Paws

by Stefan Petrucha

  Lest a certain middle-school-basketball hallucination return, I keep my focus on my stump. I grunt and strain.

  “Ungh! Come on, hand! You can do it! Urgnnnghh! Grow, damn you, grow!”

  All I get is a blood spurt from a severed artery. Adding insult to injury, it shoots up my nose. The monster—that big bully—laughs at me.

  “If that’s your best, Earth will be easy to conquer!”

  I hide my bloody stump behind my back. “Stop watching me! I’ll show you!”

  On the reservoir walkway below, death in a spray can rolls. Slowly, yes, but surely—like that one last turning pig in Angry Birds. Closer and closer it gets to the water, ever closer, closer still, and closer yet again, until…

  CHAPTER 7

  DON’T you hate books with really short chapters, like this one?

  CHAPTER 8

  GRAY monster = huge.

  Nano-catalyst aerosol can = small.

  But is it the size of the wand, or the magic it performs?

  His Stoniness all but engulfs my field of vision. Right now, one of my hands, my favorite hand (sorry, Lefty, it’s just true), is being digested by whatever acidic juices Gorgolla’s internal organs produce. I’m in the middle of a battle royale—all pow, bam, and smack, all…

  “Feel my might!”

  “No, you!”

  But it’s that can, that itty-bitty, teeny-weeny can, way, way down there—battered, dented, but still round enough to roll—that seems so much bigger than Gorgolla. The struggle between its fading momentum and the growing inertia feels like the groaning of a world.

  The suspense is killing me. I’m really into it. I even give Gorgolla an extra turn at smacking me so I can watch the can longer. How many turns before the end? One? Two? As many as it takes licks to get to the chewy center of a Tootsie Roll pop?

  I try not to blame myself, but it’s tough to blame Gorgolla. He’s just doing what monsters do. It’s even tougher to blame the can. Not being connected to any neural or mechanical network that would allow it to actualize its desires, it clearly lacks agency.

  Then again, maybe it does have a will of its own. Some say information wants to be free (mostly to justify illegal downloading). Tree-huggers believe the Earth is conscious (and what they’re smoking is mostly legal these days). We speak of hive minds, group minds, Minecraft minds. Why not a can mind? What might it be thinking?

  Roll, roll, roll. Roll, roll, roll.

  Or: Oh, no, I’m going to kill millions! Sure wish I could stop myself!

  Could it ask itself the big questions? A canner can can anything that he can, but a canner can’t can a can, can he?

  Most important, could I make it feel guilty?

  In any case, there’s no way I’m getting to it in time.

  But I gotta try. I crawl over to Gorgolla’s shoulder like he’s a Living Jungle Gym, and he gets all prissy.

  “Cowardly Earthling! Instead of daring to face me, you go behind my back?”

  “Duh! But there’s madness to my method, G. From here, I can get my one and only hand around the base of your left wing—like so. And with a little stretch, wrap my ankles around your right wing—like this. Now, I twist my mighty fine body sideways—like that—and whoo-hoo! You’re going down! Okay, technically, we’re going down!”

  Rocky couldn’t care less. “Talk all you like, Earthling—”

  “Thanks, I will. Blah-blah-blah-blah!”

  “—even if you force me to land, what will you do then?”

  Good question! If the nano-catalyst has rolled into the water, I could try to steer us toward the drink and jump off at the last second. But hey, what do you know? There’s the can now.

  And it’s not alone.

  Preston and the S.H.I.E.L.D. cavalry? Nope. The deadly nano-catalyst has somehow found its way into the slender black-gloved hands of an incredible hunk of drop-dead feminine pulchritude. She’s got exactly the kind of body I think about on lonely nights.

  That is one hot MMFF (Mysterious Masked Female Figure) I’m falling for.

  Or toward.

  She’s got an oh-so-tight black bodysuit with tiered cape and red highlights that covers not only her body, but also her face. With a bod like that, how can she possibly not have a great face to go with it? With a bod like that, who cares? Not that I’m shallow. I swear I’ll love her no matter what she looks like. If she looks like that, I mean.

  Better yet, soon as we’re close enough, she raises the can and zaps Gorgolla.

