall panel, three security consoles, the fire-control network, and something labeled DO NOT UNPLUG — ORBITAL LASER.

Max unplugged the one beside it.

Somewhere above the clouds, an orbital weapon stopped charging and began installing a printer update.

The projector flickered to life.

“Totally part of the plan,” Max said. “Yep. That plan.”

The room applauded. Madame Onboarding handed him the presentation clicker.

“Proceed to the master-plan file.”

Max found two flash drives on the table. One was black, shaped like a cobra, and labeled OPERATION: IRON MIDNIGHT. The other was orange and labeled QUICKSTAFF WORKPLACE SAFETY.

Max chose orange. He had always found high-contrast colors helpful.

The screen displayed a smiling construction worker beside the title LADDERS: STEPS TOWARD A SAFER TOMORROW.

Madame Onboarding froze.

“This is not my presentation.”

“I think it’s the updated version,” Max said. “The graphics are excellent.”

He clicked to the next slide. A cartoon worker leaned too far from a stepladder while a large red X hovered above him.

“Never overreach,” Max read. “Good advice for any organization.”

The attendees murmured thoughtfully.

Madame Onboarding snatched the clicker and pressed the button. Instead of advancing the slide, every security shutter in the room slammed closed.

She pressed it again. The lights turned purple, a steel cage dropped around the refreshment table, and an automated voice announced, MOAT HEATING.

“What did you do?” she hissed.

Max examined the projector settings. “The clicker wasn’t paired, so I connected it to the strongest receiver.”

“That is the building’s central security system.”

“That explains the moat.”

At the back of the room, a tray of cheese cubes descended through a trapdoor.

Madame Onboarding pressed the button again. The shutters rose, the cage retracted, and every chair in the first row delivered a mild electrical shock.

Doug raised his hand. “Honestly, this is more engaging than most seminars.”

Madame Onboarding took a long, controlled breath.

“We will fix the presentation during the break. For now, we proceed to mandatory emergency preparedness.”

Max raised his hand.

“I can lead the exit demonstration.”

Terry gave him two enthusiastic thumbs-up. Dr. Voss shook her head so violently that her chair rolled backward.

Madame Onboarding glanced at the clock. Her schedule was now six minutes behind. To a woman who regarded tardiness as a moral failure, this was worse than treason.

“Fine,” she said. “Demonstrate.”

A Funny Supervillain Origin Story Goes Live

Max began with the basics.

“In an emergency, remain calm. Do not use the elevators. Do not retrieve personal belongings unless the building is on fire and your belongings are already on fire, in which case the distinction becomes academic.”

Madame Onboarding made another note.

Max removed Dr. Voss’s gag.

“The team leader should help,” he explained.

“I am a hostage,” Dr. Voss said.

“Great energy. Very convincing.”

“They kidnapped me from City Hall!”

“Let’s save the role-playing questions until the end.”

He handed her a marker and rolled her toward the whiteboard. Dr. Voss wrote CALL THE POLICE in enormous letters.

Max nodded. “Exactly. Once you reach a safe location, call emergency services.”

The henchmen copied the instruction into their folders.

Dr. Voss stared at the ceiling and briefly reconsidered every decision that had led her into public service.

While Max explained fire exits, the laptop searched for the projector’s missing clicker. It found the city’s emergency communications network through Dr. Voss’s security badge. Max clicked PAIR without reading the fine print.

The projector screen flashed.

CONNECTED: POLICE HEADQUARTERS — CENTRAL BRIEFING ROOM

Max assumed that meant the building’s security office.

At police headquarters, forty detectives watched their briefing display interrupt a stolen-vehicle report. Madame Onboarding appeared on screen beside a slide listing the legal names, aliases, felony specialties, and fun facts of thirty-seven wanted criminals.

The room went very quiet.

A detective reached for the volume control.

Back at Local 404, Madame Onboarding stepped in front of the screen.

“Enough delays. I will summarize Operation Iron Midnight verbally. At precisely noon, our infiltrators will disable the power grid. Dr. Voss will surrender her emergency access codes. Our assault team will seize the mayor’s Continuity Key, giving us control of every police station, bridge, traffic signal, and public parking meter in the city.”

At police headquarters, a second detective began recording.

“Once the city is blind,” Madame Onboarding continued, “our members will deploy from three locations.”

She named the locations.

A third detective called tactical dispatch.

Madame Onboarding clicked the security remote. The slide changed to PLACE YOUR LADDER ON A LEVEL, STABLE SURFACE.

At headquarters, someone took a photograph of it for the workplace-safety bulletin.

“Now,” she said through clenched teeth, “the fire drill.”

