Hulk (28 page)

Ross shook his head with a resigned sigh, but she didn’t quite understand the message until she opened the door and saw two burly guards blocking her way.

“Betty, I’m sorry,” said Ross, and he really did sound apologetic. “It’s time for you to go home.”

Barely five minutes later, Betty was looking down from her seat in a chopper at the desolate desert floor as she flew home.

She thought bleakly,
This is the last time I’m looking at this while it’s in one piece. They’ll never be able to handle Bruce. Never. Putting Glen Talbot in charge of Bruce Banner is like using a sledgehammer to open a bottle of nitroglycerin
.

playing with fire

Bruce was beginning to remember.

As he lay on his bed in the containment cell, pieces, fragments of what he’d seen, were starting to fall into place like the parts of a jigsaw puzzle. He was starting to realize that it was simply a matter of being willing to accept what was being presented to him, that it wasn’t just that he didn’t remember; his mind was doing everything it could to block it all out. He couldn’t help but wonder how much of that was as a result of the . . . other . . . within him, the other that would do whatever was required to keep those recollections at arm’s length.

How ironic, mused Bruce. How remarkably ironic that a being who was the living incarnation of strength, who feared nothing physically, was repulsed by something as ephemeral as memory. It made Bruce feel strong in a way, as if he—

A number of small openings mechanically appeared in the walls around Bruce. He sat up and saw gun barrels pointing at him from everywhere, enough guns to Swiss cheese him before he took another breath. And they were accompanied by laser sightings. There were so many red laser targeting dots on him that he looked like he’d come down with a sudden case of measles so massive that the spots had actually broken out on his clothing.

The door burst open, startling him.
What the hell is going on?
Bruce wondered, and even as he did so, he felt something else, deeper within him, stirring and readying itself, like a child in utero responding to a loud noise. Bruce didn’t know what to do first. He couldn’t decide whether to work on quelling the small but dangerous uprising he felt rooting around in his brain, or to focus on what was apparently a change in the status quo.

Then Glen Talbot walked in.

At that moment, with a burst of clarity, Bruce Banner knew precisely what was going to happen. The exact details were open to debate, but the outcome wasn’t in doubt. The only thing left to ponder was just how long it would take, and Bruce Banner—ever the scientist—couldn’t help but think that it would be interesting to find out.

Talbot was sporting what appeared to be some sort of electrified walking stick. Bruce took note of it in a distant, almost analytical manner, as if the ramifications of the device were of no immediate concern to him. He also noticed, with a bit of smug amusement, that Talbot was looking a bit banged up. The right side of his upper lip was swollen from a cut, and there was considerable bruising on the entire left side of his face. He was also wearing a brace on the first two fingers of his left hand. Considering the pounding that he had given Bruce in their previous encounter, Bruce could only consider it just desserts, a beating well deserved. He only wished he could remember some of the details of it. He seemed to recall something vaguely about a couch, but he wasn’t exactly sure how that fit in.

“Hi ya, Bruce,” Talbot said with the sort of false joviality usually exhibited by a bully who’s convinced he has the upper hand. “How you feeling? Grub okay here for you?”

“You’re looking a little worse for the wear,” Bruce observed. He didn’t sound any more sorry about it than he felt.

Talbot shrugged it off. “I’m fine and dandy. Might need a little reconstructive work on my left index finger. Insurance’ll cover it.”

Bruce nodded as if he cared. “What are you doing here?” he asked, knowing the answer before he posed the query.

“Good question,” said Talbot. He took a step toward Banner, but didn’t get too close, not wanting to put himself in the path of even one of the red targeting dots. “See, I need your cells to trigger some chemical distress signals—you know, so you can get a little green for me again—and then I’ll carve a little piece out of the real you, analyze it, patent it, make a fortune. You mind?”

Well, there it was. One almost had to admire Talbot for his bluntness. But there was more to this than just some powerful company interested in patents. Because if Talbot was marching around here, and Ross
père
and
fille
were nowhere to be seen, then that indicated a major shake up in the status quo.

“Who are you really with, Talbot?” asked Bruce silkily.

Talbot blinked. “You know who I represent, Bruce. A private research corporation called Atheon. Pity you didn’t cooperate with us when I first arrived. We could be on the same side right now.”

