The sea stretched endlessly in every direction, dark and unforgiving beneath the overcast sky. The ship rocked gently, its rusted hull creaking with every wave. Chris stood on the deck, the scent of salt and diesel thick in the air, his black metallic fingers drumming against the railing.

The job hadn’t taken long. Murder never stayed hidden on a ship for long—too many eyes, too little space. A man had been stabbed in his cabin, door locked from the inside. The crew swore it was a ghost, some curse of the deep. Chris knew better.

The killer had been sloppy. A misplaced boot print, a discarded knife wiped down but still holding the faintest trace of blood. And the motive? Simple. Greed. It always was.

Now the job was done, the body wrapped, the killer locked in the brig, waiting for the authorities at the next port.

Chris lit a cigarette, watching the waves churn. He had time to kill before landfall. He pulled up his terminal, scrolling through language modules.

If he was going to keep working overseas, he needed more than just street-level dialects. Mandarin, Spanish, Russian—he started downloading the basics. Enough to listen, enough to blend in.

He took another drag, exhaling into the cold sea air. Chris didnt mind the sea in another life he may have been a pirate for now it was on to the next job.  There would always be another job, another mystery. But for now, he had time to learn.

Chris Waits

Chris leaned against the railing of the back porch, watching the smoke from his cigarette drift into the cold evening air. The garage light flickered as his friend was hunched over the open hood of an old coupe, half-swallowed by the shadows. A radio played low from inside—classic rock, barely loud enough to hum along to.

They weren’t in a hurry. The car could wait. The night could stretch.

Chris exhaled, letting the quiet settle. The hound wasn’t with him this time, which meant, for now, he wasn’t working.

He glanced toward the street. Empty. Good.

"Pass me that wrench," his friend called, breaking the silence.

Chris grabbed it off the tool cart, handed it over.

"You’re quiet tonight."

Chris just shrugged. There wasn’t much to say.

Then he heard it—the sound of footsteps on gravel. Slow. Purposeful.

Chris turned his head, spotting the stranger before his friend even noticed. A man in a dark coat, hands in his pockets, walking toward them like he belonged there. Like he was expected.

Chris knew better.

His friend finally looked up, brow furrowing. "You expecting someone?"

Chris took a slow drag, then flicked the cigarette away.

"No," he muttered. "But it looks like they’re expecting me."

The stranger stopped just short of the garage light, his face still in the dark.

"Chris," he said, voice even. "We need to talk."

Chris sighed, rolling his shoulders.

"Yeah," he said. "That’s what I was afraid of." Chris went to listen to the stranger. 

Chris sat on the cold metal bench, his black metallic fingers tapping a slow rhythm against the wall. The cell was small, the lights too bright, the air thick with sweat and bad memories. He hated it here.

Jail wasn’t built for people like him. The walls felt tighter every day, the routines gnawed at his mind. No movement, no purpose, no escape. Just time stretching out like a broken data stream.

The other inmates gave him space. Some because they’d heard the stories. Others because of the cybernetics—the black-market augments that made him more machine than man. But none of that mattered here. His strength, his speed, his upgrades—they were useless behind reinforced walls.

Except for his mind.

That was the only thing they couldn’t take from him.

So he thought. He planned. He mapped every corridor, every guard rotation, every blind spot in the security feeds. He listened. To the whispers in the yard, to the deals being made in the cafeteria, to the grudges waiting for the right moment to explode.

And he waited.

Because someone out there still needed him. Because the city was still rotting. Because the fungus hadn’t stopped spreading.

And because there was no way in hell he was dying in this place.

A guard stopped in front of his cell, tapping the bars. “Visitor for you.”

Chris stood, cracking his neck.

Maybe his time was up. Or maybe his plan was just beginning. Chirs waits to see whose visiting and why. 

Chris sat in the dim glow of his terminal, black metallic fingers tapping against the desk as data scrolled across the screen. Spore samples, case studies, accounts of people changed by the fungi—some thriving, some disappearing. The city outside buzzed with neon life, oblivious to the creeping mystery beneath it.

The fungus wasn’t just a pathogen. It was something more.

His visor flickered, enhancing microscopic images of fungal networks—mycelium threading through organic matter like circuitry, pulsing with some unknown intelligence. Infected test subjects reported visions, voices whispering through their minds like a radio station just beyond the dial. Some developed enhanced cognition, faster reflexes. Others? They dissolved into the walls, became part of something bigger.

Chris leaned back, exhaling.

Dr. Whispers had warned him not to go too deep. Said some knowledge wasn’t meant to be uncovered. But Chris knew better—this wasn’t just a disease; it was potential. A way to evolve beyond metal and code. Beyond flesh itself.

The files from a black-market lab hinted at something terrifying—controlled symbiosis. The idea that the right strain of fungus could merge with the host, enhancing them instead of consuming them. The applications were endless. Immortality. Mind-melding. A new kind of existence.  Chris tensed, his hand hovering over his gun. He wasn’t the only one looking for answers. And someone didn’t want him to find them. As a message appeared your being watched. Chris knows he cant be traced and just chuckles as he closes his laptop.  Sips on his coffee. 

No Chains

Chris sprinted through the alley, the briefcase secured in one hand, his other gripping the pistol still hot from the last shot fired. Sirens howled behind him, tires screeching as squad cars swarmed the streets. His target was dead—one clean shot, just as planned. But getting out? That was messy.

A spotlight cut through the dark, sweeping across rooftops. He ducked behind a dumpster, breathing hard, the adrenaline sharpening his focus. He wasn’t going to prison. That was never an option.

The air around him shifted—his pulse slowed, his vision sharpened. He reached deep, tapping into the power coiled in his veins. The streetlights flickered. The shadows around him thickened, stretching unnaturally. The hound wasn’t here, but something else was.

