Hulk (26 page)

Images spun through his head. He was living and dying all at the same time, his life flashing before his eyes as if he were about to die—and in a way he was. The man he had been was dead. He would bear as much resemblance to normal men as normal men did to the lower primates. For, unlike his son who had the strength but not the resolve, he would harness the forces now rampant in his body and use them to accomplish . . .

. . . anything.

He would be able to do anything. He would be more powerful than God, because God was so afraid of his creation that he hid in his heavens lest he be seen. But David Banner would have the powers of a God, and yet would walk among his subjects, and his vengeance would be great and powerful.

A blissful smile filled his face, and then abruptly the gammasphere shut down. The light was restored to normal. Slowly he opened his eyes, looked around, and sagged to his knees. He held up his arms and studied them. No signs of radiation poisoning, no blistered skin, no nothing. No outward signs of physical distress. That alone told him everything he needed to know, for he wouldn’t have been able to survive the gamma ray exposure if it had not worked.

But it
had
worked.

“Yes,” David Banner said in low triumph. He grabbed the edge of a metal table to help him stand, and looked down at his hand. It had been cut slightly on the edge of the table when his hand had brushed against it, leaving a tiny rip, a thin strip of blood. He took a handkerchief, and held it to his hand . . .

. . . and the tissue around the cut began to take on the characteristics of the cotton cloth.

David Banner gasped and yanked the kerchief away. He gaped at the point of contact, shook his hand out, and looked again. Upon second inspection the skin now seemed utterly normal. He frowned, wondering if he had imagined it.

Then, out of curiosity, he pressed his hand against the silver metal table. At first nothing happened, but then he felt an odd tingling, the blood and flesh and tissue beginning to alter their composition. They took on a distinct metallic glow, and this time when he moved his hand away, it maintained that silver look.

Wasting no time lest the absorbing effects fade again, he whirled and smashed his hand into the wall. It went right through with a crunch, and not only did it do so easily, but he didn’t even feel the impact.

He had expected nothing like this at all—but in the world of science, one must always be prepared to allow for variables. His mind was already racing, considering the possibilities, and he laughed loudly in delight as he yanked his hand clear and studied it, holding it up to the light. The metallic properties were still there. The absorption had been retained far longer this time. Would it remain this way? If he touched something else, would those new properties replace what he already had, or supplement them? Would the retention time increase each time he used it, or was there a maximum?

Questions, dozens of questions, tumbled through his mind as he flexed his metal hand and envisioned it squeezing the world in a viselike grip.

At that moment, the door to the lab opened. He turned and saw a befuddled guard standing there. The guard was slightly paunchy, an older man, squinting in the light of the lab and looking in confusion at what appeared to be a regular janitor who, for some reason, was laughing like a madman.

“What’s happening here?” he asked.

Banner took a step forward, practically thrusting the hand into the guard’s face. “Look! My hand,” he said with escalating excitement. “You see, the strength of my son’s DNA, combined with the radiant energy, it’s transformed my cells, allowing them, after exposure to other cellular structures, to absorb and replicate them. . . .”

He should have realized that it was pointless to share such a scientific breakthrough with a pathetically normal individual who couldn’t begin to appreciate it fully. Indeed, the guard responded in what should have been a woefully predictable fashion. His hand started to drift toward the butt of his holstered gun. “I’m gonna have to ask you to put your hands up, pal. Okay? Nice and easy.”

David Banner thought this was just about the funniest damned thing he’d ever heard, and his peals of laughter obviously rankled the irritated sentinel. He didn’t pull his gun, however, since both of Banner’s hands were empty and, aside from his erratic behavior, he didn’t yet seem a genuine threat. This turned out to be a mistake although, in the final analysis, it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference if he’d yanked out his revolver and pulled the trigger.

Still laughing, Banner stepped forward, quick as death, and swung his metallic hand. There was another crunching noise, not dissimilar from the one the wall had made when he struck it. He moved his hand quickly away from the side of the guard’s head, not wanting to get any blood on it lest he absorb that, as well.

