12 Ant-Man Natural Enemy

by Jason Starr

“The ant fungus?”

  “No, YouTube. You have over a million views already.”

  Scott sighed in relief. He had already seen the four-second clip of himself as Ant-Man, emerging from the sewer; it seemed like the whole world had. It was Sunday night, and he and Cassie were at their apartment. The zombie fungus had been curtailed dramatically in one day, confusing scientists who hadn’t been able to determine how or why the fungus had started spreading in the first place.

  Ant-Man was the big hero. Ironically the viral video had helped him—after the news media had picked it up, he was credited with apprehending Monica Rappaccini, the woman responsible for four murders and implicated in the nonfatal shooting of Roger Shelly, a federal marshal.

  Scott had given Carlos the scoop on Monica Rappaccini, which garnered Carlos lots of kudos with his superiors at the FBI. Scott told Carlos that he’d been at the house with Monica when Ant-Man had showed up and saved him. He had a feeling that Carlos didn’t quite believe the story, but Carlos was glad that the situation had been resolved. He didn’t force the issue.

  One complication: When she was apprehended, Monica had revealed to the Feds that Scott was Ant-Man. Scott had expected this to lead to a rush of interest from reporters and curiosity seekers, and he thought he might even have to move to a higher-security building. But so far—aside from comments from old friends on his Facebook page such as “Ha!” and “Congrats!” and “I always knew you were hiding something”—no one seemed to care all that much. He got interview requests from a couple of obscure blogs, but it wasn’t exactly like 60 Minutes was rushing over to do a feature on him. From now on he’d have to be extra careful guarding the Ant-Man technology, but he couldn’t help feeling a little, well, silly for putting so much energy over the years into keeping his secret.

  He didn’t feel any ego blow, though. He preferred to be low key, incognito. The lack of attention and hoopla felt like a gift.

  Later, Cassie was in her room when Scott received a text from Tony Stark:

  Great video of you online bro. The ladies will love that one

  Scott smiled, texted back:

  Look who’s talking, the winner of the babysitter of the year award

  Tony came back with:

  My bad, but even when I mess up I wind up helping out, doing something heroic. Guess I just have the gift

  In the morning, Cassie came out for breakfast in a short skirt and a tight top.

  “You’re going to school dressed like that?” Scott asked.

  “It’s normal,” Cassie said.

  “Whatever,” Scott said. “I won’t judge.”

  Cassie had a few bites of cereal then said, “Actually, I’m going out with Tucker after school.”

  “That’s nice,” Scott said.

  “You don’t mind?”

  “No, I just want you to be happy,” Scott said. “You’re getting older now, I get that. You don’t have to tell me about every boy you hang out with, either. You’re entitled to some privacy.”

  “Wow,” Cassie said. “Thanks, Dad.”

  “You can still call me Daddy,” Scott said. “That I like.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.” Cassie smiled. “Do you want me to remove that tracking app?”

  “No, it’s okay,” Scott said. “I don’t mind you knowing where I am at all times. I actually kind of like that.”

  Cassie left for school.

  A little while later, Scott headed to work. It was a perfect spring day—eighty degrees, no clouds. It was pleasant to walk along the tree-lined Upper East Side street, past all of the busy, happy ants—not having to worry, for a change, whether somebody was going to try to kill him.

  On the subway headed downtown, an attractive woman with short red hair was riding next to Scott. She half-smiled at one point, so Scott had a feeling she was attracted to him.

  With all of his bad luck with dating recently, Scott was hesitant to try to strike up a conversation with her. But then again, he didn’t want to let a couple of bad experiences tarnish him. He was eager to get his life back to normal.

  “Hey, I’m Scott. Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure,” she said, smiling. She seemed happy he’d spoken to her.

  “How do you feel about ants?” he asked.

  “Ants?” She sounded confused.

  “Yeah, you know—the most important insect on Earth. They’re so awesome, right?”

  Scott knew her reaction would determine whether things in his life were truly back to normal.

  She just stared at first, maybe confused. Then she sneered and said, “Wow, what a freak,” and moved to the other end of the subway car.

  Yep, normal.

