Chapter 11
XI
“Oh, it was so invasive!” Wade said, a mug of hot chocolate in his hands. He was still in his suit, sitting on a couch by the wall, his legs crossed. A strip of cloth was tied tightly around his head. On the other wall were a bunch of screens. Some showed maps of the city. Colossus was going through them, typing something carefully on the keyboard in front of him. The display on one or two of the screens changed. They were still underground, in one of the rooms from where they were trying to contact Logan and his team, who had left an hour ago. The contact had been lost five minutes ago, directly after Logan had informed that they had reached the place. Caliban and Rogue had gone back up, where they were resting. Yukio sat beside Wade, also holding a mug. She had removed her own bandages, saying her head felt fine now, but Ellie had insisted on adding a small band-aid before she left. “I have no idea how Xavier did it,” Wade continued, “but a man cannot have so much power and still not be a creep. Look at Elon Musk.” He shrugged. Yukio sipped her drink.
Colossus turned. “Okay, I’ve done everything, but I cannot reestablish contact. They’ve gone dark.”
“It’s alright.” Wade said, though he was just as worried, and pointed to the mug sitting by the keyboard. “You should drink your hot chocolate. It’ll get cold. Logan will handle everything.”
Yukio said, unable to keep the worry out of her voice, “What if it’s a trap? They have power dampening fields now.”
“Yeah, but we have Logan and Laura and Ellie.” He said, “And Russell went with them too. They’re more than enough to stop whatever fuckers are waiting there.” He looked down at the dark brown liquid in the mug. “And once they rescue Domino and get back her powers, luck will be on their side.”
“I hope so.” She gave him a smile.
Just then, there was a loud BOOM! from somewhere above them. Several screens in the room turned red and an alert started blaring. Wade, who had jumped and was now soaked in the hot chocolate, cursed. “The fuck was that??” He removed the cloth on his head and used it to wipe his hands.
“I will go find out.” Colossus removed the headphones and ran outside.
Wade and Yukio followed him. Wade said, “I swear to God, if it’s one of your fucking students blowing shit up for some crush, I’m going to spank that dipshit raw.” Yukio looked at him, and he hurriedly added, “Okay, that came out really wrong, but you know what I mean.”
They reached the mansion floor and found Rogue standing right outside. Her face was a mask of fear. Behind her, a bunch of students were huddled together. They rushed to Colossus as he stepped out of the elevator. “What’s wrong?” He asked.
Rogue said in a rush, “I don’t know. They’re outside!”
“Who is?” Yukio went to the room closest to the elevator, in the front of the house. It was one of the living rooms, and she crossed to the window. Wade followed her.
Outside, the gate and a good part of the boundary wall around it was destroyed. The trees and plants lining the wall were on fire. By its light, they could see several people standing in dark attires, rifles in hands, all pointed at the mansion. As they looked, another part of the wall blew up. They shielded their eyes from the flash of light. The smoke cleared and another group of soldiers was visible behind the rubble of the wall.
“Can we not get a fucking break??” Wade yelled as Colossus calmed the students down. He gave Wade a foul glare for the curse.
Rogue said, “Evacuation protocols?” Yukio and Colossus nodded. “But we don’t have the jet.” She added. “Logan’s team took it with them.”
“Take Cable’s.” Wade said. “He isn’t using it anyway.”
The three of them directed the students to wake everyone up and bring them to the school foyer, located behind the mansion. The evacuation protocols directed that those who could fly or teleport away would do so with as many students as they could take with them, to a pre-designated secure location; the remaining students would get on the available jet, and get to the same location as soon as possible. Rogue went with the students to guide them through the protocols.
“Do we have any weapons?” Wade asked. “Other than the ones I already have. Anything packing more heat?”
“It’s a school, why would there be weapons here?” Yukio said and ran deeper into the mansion.
“I don’t know, it’s a school in America. Isn’t that reason enough?” He said, then added, “I knew we were outnumbered! Where the fuck are Xavier and his X-Men??” He looks at you. “Now would be a real good fucking time for a Deus Ex Machina. And I’m not counting Cable’s appearance in the first part!”
“We can take them. Or at least hold them off until the students escape.” Colossus said, adding something in Russian which sounded suspiciously like cursing. He looked out the window and his Russian became louder.
Wade checked his guns. “How many students are there?”
“More than a hundred.” Colossus looked at him. He tiled his head towards the window. “Do I rush them? Do I strike first?”