  “Feel my…”

  One second I’m grabbing rock; the next, I’m in the middle of a big old bloop of gooey pink goodness. It goes splooshing down into the—ahem—potable water. I make an acrobatic flip that lands me on the walkway.

  Yeah, all that stuff went right into the reservoir. I think Preston said something about the nano-catalyst being rendered inert once it bonds with a target, but that might’ve been something I heard on TV. Oh well, I’ll deal with that later.

  Right now, I’ve got a rocking lady to impress.

  I strut on up to my rescuer, nonchalantly flicking goo from my suit. I’m all full of nasty ideas about how to express my gratitude should she provide consent.

  “My, my, my! Pierce my ears and call me drafty! Have I died and gone to heaven? Because you look like an angel. Who might you be?”

  She aims the nozzle my way. I try to be sensitive to subtle body signals, so I take this as a sign I should slow down and give her space.

  “And…uh…why are you pointing that at me?”

  Even though she didn’t ask, my hand shoots up in surrender, because that’s the kind of thing a lady shouldn’t have to ask a gentleman to do when she’s threatening his life.

  “Call me…Jane.” Her voice is like music, only without any recognizable melody. So in fact it’s nothing like music.

  “Jane. That’s a lovely name. Means divine gift. You know, Jane, I realize we just met, but I want to make it absolutely clear that you’re holding like the only thing on the planet that can kill me.”

  Probably shouldn’t have said that out loud.

  Damn. I’d have gone with, “You know, that won’t have any effect on me.”

  “Can we start over?” I put my hand down, step backwards, and strut toward her again. “Well pierce my ears and call me drafty! Who’re you?”

  She lowers the can a bit. I think she smiles. “I’m not here to hurt you, Wade Wilson. I admit, I find men who fall from the sky and try to flirt appealing, but trust me—I’m the last person you want to be involved with.”

  “Who’s the first? I mean, why would you say that about your…?” I take a half-step closer. The nozzle shoots up again, inches from my nose.

  “Forgive my caution, but I can’t let the dizzying rush of pheromones between us distract me. There isn’t much time. I have to make sure you hear me out before your S.H.I.E.L.D. employers arrive.”

  “Hear you out? Deal!” I sit down on the walkway, cross-legged, and put my chin to my stump. “Talk to me, girl, I’m here for you.”

  She sighs. “It’s Dick.”

  “Isn’t it always?” I nod sympathetically. “Testosterone can be so…testy.”

  “You don’t understand. Dick and I were involved. He used to be…” She turns away shyly. “…my partner.”

  “We all have baggage. It’s part of being alive.”

  “He’s the one behind the canine mutations. I thought I knew him—I thought we shared the same goals—but now he only cares about using his monster army to take over the world. I’m…I’m… afraid of him.”

  I stand up. She turns my way, and our eyes meet. There’s electricity between us. Not Electro-electricity—the romantic kind. I take her hand, the one not holding the can, in mine. She resists, briefly, then gives in, trembling.

  There’s a relieved little laugh in my voice. “Oh, Jane. The past’s not important. The only thing that matters is how we feel about each…wait. If Dick wants these monsters to form some sort of army, why did
he ship them out to pet stores?”

  “Allergies. He plans to collect them once they’ve changed, but—”

  “Did he consider shots?”

  “That takes years. He said there wasn’t enough time, but—”

  “I’ll bet he’s secretly afraid of needles and doesn’t want to admit it. They have this cream that numbs your skin—”

  “Will you stop interrupting? I want to—”

  “Sorry. I won’t do it again.”

  “You just did. The thing is, I need to ask you—”

  “Yeah, but that was the last time. I swear.”

  “I WANT TO HIRE YOU TO FIND DICK AND KILL HIM!”

  I take a step back, put a pinky in my ear, and wriggle it. “You don’t have to shout. I don’t do that hired-killer kind of contract work anymore. I don’t kill anyone or anything unless they really deserve it. Not even for you.”

  Beneath the mask, her eyebrows twitch. “If Dick lives, his monster army will kill millions of people. Deserving enough for you?”

  I shake my head. “No, not if I stop his monsters as planned.”

  “I’ll pay you twice whatever S.H.I.E.L.D. is paying you.”

