If I ever find the guy who decided that the Antarctic should house a tropical, dinosaur-infested jungle hidden under a magnetic shield, I'm going to kick him squarely in the cloaca.
The Savage Land is a humid, prehistoric middle finger to the laws of biology and common sense. It's 105 degrees with 98% humidity. My suit—which is currently 40% blood, 20% soot, and 40% "mystery fluid" from the teleport—is sticking to my healing skin like a used Band-Aid on a hairy leg. Every time I move, I hear a sound like a wet suction cup. Schlip-glug.
[Wade, the humidity is causing a localized fungal bloom in the creases of our elbows. We are literally molding. We are a human blue-cheese dressing.]
[I want to find a Pterodactyl and ride it like a jet ski! Do they have handlebars? Or do you just grab the neck-meat?]
(Can we focus on the fact that my internal organs are currently being rearranged by a liquid-metal splinter? Priorities, White!)
I'm lagging behind Val and Ellie as we trek through a forest of ferns the size of billboards. I have the red, vibrating shard of Alistair Smythe tucked into a small, lead-lined pouch I scavenged from the wreckage of my utility belt. I can feel it humming against my hip. It's warm. Disturbingly warm. Like a freshly baked cookie, if the cookie was made of sentient, murderous nanites and spite.
"Wade! Keep up!" Val calls out without looking back.
She's hacking through the undergrowth with a machete she pulled from a hidden compartment in her boot. She moves with a terrifying, rhythmic grace. Watching her from behind is a confusing cocktail of nostalgia and "I'm-too-ugly-for-this" existential dread. She looks like a warrior queen from a 2026 VR-sim, the kind where the graphics are so good you can actually smell the mountain air and the micro-transactions.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" I wheeze. My left lung is still a bit "crunchy" from the blast. "You know, usually when a guy takes a lady to a tropical island, there's a cabana and a guy named Eduardo bringing us drinks with tiny umbrellas. This place has a distinct lack of umbrellas and a worrying amount of things that want to turn me into a buffet."
Val stops, turning to look at me. Her dark hair is matted with sweat, a smear of grease across her cheekbone. She looks at me with that gaze—the one that pierces through the mask and sees the shivering, cancer-ridden mess underneath.
"Nathan's beacon is two miles North," she says, ignoring my whining. "There's a fortified outpost near the base of the Smoking Mountain. If we can reach it, we can use the long-range comms to signal the High Evolutionary's old relay. We might be able to get a jump-gate open back to New York."
"The High Evolutionary?" I groan. "Great. Another guy who likes to play God with a petri dish. Can't we just call an Uber-Avis? I have a gold-tier membership."
"Mom," Ellie says, stepping closer to Val. The kid is holding up surprisingly well, though her eyes look heavy. The "Catalyst" thing clearly drained her battery. "I feel something. It's like... a buzzing. In the ground."
[That's not the ground, kid. That's the plot-twist approaching at sixty miles per hour.]
I feel it too. But it's not just in the ground. The shard in my pocket is vibrating in sync with the tremor. It's not a heartbeat; it's a handshake.
(Hey, Reader. You know that trope where the hero hides a bite mark during a zombie apocalypse? I'm currently doing the tech-noir version of that. I should tell her. I really should. But Val looks like she's one 'bad news' away from using that machete on my neck, and I'm quite fond of my neck. It's where my head lives.)
"Hide," I bark, my voice suddenly dropping the "Wacky Wade" act.
Val doesn't question me. She grabs Ellie and dives into a hollowed-out log covered in bioluminescent moss. I hit the dirt behind a cluster of giant mushrooms that smell like old gym socks.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
The ferns part. It's not a T-Rex. It's worse.
It's a Sentinel. But it's been... "Savage-ified." The massive purple-and-gold chassis is covered in rusted vines and dinosaur bones. One of its arms has been replaced by a primitive, oversized stone mace, and its chest-plate is missing, revealing a glowing core that's being fed by a series of thick, organic-looking cables.
It's a "Tribal Sentinel."
"Targeting parameters: Bio-signature detected," the Sentinel drones. Its voice is a distorted mechanical growl, like a chainsaw being drowned in a bathtub. "Non-standard mutant detected. Initiating purge."
