Imagine, if you will, that your body is a high-speed, 24-hour construction crew. For years, they've been patching up every pothole, every shattered window, and every structural collapse in record time. They're loud, they're messy, but they get the job done.
Now, imagine someone just called a strike. The foremen have walked off the job. The supplies are gone. And suddenly, you notice that the building—which happens to be you—is actually a condemned, termite-infested shanty held together by spit and sheer spite.
That's what the "Dampener Gas" feels like. It's the silence. The horrible, deafening silence of my cells giving up.
[Wade, the oxygen saturation in our blood is dropping. The tumors in the left lung are expanding. They're... they're waking up.]
[It's like a slumber party where the only snack is death! Who brought the dip? Is it spinach-artichoke? I hope it's spinach-artichoke.]
(Shut up, White. If we die, the party's over for everyone. No dip. No disco. Just an eternity of being a skeleton in a very tight onesie.)
I'm on my hands and knees in the dirt of Pier 42. The green mist is swirling around me, smelling like a mix of formaldehyde and a burnt GPU. Every breath is a serrated blade sliding down my windpipe. My ribs, which were halfway through the "knitting back together" phase when the gas hit, are now just jagged pieces of calcium stabbing into my pleura.
I look up. The girl with the glowing blue eyes is backed against a crate. The tactical team—Smythe's goons—are advancing. They aren't shooting yet. They want her alive. They have these high-tech containment poles, the kind you'd use to catch a rabid dog, only these are humming with enough electricity to fry an elephant.
"Don't... touch... her..." I wheeze. A glob of dark, viscous blood hits the pavement. It doesn't look like normal blood. It looks like the stuff you find at the bottom of a dumpster behind a chemo clinic.
"Wilson? You're still talking?" one of the goons says. He sounds genuinely impressed. He's wearing a helmet with a digital HUD, probably tracking my vitals. "According to this, you should be in hypovolemic shock. Your heart is basically a bag of marbles at this point."
"I'm... a... high... achiever," I growl.
I reach for the Glock 17 holstered at my thigh. My fingers feel like sausages made of lead. I can't feel the tips. Nerve damage. Without the healing factor, the minor spinal injury I took from the dumpster fall is finally settling in.
Click.
I draw. The world is swimming. (Hey, Reader, if the font starts getting blurry, it's not the formatting—it's the fact that I'm currently going blind in my left eye. Cataracts are a bitch when they happen in three seconds flat.)
BANG. BANG.
I fire two shots. Normally, I'm a marksman. I can hit a fly's wing at fifty yards while riding a unicycle. Today? I hit the crate three feet to the left of the lead goon.
"He's neutralized," the goon says, dismissively. "Secure the asset. We'll finish him off after we bag the girl."
The girl—let's call her Blue, for now—looks at me. She isn't crying. She's vibrating. The air around her is warping, like the heat haze off an asphalt road in July. She's terrified, but there's something else there. Power. The kind of power that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up—or it would, if I had hair.
"Stay back!" Blue screams.
Her voice isn't just sound. It's a physical force. A ripple of blue kinetic energy erupts from her, slamming into the lead goon and throwing him back twenty feet into the side of a forklift. His helmet shatters. He doesn't get up.
But the other four are ready. They plant their feet, their boots mag-locking to the concrete.
"Engagement Protocol Gamma!" the new leader shouts. "Suppress the field!"
They activate the poles. A web of orange energy-lashing connects the four points, creating a containment grid that starts to shrink around the girl. She screams again, pushing out with her hands, but the orange grid absorbs the blue shockwaves. It's a sponge for her soul.
[We have to do something, Wade. If they take her, Smythe wins. And if Smythe wins, he has the dampener AND the battery.]
[I have an idea! Let's use the 'Maximum Effort' thing! But, like, with less 'effort' and more 'falling down'!]
(I'm working on it!)
I can't stand. Not yet. I have to cheat. I always have to cheat when the plot armor gets thin.
I reach into my utility belt. My hands are shaking so much I almost drop the 'Special Surprise.' It's a prototype Stark-Tech magnetic pulse grenade I 'borrowed' from a SHIELD lockup three months ago. It was supposed to be my retirement plan—sell it to the highest bidder and buy a lifetime supply of chimichangas and a golden toilet.
"Hey! Rent-a-cops!" I yell, my voice breaking.
They don't even look at me. They're too focused on the girl.
I don't throw the grenade. I can't. I don't have the strength. Instead, I pull the pin with my teeth—losing a molar in the process, because mortality—and I simply let it roll.
The grenade wobbles across the uneven concrete, clinking softly. It rolls right into the center of the tactical team's formation.
"What the—?"
VROOOM-PULSE.
It's not an explosion. It's an electromagnetic vacuum. For a split second, every piece of tech within thirty feet dies. The orange containment grid vanishes. The mag-locks on their boots fail. The HUDs in their helmets short-circuit, blinding them.
And most importantly, the biometric dampener emitters in the green gas canisters? They flicker and die.
(Oh, baby. Talk to me.)
The "itch" is back.
