RECRUITED

Wade Wilson was in San Diego when he heard the news.

He was sitting in a shady-looking burrito shop, eating questionable food, when the television talking heads suddenly went into full batshit hysteria mode. Their description of what had happened in an El Paso casino - the paralysis, inability to breath, and a strange sensation as if the entire world was vibrating apart - sounded all too familiar to Wade.

And then it got worse - the talking heads began making comparisons to Westchester. The truth of what had happened at Westchester wasn't exactly a secret, but the nastier details had never leaked out. And Wade knew that if it ever became known that the most famous mutant in the world was now a senile, unstable, telepathic WMD... well the extremely shitty situation that all mutants were currently facing would become even worse.

"Fuck," Wade fumed as he abandoned his meal and stalked towards the door. "Fuckity, fuckity, fuck, fuck, FUCK!"

"Hey, man, you gonna pay for that?" an outraged waiter yelled after Wade.

At that precise moment, one of the talking heads on TV began talking about "the mutant threat".

"Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!" Wade screamed. Then he pulled out a .45 and blew the television to pieces.

A former client who owed Wade a favor owned one of those new rotor-jet helicopters and had a lax attitude about filing flight plans. Wade was in El Paso within three hours.

"Who's Logan?" the pilot asked as Wade grabbed his bag and jumped out of the chopper. "You've been cussing at him ever since we got into the air."

"He's a fucking douche-nozzle who knows what has to be done AND WON'T FUCKING DO IT!" Wade snarled just before he stomped away.

Wade asked some questions in El Paso. Everything he suspected seemed to be true. Logan and the Prof had checked into a casino hotel, and then everything went butt-fuck crazy. Well over a hundred people had been hospitalized thanks to Xavier. And then, just to top it off, the cops eventually dragged a half-dozen bodies out of one of the casino's upper floors. The dead guys were some kind of paramilitary assholes. They all had triple puncture wounds right through their heads.

Strangely, Wade also heard that a little girl was with Logan and Xavier. He didn't quite know what to make of that.

Wade knew about Logan's Mexican hideout - a guy named Caliban had told him about it a few months ago. Wade decided to check there next. Whatever had gone wrong in El Paso, maybe Logan and Xavier were holed up in their south-of-the-border fortress of solitude.

The phrase 'fortress of solitude' got stuck in Wade's head. As he crossed the border, Wade was humming the theme from the first Superman movie.

"Fuck me," Wade croaked in disgust, "just fuck me with a dick the size of a fire-plug."

Wade had searched the old ore-refinery that had been Logan's last hangout. There were dead men scattered all about - clawed and sliced to bits. Like the guys in El Paso, most of them were some sort of jackoff military contractor types. In other words, they were mercenaries, just like Wade himself. But for a little extra flavor, there was also a squad of dead Federales mixed into the body-count. The Mexican government was going to love that.

Wade had no idea who had suddenly decided to go after Logan and the Professor, but it had obviously been a big mistake.

On the way back north, Wade had to dodge the Mexican authorities. They were probably trying to track down their missing Federales. Fortunately, Wade only had to deal with two of them.

He did his best to shoot them gently. They were still alive as Wade slunk away.

Back north of the border, Wade noticed that the news-media was increasingly flipping out. They were confused, but mysteriously dangerous events with a side-order of mass-murder was high on the list of cable-news jerk-off fantasies. And some of the speculation that Wade was seeing on TV was getting uncomfortably close to the truth.

"Just think of the ratings!" Wade groused in a nasal, high-pitched, whine of a voice. For a split second, he considered sniping a few journalists in the hope of convincing the survivors to go find something else to obsess over. But then he reluctantly decided that killing reporters would only make things worse.

Wade considered his options. And then he made his decision. Something had to be done about Xavier. And if fucking Logan wouldn't fucking do what fucking had to be done, then...

Then...

"Stop thinking. Keep looking," Wade whispered to himself over and over as he stole a car. A witness had told him that Logan, Xavier, and the little girl were headed north.

It was a frustrating pursuit, because Wade always seemed to be just a step or two behind. And every time Wade thought he was finally getting close, he found an ugly outbreak of carnage.

Wade lost the trail after the bloodbath at the farm. Wade wasn't sane enough to be really, truly, honestly, scared of anything, but what he saw at that small farm was hellish even by Wolverine standards. Wade didn't care about the dead mercenaries, but the dead locals did bother him.

The dead family - a father, mother, and a boy - bothered Wade most of all.

In a blown-out truck, Wade found some people fragments that looked familiar. He put some of them together - it was like doing a juicy-red-and-white jigsaw puzzle.

The pieces belonged to Caliban. However, he'd been blown apart, not chopped apart. There were no good ways to die, but that was probably better than what had happened to everyone else in the near area.

Wade couldn't figure out why Logan had gone so far over the freaking edge. He was killing people by the bus-load - not just bad-guys, but also ordinary people. Yeah, Logan was a grumpy old fart nowadays, but he'd spent the last year keeping quiet and focused on taking care of Xavier.