Max beamed. This was his chance to impress his new employer.

He reached for the red alarm lever.

Terry grabbed his wrist. “Isn’t that connected to the real alarm?”

“The best training is realistic.”

“That seems dangerously motivational.”

“You’ll be fine,” Max said. “Remember your boundaries.”

Terry released him.

Max pulled the lever.

Sirens erupted. Red lights spun. Steel shutters rose and fell like confused eyelids. Sprinklers blasted the room with freezing water. The projector crackled, the security clicker chirped, and every electronic lock in the building received the same command.

EMERGENCY RELEASE.

Down the hall, twelve holding cells opened at once.

Accountants, scientists, city employees, delivery drivers, and one magician hired for a henchman’s retirement party stepped cautiously into freedom.

The magician looked around. “Is this part of the act?”

“Follow the illuminated exit signs!” Max shouted through the doorway.

The former captives obeyed. So did the henchmen, who had been told the drill was mandatory. Madame Onboarding tried to halt them, but the sprinkler system had transformed her clipboard into papier-mâché.

“Remain in formation!” she shouted. “Villains first, hostages second, probationary personnel at the rear!”

“Single file,” Max added. “No pushing.”

He untied Dr. Voss so she could serve as evacuation marshal. She immediately tried to run in the opposite direction.

Max gently redirected her.

“The designated assembly area is downstairs, team leader.”

“Stop calling me that!”

“That’s exactly what a humble leader would say.”

Please Sign the Confession Sheet

Max led the evacuation down forty-four flights of stairs.

By the twenty-seventh floor, the henchmen had divided into two factions: those who wanted to escape and those who feared receiving an incomplete grade. Madame Onboarding kept everyone together by announcing that failure to report to the assembly area would result in a notation on their permanent criminal records.

No one knew whether criminals had permanent records beyond the obvious kind, but no one wanted to risk it.

Terry walked beside Max, breathing hard.

“Do you think I have what it takes for this career?” he asked.

“Honestly?”

Terry nodded.

“You’re polite, you listen well, and you worry about consequences. Have you considered customer service?”

Terry looked as if Max had opened a door to a beautiful new world.

“My aunt manages a garden center.”

“Plants rarely return fire.”

“She does need a shift supervisor.”

They reached the lobby. Max checked the emergency map and pointed through the front doors toward a fenced parking lot across the street.

“There it is—the designated assembly area.”

Three police vans, two tactical teams, six patrol cars, and one extremely confused fire inspector were waiting.

The automatic doors opened.

Madame Onboarding stopped so suddenly that thirty-seven henchmen collided behind her like poorly arranged dominoes.

“Mercer,” she whispered, “why are the police here?”

Max looked at the flashing lights. “Fast response time?”

The police raised their weapons.

The henchmen raised their hands.

The casserole carrier raised her covered dish until an officer told her that was unnecessary.

Madame Onboarding spun toward the lobby, but the emergency doors locked behind her. She lifted the security clicker and pressed its only button. Across the street, every police car trunk popped open.

“I continue to be disappointed by technology,” she said.

Dr. Voss ran to the officers. “Arrest them! All of them!”

Max lowered his voice. “Team leader seems upset with the training.”

“She was their hostage,” said a detective.

Max blinked.

He looked at Dr. Voss. He looked at Madame Onboarding. He looked at Terry, who quietly removed his probationary-henchman badge and dropped it into a storm drain.

“Oh,” Max said. “That explains the extension cords.”

Madame Onboarding held up one soaked hand. “You have no proof against my organization.”

The detective smiled.

“Actually, you broadcast your entire plan to police headquarters.”

“Circumstantial.”

“You also identified every member by legal name and criminal specialty.”

“Taken out of context.”

The fire inspector approached Max. “Did everyone complete the evacuation roster?”

Max proudly produced the attendance sheet from his folder.

Every member of Henchmen Local 404 had signed it. The form included legal names, aliases, addresses, emergency contacts, felony specialties, and a checkbox confirming voluntary participation in Operation Iron Midnight.

At the bottom, Madame Onboarding had signed a statement certifying that all information was accurate under penalty of perjury.

The detective examined it.

“This may be the most convenient confession I’ve ever seen.”

Madame Onboarding made a small sound, like a teakettle discovering rage.

Police began loading the villains into vans. Doug went quietly. Janice asked whether someone could feed her foster kittens. The Human Invoice requested a receipt.

Terry lingered near the curb.

“Am I under arrest?” he asked.

The detective checked the broadcast transcript. “You confessed to stealing three tuna sandwiches and a yogurt from an office refrigerator.”

“The yogurt was open.”

“Go home, Terry.”

