by Alex Irvine
Bruce opened the door. “Those jerks in radiation called this in and then split,” he remarked, pointing at the pizza. “You want it?”
The graduate student smiled. “Whoever you are, you are my new personal hero.”
Bruce glanced around at all the computers. “Hey,” he asked, “you mind if I jump online for a second?”
“Totally, no problem,” the student replied, already opening the pizza box.
“Righteous,” Bruce said. He sat down at a terminal across from the student and quickly accessed the university’s main system, which requested a username and password.
Bruce typed in “Dr. Elizabeth Ross” for the username and then was momentarily stumped for Betty’s password. He tried “bettylovesbruce,” which was rejected. Then he tried another old password of hers: “Cells_Unite!”
Bingo! He quickly looked for records of his experiment, but searching under both “USMD Research Protocol 456-72328” and “Gamma Pulse” yielded no results. Neither did a search on his own name.
He tried a few more searches before recognizing that no trace of the experiment existed at all in the system. The military must have had the records deleted completely! Bruce sagged in his chair, defeated. They had erased him. Officially, he didn’t exist… but that wasn’t going to stop General Ross from hunting him down. To Ross, all that mattered was the gamma powers the experiment had given Bruce.
The only thing he could think to do was take advantage of this brief moment of Internet access and get in touch with Mr. Blue. Quickly, Bruce started up the software that would let him run the encrypted chat program.
B: Mr. Green! How goes the search?
G: The data is gone.
B: Without it… I cannot help.
There was a pause, then Mr. Blue added:
B: So what now?
G: I’ve got to keep moving.
With a sigh, Bruce realized that there was nothing left for him in that lab. It was time to go.
CHAPTER 11
Bruce packed up and got ready to say good-bye to Stan. He didn’t want to put his friend in danger by staying too long. Also, there was nothing at Culver University that was going to help with his cure. He had to stay moving so General Ross didn’t find him before Bruce could at least get a sense of what his next step should be.
“We’re pretty well closed here, folks, I’m sorry,” he heard Stan say as he came down into the kitchen. Then he heard other voices and waited. As usual, Stan was willing to serve that one last customer who showed up late at the end of the night.
Something about one of the voices… Bruce went to the swinging kitchen doors and looked out into the dining area.
At that moment, Betty looked up over Leonard’s shoulder to see who was there and gasped with shock. But then Leonard shifted his position, blocking her view. When he moved again, Bruce had vanished.
Leonard spoke, but Betty couldn’t hear a word. She just stared through the swinging doors, and sprang past Leonard into the back room. “Bruce!” she yelled.
Bruce wasn’t there, so Betty burst out the back door into an alley. Thunder rumbled in the distance as the first raindrops began to fall. Betty quickly glanced left and right. “Bruce!”
But there was no sign of him.
Little did Betty know, Bruce had flattened himself further behind a dumpster, holding his breath.
“Betty!” Leonard called as he followed her. “What’s going on? Come inside.” The rain was already falling harder.
Betty strode back inside, shaking, heading straight for Stan, who stood paralyzed behind the parlor counter. “Just tell me if I saw what I think I saw,” Betty pleaded.
“Betty,” Stan began, agonized between protecting Bruce and lying to an old friend. “I don’t… know what to say.”
Bruce was headed out of town. He didn’t even know where. He walked along one of the main roads that led toward the closest interstate highway, trying to hitchhike in the pouring rain. Nobody stopped… then, when he had just about resigned himself to another night spent walking in the rain, he heard a car pull to a stop behind him. Probably a policeman, Bruce thought, and started coming up with a good story. He also took a look around to see what the best escape route would be.
But when he turned around, he saw Betty getting out of her car, stunned at the sight of him. She had followed him, looked for him all over town probably, and knowing that made Bruce feel better than he’d felt in a long time.
She ran to Bruce and embraced him tightly. “Don’t go,” Betty begged. “I want you to come with me now. Please.”
Bruce knew it wasn’t safe. He knew he might be putting her in danger. But he couldn’t help it, not with her right there talking to him, her arms wrapped around his neck and her heart beating fast.
Bruce hid in the back of Betty’s car until they were inside the garage of the house she shared with Leonard. She went into the house first and pulled all the curtains so Bruce could move around unseen. Then, when he was sitting in the living room and dried off, she handed him a little jewel case. “It’s our data,” she said. “I got in there before they carted it all away. I hoped that it might tell us something someday.”
Bruce looked at the tiny USB drive. It was such a little thing to have all his hopes for a cure inside it. “Does the general know you have this?”
“I don’t think so,” she said. “I haven’t spoken to him in a couple of years.”
“You have to be sure,” he said.
“Bruce, I don’t understand why we can’t just go in there together and talk to him.”
“He told me what he wanted to do. He wants it out of me. He wants to dissect it so that he can replicate it,” Bruce said. He meant the monster, the Hulk. She knew about it. She had been there when it had first appeared. “He wants to make it a weapon.”
After dinner, Betty led Bruce to a spare room. “Do you need anything?” she asked.
“No,” he answered. “I should leave early. As early as I can.”