"I've got to give you credit, Logan," Wade grumbled to himself as he kicked a stray head out of the way. "When you finally decided to go ape-shit crazy, you went all the fucking way."

Wade was now pretty sure that he'd have to kill Logan as well as the Professor. And that wasn't a pleasant thought at all. Wade put the odds at 60-40 - not in his favor.

Further north, Wade came across a grave. Tracks in the dirt pretty much confirmed that Logan and - for shit-fuck's sake! - the little girl had buried somebody.

Wade was sure that he finally had the girl figured out. Both Logan and the Professor had a thing for picking up strays. Somewhere along the line they'd probably found a frightened and helpless little girl. That was typical for both men, but it didn't really jive with Logan's recent descent into berserker fury.

Wade stared at the grave for a long time. He was pretty sure he knew who was in it.

Logan's truck was parked on the shoulder of the nearby road. It looked like somebody had tried to assassinate it with a shovel. In the bed of the truck, there was a lot of blood.

Wade used the shovel to scrape away enough dirt so he could confirm who was in the grave. He had to make sure.

Once he knew that Xavier was in the grave, Wade carefully replaced the dirt.

The he let out a deep and half-relieved sigh. So his number one problem wasn't really a problem any more. And that was good.

Right?

No matter how hard Wade tried to pretend otherwise, he'd always felt a certain respect for Xavier. Wade's decision that he needed to kill Xavier hadn't been a pleasant one. He was glad that he wouldn't actually have to do it.

Wade almost ended the chase right then and there.

However, Logan was still out there.

The trail went cold again. It took some time for Wade to figure out that the little girl who was with Logan had beat up a local guy and boosted his truck. That made Wade reconsider his theory that the girl was some helpless little flower that Logan had found by the side of the road.

However, it was good that she was learning a trade so early in life. Car theft was like hooking, bartending, and killing for hire. It was a skill that was always in demand.

Wade lost even more time as he followed Logan's truck the old-fashioned way, by stopping everywhere along a generally northern route and asking questions. He only had to beat information out of a few locals. They were actually smarter than they looked.

Somewhere in the mountains of Montana, not far from the Canadian border, Wade's chase came to an abrupt end.

It was late in the day.

Logan's grave - a simple pile of stones - was nearby. Wade was sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, keeping an eye on the grave. He'd gathered together enough wood and tinder to make a fire, but hadn't lit it yet. This high up, the nights would be cold even during the summer.

Wade's plan was simple. Logan had been dead for two days. He was going to wait and see if the Wolverine would arise from his tomb on the third night.

That was sort-of blasphemous, but it wasn't exactly as crazy as it sounded. After all, this was Logan. Could someone like Logan - or Wade - really die?

If he wanted to be honest with himself, Wade would have admitted that the real issue was that he was having a problem dealing with Logan's death. With Logan gone, the only other person who at least partially understood Wade Wilson was also gone. There wasn't anyone else who knew - who really fucking knew - what Weapon X could do to a man.

As long as Logan was alive, Wade wasn't completely alone with his nightmares. But now that had changed.

As sunset approached, Wade realized that someone was watching him. They didn't seem to be a threat.

"Come on out," Wade called.

There was a pause. Then a woman wearing a cloak appeared out of some nearby trees.

"Hello, Wade," Marie said softly, but she really wasn't paying attention to Wade. Her eyes were on the grave.

Marie wasn't a youngster any longer. A drizzle of grey semi-matched the white streak in her otherwise dark hair, and there were crow's feet on the corners of her mouth and eyes, but she was still fit and pretty.

"Hey, Rogue," Wade replied in a crazy-calm tone of voice. "Long time no see. I thought you were dead."

Marie said nothing as she walked over to the grave. Then she knelt next to it.

"Is he in there?" Marie asked quietly.

"Yeah," Wade answered. He couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Did you bury him?"

Wade shook his head. "No. He was like that when I got here."

"Did you knock the cross over?"

"No. I'm still trying to decide if that was the wind or if somebody had an attack of symbolism."

Still kneeling beside the grave, Marie fell silent for a while. Then she began moving rocks.

"I already checked," Wade said hastily. He didn't really want her to take that all the way to the end. There was no reason.

But Marie didn't stop until Logan's face was uncovered.

She wept a little after that. Wade didn't have any idea what to say, so he got off his ass and carefully replaced the rocks.

As he did that, Wade tried really, really, hard to not consider his own eventual end. Vanessa was gone - taken by cancer, of all fucking things. So when the day came when Wade-Fucking-Wilson finally bought the farm, kicked the bucket, began pushing up daisies, took a dirt-nap, or whatever other euphemism you wanted to use, who was going to weep over his grave?

Short answer: nobody.

"Xavier is dead, too. He's buried by the side of a road, down in Oklahoma." Wade figured that Marie deserved to know that. She'd been one of Xavier's people since she was a kid.

Marie took that news better than Logan's death. Maybe she and Logan were just closer. Or maybe Marie had already done her mourning for the Professor after Alzheimer's started claiming his mind. Or maybe she was the kind of woman who only had so many tears.