Terry turned to Max. “Thank you. I’m calling my aunt.”

“Ask about dental,” Max advised.

Terry walked away with better posture than when he had arrived.

The Worst Backup Sidekick in the World

Madame Onboarding was the last villain placed in custody. Before entering the police van, she fixed Max with a stare sharp enough to perforate sheet metal.

“You destroyed an operation that required eighteen months of planning.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You freed every hostage.”

“I really thought they were workshop facilitators.”

“You handed the police our membership roster.”

“They needed it for the head count.”

“And you replaced my master plan with ladder safety.”

Max considered this. “People did seem to remember the three-point-contact rule.”

Madame Onboarding stepped into the van.

“You are permanently banned from Henchmen Local 404.”

The doors slammed shut.

Max sighed. “I don’t think I’m getting paid for today.”

Dr. Voss approached him, now wrapped in a fire department blanket.

“You had no idea what was happening, did you?” she asked.

“I had several ideas. None of them survived contact with the evidence.”

“You disrupted an orbital weapon, exposed a conspiracy, freed twelve captives, stopped a citywide attack, and convinced a henchman to pursue honest work.”

“Thirteen captives,” Max said. “The magician looked emotionally trapped.”

Dr. Voss stared at him for a long moment. Then, despite herself, she laughed.

News crews gathered beyond the police line. A reporter pointed toward Max’s scorched boots, mismatched gloves, and visitor badge marked NIGHT AVENGER.

“Is that the hero who stopped them?” she asked.

The detective glanced at Max.

“More or less.”

“What was his plan?”

Max opened his mouth. Behind him, a police officer pressed the recovered security clicker. Every sprinkler on the forty-fourth floor blasted through the open windows, showering the reporters below. The casserole dish slipped from an evidence cart, struck a parking meter, and knocked the lid off. A flawless pineapple upside-down cake landed on the hood of the news van.

Max looked at the cameras.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen…” He glanced at the cake. “But I’ll take it.”

By evening, every station in the city was telling the same funny supervillain origin story: a mysterious hero had infiltrated a criminal seminar, sabotaged its master plan, liberated the hostages, and marched an entire evil organization into police custody.

The reports described him as cunning, fearless, and a master of psychological warfare.

Max knew better.

He had taken the wrong elevator, fixed the wrong projector, paired the wrong clicker, freed the wrong people, and led everyone to the one place they did not want to go.

In other words, it had been a fairly normal Tuesday for The Misfire.

The post Chapter 12: The Villain Orientation Seminar appeared first on The Misfire Comics.

The day started the way most of my days do—bad coffee, suspicious stares from strangers, and at least one pigeon trying to mug me for a sandwich. I was in a small Eastern European-ish country (the kind you see in spy movies with names that sound like someone sneezed halfway through a word) because I’d agreed to deliver a “totally safe” package for a “totally legitimate” courier service.

Spoiler: it was not totally safe.

The Coronation Mishap

I wandered into the capital city’s main square to find myself in the middle of a parade. People were cheering, confetti was flying, and I—being me—thought Wow, they really love tourists here!

Before I could wave back properly, a group of royal guards surrounded me. They bowed. Bowed.

“Your Majesty, the throne awaits,” one said, straight-faced.

Now, I’ve been mistaken for a janitor, a busboy, and once for a rogue balloon animal artist—but never a king. Turns out the actual king had been missing for weeks, and the sacred “Crown of Velkor” was supposed to choose his rightful successor by landing on their head during the coronation ceremony.

Guess what fell on my head.

Royal Duties in Record Time

They whisked me into the royal palace, tossed me in a robe that smelled faintly of goat, and sat me on a golden throne. An old advisor shoved a royal scepter into my hands and began rattling off urgent matters of state:

1. Approve a trade deal.
2. Sign a law about sheep grazing boundaries.
3. Declare war on a neighboring country over a stolen soup recipe.

Naturally, I tried to stall by asking for snacks. The snacks arrived in the form of an elaborate twelve-course royal banquet… that accidentally got served to the foreign ambassador waiting in the war declaration room. He was so impressed by the “gesture of goodwill” that he called off the war entirely.

Boom. Peace treaty. Accidentally signed with my lunch napkin.

The Coup That Wasn’t

Unfortunately, the real king came back an hour later—muddy, grumpy, and holding a fishing rod. Apparently, he’d just been on vacation. A group of scheming nobles tried to arrest me for “usurping the throne,” but I tripped on the royal carpet and smashed the sacred crown into a hidden wall panel.

That panel revealed a stash of stolen gold the nobles had been hiding for decades. They were immediately arrested. The king thanked me, patted me on the head, and gently escorted me out of the palace.

