The dark paw pointed. All eyes were locked on the prematurely bent body of Dr. Wittenborn as he moved through his diaphanous cavern of machinery. Suddenly, he brought up a surprisingly small rectangle of steel. Its only obtrusion was a small switch on the top and a wide glass lens, also in a rectangular shape, like one side of a pair of spectacles, on the front. The scientist set up his wooden chair facing the crowd and placed the device on it.
Then he switched it on.
Curtiss reached the edge of the throng. They had all been so intent on watching whatever lay before them that no one had noticed how he looked somewhat different from the other guards, nor how his uniform didn’t quite fit. He moved forward as the sound of a fight filtered out to his ears. He still couldn’t see what everyone was looking at, since the crowd was tightly packed and many were standing on their tiptoes. Expressions of rapt attention infused their pampered faces.
The noise of violence grew louder. It sounded like a small group of people were having a vicious rumble in front of this lust-corrupted audience. Curtiss switched directions quickly and headed for the wide marble stairwell on his left. Near the top he was able to find a small place with a good view. He edged between an overweight woman dressed to the gills and a tuxedoed man with a mouthful of capped teeth. Then he turned to see what all the fuss was about.
Before him was an incredible sight. Seven people who he had been with for almost two weeks were in a clear cube, decorated in early Americana, tearing each other apart. They weren’t just fighting or wrestling. They were literally ripping each other to shreds. Their punches were brutally strong, their kicks devastating. Some men were hauling others over their heads and hurling them the length of the enclosure. The women had forgotten their femininity and were battling like alley cats, slashing with claw-like hands and biting like sharks. Bullies and victims were one and the same, and ruined bodies flapped against the plastic wall and were flung across the furniture.
The books carpeted the floor. The paneling was shattered like cracked glass, the artificial stone chimney was a dust pile, and the chairs were tattered skeletons of spring and balsa wood. The TV and the stereo had turned to husks of exposed, sputtering wires, the ashtrays had become bloodstained clubs, and the telephone was tightly wrapped around a now motionless girl.
Curtiss watched in stunned silence as the five remaining captives beat at each other with a rabid fury. He averted his eyes from the terrible scene for a moment and saw an aged black man in an adjoining cube, sitting on his knees by a chair, his head in his hands, his body quaking with sudden jolts. He was crying with a sickening and shocking sorrow.
The agent turned back. Three more people had fallen, as much from their own savage madness as from their wounds. The two remaining people blasted at each other. A petite blonde managed to get hold of a card table leg, and with an amazingly powerful swing, she brought the whole thing across the head of the man who was trying to scratch her eyes out. She delivered the blow with such force that the table exploded, and the man somersaulted and slid the entire length of the crystalline prison, bouncing off one wall.
Curtiss suddenly spied another prisoner. He had been behind the card table, and he now crouched in a tense, defensive position. The man looked familiar to the agent, but at that distance he couldn’t be sure. All he could see clearly was that the little blonde was approaching him, with a demented look of determination.
Banner watched as the girl he had known as Beverly neared him, her eyes reflecting the madness that consumed her. All the other slaves had been twisted into bestial engines of destruction when the Gamma Treatment had been turned on them. Their size and appearance hadn’t changed, but their strength had been multiplied by at least two, and their intelligence had been divided by twenty. They had become unreasoning demons of aggressive malevolence.
But Banner had not changed. When the treatment bathed his new cage, he had felt nothing. His stomach had already tightened, so the tiny click he seemed to experience could have been from lack of food. And the momentary black spot in his vision could have been weakness. The strange feeling that part of his mind had suddenly stopped functioning must have been his imagination. It must have been. Part of a mind could not just stop functioning. Not now. Not after all he had been through. Oh, please, not now!
Then the small white hands ripped at his throat. One shapely knee smashed into his stomach and an awful molten face slashed across his vision. He felt himself falling backward. His back hit the edge of the sofa and, for a moment only, the vibrating hand muscles released his neck. Then the crushing pressure was back, far more insistent and infinitely more frightening than the jungle snake had been.