  “I don’t care about money.”

  She steps closer. The fabric covering our lips touches.

  She whispers, “I’ll do whatever you want.”

  “I want a retainer and my spray can back.”

  She hands me the nano-catalyst and a thick envelope. I have no idea how she managed to keep it hidden under that skintight outfit—but hey, I carry two katana, a pair of Glocks, a teleporter, and the nano-catalyst, so who am I to throw stones?

  I open the envelope and rifle through the bills inside. I pretend I’m counting them—but hell, I’m so taken with Jane, I don’t even know if they’re real or counterfeit. I mean, what year was Salmon P. Chase president?

  I look up. “Where can I find this Dick?”

  I hope you’re not asking us.

  Girl’s gone, dude.

  So she is. That was fast.

  I mistake the sudden wind for an ache in my heart. It’s the S.H.I.E.L.D. hover-fliers arriving on the scene. Two of them skim the reservoir’s surface with those vacuum-hoses, sucking up the gooey badness left by Gargy’s water landing. The third hovers right in front of me.

  I barely have time to hide the cash in my costume before the door opens and Agent Preston leans out. Always a pro, she expresses her displeasure with my performance by screaming very loudly. “In the reservoir, Deadpool? The reservoir? Thank heavens the nano-catalyst binds with the first bioform it contacts! What was I thinking letting you run around with it in the first place? Hand it over.”

  To ease the tension, I launch into my best Jimmy Stewart impression. “Now, now, hold on, hold on just a cotton-picking minute, there, Emily! If it binds with anything, can you really call it a catalyst? I mean, I always thought a catalyst causes a chemical reaction without undergoing any change itself. You see what I’m saying here, don’t you, Emily?”

  It doesn’t help. “Shut up! I didn’t name the damn thing. It’s part nanobot with a modest artificial intelligence, which is more than I can say for you! There’s security-camera footage of you trying to bet on which fleeing civilian is going to make it!”

  Now I’m hurt. “What’re you, like Captain Renault in Casablanca, shocked to see that there’s gambling going on at a racetrack? I saved all the people, didn’t I? And I have to say, I don’t care for your tone.”

  “Plus you lost three horses!”

  I think about doing John Wayne—but seeing how well Stewart went over, I decide against it. “It’s not like I ate ’em. I didn’t even so much as use an I could eat a horse joke. I wanted to work one in, but there wasn’t time.”

  “Hand it over.”

  I put the can behind my back. “Hand what over?”

  The hover-flier weapons system clicks as it locks on me. Won’t kill me, but it could be very inconvenient. I hold out the can.

  “Oh. You mean this?”

  “Yes. That. Now.”

  I toss it to her. “Come on, Preston. We both know you wouldn’t have shot me.”

  “You’re right. I couldn’t risk destroying the dispenser.”

  “That’s cold.”

  When she looks over the dents in the can, her face goes from worried back to angry. “Think that’s cold? How’s this? Your ass is fired, Wade. I don’t care what I owe you, or how good you are, the crazy is just too much. Even when you mean well, you’re dangerous. I’m not risking the public’s safety or my job for you anymore. Jeff’s barely eight, but he’ll graduate school eventually, and S.H.I.E.L.D. has a tuition-benefit program I can’t afford to lose.”

  “Fired?” I show her my stump. “I lost a hand over this! You mean I’m on probation, right? Like I have to attend an anger-management class even though we both know I should be teaching one, right?”

  “No, Wade. I mean you’re fired. Like this.”

  With an airy fsh (as opposed to a mechanical vrt), the door closes. The other hover-fliers retract their hoses, and then all three zoom off.

  I am alone, surrounded by water once again rendered potable.

  As alone as you get.

  You should probably be thinking about how you could have done a better job here.

  But you’re not, are you?

  No. I’m thinking about Jane.

  CHAPTER 9

  NOT ONLY am I glum—’cause I lost my hand, my job, and the first woman I instantly fell in love with since Sophie—now I discover that the guy writing this book is out of it today, too. Maybe my gloom’s catching, but he’s all, “Here I am, in my fifties, no job security, why don’t my books sell as well as Stephen King’s?” Boo-hoo-hoo.