Epilogue

As I left the city, the people still waved and cheered. One old woman handed me a jar of soup “for the King.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her I’d only been king for like, an hour.

Still… longest job I’ve ever had without getting fired.

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The halls of Castle Regalia were dripping with elegance—gilded banners, polished marble floors, chandeliers with more crystals than a fantasy villain’s staff. It was the kind of place where even the napkins had titles. Tonight was the long-awaited Feast of the Nine Realms, a diplomatic dinner bringing together kings, queens, and other pointy-crowned VIPs to toast a fragile new alliance.

And somehow—somehow—Sir Misfire had been invited.

Maxx Mercer, still getting used to the whole “Sir” thing, stood outside the banquet hall in a suit of armor two sizes too small, a dented salad bowl jammed onto his head like a helmet. Standing beside him: a goat. A real, live, slightly cross-eyed goat with a bowtie and the inexplicable name “Duke of Bleatshire.”

“I told ‘em plus-one,” Maxx whispered, adjusting the goat’s bowtie. “They didn’t specify species. That’s on them.”

The steward looked at the goat, then at Maxx, then back at the goat. He sighed and waved them both in.

Inside the Banquet Hall…

The room quieted as Maxx and the goat clanged their way in. Crystal goblets froze mid-toast. Royal eyes blinked in disbelief. Somewhere, a harp string snapped from tension alone.

King Velkan of the North Isles leaned toward his advisor. “Is that… is that man riding a goat?”

“No, Your Grace. The goat appears to be… escorting him.”

Queen Andelara of the Whispering Sands gasped. “He’s done it again. It’s a symbol. A gesture of rural humility in the face of opulence. Brilliant!”

Maxx, oblivious, tripped on the train of a duchess’s gown and spilled a tray of candied trout onto the lap of the Prime Minister of Fogland. The goat immediately ate half of it.

“Totally part of the plan. Yep. That plan,” Maxx mumbled, trying to pat the goat’s back and knocking over a priceless obsidian vase in the process.

The vase shattered.

Inside? A hidden scroll revealing Fogland’s secret plan to sabotage the peace treaty.

Gasps erupted. Guards surged forward. The Prime Minister stammered. Maxx blinked. “Wait… did I just save the day again?”

Aftermath:

By night’s end, Sir Misfire was hailed as a hero again. The treaty was salvaged, Fogland’s plot was exposed, and the Duke of Bleatshire was knighted for “his tireless chewing in service to justice.”

Maxx stood on the castle balcony, a goblet of apple cider in hand, goat at his side. The moon hung low and full, like a wheel of cheese waiting to be stolen.

“I don’t get it, buddy,” Maxx muttered. “I brought you for the laughs. But somehow you solved geopolitical tension.”

The goat bleated.

Maxx smiled. “Yep. Every plan backfires… into success.”

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Maxx Mercer had no idea why there were so many horses.

Or why he was wearing velvet pants.

Or why a man in a bejeweled turban was trying to stab him with a ceremonial sword while smiling broadly and speaking in a language Maxx definitely didn’t speak.

But let’s rewind a few hours.

It all started because Maxx had taken a wrong turn looking for the bathroom.

He was supposed to be behind the scenes at the United Global Peace & Technology Summit in Geneva, Switzerland—just another freelance technician filling in for a guy who’d swallowed a USB drive “for safe keeping” and had to be airlifted.

But Maxx had wandered down the wrong hallway, opened the wrong gilded double doors, and found himself backstage at what looked like… a royal coronation rehearsal?

Before he could back out, someone had grabbed him.

“Perfect! The honor guard actor bailed. You—on the horse!”

“I—what horse?!”

And that’s how Maxx ended up in a borrowed velvet page uniform, awkwardly mounted on a skittish ceremonial stallion named Judgment, being led into a royal procession for the visiting dignitary from the Sovereign Duchy of Belvaria—a very small, very proud nation known for three things: its goat cheese, its aggressively shiny swords, and its unpredictable diplomatic traditions.

As Maxx tried to look noble (and not fall off), trumpets blared and courtiers cheered. The Belvarian Duke, His Excellency Lord Reginald Vashtar the Fifth, squinted at Maxx, leaned toward his advisor, and whispered, “Is that… the Hero of the Flooded Mainframe?”

Apparently, a recent Belvarian intelligence report had flagged Maxx’s accidental saving of Earth from a rogue AI as evidence of divine chaos. In Belvarian tradition, divine chaos meant you were to be honored… as a Knight of the Curving Path.

Which is why Maxx suddenly found himself face-to-face with Lord Vashtar, who drew a sword that looked more expensive than Maxx’s student loans.