“Just stop for a second, Schwarzenegger.” Wade said to Colossus, who was flexing his fists, still standing by the window. He wore his scabbard and pushed the guns into his belt. “Let us prepare. What are they doing?”
“Nothing. They’re doing something outside.”
“Doing what?” Wade joined him and peeked out.
The soldiers were still standing where they had been a minute ago, their guns still trained at the mansion. Two groups of people were doing something, closer to the house. Some were kneeling and fixing a machine of some kind into the ground. Others were standing and attaching different wires and apparatus to the machine.
Behind them, Yukio returned. She was in her suit, with a chain-whip hanging by her waist. “What’s going on?”
“They’re the same uniforms.” Colossus said. “The facility from where we rescued Logan? The guards there wore the same black uniforms.”
“Wait, I just remembered!” Wade said, stepping back. “Cable would have some amazing weapons!”
But before any of them could move, they heard the device outside powering up loudly. There was a split second when all three of them had the same thought about what the device could be, and then there was a huge flash of red. The wave spread out from the machines and hit them, making them fall back from the window. The power dampening field was working. And this time, it was a massive one. Each of them could feel their powers going down.
Wade had hit the couch. Using its back as support, he got up. The first thing he noticed was a dull pain in his chest. The second thing he noticed was Colossus lying in the middle of the room, immobile. Yukio was already by his side. “What’s wrong?” He asked.
“I cannot move.” Colossus said through clenched teeth. His metal skin had taken on a duller sheen, but it hadn’t turned into human skin.
“Oh, fuck this version of you.” Wade slammed his hand on his head, then looked back at the unmoving mutant and muttered, “Though it is kinda funny, the effect of power dampeners on you.”
“He’ll die!” Yukio said, her voice breaking. “His skin is too heavy for the rest of his body. It’s crushing him.”
“Fuck.” Wade said, his amusement turning to horror. “We need help. We need to call Logan.”
“How? Do we have time?” She asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe…” He let the words trail off as the idea grew in his head.
“Maybe what?”
“Cerebro.”
It took a second for her to understand what he was suggesting. “Wade, no! You can’t!”
“But it’ll work. Remember what Cable said? That simulator stored Rogue and Caliban’s powers.” He looked in the direction of the elevator. “It’ll make it run for a few more minutes. That’s all we need.”
“You don’t have your healing factor.” She clutched his arm. “You’ll die!”
“We don’t know that.” He lied. “And I’ve gone inside once. I know it better now. I know how to navigate.” He held her hand. “We have no other option. Maybe I can even control the assholes outside and make them shut off the machine.” He forced a smile. “We can save Colossus. We can save the school.”
Before she had time to respond, the front door was smashed open and numerous soldiers rushed inside. They surrounded the three mutants, all guns pointed at their heads. One of them pulled off his scabbard, and another removed his guns. Nobody noticed Yukio's chain-whip, which she had quickly hidden under her suit. A group of the soldiers went deeper into the mansion. Wade was thinking of a plan to evade them and reach the elevator, when Jack walked inside. He wore a black suit, and matching shoes, appearing strangely out of place in the middle of all the soldiers, and yet exuding a sense of power over them all. He was smiling. “Hello, Wade Wilson.”
“Hello, Jack the bartender.” Wade said, half angry and half curious. From the corner of his eye, he saw Yukio place a hand on Colossus’s chest.
The man waved his hand. “Oh, let’s do away with the deception. Jack isn’t my real name.”
Wade widened his eyes. “Really? You’re kidding! No!”
The man’s smile widened. He walked over to one of the soldiers and took his rifle. “You know, my father loved jokes.”
Wade rolled his eyes. “Oh God, another bad guy with daddy issues. Kill me already, before your monologue.”
The barrel of the gun hit him hard on the face. Yukio screamed “No!” just as his jaw hit the floor. When his vision cleared, he realized there was a small, wet patch of dark red liquid close to his cheek, and became aware of the deep, sharp pain in his nose and mouth.
Looking at the gun with great interest, the man continued, “He was always making jokes, even in the most serious of situations. He passed away thankfully soon, but left that trait in my brother.” Wade coughed out some more blood as the pain in his chest grew. The man leaned over him. “I hated that about my brother. Loved him a lot, but hated that small fucking habit. Jokes when they weren’t needed.”
“What do you want?” Yukio yelled, her hand slowly moving towards her chain-whip.
The man looked at her and frowned. He straightened and opened his arms. “Is it not fucking clear? I want you all to die, to not exist.”
Wade breathed slowly, trying to keep the pain to a minimum. “Why?” He managed to speak.