A cop turned the corner, weapon raised.

“Freeze! Hands where I can see ‘em!”

Chris didn’t. Instead, the shadows at his feet surged, twisting and rising like living smoke. The officer hesitated—just enough. Chris moved. Fast. Too fast. One moment he was there, the next he wasn’t, slipping through the dark like he was part of it.

By the time the cops reached the alley, he was already gone, melted into the city’s underbelly. He kept moving, breath steady, mind already on the next step. Job was messy and spiraled quick. Chis was looking for his next and knew that. He’d secured the briefcase. The job was done. But they’d come looking. Chris had to go to ground once more. Try to find a spot to lat low. 

Synthetic Flesh

Chris leaned over the laptop, the screen casting a pale glow across the dim cabin. The whiskey sat untouched tonight—his focus was locked on lines of text, research papers buried in the deep web, and obscure patents that had been quietly revoked.

Nanite technology. Self-repairing bio-synthetic tissue. The kind of science that governments wanted to control and corporations wanted to bury. Most of it was theoretical, but there were whispers—classified experiments, military applications, and underground labs pushing the limits of artificial life.

He scrolled past a declassified DARPA report, skimming phrases like programmable cellular structure and adaptive biomechanical regeneration. The implications were staggering. If nanites could be programmed to mimic organic tissue, to become flesh, then they wouldn’t just heal wounds—they could replace entire bodies, rewrite biology at the molecular level.

Chris frowned, rubbing his jaw. Was someone already using this tech? He thought of the last contract, of the way the target didn’t bleed right. The way the wound had sealed too fast, like the body was learning.

He pulled up another file—an old incident report from a medical facility that had burned down overnight. Staff missing. No bodies recovered.

Chris sat back, exhaling slowly. If someone had perfected nanite-grown skin, they weren’t using it to save lives.

They were using it to hide.

And if his next job involved something that wasn’t quite human—he needed to be ready for that, too. In this line work he needed an edhe too many close calls. 

Whispers in the Dark

Chris sat at the worn wooden table, a half-empty bottle of whiskey at his elbow and his laptop glowing dimly in the dark. The air smelled of old books and smoke, the cabin’s single lamp casting long shadows across the room. He scrolled through pages of obscure forums, newspaper clippings, and grainy surveillance footage—anything tied to the occult, the unexplained, the kind of things most people dismissed.

A bar in New Orleans. A roadside diner in Utah. A mining town up north, abandoned overnight with no official explanation. He skimmed reports of disappearances, sightings—figures with too-long limbs, animals with glowing eyes, shadows moving against the wind. Some were nonsense, but others... others felt familiar.

Chris took a slow sip, the burn in his throat grounding him. He knew the world wasn’t what it seemed. He’d seen things, hunted things, delivered them when the price was right. The hound was proof enough of that. And if the next job had ties to something deeper, something worse? Then he had to be ready.

He leaned back, rubbing his temple, eyes scanning over a blurry security photo—a man standing on a rooftop at 3 a.m., his shadow stretching impossibly far under a streetlight.

Chris exhaled, closed his laptop, and poured another drink. Breathing a sigh or relief. Leans back and mutters. Im getting closer than i have ever have been before. Lights dance as chris slips off into a night sleep. Finally able to rest and sleep. 

Chris sat in the back of a rundown bar, hood low, coat damp from the rain. The place smelled like spilled liquor and bad decisions—perfect for someone trying to disappear. His cybernetic fingers drummed against the scarred tabletop, the only sound breaking through the low hum of conversation and an old jukebox playing something sad.

The city was hunting him. Every screen, every drone, every officer with a pulse knew his face. Well, his old face. The fish mutation had yet to hit the news, but it was only a matter of time. He couldn’t keep hiding forever. He needed work.

A job meant credits, and credits meant escape.

His contact was late. Chris kept his head down as a group of officers passed by outside, their silhouettes framed by the flashing red-and-blue of their patrol car. His gills fluttered involuntarily, a sharp reminder of his condition. He reached for the glass of water on the table, taking a slow sip—just enough to keep himself breathing steady.

Then, a shadow loomed over him.

“You look like hell, Chris.”

The voice was familiar. A fixer. Someone who dealt in problems and the people desperate enough to solve them.

Chris exhaled, setting the glass down. “You got something for me or not?”

The fixer slid a data chip across the table. “Big payout. Big risk. Just your style.”

Chris glanced at the door, then back at the chip.

It was time to move again. For another job one step closer

Training in the Dark

Chris moved like a ghost through the woods, his breath steady, his footsteps silent. The early morning fog clung to the trees as he ran the worn dirt path behind the cabin, pushing his body past exhaustion. He didn’t know what the next contract would be—only that it was coming. That was enough.

The days were a cycle of discipline. Strength training with rusted weights in the shed. Knife drills against a wooden post, deep gashes marking every perfect strike. Target practice with a silenced pistol, squeezing the trigger until his hand felt like it was part of the weapon. He fought his own shadow, threw punches at ghosts, trained for scenarios he couldn’t predict.

At night, he studied. Maps. Reports. Patterns of movement from old jobs, dissecting mistakes that hadn’t killed him but could have. He kept a burner phone powered off in the drawer. When it rang, the job would begin. Until then, he stayed in the dark, unseen, sharpening himself like a blade.

The hound wasn’t here. Not yet. That part of the job only came when it was time to move. But Chris could feel it—like a presence just beyond the trees, waiting.

He finished his last set of push-ups, sweat dripping onto the cold wooden floor. He exhaled, staring at the ceiling.

The waiting was the hardest part. But soon, the silence would break. It always did. And when it did, he would be ready. Waiting for the next chance.