  Acknowledgments

  It started where many great things start—at a dive bar in Brooklyn. Big shout out to the entire Marvel team, especially Stuart Moore, Axel Alonso, Jeff Youngquist, and Sarah Brunstad. Being immersed in the world of Ant-Man has been quite a thrill ride, and certainly a highlight of my career. Also big thanks to my parents, for always encouraging me, and booksellers, librarians and readers, for making this all possible.

  PAWS

  CHAPTER ONE

  SO HERE I am falling off a tall building and…wait.

  WHERE THE #$%@ ARE THE PICTURES?

  Now I have to deal with this? What is this, anyway—a really, really long caption? Come on! Comics are supposed to be totally in-your-face, in-the-moment, like TV, or…like TV! Get with the program. A picture’s worth a thousand turds. Like, if I just say red, it’s not as good as seeing red, is it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the chitty-chitty-chit-chat—they call me the Merc with a Mouth for a reason—but enough’s enough. Like William Burroughs said, “Language is a virus from outer space.”

  Okay, yeah, he was a morphine addict, and there’s no such thing as a naked free lunch, but still.

  I know some of you out there already have smartass questions like, if pictures are so hot, what about backstory? Exposition? How do you do that stuff? Okay, maybe you do need a curt sentence or two, but any writer worth his salt tosses that into the dialogue, like:

  None of that Meanwhile, back at the ranch crap. If you see a full-page splash of a bank vault, you don’t assume the action’s taking place in a convenience store, right?

  So what’s with all the verbiage?

  Oh, wait. I get it. Book. It’s a book. They really still make these things? Damn.

  Okay, I got this. Just a little thrown. As I said, I likes me the talk.

  I know you do.

  By the byway, meet my inner dialogue. If this was a comic, you’d be seeing that in a special-purpose yellow caption. As it is, we’re going with that boldface thing, apparently.

  Works for me.

  Let’s get this party started.

  And italics for Inner Voice #2. Great. Just shut up for now and let me get on with the story already.

  The sleek steel and glass of a Manhattan skyscraper warp into a haze as I careen along its chic frontage. Not being one of those flying types, or even a swinger like Spider-Man, I’m, well…plummeting. I’m flipping and flopping like a fish out of water. More specifically, a fish out of water that’s been tossed out a window. I look for something in this big bad blur I can grab onto, anything to try to at least slow my fall, but there’s nada. No flagpoles, no ledges, no gargoyles—just smooth sailing, first pavement on the right and on until mourning.

  Things may look bad, but I’ve fallen lots. I’ve fallen down buildings; I’ve fallen into mine shafts, criminal lairs, alien motherships, candy factories, women’s bedrooms—you name it. I’ve fallen asleep, fallen in love, fallen in debt, fallen to pieces, but I’ve never, ever, fallen to my death. I have fallen to other people’s deaths, but that usually involves better aim.

  Here’s the kicker, though: I’m not alone. I’m carrying the cutest Dalmatian puppy you ever did see. I just snatched this wee fellow from the fancy-pants penthouse way, way back up there. Things didn’t go quite as planned, and boy is he going w
ee now.

  I see what you did there.

  Oh, aren’t you clever.

  His name’s Kip, judging from the gold tag on his diamond-studded collar. But at this rate, it’s going to be Spot when we hit bottom. Under other circumstances, like if he’d eaten a bunch of Cub Scouts and planned to go back for seconds, that might not bother me. Not that I don’t enjoy killing, but Kip here hasn’t done anything to deserve a premature demise.

  So you like the little guy?

  No way! He’s cute, but cuteness is for lesser beings. I’m the hardened-heart type, keeping the warm fuzzies at bay. That means no man/dog bonding. But…he is so sweet with the rushing air currents pushing his vibrating eyelids wide open like that!

  Ahem. That said, I am thinking—purely as a matter of principle, mind you—about how to keep him alive. I did see an online video last week about a puppy that survived a nineteen-story drop.

  Sure you didn’t imagine it?

  Maybe, but it sounded good, especially the part about terminal velocity, where the upward push of wind resistance matches gravity’s downward pull, blah-blah-blah. A small mammal like Kip here reaches terminal velocity much sooner than a big guy like me.

  Which means…holding onto him should slow me down, right?