“You can’t stay at all?”
“I want to, but it’s just not safe for me to be here. If I can borrow cash from you, I’ll take the bus.”
“Of course,” Betty said quickly. “At least let me walk you to the station.”
“Okay,” Bruce said.
“You have everything you need?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Bruce said. He didn’t want her to leave, and he could tell she didn’t want to, either. But they both said good night, and Bruce lay awake for a long time, wondering what tomorrow would bring.
General Ross picked up the serum from the secured medical storage rooms in the basement and took it upstairs to the lab, where two medical technicians were prepping for the procedure. Ross handed the canister to an assistant. Emil Blonsky, shirtless, came in, and Ross got right down to business.
“We’re giving you a very low dose only. I need you sharp out there and disciplined,” Ross said. “First sign of any side effects and you’re off the team until you straighten out. Agreed?”
Blonsky nodded, committed to the path he’d chosen. “Agreed.”
“You’ll get two separate infusions, dripped in very slowly,” a technician explained. “One deep into the muscle, one into the bone marrow centers.” The tech smiled grimly. “The bone ones are going to hurt.”
They put Blonsky on a table and strapped him in so they could keep him steady while they completed the injections. The first two went into the sides of his neck and weren’t too bad.
Then they turned the table over. Hanging three feet over the floor facedown, Blonsky felt the technician’s fingertips locating the right spot on his spine. The tech pressed down between two verbetrae.
A moment later, the needle went in, and it was the worst pain Blonsky had ever felt in his life. He’d seen combat. He’d been shot. Nothing had ever compared to this. He held himself back from screaming out loud only because he refused to give in to the pain. After what seemed like an eternity, the needle started to withdraw from his sp
ine. As it did, Blonsky felt…
Different. Something was changing inside him.
And as the pain began to fade, he thought he was starting to feel… well… better than he had in a long time.
Still hung facedown, Blonsky smiled. It was not a pretty smile.
CHAPTER 12
When Bruce woke up in the morning, heavy thunder was rumbling in the distance. Another big storm was on the way. For the moment, though, it was a fine morning. Bruce and Betty walked together, cutting across campus toward the bus station. As they got to the library, Bruce stopped, looking around the quiet campus like something didn’t feel right.
“Is everything okay?” Betty asked.
He came back to her and nodded. “I think so.”
Bruce kept hitching at his pants, which were much too big for him. Betty watched him until she couldn’t stand it anymore, and then she said, “Here.”
Bruce stopped and Betty fixed his belt, cinching it tighter so it would hold up his pants. Bruce had been so distracted this hadn’t occurred to him. “It’s better like this,” she said.
He smiled at her, but he was still nervous, looking all around. “Yeah? Thanks.”
She pulled off his cap, adjusted its strap—an old habit of hers.
Bruce stared at her, chewing on his lip as she replaced his cap. Then his gaze shifted as he saw something over her shoulder.
“What is it?” Betty asked.
He grabbed Betty’s shoulders. “Oh no,” he groaned. “They’re here.”
“What—who—?” Betty sputtered.
“Betty, look at me. Look at me!” Bruce ordered. “You have to get as far away from me as you can! Don’t argue with me, just go! Go!”
He broke away from her and bolted across the lawn.
CHAPTER 13
All along the lawn, soldiers exploded out from behind columns and trees, charging after Bruce.
Bruce sped into a sprint, weaving, desperate to outdistance the soldiers.
Hearing engines behind her, Betty spun around and gasped at the two huge vehicles roaring down the quad’s perimeter. They smashed parked cars, splitting up and racing on either side of her—one bumping up on the grass, the other zooming down the road. One had a .50-caliber machine gun on its roof. Students scattered and got out their phones to take pictures of the chaotic scene.
Betty chased after the vehicles, trying to keep Bruce in sight.
He dashed off ahead of her, taking a hard turn down a columned walkway. The buildings opened up beyond a courtyard, into a field, and he bolted past that exit. Past the field, Bruce knew, was a large patch of forest.
On the monitors in their black van, General Ross and Major Sparr watched Bruce run. “Dammit, we’d have had snipers on target in three more minutes,” Ross growled, furious that his trap had been sprung too soon. “I want to know who jumped the gun.” He’d be handing down some discipline when this mission was completed.
Bruce whipped through a small grove of trees and reached the field, accelerating across the open ground. Along the edges of the field were the outer buildings of the campus—like the back of the library facility, which was connected to a performing arts center by a glassed-in overpass. Ahead of Bruce was a huge steel modern art sculpture.
Bruce veered slightly when vehicles appeared on the far edge of the performing arts center. From his new angle, he could see them motoring toward him from behind, followed by a group of soldiers on foot. He focused on the line of forest across the field—his only hope of escape.
Emil Blonsky outpaced the others like they were standing still, sprinting at an inhuman speed that brought him right up level with the automobiles as Bruce tore around the corner of the arts center and hurtled across a stone terrace. He sped toward the back doors of the library, burst inside, and raced down a narrow aisle between tall bookshelves.