The man turned back to him. “Why. Why do I want you mutants to end?” He walked around slowly. “Is it because your existence is a threat to our society, to our way of life?” His voice rose as he went on. “Is it because you leave a trail of death and destruction wherever you go? Is it because innocent people suffer and die because of you?” He shouted the last part, and with the last word, thrust the end of the gun into Wade’s back.
Wade cried out, feeling the pain stab through his back. Yukio had screamed something else, but he hadn’t heard. “Really missing that healing factor currently,” he whispers. He put his hands against the floor and pushed himself up, spitting out some more blood. His chest was really hurting now, and he could feel a cough coming up.
The man was speaking, possibly answering Yukio’s words. “What has he done to me?” He laughed, a short, harsh, humourless laugh, and repeated, “What has he done to me?”
Wade said weakly from the floor. “I don’t even know you, friendo.”
The man kicked him in the side, making him curl up. “Why would you?” He scoffed, then looked around. “Oh, but this is good. This is very good. This feels right.” Nobody said anything as he walked around the room, looking at the paintings on the wall and pulling them off, tearing down the curtains, kicking the pedestals and breaking the vases. “I’ve waited too long for this, worked too hard. And I’m loving the results.”
“Who are you?” Wade coughed out. His whole body was hurting terribly, and it took an effort to speak, but keeping the man talking was one way to pass the time. Which was the only hope he had, however logicless – that time would pass and Logan would come. Probably at the last second, but he would come.
“Finally asking the right question.” He answered from the end of the room. “Pain does teach. But don’t worry, I’ll let the suspense build.” He walked over to the couch in front of Wade and sat on it. “You know, I almost let slip who I was,” He chuckled. “At the bar, when you came in with Wolverine, giving me a terrible shock. I mean, I thought we had pretty good security, but there you both were, as if nothing had happened. Oh, the amount of control I had to exercise. But I did slip up.” He bent down. “When I sent you that text. Remember that? I know Cable tried to trace the number, but our team is good.” He moved back, resting his head against the couch. “I still remember how fucking angry I was. A whole facility destroyed. Years of research gone up in smoke.” He shrugged. “Well, we did have it all on the cloud, but the research materials destroyed. And some of our best brains, including Dr. Rice. Along with the adamantium we had procured. Oh, that was a huge loss. Which is why I was so fucking angry. All those sentinels sent. All those mutants extracted. We had captured the fucking Wolverine.” He looked down at the mutant on the floor, slowly moving. “You were next, you know. Not for research, of course. What would you have to contribute to anything, you fucking second rate experiment?”
“That hurt.” Wade groaned, pushing his hands against the floor, palms spread.
“Good.” The man seethed with contempt. Through clenched teeth, he spat out, “You are nothing. Just a fucking experiment that was supposed to burn.” Before Wade could ask, or even wonder how he knew, he hit him on the head with the gun. As the mutant recovered, blinking slowly and moving painfully on the floor, the man resumed, “Our sentinel supply was depleted. After all, the ocean floor could only have so much of those clunky robots.” He put the gun on top of Wade’s left palm and leaned on it. “We only had two more. I knew I had one last chance. Cable and Domino were the unknowns. I don’t know how I had missed them the first time around, but every mistake teaches.” He twisted the gun, making Wade cry out as the bones in his hand cracked. “And thankfully, we had that night’s footage, when you people had stormed our facility in Alaska. And hours of footage from your fights with our sentinels. I knew what each of you could do. And you know who was the most unpredictable?” He removed the gun, setting it on his lap. “Domino. So, obviously, she had to be removed.” He smiled. “We were pretty far along with our development of these power dampeners. Are you liking the effects they produce? I love it.”
A soldier entered the room. “Sir, we couldn’t find any other mutants. In the house or the school. Our sensors detected a flying object depart from this location right before we entered here, but we lost it soon after.”
Wade was looking at Yukio, and gave her a small smile. Her eyes were wet, but she let out a small sigh when she heard that the others had escaped. The man noticed the smile on Wade’s face, and kicked him on the head. “Happy your friends escaped? Don’t be.” He dismissed the soldier with a wave and bent down as Wade’s coughing fit stopped. “You know what our priority was tonight? To secure Cerebro.” Wade’s shoulders trembled as he sucked in breath. Yukio’s eyes were fearful again. “Oh, yes, we know about your Cerebro.” The man said, leaning back again. “And we know the power it holds. We have Major Stryker’s work on it, thanks to Dr. Rice, and we know how he almost managed to eradicate mutants. Well,” He tilted his head and smiled. “We plan on omitting that ‘almost.’”