It starts at the base of my skull—a frantic, electric buzzing. It's the sound of a million construction workers suddenly being told there's a triple-overtime bonus and free donuts.
My lungs expand, the tumors being violently crushed and dissolved by the incoming wave of healthy(ish) cells. My ribs snap back into place with a sound like a flurry of firecrackers. The blindness in my left eye clears as the cataracts are eaten away by my own biology.
It hurts. God, it hurts. It's worse than the injury itself. It's the feeling of being put through a meat grinder in reverse.
I stand up. I'm not 100%. The gas is still in the air, trying to fight back, but the initial "choke" is broken. I'm a shark that just smelled a bucket of chum.
"My turn," I snarl.
I don't use the guns. I'm too pissed off for guns. I draw the katanas. The steel glints in the moonlight, reflecting the flickering blue light from the girl.
I move. I'm a blur of red spandex and bad intentions.
The first goon is still trying to get his helmet off. I don't give him the chance. I slide low, the blade of my right sword ham-stringing him before he can even blink. As he falls, I spin, the left blade taking him across the throat.
Shhh-lick.
No quips. No jokes. Just the cold, efficient work of a man who was trained to be a weapon before he was a punchline.
[Ooh, the silent treatment! Very 'Old School Logan' of us!]
[I like the red splashes. They match the suit! It's very coordinated!]
The second goon manages to pull a sidearm, but I'm already inside his guard. I grab his wrist, snapping the bone like a dry twig—crack—and use his own hand to point the gun at the third goon.
BANG. BANG.
Two down.
The fourth goon, the leader, finally clears his HUD. He sees me coming. He's good—he's fast. He draws a combat knife and parries my first strike.
"You're a freak, Wilson!" he screams.
"I'm a decorated freak," I retort, finding my voice again. "I have a participation trophy from the 'Life Sucks' Invitational!"
I kick him in the chest, my boot connecting with his tactical vest. The impact sends him reeling back toward the edge of the pier. He tries to stabilize, but I'm on him. I sheath one sword and grab him by the throat with my left hand, hoisting him up.
My healing factor is screaming, fighting the lingering gas in my system. My skin is bubbling, red and raw, the mask sticking to the weeping sores on my face. I must look like a nightmare.
"Tell Alistair he's getting a bad Yelp review," I whisper.
I don't kill him. I'm not in the mood for the paperwork. I just toss him over the edge. The splash he makes in the Hudson is satisfyingly heavy.
I turn back to the girl.
She's slumped against the crate, the blue glow fading from her eyes. She's exhausted. The kinetic burst took everything she had.
I walk toward her, trying to look non-threatening. It's hard to do when you're covered in the blood of four men and your face looks like a topographic map of a pepperoni pizza.
"Hey, kid," I say, sheathing my other sword. "I'm the good guy. Well, 'good' is a subjective term. I'm the guy who isn't currently trying to put you in a cage. Let's start there."
She looks up at me, her lip trembling. "Who... who are you?"
"I'm Deadpool. But you can call me Wade. Or 'That Handsome Devil in the Red Suit.' I'm flexible."
I reach out a hand. She shrinks back, her eyes darting to the carnage behind me.
"It's okay," I say, my voice softening. "They were jerks. They didn't even have a permit for those energy poles. Very OSHA non-compliant."
Suddenly, the air gets cold. I mean really cold. The kind of cold that happens when a certain one-eyed, metal-armed, grumpy-faced time-traveler enters the room.
"Wilson."
I freeze. I know that voice. It sounds like a landslide of gravel and disappointment.
I turn around slowly.
Standing at the end of the pier is a man who definitely didn't get the memo about the 'No Grumpy People' rule. He's wearing gray and blue tactical gear, a massive oversized rifle slung over his shoulder, and his left eye is glowing with a steady, menacing yellow light.
"Nathan!" I chirp, waving my blood-stained hand. "Long time, no see! Did you get my Edible Arrangement? I sent it to the future, but I might have gotten the zip code wrong. 4022 is a tricky year."
Cable doesn't smile. He never smiles. He looks at me, then his eyes shift to the girl. His expression goes from 'annoyed' to 'deadly serious' in a microsecond.
"Wade," Cable says, stepping forward. "Step away from the girl. You have no idea what you've stumbled into."
"Actually, Nate, I do. I'm on a job. Two million bucks. Although, to be fair, the employer is a bit of a douchebag and the job description was... let's say 'misleading.'"
"Smythe," Cable says, the name sounding like a curse. "He's been tracking her signature for months. She's not just a mutant, Wade. She's a Catalyst."
"A what? Like for a car? Does she help with emissions? Because NYC could really use that."
[A Catalyst. The 'Bio-Battery' theory was close, but this is worse.]
[Is she going to explode? I hope she doesn't explode until we get our check!]
Cable ignores the voices (he can't hear them, but he definitely knows I'm talking to them). He raises his rifle, but he doesn't point it at me. He points it at the horizon, where three black sleek helicopters are appearing over the water.
"Smythe's backup," Cable says. "And they aren't coming to negotiate. They're coming to 'sanitize' the area."
I look at the girl. She's staring at Cable like he's a ghost.