Banner’s arms flailed helplessly. His legs kicked feebly. He had not understood. He had waited too long. The tiny, vulnerable, tormented girl was going to kill him.
There was no tug at his subconscious.
There were no floodgates, no circle of energy.
There was no sickening feeling in his stomach.
His Curse was cured and this time there would be no Change. He had reached his final death.
Twelve
“Wait a minute!” shouted the General, pointing. “He’s not fighting! Wittenborn! He’s not fighting, I said!”
The scientist looked up, tears making a wading pool in his cupped hands. He stared at his repulsive handiwork, turned to the enraged despot, and spat at him. The mucus hit the plexiglass wall without a sound and ran down to the floor. Maxwell Wittenborn hastily turned and walked behind the cover of his massive equipment.
“Wittenborn! What is this?” No reply was forthcoming. “Guards!” the General shouted, changing his tack. “Stop that girl! Move!”
A pair of sentries quickly unlatched the test cube and hustled in. They grabbed the blonde beneath the arms and were suddenly splattered against the wall, her nails making tracks in their faces. Four more men ran in and leaped upon her. Two broken jaws and one cracked rib later, six more men had joined in holding down the petite Beverly, until she lost consciousness from the ravages of her newborn energy. The shapely body simply could not maintain the level of frenzied activity any longer.
The General had slowly seethed while his men were being hurled about like puppets. As soon as the blonde lost consciousness, he exploded.
“All right!” he burst out, spinning to face his startled guests. “Party’s over! You have seen!” The loglike forefinger stabbed at the ceiling. “You know my full power!” The finger became a vibrating fist. “I can destroy nations!” The fist swung down into a widened palm. “I will set brother against brother!” He took a backward glance at the still form of the blonde girl. “Lover against lover!” he spat. “I will hold this power over the world that dared to scorn me! Now fear me, now bow to me! Do you hear? Fear me!” The gloved fists beat at the crimson-clothed chest with the sound of a petrified redwood being axed. The sound reverberated down the crowd-choked hall.
Those assembled within did not need any further encouragement. Like the sheep they were, they feared him enough to turn tail and run. The throne room emptied like an opened dam. Curtiss was swept along with the hysterical mob, who trampled over themselves to reach the relative safety of their own homes. The foreign dignitaries flooded across the grounds to the airport, only to be herded into barracks under the express instructions of the General. No one was about to leave before the Plan was put into effect.
The guards left the slaves’ bodies where they lay and dragged the semi-conscious Banner outside. The tarpaulin was dropped back over the transparent coliseum. A pail of water was then unceremoniously dumped on the doctor. He awoke to see the General’s face before him.
“I’m still alive,” he said incredulously.
“Why?” the dictator barked.
“What?”
Banner was still lying on his back, his new mind racing. It was strangely clear for the first time in ages, but fairly stifled at the same time. Some things came rushing back with crystal clarity, but a strange, dark
shape seemed to pulsate near the corners of his consciousness.
“Why, why, why, why?” The General continued to rant, standing like a monument over him. “Why didn’t you fight?”
“Everyone reacts differently to gamma radiation,” shrieked a voice behind the demonic bulk. Banner looked up and the General spun around to see Rosanne Wittenborn staring at him with undisguised loathing. “No one can expect all people to react the same way under such artificial pressure,” she continued stridently, “no one but a fool or a jackass.”
“Well, well, well,” chortled the dictator. “There’s still some life left, is there? That’s admirable on the one hand, and remarkable on the other. Guards!” he commanded, pointing a backward hand at Banner, who had uneasily reached his feet. “Cover him. Leave the girl tied. Bring the scientist out to her.”
The General backed away slowly. He quietly waited while Banner was surrounded by six guards and Dr. Maxwell Wittenborn was brought out of his cage and over toward his daughter.