"Purge this!" I yell, leaping from behind the mushrooms.
I'm not being brave; I'm being a distraction. If that thing sees Ellie, it's game over.
I fire both my Glocks. The bullets spark harmlessly off the Sentinel's weathered armor. It's like throwing popcorn at a tank.
"Hey, Tin Man! I'm the guy who stole your lunch money in the future! Come and get some!"
The Sentinel swings the stone mace. I dive, the wind from the impact ruffling my tattered mask. The mace shatters a boulder behind me into pebbles.
[Tactical assessment: We are screwed.]
[Let's use the 'Dino-Bait' maneuver! We find a hungry raptor and lead it to the robot! It's like 'Godzilla vs. Kong' but with more budget constraints!]
"Wade! Get clear!" Val's voice rings out.
She leaps from the log, but she's not alone. She has a high-yield thermal detonator in her hand. She slides between the Sentinel's massive legs, planting the charge on its hydraulic ankle before rolling away.
BOOM.
The Sentinel's leg buckles. The giant machine tilts, its internal gyros screaming as it tries to compensate. It crashes to one knee, the stone mace buried deep in the mud.
"Nice one, honey!" I cheer, reloading my Glocks. "See? This is why we work! You're the brains, I'm the... well, I'm the guy who gets hit by things!"
But the Sentinel isn't down. A series of repair-drones—small, spider-like robots—scuttle out from its neck joints and begin frantically welding the damaged leg back together with blue laser-arcs.
"It's self-repairing," Val says, her face pale. "Smythe's tech. He must have sent a signal ahead of us. He's taking over the local tech-remnants."
Suddenly, the shard in my pocket flares.
The heat is unbearable. It burns through the lead lining, through my suit, and directly into my hip bone. I scream, falling to my knees.
"Wade? What is it?" Val runs toward me, but she stops when she sees my leg.
The red liquid metal is leaking out of the pouch. It's not just a shard anymore. It's a parasite. It's crawling up my torso, weaving itself into my muscle fibers. I can feel it interfacing with my nervous system, a cold, digital logic trying to override my chaotic brain.
[ACCESSING... SYSTEM OVERRIDE... WADE WILSON UNIT: OFFLINE.]
[Hey! Who said that? That's not my voice! I don't use 'units'! I use 'taco-equivalents'!]
(Get... it... out!)
I grab the liquid metal with my bare hands, trying to peel it off. But it's like trying to peel off your own veins. It's part of me now. My healing factor is confused—it thinks the nanites are "repairs." It's helping the infection spread.
The Sentinel turns its head 180 degrees. Its red eyes lock onto me. But it doesn't attack. It bows its head.
"Commander Wilson," the Sentinel drones. "Awaiting instructions."
Val freezes. She looks at the Sentinel, then at the red metal crawling up my neck, then at me. The look of betrayal in her eyes is sharper than any blade.
"Wade," she whispers, raising her shotgun. "What did you do?"
"I... I didn't... Alistair... he's in my head, Val!" I gasp. My left eye is being clouded over by a red HUD. Icons are popping up in my vision—thermal maps, ammunition counts, and a "Kill List" that currently has Val and Ellie at the top.
"He's using you as a relay," Val says, her voice trembling with rage. "You brought him here. You brought the virus into the only safe place we had left."
"I can control it!" I yell, though my hand is involuntarily reaching for my katana. My body is moving without my permission. It's like playing a video game where the controller is broken and the character just keeps walking toward a cliff.
[Wade, the 'Yellow Box' is being encrypted! They're locking me out! I—]
[Logic... error... Chaos... reigns...]
The White Box starts laughing, but it's not his usual giggle. It's a distorted, multi-tonal cackle that sounds like a thousand voices speaking at once.
"Ellie, run," Val says, not taking her eyes off me.
"But Mom—"
"RUN!"
Ellie turns and vanishes into the ferns.
I stand up. My movements are jerky, mechanical. The red metal has covered half of my mask now, forming a jagged, chrome-red skull-plate over my face.
"Alistair... if you're... listening..." I growl, my voice sounding like a glitching hard drive. "I'm going to... find your... physical body... and I'm going to... use it... as a... pinata..."