"And there's a bunch of dead guys over there," Wade said as he pointed upslope. "One of them looks just like a younger version of Logan. Except he's got a really shitty haircut. Well... that part is actually hard to tell because somebody blew off a big chunk of his skull. And it was an adamantium skull. Must have been one hell of a bullet."

Neither of them really needed to have it spelled out for them. They knew about Weapon X and their brutal and bug-fuck-insane search for the ultimate super-soldier. It seemed to be the holy grail for a certain breed of madman. And it looked like Weapon X had finally hit paydirt.

"You might hear that Logan murdered a lot of people over the last few days," Wade continued. "I'm pretty sure the worst wasn't because of Logan. It was that fucking thing they made. The thing that was just like Logan except for where it really mattered."

Marie just nodded. By now, her eyes were dry.

"Another strange thing: Logan had a little girl with him," Wade added.

Marie sighed and finally turned her head to look at Wade. "There's a doctor named Rice. He picked up the pieces of the Weapon X program and rebuilt it as a bio-genetics company. The girl is Logan's daughter - made from his DNA."

Wade stared at Marie. "How do you know that?"

"Some friends and I heard about El Paso. Then we did some investigating. All of a sudden, some things we'd never understood began falling into place. Dr. Rice is why we've been dying off for the last few years. He came up with something that could be added to food and water. It did something to us. No new mutants were born, and the ones who were alive became weaker."

"So just where is this Rice asshole?" Wade asked with deceptive calmness. "Maybe I should pay him a visit. Maybe talk things over. Maybe shoot him many times after a really brutal and horribly extended torture session."

"I don't know where he is," Marie quickly replied.

"So you're still with the X-Men?" Wade asked.

Marie shook her head. "Most of them are gone. I keep in contact with the survivors, but I mostly work with another group - a mix of humans and a few other mutants."

Wade thought about that for a while.

"Is Colossus still alive?"

Marie shook her head.

"How about Negasonic?"

Marie shook her head again.

"Shit," Wade said quietly.

It took some time for Wade to get back in the mood for questions. But - no big surprise - he got there eventually.

"So this Rice guy was chasing Logan?" Wade asked.

"Not exactly," Marie said. Her eyes were on a map that she'd pulled out of her cloak. "He was breeding mutants. Some kids got loose from a facility Rice had down in Mexico. Logan's girl was one of them. Somehow, Logan and the Professor ran into her. They all took off together."

Wade frowned. "Where the hell were they heading?"

Marie looked right into Wade's eyes. "Canada. The kids had the idea they could find refuge there."

For a while, Wade just stared at Marie.

"Canada?" Wade finally said.

"Yes."

"Canada?! Where Weapon X keeps their fucking torture chambers? Those dumb-ass little shit-twits went to fucking Canada?!"

Marie held up a hand to calm Wade down. "I'm going to check it out. Maybe the kids actually got asylum. Maybe they made a mistake. I want to know for sure."

Wade cocked his head and looked at Marie for some time before speaking again. "I'll go with you. We'll make sure that the rug-rats haven't fucked up."

Marie suddenly gave Wade a mysterious smile. "That's not exactly your thing, Wade."

Wade shrugged. "I do pro-boner work every now and then. And I want to meet Logan's daughter. The more I think about it, a lot of the claw wounds I saw in the bodies of all those rent-a-thugs were smaller than you might expect. It looks like daddy's little girl is death on roller-skates."

Marie winced.

Marie paid her last respects to Logan. She hadn't been in a church for some time, but she still knew some appropriate prayers.

Despite that, Marie left the cross the way it was.

Then they started hiking northwards. There was a town just across the border. Wade thought it was the logical place to start their search.

"Just so you know, I'm not one of the X-Men," Wade said suddenly.

"I know," Marie said.

"I mean it! Colossus kept trying to talk me into being one of the good guys! That's not me. You know it's not me."

"I know," repeated Marie, but now there was a trace of a smile on her lips.

"This isn't one of Pete's fucking four or five moments! I just... just wanna make sure... sure... that... uh. I mean..."

Wade ground to a frustrated halt

"It's okay, Wade," Marie as she reached over and took Wade's shoulder in her hand. She gave it a gentle squeeze.

By now, Wade was getting desperate. "I'm just giving you a hand because you're hot and I'm the kind of loser who thinks that will get him somewhere! And that never fucking works!"

"I know," said Marie yet again. She was definitely smiling now. It was a knowing smile, but in no way mocking. And yet it was bugging the hell out of Wade.

Down the valley, thunder boomed. An evening storm was working its way along the line of mountains and the gust front was catching up to them. Marie's hood flapped open in the wind. A stray lock of dark hair streaked with white flipped out from under her hood and danced in front of Marie's face. She snagged it and tucked it back under the hood

Wade suddenly turned and peered behind them - back towards that trail of death that spanned right through the middle of the continent.

For a strange second, Wade could have sworn that he'd heard a pair of men's voices.

They were somewhere to the south and they were laughing in the wind.