"You," she whispers, looking at Cable's metal arm. "The man from the dreams."
Cable flinches. It's subtle, but I see it. "Not now, Ellie. We have to move."
"Wait, 'Ellie'?" I ask, looking between them. "You two know each other? Is this a family reunion? Should I go get some potato salad?"
"Wade, shut up and get her to the safe house," Cable barks. He reaches into a pouch on his belt and tosses me a small, metallic disc. "Use the teleporter. It's a one-way jump to the Graymalkin coordinates."
"And what are you going to do?"
Cable racks the slide on his massive gun. The yellow glow in his eye flares brighter, casting long shadows across the pier.
"I'm going to remind Alistair Smythe why he should have stayed in the R&D department."
The helicopters are closing in, their spotlights sweeping over the dock. I can hear the thwip-thwip-thwip of the rotors, and the even more ominous whir of Gatling guns spinning up.
I grab the girl—Ellie—and pull her close. She's shivering.
"Hold on, kid," I say, clicking the teleporter disc. "This is going to feel like being shoved through a very narrow straw, but it beats being turned into Swiss cheese."
(Hey, Reader. Close your eyes. I always get nauseous during jumps, and I don't want you to see me throw up in high-definition.)
[Initiating teleport sequence...]
[Wait! We forgot our katanas!]
(I have them, White! They're on my back! Pay attention!)
As the world starts to dissolve into a swirl of blue and white light, I see Cable standing alone on the pier. He looks like a statue of some ancient, angry god of war. The first volley of gunfire erupts from the helicopters, chewing up the concrete around him.
And then, we're gone.
We reappear in a room that is way too clean for my liking. It's all white plastic and glowing screens. It smells like ozone and Windex.
I stumble forward, my stomach doing a 180-degree turn. I manage to keep the 'expired cereal' down, but it's a struggle.
Ellie collapses onto a sleek, futuristic-looking bench. She's pale, her breathing shallow.
I look around. We're in some kind of bunker. On the main screen, a map of the world is blinking with red dots. But it's not the world I know. The borders are all wrong. There's a giant 'W' over where Westchester used to be.
"Where are we?" Ellie asks, her voice small.
"If I had to guess? One of Nathan's 'End of the World' prepper closets," I say, leaning against a console. "He's got them hidden all over the timeline. He's like a squirrel, but instead of nuts, he hides high-caliber explosives and existential dread."
I look at my hands. The skin is still red, the healing factor working through the last of the dampener toxin. It's itchy. So, so itchy.
[Wade. Look at the girl.]
I look.
Ellie isn't just sitting there. She's staring at a holographic photo on the desk. It's a picture of a man and a woman. The man is younger, his hair not yet gray, but the metal arm is unmistakable. The woman has long, dark hair and a smile that looks like it could light up a room.
I feel a cold pit in my stomach. A real one, not the 'I'm dying' one from earlier.
"Kid," I say, walking over to her. "That picture... do you know who that is?"
Ellie looks at me, her eyes filling with tears. "That's my mom. And the man... he's the one who took her away."
(Wait. Hold the phone. Stop the presses.)
I look at the photo again. The woman. She has the same dark hair as the girl. The same eyes.
And then I look at a mirror on the wall. I see my own reflection—the scarred, twisted mess of a face I usually keep hidden behind the mask.
I remember a version of myself from before the fire. Before the cancer. Before the Weapon X program. I remember the woman I loved. Vanessa.
But this isn't Vanessa. This is someone else.
[The resemblance is uncanny, Wade.]
[Is she... are we...? Did we have a kid in another timeline?! I don't remember any paperwork! I'm terrible at child support!]
(Shut up! It can't be.)
Before I can process the cosmic 'Who's Your Daddy?' moment, the bunker's alarm starts blaring. A red light flashes, and a voice—calm, female, and very AI—speaks.
"Unauthorized breach detected. Perimeter compromised. Biometric signature recognized: Alistair Smythe."
"How?" I yell at the ceiling. "How did he find us?"
"The dampener," a voice says from the doorway.
I spin around, my hand flying to my sword.
It's not Smythe. It's the woman from the photo. Only she's older. And she's holding a very large, very loaded shotgun.
"He didn't follow the teleporter," she says, her eyes locked on mine. "He followed the tracer he planted in your blood when you were pinned to his desk, Wade."
She steps into the light. Her face is a mirror of the [Reference Image]—dark hair, sharp features, and an expression of pure, unadulterated exhaustion.
"Hello, Wade," she says. "It's been a long time. You look... terrible."
"Thanks," I say, my brain short-circuiting. "You look... like you're about to shoot me. Is that a 'new' shotgun? It's very slimming."
She doesn't laugh. She points the gun at the door behind me.
"Smythe is here. And he's not alone. He brought the Sentinels."
(Oh, great. Sentinels. Because this day really needed giant, mutant-hunting robots to make it a perfect ten.)
[TO BE CONTINUED...]
(Seriously? Again? I haven't even had a chance to ask about the family tree! Hey! Author! Give me a break! I'm a father? A variant? A very confused mercenary? I need answers! And a sandwich! Still waiting on that sandwich!)