TWENTY-ONE

HERE we are in Book 3. No big scene transition or anything. I’m still on the lush hills of the underground kennel, rolling around, luxuriating in my living canine quilt. What does that Book thing mean, anyway? Isn’t the whole thing a book? Cheap effort at structure, if you ask me. Better yet, don’t ask me—I’m having too much fun. I know Preston’s staring, and Al would if she could, but I can’t stop myself. This is better than Cancun—and no voices or flashbacks!

“Wheee!”

“Wade? Didn’t you say something about keeping some professional distance?”

“I’m cold and distant as a star! I swear!”

Eventually—too soon, if you ask me—Em and Blind Al pull me up. The puppies tumble in a waterfall of delightfulness, then scamper off to explore their new digs.

Preston eyes me, brow as ruffled as the loose skin on a shar pei. “Glad to see your soft side. At least, I think I’m glad. You do have a job here, Deadpool. Some of those puppies may change, and then you’ll have to…”

I cough out some dog hair. “I know, I know. Can we not talk about that right now? I’m fine, promise. It was only…you know, an instinctual physical reaction. Means nothing to me.”

Em’s “yeah, right” look stays plastered on her face until one of her techie minions marches in to report that the containment tank’s been installed.

“Okay. I’ve got to head back to the office to complete downloading the offsite databanks into our secure mainframes, and sync the file structures to buttress our control of this facility,” she says.

“Heh. Buttress. Is that code for some hanky-panky with the mister?”

“No. It means I’ve got to head back to the office to complete downloading the offsite data banks into our secure mainframes, and sync the file structures to buttress our control of this facility, but I’ll let Shane know you were thinking of us. Once you get past the encryption, the operating system here is one of the most straightforward I’ve ever seen, so I shouldn’t be long. Meanwhile, I’ll have some staff onsite here within a few hours.”

Though loathe to leave the dog version of Shangri-La, I follow her back into the main laboratory to make sure she’s clear on a key point. “Nice staff, though, right? No cut-up-the-doggie types?”

She pats my shoulder and gives it a squeeze. “PETA supporters to a man. You can keep things together here for an hour, right?”

“Sir, yes, sir, ma’am!”

By the time I finish saluting, she’s on the elevator platform with the other agents. Don’t know if they practice that formation, but it sure looks like it. They’re all at attention and staring at the same distant point, as if posing for a movie poster. The bright backlighting makes them look like they’re a gift to humankind from some pagan sun god. I assume they didn’t bring that lighting along with them.

I snap a pic and make an “okay” sign. “You got it, chief. I’ll get back on that list pronto while Al keeps an eye on things here.”

Em doesn’t hear that last part, because the elevator’s already rising. In a wink, she’s gone. I know, because I wink, and then she’s not there anymore.

Al heard me, though. I keep forgetting she can hear.

“What the frick, Wade?! Never mind I can’t keep an eye on anything, you’re going to leave me with a bunch of flea-bitten mongrels that can turn into monsters? Where the hell is here, anyway? Can you at least tell me which state I’m in?”

“Oh, Al. It wouldn’t be a secret base if I told you where it was, would it? You’ll be fine. They would’ve turned into monsters by now if they were going to. Probably. And you heard Preston, it’ll only be for an—”

“Yip! Yip! Grr….”

Looks like we missed one during the kennel roundup. A Rottweiler pup is sitting up on a little raised platform beneath one of those ray-gun-shaped lights, gnawing away on the lever. Look at him go!

“Grrr…”

All that teething’s important, and not only for his growing choppers. Gnawing is a big part of the way dogs explore their world. They don’t call those beauties right and left of our incisors canines for nothing. When he growls like he’s some badass wolf, I can’t help but pick him up and take in the wriggling cuteness.

“Hey there, little guy!”

Are you bonding again?

You know you shouldn’t.

Guys? I really don’t need the internal voices with Al here. She can do that stuff now.

“Are you bonding again?” she says in the real world. “You know you shouldn’t.”

Hmph. Don’t mind us.

We’ll just sit here and try to remember the last book you read.

“You know me better, Al.” I press him to my face. “But I am gonna name him Pop-pop!”

Living up to his new name, Pop-pop pops out of my hands, landing with a meaty plop and a grunt. Then he hightails it back to that lever and starts gnawing at it again.

“Aw, look! Pop-pop thinks he’s an evil scientist working on his death ray!”

Al ducks. “Death ray? What death ray? Crap! Where’s it aimed?”

