Hot Mutt.

Hot Mutt is not on the roster and never will be. It is not a person and, on the balance of the evidence, not exactly a dog. It appears at the edge of drops, always at the edge, always just before the count.

By the time anyone thinks to look twice, it is gone. The desk has stopped requesting photographs. The photographs never come out, and the ones that do are of the spot where it was standing, warm and empty.

Everyone agrees on the shape. Nobody agrees on the size. That is the part that keeps me up. OPERATIVE FILE 026, SIGHTINGS ADDENDUM

SHARED FEATURES

The sightings share three things. It is always warmer where it stood, measurably, for about a minute. Dogs that belong to operatives will not go near the spot and will not explain why. And everyone who has seen it agrees on the shape and disagrees, violently, on the size.

HANDLING PROTOCOL

If Hot Mutt appears at your drop, do not feed it, do not name it, and do not, under any circumstances, let it into the redacted redacted. It knows the way already. That is the problem.

The remainder of this file is sealed in the Vault pending clearance review.

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