  Hey!

  You’re ruining the suspension of disbelief!

  Really? That ruins it? I talk meta-this, meta-that, break the fourth wall from here until Ragnarok, and mentioning the book has an author ruins it? The readers know the deal. It’s not like the title page is a carefully guarded secret. What the hell difference does it make whose head I’m a voice in?

  I just think you’re pushing your luck.

  Enough is enough.

  Don’t you tell me what to—

  GUYS, GUYS, CAN WE GET PAST THIS? I’M SORRY I’M MOPING, BUT I’VE GOT A DEADLINE.

  You keep out of it! How many fonts are you going to use in this thing, anyway? It already looks like a mess.

  I JUST THOUGHT…

  Yeah, you just thought. That’s your problem, just thinking. Go have yourself some frakking coffee for pity’s sake. Let the professionals handle the being-fictional thing, okay, Mr. I’ve-Got-a-Real-Life?

  FINE. I’LL…I’LL…GO.

  Who was that?

  Never mind.

  Point being, don’t blame me if this chapter’s a downer. A long depression requires an emotional consistency that ain’t in my playbook. The hand? I already feel some bubbling at the wrist. She’ll grow back fine by morning. Getting in good with S.H.I.E.L.D. and finding my beloved MMFF? I’ve already got a good idea how to make it happen.

  Right! We still have the puppy list, so all we have to do is take down the next monster by the book.

  And S.H.I.E.L.D. will be sure to take us back!

  Huh. I was gonna try searching for Jane on social media, but okay…sure, let’s go with your idea about the puppies. Let’s see. Dalmatian, Alsatian. Hey, that rhymes! Next is a rough collie pup. I know that one. Isn’t that Lassie’s breed? This one went to… Charleston Hospice in Astoria, Queens.

  Funny—they called the torture chamber where they dumped us Weapon X rejects a hospice, too. But that’s like calling John Wayne Gacy’s basement a daycare facility.

  The dog’s probably being used as a comfort animal for the terminally ill residents. Big comfort if it goes all extra-special giant-sized. I’d better get on it.

  A quick press of my ’porter, and I’m in the pleasant, walled-off courtyard of a modest, tan brick bu
ilding. From its looks, it could be a place where people are born just as easily as a place where they go to die. Surrounded by night, I keep hidden in the well-tended shrubbery hugging the wall. Not a lot of security. Why would there be?

  I peer through a picture window into some sort of communal room. And here I am—deadliest merc in the multiverse, able to heal from any wound—kind of afraid to go inside.

  Not that it reminds me of the Weapon X hospice. After I killed the wrong guy, my keepers stuck me in that torture chamber along with all their other failed efforts to weaponize human beings. At least we could still be used for experiments, right? We dropped like flies. Even had a “dead pool” going to guess who’d be next. In my case, the name stuck. Good times.

  So this place isn’t that—not by a long shot. It’s packed with patients and puppies. Despite the tubes in their arms, the fading strength, and the ebbing days, some are smiling. A teenager—out of it, probably from his meds—absently pets a corgi. It prods and licks his long-fingered hand like it’s trying to wake the kid up. An old man looks on alone, patting his knees and laughing—probably thinking if he has to go, now’s as good a time as any.

  A girl—maybe eight, skin thin and pasty—tosses a ball to an eager German Shepherd. The dog’s completely thrilled by everything she does. Then there’s a woman whose sharp eyes sparkle as if no disease could ever touch them. She’s bald from chemo, sitting in a wheelchair like Professor X’s twin sister, and cradling a Labrador in her lap. She looks like she’s pouring her heart out. The dog stares back with incredible sympathy.

  Guess sometimes it’s easier to talk the tough things over with a dog. Makes me wonder what I’m missing. What I missed. Did I miss it?

  Something about the scene feels familiar. Did I have a dog and forget? No way.

  Why can’t I just go in and get on with this, then? Not sure. Maybe it’s the sheer normalcy—all the friends, family, and staff trying to make the residents’ last days comfortable. Maybe it’s because the sense of finality here is less horrific than the Weapon X facility, and somehow that makes it sadder. I don’t know any of those people in there, but for a sec I wish they were the ones who could live forever, not me.