“Oh-ho! Better watch out, Pop-pop. You don’t know what that lever will…”

The world goes electric blue. When the platform fades back into focus, I see—choke—a bunch of dry bones standing there. They tumble into—sob—the most adorable little pile you ever did see. It’s no use pretending that he’s fine. I go to my knees and pound my fists into the floor.

“Nooooo! Pop-pop, no!”

Al puts her arm around me. “Come on, you ruthless mercenary, pull it together. I’ll get you a goldfish. At least that won’t be able to operate weaponry.”

“That…you…know of….”

I crumble into her arms. Now I know how the Hulk felt. “I didn’t mean…I didn’t mean…”

She rubs the back of my head. “There, there. I know, I know.”

“See why I need you here?”

“Yeah, guess I do.” She feels her way over to the bones. “Somebody’s got to clean this up. Don’t worry, I’ll find a nice resting place for Pop-pop. Where’s the trash bin?”

“The trash? You wouldn’t do that, would you?”

She gathers the skeleton in her arms. “He’s too big to flush down the toilet, isn’t he? And I’m not gonna… hold on.” She gets a funny look. Not the same funny look she used to get when I passed gas, but in that ballpark. Puzzled, she rubs one of the ribs with her fingers. It’s just weird enough to snap me out of my funk.

“Al, just so you know, what you’re doing there looks pretty gross.”

“Shut your pie hole.” She tilts her head and focuses. “There’s a pattern on this thing. Damn. Not braille, but it’s some kind of raised writing.”

“Huh. The monster pups were genetically engineered. Maybe the architect left some kind of signature?” I walk over. “Where? I can’t see a thing.”

“That’s ’cause you’re looking with your eyes.”

“That some sort of Zen metaphor?”

“No, you idiot.” She tugs my glove off and grabs my index finger. “Yeesh. When was the last time you washed your hands?”

“Been busy.”

She presses it down into the bone. “Check it out. The human finger can discriminate between surfaces patterned with ridges as small as thirteen nanometers. So say your filthy finger was the size of the Earth. Push down on the planet like some giant freak that needs to finger everything, and you’d be able to feel the difference between a house and a car. My other senses work overtime to compensate for my lack of sight, so I could probably tell a Prius from a station wagon. And I wash my hands.”

She’s right. “I feel something rising up in a line. Cool, but it doesn’t help me read it.”

“You said this is a lab. Any microscopes around?”

“I don’t think the best microscope in the world would help you, Al.”

“Not for me—for you! So you—or better yet, someone with brains—can see the pattern!”

“Right.”

It takes a while to sort the measurement devices from the death rays, cleaning equipment, and what I think may be a toilet. At least, I hope it was a toilet. Neophyte though I am, I manage to find a Scanning Transmission Electron Holography Microscope, because it has a label on it saying just that.

The big power lever reminds me of…Pop-pop. Sniff. Even though the tag means he was a monster pup, and I would have had to put him down anyway, it still hurts.

But Preston was right—the operating system that runs everything in this place is pretty straightforward. The hard part’s centering the bone under the sensors so it can pick up the itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny writing.

Al’s extra-sensitive finger pads help with that. Sure, there’s some shoving and hair-pulling, because I want to do it, but we get there. In no time, Al’s still kicking me, but I’m staring at a video readout on a hi-res monitor. If my mask wasn’t holding my chin up, I’d be slack-jawed. Sensing my shock, probably because I gasp loudly, Al stops kicking and nudges my shoulder.

“Can you read it? Is it English?”

“It’s better than English. It’s a website. Dirtydealingdick.com.”

“They put a porno site on a dog’s bone?”

“I wish, but no.” I tap a finger to my chin. “I’m afraid, old chum, that I didn’t tell you this before, because repeating story details is boring. But I have reason to suspect that the sick, twisted mind behind these killer dogs is, like this website, named Dick.”

“Why?”

“A really hot MMFF named Jane told me.”

“And you didn’t tell that nice lady from S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

“Not yet. I’m on retainer with Jane, and I wanna see how things play out.”

I type the URL into one of the terminals. It’s not much of a website. No clickbait, just one of those placeholders:

Coming Soon!

Orders from Your New Global Leader!

info@dirtydealingdick.com

This is big. I feel like I’m close to cracking this thing, but I need more to go on. I can’t just write to the guy and ask where he lives so I can come kill him.

Got to think. I look at the microscope screen. I look back at the doors to the kennel.

“Say…Al? You think having a look at some of the other puppies’ bones might tell us more?”

“Maybe, I guess, but how you gonna do that without killing them?”

I slip the glocks from their holsters and cock them. Steeling my pounding heart, I move toward the kennel. I will not bond, I will not bond. There is a job to do.