“Maxximus of Mercer,” the Duke intoned, “For bravery most bumbling and chaos most blessed… I dub thee Sir Misfire!”

“Wait—what?” Maxx blinked.

SHTINK! The flat of the blade came down hard on Maxx’s left shoulder, knocking him off balance. Judgment, startled by the motion, reared backward.

Maxx flew off the horse—straight into a ten-tier cake sculpture meant for the evening gala.

Flour, fondant, and national embarrassment flew everywhere.

Gasps. Screams. A very angry pastry chef fainted.

Maxx sat up in the wreckage of buttercream, dazed, cake on his goggles, holding the sword he’d accidentally grabbed mid-fall.

The Duke was silent. Then… he laughed.

Loud. Proud. “Truly,” he bellowed, “this is the most Belvarian knighting in history!”

Puzzled but still alive, Maxx was helped to his feet as the Belvarian choir began singing their national anthem, “May the Goat of Fate Be Ever Unpredictable.”

The sword was presented to him in a velvet-lined box. His name—Sir Maxximus Mercer of the Curving Path—was etched onto an official Belvarian scroll that would be entered into international records.

The U.S. State Department would spend the next three weeks trying to un-knight him.

They failed.

Later That Week…

Back home, Maxx looked at his new title card:
Sir Maxximus Mercer, C.P. (Curving Path)

He sighed. “Totally part of the plan. Yep. That plan.”

The card promptly caught fire from a nearby toaster short.

And somewhere in the world, a villain named Precision clenched her fists, screaming, “HE’S BEEN KNIGHTED?!”

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G.R.I.T. Headquarters – 10:17 AM.

The day started like any other. Maxx Mercer was late, the elevators were broken (again), and he had spilled coffee on his ID badge. Twice. But it wasn’t until he reached Sublevel B and tripped over a service drone that things truly went off the rails.

Maxx caught himself against a door labeled “DO NOT ENTER – CONTAINMENT INTEGRITY ZONE.”

Naturally, it opened.

“Wait, no—why would that open?!” he shouted at the ceiling.

Inside was a small, sterile lab with a humming containment chamber. Sitting neatly on the examination table: a simple ceramic coffee mug. White. Unassuming. A G.R.I.T. logo on one side. On the other, in red letters:
“World’s End.”

Maxx frowned. “Who names a mug that?”

Flashback: One Week Earlier

Dr. Lucinda Groggins, head of Temporal Weaponization Research, had warned the lab team:
“This mug is a quantum containment vessel. It holds the temporal essence of a collapsed alternate timeline—one in which coffee achieved sentience and declared war on humanity.”

She paused.

“…I know how it sounds.”

Back to Present

Maxx looked around. No one in sight. He was late to the staff-wide compliance seminar on “Microwaves: Use, Misuse, and Misery.” He took a sip of his own coffee and stared at the mug on the table.

“I mean, how dangerous could a mug be?”

He reached out and tapped it.

Instantly, the mug hummed. A low, ancient growl echoed from inside it—like a thousand espressos crying out in revolt. The lab lights flickered. Sparks flew. The mug shivered.

Maxx, panicked, did the only thing his instincts allowed: he shoved his own mug of gas station coffee into the containment chamber with it.

A blinding flash.

Time hiccupped.

Elsewhere, in Alternate Timeline Zeta-9

President Latte-Foam the Third’s army of barista-bots halted mid-march. The skies cleared. A confused but very jittery squirrel was crowned the new Coffee Emperor.

Back in G.R.I.T. HQ

Maxx opened his eyes to see the white mug still on the table… but now it read:
“World’s Okayest Hero.”

Behind him, the containment chamber had imploded into a pile of glitter and smelling strongly of French roast. A portal on the far wall was slowly shrinking, showing a brief glimpse of a world made entirely of biscotti.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen…” Maxx muttered, brushing croissant crumbs off his shoulder. “But I’ll take it.”

Just then, Director Halverson burst in, flanked by two agents and a very frazzled physicist.

“Mercer! What did you do?”

Maxx held up both hands. “Uh, I fixed the containment breach? And also… possibly ended the Great Coffee War in Timeline Zeta?”

Everyone just stared.

Then the physicist whispered, “He did what our entire team failed to do in four years…”

Maxx smiled awkwardly. “Totally part of the plan. Yep. That plan.”

Later That Day – Outside G.R.I.T.

Maxx walked out of the building with a new coffee mug in hand, freshly stolen from the breakroom. This one simply said:
“Don’t Talk To Me Until I’ve Saved The Multiverse.”

He took a sip and promptly burned his tongue.

“Ow! Yep… definitely earned that one.”

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