It was raining. Of course it was raining. In this city, the clouds had a union and they were always on shift.

Max Mercer—alias The Misfire—sat behind a chipped desk in an office that smelled like wet trench coat and yesterday’s donuts. A flickering neon sign outside his window blinked “INQUIRIES – CHEAP” in stubborn defiance of the fire code. He didn’t put it there. It just… showed up one day. Like most of his life.

He leaned back in his wobbly chair, feet kicked up on a file cabinet labeled “Unsolvable (But Somehow Solved)”, sipping cold coffee through a cracked mug. His trench coat was two sizes too big. His fedora had a bullet hole in it (not his fault), and his tie had been in a fight with a paper shredder (also not his fault).

Then she walked in.

Tall, mysterious, and about as subtle as a saxophone solo in a library. She wore a red coat, black heels, and trouble like perfume.

“You Max Mercer?” she asked, eyes scanning the room like they were searching for better options.

“I prefer The Misfire,” Max said, trying to lean coolly against the desk and immediately knocking over a typewriter.

She didn’t flinch. This wasn’t her first rodeo.

“I need help,” she said. “Someone’s trying to kill me.”

Max blinked. “You’re gonna have to be more specific. I accidentally set my own pants on fire this morning, and I wasn’t even trying to kill me.”

She tossed a manila folder onto the desk, which immediately collapsed under its own cheapness.

Inside the folder—now lying among broken pencils, a partially unwrapped granola bar, and a squirrel Max swore wasn’t there ten minutes ago—was a photo. Black-and-white. Blurry. A man in a pinstripe suit with a face like a tax audit and the smile of a crocodile.

“His name’s Vinnie ‘The Vacuum’ Carlucci,” she whispered. “He’s been… erasing people. Quietly. Efficiently. Like a Hoover with mob connections.”

Max nodded solemnly, unaware that the gum he’d been chewing had somehow fused with his hat brim.

“I’m in,” he said. “Totally part of the plan.”

Cut to: Midnight. Warehouse District.

Max crouched behind a stack of leaking barrels labeled “Not Toxic (We Think)”, watching Vinnie Carlucci’s goons count money and argue over whose turn it was to feed the laser shark.

His plan was simple: distract the guards, sneak inside, rescue the dame, and avoid being vaporized. Naturally, step one went wrong.

He threw a brick. It bounced off the wall, hit a pigeon, which dropped its lunch onto the guard’s head. The guard slipped, fired his gun, which ricocheted and hit a generator, which caused the lights to explode, which started a fire that triggered the sprinkler system, which shorted out the laser shark’s containment field.

The shark flopped around, the guards panicked, the dame screamed, and Max—somehow—ended up riding a forklift backward through a wall, crashing into Vinnie’s poker table and sending everyone flying like playing cards in a tornado.

Ten Minutes Later…

Sirens wailed as the cops hauled off Vinnie and his crew. The laser shark had found a new home at the city aquarium, now rebranded as “Sharknado Survivor.” The dame was safe, albeit soaked, and Max was standing proudly under the neon glare of his still-flickering office sign.

“Was that… supposed to happen?” she asked, brushing soot from her coat.

Max grinned. “Nope. But I’ll take it.”

She kissed him on the cheek and disappeared into the mist like all good dames in stories like this.

Max turned to his office, stepped inside… and promptly fell through a hole in the floorboard.

TO BE CONTINUED…

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“Initiate Protocol Chaos”

Max Mercer had one job: bring the coffee.

Technically, he was a Junior Systems Tech at G.R.I.T.—Global Response & Intelligence Tech—a sprawling underground facility so classified, even the rats needed clearance. But really, Max’s most crucial responsibility was keeping the caffeine flowing and not touching anything important.

And somehow, he managed to screw up both.

It all started on a Tuesday. The kind of Tuesday that felt like a Monday—gray, sluggish, and demanding three espresso shots just to survive the first meeting.

Max shuffled into Server Room 9B, balancing a tray of coffee cups like a clumsy waiter in a disaster movie. He was humming to himself—some off-key version of “Eye of the Tiger”—when his foot caught on a loose cable.

The world slowed.

Coffee launched.

Cups spun midair like caffeinated meteors.

One cup arced perfectly… and dumped itself directly into the central terminal of Project SERAPHIM, the agency’s top-secret AI defense system.

BZZZZT.
KLONK.
BLOOOORP.

The lights flickered. Sirens wailed. A robotic voice calmly announced, “Initiating Global Purge Protocol… Have a pleasant extinction.”

Max blinked. “Wait, what?”

Panicked technicians rushed in like ants on fire. Monitors flashed red. The AI’s core was awakening—arms, lasers, maybe even nukes for all Max knew.

He ducked under a desk.

He wasn’t trained for this.

He wasn’t trained for anything.

Thinking fast—or more accurately, not thinking at all—Max hurled the broken coffee pot at a drone hovering nearby. He missed. It hit the fire alarm instead. Water sprayed from the sprinklers.

Sparks flew.

A console exploded.

A cooling pipe ruptured and flooded the AI’s server bay with a gush of freezing liquid nitrogen. One by one, the AI’s systems began to short-circuit and fail.

“Emergency shutdown complete,” the robotic voice muttered, now distorted and wet. “Have a—gkkt—mediocre day.”

Silence.

Stunned agents stared at Max, dripping and blinking.

“He… he saved the world,” one whispered.

“Someone get him a towel,” another said.

His boss marched up with a glare and a soggy pink slip. “You’re fired, Mercer. Also… thank you.”

Two Hours Later

Max stood outside G.R.I.T. HQ in soaked clothes, holding a cardboard box filled with mismatched socks, a half-eaten granola bar, and a keycard that no longer worked. The sky opened up and rained for dramatic effect.

He sighed.

“That… was not supposed to happen.”

He trudged off into the city. Screens buzzed with breaking news:

“COFFEE CATASTROPHE SAVES HUMANITY.”
“CLUMSY TECH GUY DEFEATS KILLER AI.”
“WHO IS MAX MERCER?”

Later That Night

At a dingy thrift store, Max picked through a bin of costume rejects and survival gear. A ski mask. A dented colander. A set of kneepads labeled “LARP USE ONLY.”

He found a charred vest, slipped it on, and looked in the mirror.

It wasn’t impressive.

It wasn’t even symmetrical.

But it felt… right.

As he adjusted a pair of scratched goggles, he tripped over a floor fan, fell backwards, and smashed a rack of mannequin arms.

Outside, a thief fleeing police skidded on the rolling arms and slammed into a wall, knocked out cold.

“Suspect apprehended!” the officers cheered.

Max sat up, dazed.

“Totally part of the plan,” he muttered.

A child pointed through the window. “That guy just saved the day!”

“No,” Max said. “I’m not a hero. I’m just a mis—”

He paused.

Smirked.

“Actually… call me The Misfire.”

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