“You won’t be able to.” Yukio whispered. “It won’t work.”
“I know what it requires. I know how Styker did it, and whose help he needed.” The man scowled at her. “Our research is quite ahead in that matter. Acquiring Cerebro was primary. And now we have it. We’ll make it work, and we’ll remove your kind.” He spread his arms, putting them against the couch’s backrest. “But let me get back to where I was. The power dampeners. Extremely useful. Critical, I must admit, to our plans. Worked great in capturing Domino, but still mostly useless against Cable, with his weapons and his freak cyborg body. So, we needed something that could stop him. But again, fortune was on our side. All his attempts to break through our firewalls gave us enough data about his internal circuits to create our own techno-organic virus, and mixing that with a nano-power dampener did the trick. We could remove Cable from the equation as well. But modifying that double-sentinel was a fucking ordeal. So many sleepless nights.” He sighed happily. “Ah, the amount of time and money it took. But being rich helps. Having a whole corporation at your command also helps. And so, we finished it, and struck at the precise time, when we saw all you idiots close to our sentinel.” He laughed. “Getting Domino was effortless, with all of you scattered like rats and all your powers gone. And I knew Cable would try to get into the network that had been calling to him, that had been evading him for so long. It was such a joy to see it all play out exactly as planned.” He looked at Wade, who was muttering something on the floor. He put the gun under his neck and lifted it, making their eyes meet. “Anything you want to share?”
“He’ll stop you.” Wade said. Some blood from his lips trickled down to the gun. “Logan’s coming.”
The man kept looking at him for a moment, and then laughed again, longer this time. He pulled back the gun, making him fall back to the floor. After a while, he said, “Oh, this is wonderful. I actually can’t tell if you’re joking or not.” He chuckled, then went on, “No, Wolverine is not coming. In fact, none of your friends who went to rescue Domino are coming.”
Yukio looked up at him. “What?” She whispered.
He nodded. “I told you. We are prepared for everything. You think after having lost to you once before, after all this planning, we wouldn’t have prepared a contingency in case you’d find a way to locate Domino?” When she didn’t say anything, her hands trembling, he said, “We have a whole another army ready for your pathetic team, ready with more power dampeners.” He made a show of looking at his watch. “They’re probably already dead.” When the two mutants didn’t say anything, his smile widened. “You know, you only made this convenient for us. After removing Domino and Cable, the plan was to simply attack this place. I was expecting to find all of you here, and I know Wolverine would’ve put up a significant fight, even without his healing factor.” He shrugged. “But here you are, and there they are, probably slaughtered by now. It worked out beautifully, wouldn’t you say?” He got down from the couch and kneeled beside Wade, who was on all fours, covered in blood. The man leaned closer to him, one hand on the rifle that he was using as support. “All this for the greater goal of eradicating mutants. But more importantly,” He whispered in Wade’s ear, “All this, for you.”
Wade frowned. He was terrified. Cerebro’s mention had shaken him, and knowing they had been prepared for Logan and the others had almost destroyed his hope. But the fact that this unknown, sadistic man had done it all for him, and the hunger in his voice as he had revealed it, was more chilling than anything else. For the first time, Wade considered death as a real possibility.
The man moved back. Still kneeling, he said, “Don’t you want to know how I know who you are, Deadpool?” Wade turned his head towards him. “I know all about you, Wade Wilson.” He nodded. “I know cancer is rapidly spreading through your lungs. I know about the Weapon-Plus program, and how you enlisted in it to cure yourself of this same cancer. And I know that you are the only survivor of that program.”
““How?” Between coughs, the mutant panted out, “Who are you?”
The man’s eyes burned with hatred. “Does the name Cunningham ring a bell?”
For a second, Wade’s mind was a blank. And then he recognized the name. Cunningham. His only friend in the facility where Francis had awakened his latent x-gene. The only man who had made him laugh in that awful place. The man who had wanted nothing more than to meet his children. The man whose face Wade hadn’t even seen until he had been dying in the fire that Wade had caused. He looked at the man now looking at him.
“Hello, Wade Wilson. I’m William Cunningham,” The man put forward his hand in a mock gesture of introduction. “Brother of Walter Cunningham, the man you killed and never thought of again.” And he slapped him hard with the back of his hand.
Wade spits out blood, his eyes watering, and looks at you. “That,” he says, “is a deep fucking cut.”