It was raining again.
Because of course it was.

The kind of rain that bounces off your hat, soaks through your socks, and makes every alleyway smell like regret and expired chow mein. I was nursing a bruised shin, a cold cup of gas station coffee, and a hangover that tasted like wet cardboard and questionable life choices.

The office was quiet, save for the rhythmic drip from the ceiling tile I still hadn’t fixed. My ceiling had more leaks than my last plan to fix a toaster with chewing gum.

That’s when she walked in.

Tall, statuesque, and covered in oil—motor oil, to be precise. She was wearing a velvet trench coat two sizes too big and a wide-brimmed hat that shadowed half her face. The other half was metal. Not metaphorical-metal. I mean chrome cheekbones and glowing eyes.

“You Maxx Mercer?” she purred in a tone that sounded like broken jazz.

I stood up too fast, tripped over a stack of outdated phone books, and slammed my shin into the desk. Again.

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

She didn’t laugh. Bots rarely do.

The Job

Her name was Clara Nine. Model: Widowmaker-Class Companion Drone, previously owned by one Archibald Whittlespoon—retired watchmaker, amateur inventor, and now, apparently, recently deceased under mysterious circumstances.

“I think someone wound him down… permanently,” she said, sliding a photo across my desk. It was a grainy shot of a shattered pocket watch, and behind it, a man with a face like a wrinkled raisin and eyes full of secrets.

“The cops say heart failure. But Archie never did anything without precision. Even his death is three seconds off.”

I didn’t understand half of what she said, but I liked the way she said it. Also, I needed rent money.

“I’ll take the case,” I said, spilling my coffee into the drawer.

The Clues

Archibald’s workshop smelled like dust, brass gears, and overachieving cats. I poked around while Clara brooded by the hearth like a melancholic Roomba.

First clue? A blueprint torn in half and jammed behind a cuckoo clock. The other half? Missing. But the part I had was labeled “MK. VII: Temporal Delay Mechanism – UNSTABLE.”

Unstable. Just like my life.

Second clue? A broken wind-up duck in the sink. It wasn’t plugged in, but it kept tapping its beak in Morse code.

“D…O…N…T…”

Then it exploded. I lost an eyebrow and gained a clue. Not a bad trade.

The Twist

Back in my office, I tried to piece together the mystery with duct tape and expired gummy bears. That’s when the goons showed up—three suits, two cyborg eyes, and one very large crowbar.

“Give us the blueprint, Mercer,” said the tall one, who looked like a tax auditor crossed with a vending machine.

“Blueprint? I barely have blue pens.”

They weren’t in the mood for jokes. But lucky for me, my smoke detector picked that exact moment to malfunction, triggering the fire suppression system. Water rained down, short-circuiting one thug’s bionic eye and causing the other to slip on my banana peel lunch.

Chaos, 2. Goons, 0.

Clara arrived just in time to vaporize the third one with her high-frequency lip gloss. I never asked how it worked.

The Truth

Turns out Archie’s invention was no ordinary watch part. It was a time-delay disruptor meant to de-sync small pockets of time—useful for avoiding accidents or, say, making someone’s pacemaker skip a beat.

The other half of the blueprint had been stolen by a rogue AI named Tick-Tock, who wanted to stop time entirely.

But I’d already mailed the wrong half of the blueprint to my landlord by accident, thinking it was my rent check. He’d shredded it in a fit of rage.

Tick-Tock’s plan? Foiled.

Clara gave me a nod that might’ve been robotic approval—or gas escaping her shoulder port. I’ll take it.

The Wrap-Up

She left me with a firm handshake and a half-full can of WD-40.

The case was closed. My eyebrow would grow back. And the fire sprinklers were still going.

But hey…

That wasn’t supposed to happen…
…but I’ll take it.

Got a mystery that needs untangling or just wanna drop a line? Slide your message under the door—or better yet, [contact us] before the next case finds me first.

DC Comics: Batman: Quotes from Gotham City (Tiny Book)

New starting from: 11.84

Go to Amazon

The post Chapter 2: “The Case of the Clockwork Widow” appeared first on The Misfire Comics.