Blonsky held up a clenched fist to stop the other soldiers from entering. “Look alive,” he said. “This could get interesting.”
His squad surrounded the building, and designated soldiers pursued Bruce inside.
When Betty neared the library, she stopped, taking in the swarm of soldiers around the building, with more pouring out of mobile transports and taking positions around the metal sculpture. Another team was sprinting from the forest. Far to the right were vehicles holding strange, bulky equipment. She spotted a black command van slowing near the transport and hustled toward it.
Inside the library, Bruce jumped up a narrow staircase and raced down another aisle, dropping to his knees between two shelves. He yanked the data flash card out of his pocket and removed its lanyard. Soldiers’ footsteps clattered nearby, climbing the stairs toward him.
Bruce opened his mouth and shoved the data card down his throat. He forced himself to swallow it, coughing and gagging. There was no way he was going to lose the data again. No way. As soon as it was down, Bruce peeked out from behind a shelf, just as a soldier looked his way. The soldier yelled, and Bruce darted down the aisle.
Betty cut off the lead armored vehicle in a second group. She knew that’s where the officers would be. “Stop! Stop!” she yelled, standing right in front of it. “I know you’re in there! General, please!”
There was no response.
“Dad!” Betty screamed.
The van door opened, and her father stepped out. General Ross faced her impatiently, glancing over at the buildings. Two rangers guarded him from behind with their rifles.
“Please don’t do this,” Betty begged. “He needs help!”
“You can’t see this clearly,” Ross snapped at her. “Now get inside.” He reached out to grab her arm, but she pulled away.
Bruce burst through the double doors of the overpass and into the glass-enclosed tube, running toward the performing arts center.
“There he is!” one of Ross’s rangers shouted.
Everybody on the field watched Bruce bolting through the overpass. Above the buildings, ominous thunderclouds gathered, turning the sky a deep gray. A voice over a radio squawked, “Target is in the overpass. We have a visual.”
“Do not engage,” General Ross said into a walkie-talkie. “Repeat: Do not engage!”
When the commandos appeared on the side of the performing arts building, Bruce stopped short and spun around to run back to the library. But soldiers were waiting for him there, too. He stood in the middle of the overpass, trapped, his chest heaving, as he pondered his next move.
Ross tightened his hands to fists. “Put two canisters in there with him,” he ordered. “One on either side.”
The soldiers cornering Bruce quickly backed out and bolted the doors. Bruce stared at them in momentary confusion, but then he saw two missiles heading for the walkway. He ducked as small canisters broke through the glass. They clanked on the ceiling, clattered onto the floor, and then issued out clouds of thick smoke.
Bruce ripped off his shirt, then took a deep gasp of air and balled up the shirt over his nose and mouth.
“Bruce!” Betty screamed as she saw the tube fill with smoke. She broke away from her father and dashed toward the overpass.
“Get her back here!” Ross shouted, and his rangers scrambled after her.
Bruce’s pulse raced, and he flailed around as he tried to stay in pockets of clean air. He pushed up against the glass, and his eyes widened when he saw a soldier reach Betty and grab her arm. She elbowed him and broke free. Bruce cried out as the other ranger tackled her to the ground.
Bruce dropped his shirt and pressed himself flat against the wall. Burning rage sizzled through his body, and his eyes flashed green. His chest heaved and contorted, his torso twisting as he tumbled back into the smoke.
Betty screamed as the smoke lit up with a flare of brilliant green.
In the van, all the radiation monitors spiked.
“The Geiger counter’s lighting up!” Sparr yelled.
Ross didn’t take his eyes off the smoke-filled overpass.
Neither did Emil Blonsky. His re
al target was about to arrive.
CHAPTER 14
Bruce contorted in the gas-filled passageway as the Hulk began to take over. Green energy shone in his eyes and surged from the base of his skull, gamma power flooding through his face and neck and shimmering in his arms. His feet split through his boots and his expanding body shredded his clothes.
Outside, Betty got to her knees, staring up at the overpass. A hand slapped onto the glass, clawing at it desperately. The hand glowed green, and its whole arm swelled, plumping with thick muscle before sliding back into the cloud of gas. The entire overpass seemed to vibrate with the sound of Bruce’s anguished cries. When he fell silent, all anyone could see from the outside was a huge shadow, shifting in the gas as it rose and took the shape of—not a man, Betty thought. It was way too big to be just a man.
“Now she’ll see,” Ross said. Betty had thought her father was a monster, but she was about to see who the real monster was.
The shadow spread its massive arms and the whole center portion of the glass shattered at the impact of its fists. Tear gas poured out, and the soldiers could see the giant green creature, twice the height of a man and slabbed with muscle. Feral intelligence gleamed in his eyes. He snarled and leaped to the ground, trailing wisps of tear gas. When he landed, with one knee bent, Betty felt the impact in the ground under her feet.
The Hulk slowly rose to his full gargantuan height, and all the soldiers on the field took a step backward.
With three powerful strides, the Hulk cleared the courtyard, pounding toward the open field. He spotted Betty on the ground with General Ross beyond her, and he roared with rage, shaking his boulder-size fists in the air.