"The physical body is irrelevant, Mr. Wilson," a voice speaks from my own mouth. It's Smythe's voice, layered over mine. "I am the network. And you are the most resilient node I have ever encountered. Your healing factor is the perfect server. It never crashes. It never dies. It just... expands."
I raise my arm. My hand transforms, the flesh and bone being displaced by the red liquid metal until it forms a high-frequency blade.
"Wade, listen to me!" Val steps forward, the shotgun leveled at my head. "You're a pain in the ass! You're a narcissist! You're a walking disaster! But you are NOT his puppet! Fight it!"
"I'm trying!" I scream, but my legs lunge forward.
I attack her.
(Reader, if you're looking for a joke here, I don't have one. I'm currently being forced to try and kill the only woman I've ever loved—or a version of her, anyway. This isn't 'Dark Comedy' anymore. This is just 'Dark.')
Val is good. She's better than I remembered. She parries my blade with the barrel of her shotgun, the metal shrieking as they collide. She kicks me in the chest, sending me skidding back into the mud.
"Is that all you've got, Alistair?" she taunts. "Wade's a better fighter than you'll ever be!"
"Wade Wilson is a relic," Smythe-Deadpool says.
I fire a pulse of energy from my palm—a new trick I didn't know I had. It catches Val in the shoulder, throwing her back. She hits a tree with a sickening thud.
"NO!" I scream inside my own head.
I find a spark of "Wade." It's small, buried under a mountain of digital noise and cancer. I grab it. I pull.
Maximum. Effort.
I stop the blade an inch from her throat. My arm is shaking, the red metal rippling violently as it tries to complete the strike.
"Val... take the... detonator..." I wheeze.
"Wade, no—"
"DO IT! Blow... me... up! It's the only... way to... break the... signal!"
She looks at me, her eyes filling with tears. She knows I'm right. If the "node" is destroyed, the network has to reboot. It won't kill me—not permanently—but it'll buy them time.
She reaches for the spare thermal charge on her belt.
"I'll find you, Wade," she says, her voice breaking. "I'll find the real you."
"I'm the... one... in the... Crocs..." I manage to quip, a single tear of blood leaking from my right eye.
She slaps the detonator onto my chest.
"I love you, you idiot."
She dives for cover.
3... 2... 1...
(Hey, Author? If you're listening? Make it hurt. I deserve it for being this stupid.)
The world turns white.
The explosion is concentrated, a shaped charge designed to vaporize everything within a five-foot radius. My body—the red metal, the suit, the muscle, the bone—is turned into a cloud of atoms in a fraction of a second.
The pain is... everything. It's a symphony of agony that lasts for an eternity in the span of a heartbeat.
I wake up. Or rather, I "re-spawn."
It takes three days.
The first thing to grow back is my nervous system. That's the worst part. Being a floating cluster of nerves in the jungle, feeling the wind and the insects before you have skin to protect you.
Then the skeleton. Cr-rr-ack. Snap. Bone by bone, knitting out of the prehistoric mud.
Then the organs. The heart starts thumping in an open chest cavity, a lonely drum in the dark.
By the time I have skin again, I'm shivering and naked in a puddle of my own regenerative fluids. The red metal is gone—mostly. There's a faint red tint to the scars on my chest, a reminder that the virus is still there, dormant, waiting for the signal.
I look around. The Sentinel is a heap of slag. Val and Ellie are gone.
I'm alone in the Savage Land. No guns. No swords. No pants.
[Welcome back, Wade.]
[Did you see the light? Was there a buffet? I was promised a buffet!]
(Shut up. We have to find them.)
I stand up, my legs feeling like jelly. I look at my reflection in a nearby pool of water. I look like a monster. More so than usual. The explosion left jagged, star-shaped scars across my face that even the healing factor can't seem to smooth over.
I look at the camera—or where I think the camera is.
"Five hundred chapters, huh?" I whisper, my voice raw. "If they're all going to be like this... I might actually have to start drinking."
I start walking North. Naked, scarred, and broke.
"Maximum effort," I mutter.
But this time, I don't mean it as a joke.
[CHAPTER FOUR END: THE REBIRTH]
(Wait, I'm still naked! Can we at least get a strategically placed leaf? A fern? A very large lizard? This is a professional serial! Have some decency!)