It didn’t make any difference to the guard, who sagged to the ground with blood welling up from the large, smashed-in section of his skull. Banner didn’t know whether the guard was still alive or not, and didn’t especially care. He was far too busy staring at his metallic fingers, pleased with the fact that they hadn’t yet reverted to flesh and blood and wiggling them like a puppeteer enjoying a new creation.

The world was swirling around Bruce Banner, bizarre images that he couldn’t sort out colliding with one another. He had a feeling he’d been incredibly angry, but he couldn’t remember why or where or what it had all been about. There was a sense of disorientation, similar to what he’d experienced when he had transformed back to normal by the side of the lake, but different as well. His nostrils flared and he knew he was no longer in the forest, for the smell of trees and leaves and fresh rain were all gone. The air was sterile and odorless, like the interior of an airplane cabin only worse, and as his eyes opened to slits, the world was blurred and glaring and there was a sense of the metallic.

And then something was stroking his hair, smoothing it, and he caught a whiff of a familiar scent. Her scent. That wonderful perfume of hers, and he’d never been so happy to smell it as the aroma filled his nostrils now.

“You still need a haircut,” she said softly.

He tried to sit up, but his muscles didn’t want to cooperate. Betty sensed the desire, but was able to keep him down with a single hand on his shoulder. “I bet you’re wondering where you are,” said Betty. He nodded. As gently as she could, she said, “You’re home.”

At first he didn’t know what she meant. This wasn’t the bedroom he’d grown up in, under the close watch of his adoptive mother, Monica Krenzler. So what could she mean . . .

Then he realized, and the full import sank in. He ceased trying to sit up, and instead stared at the ceiling of what he now realized was some sort of containment unit. Tears began to well up in his eyes. Bruce Banner had spent as long as he could remember working to suppress his feelings. Now he was in a place that was part of the hidden section of his life, with all the answers and all the possibilities of a full and comprehensible existence being dangled in front of him—and he had no clue how to feel.

Betty saw the moistness in his eyes, saw the tears trickling down the side of his face, and looked as if she was going to start crying at any moment. She reached over and brushed the tears away from him.

“Would you like to see it?” she asked.

He couldn’t even manage a nod. But she knew what he wanted. More than that, she knew what he needed.

going home again . . .
or not

“Out of the question.”

In a hallway outside the containment chamber, Betty Ross faced her father, who had a cigar jutting angrily out from between his teeth. The “No Smoking” sign nearby didn’t seem to make the slightest impression on him.

“Dad,” she began.

But Thunderbolt Ross continued to shake his head, spraying cigar ash in a semicircle. Betty stepped back to avoid having some fall on her. “I said out of the question! That containment unit could restrain a herd of elephants. You let him loose from that, and he turns into the jolly green giant in a heartbeat, we’ve got a major scuffle on our hands! Provided he doesn’t just leap out of here and go . . . go destroy Tokyo or something!”

“Dad, the transformation only occurs when he’s filled with uncontrollable rage. . . .”

“And who knows what could cause that?” insisted Ross, folding his arms and glaring down at her firmly. “The other day I found out the price of milk went up a quarter; I hit the damned roof! We don’t know what might set him off.”

“I’m reasonably sure a trip to the grocery store isn’t going to send Bruce Banner off the deep end,” Betty said, although she was still having trouble dealing with the notion that Bruce’s name seemed to have changed overnight. She rested a hand on her father’s forearm. “Dad, the other day, when I called, I said I needed to trust you. That was . . .”

“Difficult,” he said with a low sigh. “Yes. I know it was. I appreciate that you were willing, and able, to make that request. That was . . . a huge step forward. For both of us.”

“I know. The thing is, Dad, trust has to go two ways.”

“Betty,” he moaned.

“Send as much backup as you want, Dad,” she said quickly. “Have troops following us with a dozen stun guns set to knock Bruce cold if he so much as starts humming ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green.’ But I’m telling you that this place, Desert Base, particularly the area that was never rebuilt, is a huge, gaping hole in his life. The . . . the ‘Hulk’ side of him . . .”