“I somehow doubt that,” Bruce replied. Considering he had several dozen target sights upon him, he was sounding remarkably relaxed. They weren’t going to kill him; he knew that now beyond question, because they wanted something he couldn’t provide them if he were dead. So here was Talbot, ready to throw twenty gallons of kerosene on a campfire while laboring under the delusion that he wasn’t going to get burned. A blind man during an eclipse had more vision than that.

“Just as I doubt,” Bruce continued, “the notion of a ‘private research corporation’ pushing around the military. That’s just not flying for me, Talbot. Which means, to me, that there’s another branch of the government involved. Atheon is a front for something far more covert than any of Ross’s people, and far more highly placed as well. What are you, Talbot? NSA? CIA?”

“M-O-U-S-E,” grinned Talbot. He actually seemed amused by Bruce’s speculations. “I’ll tell you all about it later, Bruce. Just, right now, let’s bring the big boy out to play, shall we?”

“I’ll never let you,” Bruce said. He meant it, too, even as a plan was forming in his mind. The re-emergence of the Hulk was inevitable. Banner was too intelligent not to see it. Talbot would never stop until he got what he wanted. The problem was that if the Hulk came out in half measures, the various targeting devices would let fly before Bruce was impervious. Then Talbot would quickly acquire the cell samples he wanted, and leave the riddled and vulnerable body of the partly formed Hulk to die on the floor of the containment unit.

So instead Bruce had to bottle it up, bottle it up as hard and as deeply as he could, and then let fly with the transformation all at once. Which meant he had to endure all that Talbot dished out and more. He had to let Talbot push him and push him and push him until he was ready to push back in all his unadulterated fury.

“I’m not sure you have much of a choice,” said Talbot. With that, he took his stick and jabbed it into Banner’s stomach. Sure enough, the stick had electrical properties, and a vicious jolt sent Banner flying backward against the wall. He threw his arms out to either side, braced himself against the wall, steadied the frantic beating of his heart. Despite the gravity of the situation, the irony was also evident. Repeated electrical shocks might, sooner or later, cause his heart to stop. If that happened, then the entire business was going to be moot.

“C’mon Bruce,” he said, “aren’t you feeling a little angry? After all, you only have me to play with, now that Betty’s dumped you and gone back to Berkeley.”

Bruce didn’t buy that for a second. If Betty was gone—and she might well be—it was due to pressure from Talbot. Love and dedication aside, Betty Ross was a scientist above all else, and the Hulk was simply too interesting a project to leave behind willingly.

“You’re lying,” said Bruce with conviction. Then the strength in his legs started to go, a delayed effect from the electrical jolt, and it was all he could do not to slide to the floor.

Talbot stayed where he was. “You know, for me this is a win-win situation. You turn green, all these guys kill you, and I perform the autopsy. You don’t, I mop the floor with you, and,” he added in a conspiratorial whisper, “maybe by accident I go too far and break your neck.” He paused. “Bad science, maybe, but personally gratifying. Come to think of it, you are looking a little green—around the gills.”

Bruce, using the wall for support, fought back to his feet. He continued to stare resolutely at Talbot, and he heard it then, the beginning of the rage within him, the desire to smash this little cockroach flat, to stomp on him and crush his body beneath his feet like packing peanuts.
Smash smash
echoed in his mind, and
Not yet
fired across the gulf of his neurons. His brain felt bifurcated, one half arguing with the other, but he kept himself together despite the best efforts of that growling inner voice to seize control.

“C’mon. Just a love tap,” said Talbot, thrusting out his chin, daring Bruce to take a swing at him. “Let’s see what you got.”

“Never,” Bruce said weakly. He tried to move and stumbled, the strength still gone from his legs, and Talbot—obviously displaying a confidence that Bruce knew to be misplaced—tossed aside the electric cane and pummeled Bruce with his fist. Bruce’s flesh shuddered and shook beneath the pounding, and he threw his arms up in front of his face and head, ultimately unable to accomplish anything defensively. Talbot stepped in through his guard and planted a right hook on Bruce’s chin and he went down. As the world darkened around him, he decided that perhaps he’d done too good a job of suppressing his angrier half, because this strategy hadn’t worked out exactly the way he’d hoped.