Wittenborn looked at her with repentance and trepidation. She looked back at him with pity, disgust, and an impossible love. He did not touch her. She said nothing. They remained near each other, but there was no tearful reunion, no kind words. For there was a new and awful wall between them. It was as clear as the plexiglass wall, and, unfortunately, just as immovable.
The General moved into the scientist’s lair and retrieved the gamma device himself. His footsteps, as he walked back between the two sets of captives, echoed in the cavernous hall. Shortly before, it had been filled with revelers, but now it was empty and littered, like yesterday’s parade. The scene took on a surreal appearance: an all too real madman in an all too real country holding an all too possible destructive device.
“So this is all it is,” he marveled, holding the rectangular box up to the moonlight. “It was a natural progression, I suppose, from that messy dynamite, to the awkward atom bombs, to the messy nuclear bombs, to the wasteful neutron bombs, to the nasty germ bombs, to the sterile space weapons, to this—a Gamma Treatment, simply magnifying organic radiation found throughout our atmosphere. We breath it every day and don’t even know its effect.
“But with this simple switch and the right set of magnifying lenses, you can turn people into mindless, aggressive beasts. Whole countries could turn in on themselves. With my jet prototype, we’ll be only too capable of wiping out city after city. You know, it’s amazing what some defense department exporters will do for a five-percent share of a diamond mine.”
The General’s voice began to grow in tempo and timbre. “We will be able to move so fast that the East Coast will be just finishing itself off when the Rockies start. What fun.” He gave one macabre chuckle, then turned around.
“Are you just going to leave us here?” Rosanne demanded.
“Oh, no,” said the General. “You’ll be well taken care of.” He turned to leave again.
“Bruce!” the girl suddenly screamed, squirming against her bonds. “Do it! Do it now! If you ever had a reason before, do it now!”
Banner stood there helplessly. The General looked at the tattered and exhausted doctor with a droll expression.
“Think of all the children, Bruce!” Rosanne moaned desperately. “All the people! All the women! Tearing at each other—picture it! Oh, Bruce, please! Please!” she screamed pathetically.
Banner’s eyes were heavy. His head was heavier. What did she want from him? Her words crashed into his mind, then slowly sank into an oozing blackness. Part of his mind blazed with a sudden energy. Then, just as quickly, the weariness consumed him again. He was hurt, he was confused, and he was helpless.
“Do it?” the General echoed derisively. “Please?” he mimicked. “What is this fellow?” He motioned to the wasted specimen between the guards. “Hercules? Charles Atlas! No, Miss Wittenborn, there’s no savior here, no green jungle guide.”
Both Banner and Rosanne suddenly centered their attention on the smug despot. He laughed.
“My slavers say he was killed in a helicopter crash,” the General explained. “They saw it from afar. He fell; the copters exploded and fell on top of him. No survivors were found.”
Rosanne looked a last time to Banner, her entire being twisted in supplication.
“Bruce,” she said a last time. The name was like a death rattle, a cross between a wail and a curse.
Banner’s hands rose almost against his will, palms up. His eyelids sank across his tired vision. His knees bent as though in an invisible wind. Like a man disappearing into quicksand, his body lowered itself to the floor. A numbness crept over him like a warm blanket. He pulled it around him. The ache he felt was good, he decided. It meant he was mortal. It meant he could die without meaning. It meant he was again, truly, no one. No part of him raged against the insane injustice. No piece of him railed against humanity’s lunacies. It meant he could just curl up, all by himself, and let the wind blow him away.
The General looked at the fallen figure in distaste. He turned and strode out of the hall in the direction of the jet hangars.
Curtiss finally detached himself from the charging crowd. He had been screamed at only once, by a guard in a superior-looking uniform, but the language used sounded like hysteria with the accent on fury. So Curtiss just motioned vacantly until dozens more people swept him away.