  Wrong.

  Since I’m still picking up speed, I’ll give you that one. Kip’s stuck with my terminal velocity. I can’t have that, so I look into his wide, dark, terrified eyes.

  “Time you were on your own, little fellow!” I chuck him upward. “Fly free, Kip! Fly free!”

  Now that he’s on his own, he’ll be fine for sure, just like the video. Or was it a cat? I seem to remember a cat. And it was playing piano. Cat, dog, parakeet…what’s the difference, really?

  I continue to obey the laws of physics. Cumulous clouds spin above me like cream whipping in a blender. Mmm. Whipped cream. I’d grab a little nosh after I land, but the updraft carrying that oh-so-special city stench is ruining my appetite. The ground must be getting pretty close. I should probably look down, just to judge my distance to the pavement, maybe try to slow myself by bouncing against the wall or something.

  Pavement, oh, pavement? Where are you?

  There you are!

  SPLAT!

  I mentioned the healing thing, right? You know how when Wolverine, that bad-attitude guy from the X-Men, gets shot or cut, the wound heals all by itself? I’m like that, only…more so. Unless I’m dunked in acid, or completely disintegrated, I grow back. Okay, yeah, most of the super crowd returns from the dead so often they should build a shuttle, but they at least have the potential to bite the big one. When one of them comes back, it takes a bunch of convoluted logic—or at most, a reboot.

  Me, I’m effectively immortal. No matter how badly I get hurt, everything eventually grows back, cancer and all. Did I mention I have cancer? It’s what made me sign up for the Weapon X experiment in the first place. Weapon X was run by the Canadian government, btw. Figured it might be a cure. Instead, the cancer cells regenerate, too, leaving me with a body full of lesions and a head full of dreams.

  Or was the word they used delusions?

  Anyway, missing limb? A few hours, and it grows back. Cracked, flattened skull? Maybe a day or two. Sure, the brain being one of your more crucial organs, I sometimes wake up a little more confused than usual, speaking French, thinking I’m with the Bolshoi ballet or whatnot, but bottom line? Despite what they say about death and taxes, I can’t die, and I don’t pay taxes.

  Doesn’t sound too bad, I guess, until it’s your bones that are broken, your insides spilling out like an overturned Olive Garden garbage can. The problem is I still feel every wound, every time. I could go on and on about the throbbing, stabbing agony that’s coursing through my each and every neuron at this very moment, but I’m saving that for my next book, You Think That Hurts? For now, I’ll close on the subject by quoting President Ronald Reagan—who, shortly after taking a bullet, was heard to quip, “Ow! Ow! Ow!”

  It does beat the alternative, meaning death. Take the two guys I landed on. You haven’t even met them, and they’re already no longer with us. Most people think I’m heartless (and gross, smelly, etc.), but I feel pretty bad about the hotdog vendor. The stockbroker? Not so much, though I am impressed with his Patek Philippe wristwatch. It’s still working even after I landed on it. Hey, he’s not using it, and I’ve got just enough intact fingers to…

  WHAM!

  Kip lands in the pulpy center of my cracked chest, making a sound like a wet whoopee cushion. He’s all startled, like, what was that? Otherwise, he’s no worse for wear. The little guy yips and scampers off. Good for him. Sucks for me.

  Nabbing that mongrel is the whole reason I’m here in the first place. Now I have to wait in agony until my body heals, then figure out how to find a puppy in the streets of Manhattan.

  Is that a song? A puppy in the streets of Manhattan?

  Nah. You’re probably thinking about The Muppets Take Manhattan.

  By the way, this whole scene? Perfect example of the advantages comics have over prose. It would’ve been much easier with pictures. Two vertical panels and some motion lines, maybe a quick reaction shot from the hotdog vendor and the stockbroker as they wonder why they’re suddenly in shade, and we’re done. Half a page, tops. And the slam when I hit? Much more visceral.

  Oh, where will all those fools with their “book” learning be in our new post-literate world? Bwah-hah-hah!

  Meanwhile, back at the story…

  Yeah, yeah. Don’t push me.