“Hulk,” snorted Ross. “That’s what they’re calling him, isn’t it? Me, I call him ‘Angry Man.’ Helps to remember just what it is that gives your enemy his power.”

“He’s not your enemy, Dad, and not mine. What I was saying is that the Hulk represents the emotional gap in Bruce’s life caused by his lack of memory of his early years. If he has any hope of ever controlling the Hulk . . . of controlling himself . . . of living anything vaguely resembling a normal life, he needs to see and experience the part that was lost to him for so long. Dad . . .”—she wrapped both arms around his one—“I know you hold his father responsible for a lot. God knows I do at this point, as well, starting with the fact that he tried to turn me into Purina gamma chow. But please, I’m begging you, don’t punish the son for the sins of the father. The son saved me. He may not have been himself, but he saved me. That’s got to count for something.”

Thunderbolt let out a long, unsteady, and frustrated breath. “You, young lady, had better be right about this.”

“I’m your daughter, Dad.” She smiled. “How can I ever be anything
but
right?”

One of Bruce’s earliest memories—he knew his memories didn’t go as far back as most people’s—was from a time when he was about nine years old. His mom had taken him on a road trip, and they’d stopped at a place that billed itself as a genuine “ghost town.” Young Bruce had found the notion terribly appealing, envisioning spooks and shades drifting from one building to the next, caterwauling and “
oooooohing
” as they went. He’d been disappointed to discover that it was a tricked up, touristy Western theme park, with cheesy employees decked out in even cheesier costumes. He’d kept a resolute face and told his mom that it was well and truly a nifty place, and even fooled his mother into thinking he was scared a couple of times.

But it had been something of a letdown, and he’d become convinced that the concept of a “ghost town” was charming, but no more based in reality than any other mythic notion.

It turned out he was wrong. As he and Betty walked through what had once been the bustling commercial district outside Desert Base, he knew that he was in a genuine ghost town. In his imagination, he could actually see and hear people long gone walking around and chatting and enjoying life, linked by the army family they all shared.

That was no longer the case. The base had been rebuilt over the years, but things were different now. Everything was kept low key and under cover, so as not to alarm the skittish residents of nearby cities who dreaded the thought of research at the base. At least, that was how it was explained to Bruce.

Their first moments together, once Bruce had fully recovered his ability to communicate, had been awkward. “I’m sorry,” she had started to say to him.

But he had cut her off almost immediately. “No. You’re not,” he had said flatly. “You knew what you were doing, calling in your father and his people. And given the exact same circumstances, you would do exactly the same thing again, wouldn’t you?”

She had begun to protest . . . then looked down, unable and unwilling to respond. That alone had told him that she knew he was right. And then, to Betty’s surprise—and, to some extent, his own—he had reached a finger under her chin and tilted her head up to look him in the eyes.

“All this time you’ve been telling me that I’m too rational, that I don’t let my emotions just take me,” he had said to her. “If I gave in now, let myself feel anger, betrayal, hurt, what purpose would it serve? What’s done is done. The fact is you did what you felt you had to do. I may not be thrilled by it. I may have been the victim of it. But I can respect your decision. So you see, Betty, that aspect of me, which you felt was detrimental to our relationship, makes it that much easier to get past being shot with a tranq gun and carted away. Double-edged sword and all that, I suppose.”

“So, we’re okay?” she had said.

“Betty,” and he had actually laughed, but it had an ironic sound to it, “when were we
ever
okay?”

He had seen her flinch a bit from that, but it was the truth and she had known it.

Now they were walking through one of the deserted, ramshackle streets. At a not-too-discreet distance, troops armed with various high-tech containment weapons and lightweight attack vehicles moved slowly behind them. Bruce got a mental picture of what they must look like viewed from overhead. Just a guy, a girl, and the troops. The ludicrousness of the situation caused him to laugh again, this time to himself.

“It used to be so full of life here,” Betty said from beside him. Then she noticed he was laughing, and obviously couldn’t quite understand what was so funny about her last statement. “What?” asked Betty.