He found himself behind a thick stone column in the “forum” section of the mansion. It was one of those ostentatious domed jobs, filled with a tile mosaic floor, murals depicting the General in various absurd poses, and an opaque dome held up by seventeen Greek-looking braces. Scattered about the floor lay the mob’s refuse—a handkerchief, several shoes, a jacket or two, and one unconscious body.
Curtiss checked himself for wounds, thinking about what he had witnessed. The General’s variety show had changed the agent’s priorities somewhat. That dictator definitely had to go, he thought. Next in line was Wittenborn, the threat-in-spite-of-himself. Still, the General already had the necessary knowledge to turn anyone into a frothing fiend. First things first—the tyrant must meet his maker.
The agent took a quick look around at the rapidly emptying hall. He checked his fingernails, touched behind both his ears, then took off his shoes and socks.
With a pistol “borrowed” from a fallen sentry, C.I.A. agent Bradford Curtiss started to make his way back to the throne room.
Banner was thinking. It was a delight after all the years of disorientation, even in his present predicament—especially in his present predicament, he mused, because the sharply defined memories kept his mind off what was to become of him and his world.
He remembered the bright spotlights of the huge limo that had borne down on him in the New York City alley. He remembered old Sir John. He remembered the Frenchman at the U.N. He remembered the German, the Russian, the Britisher, the Oriental, the Africans, and the American . . . Who was the American? That vision was just at the edge of his blind spot. He could remember an American, but he couldn’t remember who he was or where he came from. There was something about the wooden cage they had been in. Rosanne, himself, and . . .
Banner thought. Rosanne had been with him every step of the way, from the first time he saw her and she said . . . she said . . . but wait a minute. That was impossible . . . unless . . .
It came to him easily, all the parts fitting together like a well-made model. He put the flat of his hands down on the floor and pushed himself up with difficulty. The guards around him moved like waves around a pebble thrown into a pond.
“Rosanne,” he called.
She sat with her head down, the guards still surrounding her and her crestfallen father. At the sound of Banner’s voice, her head rose in hope, her eyes bright with anticipation.
“Yes?”
“Your brother, Tony . . .”
Her face closed in defeated disappointment. Her answer was as cold as that of a hateful mother lecturing a retarded child.
“He’s dead, Bruce.”
&n
bsp; “I don’t think so,” he hesitantly replied.
“What are you talking about?” she retorted in the same tone.
“Rosanne,” he spoke softly, his mind running over the speed limit, “how did the General get to you at the U.N.? Who could have arranged that attack?”
“What?” Max Wittenborn perked up in confusion.
“Someone must have tipped him off as to your location after your father was abducted. Someone must have given him the details of the security at the U.N. The C.I.A. would never have been caught so flat-footed with this much at stake.”
“So?” she asked with sudden apprehension. “What does this have to do with Tony?”
“Miss Wittenborn,” Bruce replied with pained precision, “your brother told you about my being smashed on the head at the U.N. It was what made you sure I wasn’t one of the enemy. Remember?”
“Yes,” she said with perverse disbelief. “When I woke up he gave me the details.”
“But how did he know? He was supposed to have been gassed at the time.”
“He could have woken up,” she said in the same snide tone of voice.
“The Russian boat captain said we were unconscious for days. I don’t think he fell in and out of consciousness.”
“Tony?” Maxwell Wittenborn croaked.
Rosanne saw her father’s stricken expression and quickly interjected, “Well, you are the consciousness expert, but what good does any of this do us?”
“Miss Wittenborn,” Banner said with strength, “I think Tony is alive and up to his neck in this. Just how deeply involved he is, I can’t be sure.”
“I can.”
The voice was immediately recognizable, even from a distance. Everyone, including the guards, turned around.
“There!” shouted Banner, pointing to the left.
At the top of one of the two stairwells, standing on the balcony framed in moonlight was seven feet of ceremonious splendor. Dressed in a white native robe stood Anthony William Wittenborn.
Marvel Novel Series 03 - The Incredible Hulk - Cry Of The Beast Page 14