  Before I can cry, “Here, Fido!” I find myself blessed with a visit from above. From the penthouse, not Heaven. Geez. The newcomer lands in front of me, not with an egregious splat or thud, but with the soothing, gentle rush of mech-armor jets. Why, it’s none other than the wacky bodyguard who tossed me out of the penthouse in the first place. Never dawned on him I’d be fast enough to snatch up Kip as I went. Should’ve seen the look on his face.

  I don’t know if this guy’s actually big and mean, or if it’s just that high-tech suit he’s wearing, but he nails his entrance. The snazzy final blast from his boot-jets whooshes along the sidewalk, sending the cart’s still-steaming foot-longs rolling into the street. But that cool vrt-vrt noise he makes when he moves spoils it. Totally trademarked by Stark Industries. You can’t just order armor like that from Amazon, so I figure he’s sporting a black-market knockoff from the PR of China that his boss bought on eBay. Damn Internet. Doesn’t anyone just carry automatic weapons anymore?

  Iron Joe vrts a little closer. The suit does that thing where a missile launcher emerges from his forearm. Don’t ask me how it’s supposed to work. Unless the suit’s made of something like Vibranium, which can absorb vibrations, the recoil on that thing should yank his whole arm off in the other direction.

  But he doesn’t fire yet. His helmet clicks back, showing me a broken-nosed face with a few miles on it. I can see it in his steely eyes: This man’s street-smart, and he may even have been around the block once or twice. He’s no hot-shot wannabe out to prove himself. Probably has some combat experience that earned him the penthouse gig. I almost respect him.

  Until he opens his mouth.

  “Don’t know how you survived the fall, and I don’t care. Hand over the dog, or I’ll decimate you!”

  I laugh. “You’re gonna destroy a tenth of me?”

  His head twists in a how-dare-you way. “What’d you say to me?”

  “Decimate, tin man, means to destroy a tenth of something. Don’t believe me? That suit must have Internet. Google it. I’ll wait.”

  “Freaking grammar Nazi.” He raises the forearm bearing what I’m guessing is a smoothbore 37mm cannon. “I mean I’m gonna blow you up, okay?”

  “Okay, but it’s not a grammar issue, it’s about semantics, as in…”

  He nudges me with the barrel—which, given my current state, hurts. “Where’s the mutt?”

  When he notices I’m lying on a gore pile too b
ig to belong to only me, his face gets all sad. “You didn’t…land on him, did you?”

  I’d no idea I could actually feel my pancreas until he pushes that barrel under me like it’s a shovel and uses it to lift me for a peek. “Agh! Cold! Really cold! He’s not under there! He ran off! He ran off!”

  Relieved, the guard vrts his head up and presses a button on his forearm.

  From his armor, a sultry synthetic female voice I wish I could hook up with announces, “Dog whistle activated.”

  The parts of my neck that usually let it move are shattered, so I can’t change my point of view, but I hear puppy nails scrabbling along the cement behind me.

  Vrt-man gets a smug smile, like he knew all along everything’d turn out fine.

  “Kip, you little pain! There you are! C’mere, you flea-bitten dirtbag!”

  His words are gruff, but there’s a fondness in his voice that tells me he really cares about the hairy thing. Gives me a pang. Could be the pancreas again, but part of me wants to hallucinate a boy-and-his-dog montage with me as the boy—complete with stick, ball, and potty training. Now is not the time.

  The bodyguard’s not going to want to hear it, but there’s something I really should tell him.

  “Buddy?”

  “Shut up.” The scrabbling pup-nails get louder. “Here, boy!”

  “What’s your name, pal? Look at me down here. I’m good as dead. Might as well tell me that much.”

  He rolls his eyes, but finding the dog’s got him feeling warm, so he gives in. “Bernardo.”

  Behind me, I hear quick, adorable puppy breaths and a lolling puppy tongue slapping the puppy sides of a puppy snout.

  “Bernardo, mi amigo, por favor, listen very carefully. I know Kip’s cute, I know it’s your job to protect him, but you do not want to pick up that dog.”

  Before I can go into detail, I get a view of puppy junk and butt as Kip sails over my face and into Bernardo’s waiting metal-composite arms.

  “Here you are, you little meat sack!”

  “Sure, it looks like a puppy, but trust me it’s really…”