The post Chapter 2: “The Case of the Clockwork Widow” appeared first on The Misfire Comics.
]]>Buy “DC Comics: Batman: Quotes from Gotham City” on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4lN7B2M
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I stood up too fast, tripped over a stack of outdated phone books, and slammed my shin into the desk.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.
The post Chapter 2: “The Case of the Clockwork Widow” appeared first on The Misfire Comics.
]]>The post Chapter 1: Lava Me Tender appeared first on The Misfire Comics.
]]>Buy “DEAD ROCK 1” on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3IL0SYm
Maxx Mercer had never been on a plane longer than the TSA had allowed. Yet here he was, flying across the Pacific with an aisle seat, a carry-on full of melted granola bars, and a strong sense of optimism that bordered on willful ignorance. After all, how much trouble could he possibly get into on vacation?
He was headed to Hawaii to visit his cousin Lani, a volcanologist with a fancy Ph.D., a pet gecko named Carl, and enough skepticism to fill Mauna Loa. Maxx hadn’t seen her since the family luau where he accidentally set fire to a tiki torch stand (which, in his defense, did lead to the discovery of illegal fireworks being stored under the buffet table).
This time, he promised himself, would be different. No gadgets. No hero stuff. No accidental explosions.
Just flip-flops, shaved ice, and not a single—
BOOM.
The plane shook.
Maxx clutched his tray table. “Okay, that wasn’t me!”
A voice came over the intercom: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve just experienced a mild turbulence caused by volcanic activity below. We’ll be landing soon. Mahalo for choosing Air Hula.”
Later… at Lani’s research outpost on the Big Island
Maxx was greeted by a very sweaty Lani, wearing a hazmat suit and the expression of someone who knew exactly what kind of chaos her cousin attracted.
“Maxx,” she said flatly. “Why are you here?”
“I come bearing gifts!” Maxx grinned, pulling out a half-melted chocolate bar and something that looked suspiciously like a walkie-talkie made from a repurposed karaoke mic.
Lani ignored the offerings. “Kilauea’s acting up. The caldera’s swelling. We think a major eruption’s imminent.”
Maxx blinked. “You think it waited until I got here?”
Carl the gecko blinked twice. Lani didn’t.
That Night
Maxx was not supposed to touch anything. And yet…
Left unsupervised near Lani’s equipment, Maxx attempted to heat up leftover spam musubi using a “harmless” prototype geothermic sensor pod.
The pod slipped. Bounced. Hit the ground.
And triggered a self-deploying seismic stabilizer drone.
It shot into the caldera with a cheerful beep-beep and promptly wedged itself into a lava vent like a cork in a shaken soda bottle.
The volcano hiccuped.
Then… quiet.
“Uh-oh,” Maxx muttered. “That wasn’t supposed to happen… but I’ll take it?”
The Next Morning
Scientists were baffled. The pressure had stabilized. Eruption: averted. No one knew how. Except Lani, who stormed into Maxx’s room with a clipboard in one hand and Carl on her shoulder.
“You plugged the vent with my million-dollar drone,” she said.
Maxx smiled sheepishly. “To be fair, I thought it was a portable grill.”
“You saved the island, Maxx.”
“I what?”
“You saved the island… completely by accident.”
Maxx threw his arms up. “Totally part of the plan. Yep. That plan.”
Carl nodded in what might have been reluctant approval.
Back at the airport, boarding his flight out
A news broadcast blared in the terminal:
“Local authorities are still unsure how the catastrophic eruption was halted. Sources report a mysterious ‘tourist in cargo shorts’ may be responsible. We may never know who he is…”
Maxx boarded the plane with a fresh lei, a sunburn shaped like a ukulele, and a bag full of broken electronics.
As the engines roared to life, he smiled and muttered under his breath—
“Wait… did I just save the day again?”
Got questions, comments, or just want to share your own heroic misfires? Drop us a line—we’d love to hear from you!
The post Chapter 1: Lava Me Tender appeared first on The Misfire Comics.
]]>