Then again, at least he was alive, so hey, major points for Bruce, and
Mom, can I have some ice cream? I promise I’ll do all my homework
, and then he teetered on the edge of insensibility.

From very far away, he heard Glen Talbot mutter, “You know, consciously you might control it. But subconsciously I bet that’s another story.” And Bruce, from his place on the edge, could almost sense the creature within, watching him but constrained by the constant rationality, the morality, the upper brain functions—in short, the superego of Bruce Banner. But if Bruce was out of the equation, then that opened up possibilities, which was obviously what Talbot was hoping.

“Anybody home?” he inquired, right before kicking Bruce’s crumpled body.

The door opened and Thunderbolt Ross barged in with the sort of unexpected arrival that suited his nickname.
“Talbot, that’s enough!”

“All in the name of science, sir,” Talbot said with a shrug. He moved back and walked out of the room past Ross. Ross followed him out, and as he did so, Bruce Banner opened an eye and watched them leave.

One for you, Talbot
, he thought, pain wracking his body,
but a war isn’t won with one battle. Don’t have to be a soldier . . . to know that. . . .

And then he was out cold.

In one of the lab facilities at the base, Thunderbolt Ross was expressing his personal annoyance to Glen Talbot who, in turn, didn’t give much of a damn just how worked up Ross was. Workers went on about their business, making a great attempt to pay no attention.

“What I’m saying is deliberately provoking an incident
is
my business,” Ross told him flatly.

“I’ve got every kind of active denial system in place,” said Talbot, sounding rather bored with what he obviously saw as an unwarranted interrogation. “We will contain or neutralize according to procedures.” Then he folded his arms and looked like the most smug SOB in the world as he addressed his former commanding officer with barely restrained condescension.

“The fact is unless we get this thing in vivo, we have little or nothing to build on. The secret’s in him and I’m going to extract it.” As an afterthought, he added, “Sir.” Then he raised an eyebrow, daring Ross to say something else, to try to continue the argument.

Ross stood there for a moment, his mustache bristling, and then he turned on his heel and left. Talbot watched him go and almost had to chuckle. To think that he had once held Thunderbolt Ross in such high esteem. Hell, he’d practically worshiped the man. And now look where the two of them were. Ross seemed so . . . so small in comparison to Talbot’s recollections. To Talbot it was a distinct reminder of the danger of putting people on pedestals.

He waited another minute or so to make sure that Ross wasn’t on the other side of the door, preparing to sandbag him or come at him with some other inane argument. Then one of the Atheon workers caught Talbot’s eye, and he turned.

“Subject is in the tank, sir,” he told Talbot.

Talbot nodded once and then headed out the door. Ross was nowhere around, thankfully. As he headed down to the immersion lab, he could only guess at the personal agonies Betty must be enduring, yanked away from her favorite experiment and boy toy.

Still, the fly in the ointment was Banner. Not only had he resisted the pounding Talbot had given him, but he had made some annoyingly accurate guesses about Atheon’s true nature. Talbot was going to have to have a talk with his superiors, to discuss ways in which Atheon and its parent organization could tighten things up so no one else would be able to put two and two together.

As he considered the possibilities, he entered the immersion lab. There, deprived of sensory input, wired up to so many machines he looked like a Christmas tree, was Bruce Banner.

Talbot smiled, went over to the monitors to study the readouts, and called, “Let’s fire up those brain waves, shall we?”

Electrical probes shot into Bruce’s body, stimulating specific centers of his brain, trying to jolt a reaction from him. His body twitched slightly.

Start small, Glen,
Talbot reminded himself.
Don’t want to use a sledgehammer to pound a flea, not before we’ve got the big dog in our sights.

Betty wasn’t at all surprised when the van that had dropped her off at her house parked at the curb. She turned and stood in the doorway, staring at it in grim annoyance. They were probably busy setting up a listening center of some kind, to make sure Betty didn’t start calling newspaper or TV reporters to try to tell them what was going on. Not that anyone would believe her, of course. An underground army research base? Studying her boyfriend who was capable of turning into a half-ton of rampaging fury, if someone pushed him far enough? Oh yeah. That would fly.