Peter was a dull, fickle man. There was something about his portly and simple presence altogether that left him with actually no presence at all. This had become increasingly apparent to him since boyhood, when he always got picked last for team sports, and then well into his young adulthood life when women failed to notice him at all.

Rather than wallow in misery over his lack of aura, Peter instead decided to use it as a weapon against those who underestimated him. If the snooty, local barista forgot his name after he ordered a coffee, or if a hurried businessman in designer clothes failed to give Peter the time of day, he would stalk them from the shadows. When the time was right, Peter would slip by them, accidentally bumping their shoulder and then apologize profusely. Most often, they would roll their eyes and continue about their day without acknowledging the stranger. Later in the day, they would discover that their wallets or any other important items they were carrying had been taken from them. Fortunately for Peter, these strangers could never recall his bland appearance.

Simply put, Peter was a dull, sticky-fingered man. Ultimately, this led to dear, boring Peter discovering the stickiness of the world around him. This sudden realization of the sheer amount of filth in the city led Peter to believe that life wasn’t quite as boring as he had previously thought. The inherent danger of the filth excited him.

Everything was sticky; the streets were sticky with tapping feet. The places where he sat and ate were sticky with the remnants of spilt drinks and greasy bodies. To his amusement, his very own hands were even sticky, so sticky in fact that they accumulated an obnoxious film of filth.

The filth radiated from the world around him, growing into a sickening aura that pervaded only the stickiest people in the stickiest parts of the city. In places where other people simply saw a family-owned diner or a local bank, Peter would see black, oil-like sludge climbing the walls, stretching across floors, and sticking to the ankles of every passerby.

This filth was a sickness, and Peter was good at tracking it. Before long, his sticky hands were picking the pockets of the stickiest people in town. The result often left Peter’s own pockets feeling much heavier. It didn’t take long before someone tracked the sticky-fingered man down, but to his surprise he was not being sought for arrest, but rather for a job.

After being tasked by a man named King, Peter continued to lurk in the shadows of the sticky city while stalking sticky people, only this time he was getting paid to do so. This was how he became an informant for The Assistance Agency.

Although Peter had a knack for being sneaky and gathering information while being undetected ceaselessly, he had a rather severe shortcoming. Not only were his fingers sticky, but also was his brain. He wanted to know everything about everyone, especially the people who reeked of filth.

This uncanny talent led Peter to discover more than he was being paid for, including ‘jobs’ that had been committed by Assistance Agency members as well as the identities of some of those members. After all, those persons were riddled with black sludge. It encompassed their bodies so entirely and so deeply, that even their souls emanated like black smoke from their sticky skin.

To Peter, the Assistance Agency was a harem of demons feeding and engorging themselves on the sins of the city. Mouse was like their mother, ruling the lower levels of the city like a horde of hundreds of smoky black rats that trampled over everything in sight. Following in Mouse’s tiny footsteps, Ape’s dark shoulders spanned the width of entire buildings, knocking sludge onto unsuspecting citizens below. Dobi was always close, yet always far with her speed and grace as she sent streaks of black throughout the city effortlessly.

The rookie Jackrabbit was a formidable demon as well, hopping to and fro but always leaving thick splatters of sludge wherever he went. His presence was loud and abrasive, and often masked itself in the form of a wild-eyed friend. Then there was the elusive Agent Crow, the demon that Peter had never wanted to see.

The portly Peter knew too much as an informant of the Agency, and so it was only a matter of time before it was realized that he had become an internal threat. For the first time in his life, Peter’s talent would fail him.

* * * * *

A thick fog hung low around the city, wrapping pedestrians in an uncomfortable veil of humidity. People were hurrying to and fro as they scrambled to reach their respective places of work on time. During this time of early morning chaos, people were often oblivious to the world around them, and they were especially oblivious to Peter as he lurked in the shadows.

Two well-dressed persons walked by the stalker and immediately caught his attention. A balding, middle-aged man with thick, dark eyebrows was walking swiftly down the street with a younger woman in tow. There was something questionable about their clean suits and the stern expressions upon their faces that influenced Peter to follow them immediately.

Peter spectated the activities of the two strangers as they walked around downtown, bought coffee, and talked in hushed voices. The younger woman would occasionally take out a small notepad and jot down whatever the older man was telling her.

After observing them for a while, Peter deduced that the two were from out of town. This, along with the fact that the two were highly suspicious, made Peter more and more curious about the young woman’s notepad. It may have been a stretch to make any assumptions so soon, but the strangers clad in clean suits seemed like cops.

After the strangers in clean suits finished their coffee, Peter slid cautiously out of the shadows and pretended to be making a phone call. Just as he was passing the young woman, he pretended to carelessly bump into her and apologized profusely before walking away quickly. Neither of the strangers even had time to respond as Peter swiftly disappeared.

Once he was out of sight, Peter thumbed through the pages of the notebook greedily looking for any information that would be drawn to his sticky brain. To his chagrin, the notepad contained doodles, poems, and other frivolous nonsense. He started to think that his efforts had been a total waste.

Peter clicked his tongue grumpily as he reached the last page and read what it said. His entire body froze in a cold sweat as anxiety instantly spilled over his body like ice-cold water. His eyes rolled over the very last, sticky little page of the notepad as he looked at what was written:

Did you find what you were looking for, Mole?

Peter the Mole tried to drop the notepad, but its texture had suddenly turned black and tar-like. He flapped his hand vigorously, but the notepad was stuck and refused to leave his grasp. The black tar spread slowly up his arms like sticky cobwebs and wrapped itself around his sweat-stained, button-down shirt. It continued to spread until it crawled its way over Peter’s face, up through his nostrils, and into the crevices of his eyes.

The poor Mole was fucked.