“Gentlemen.” A deep, rasping voice cut the dank aii in the room below and everyone looked around, unsure where the echoing voice came fr6m.
Someone found his voice and called out, “Who’s there?’ Some of them drew weapons, the steel flashing in the dim light.
“Innocent blood has been shed here,” came the voice, slithering and rasping.
David backed up. “We’d better go.”
The voice spoke once more. “But not tonight.”
All at once the torch went out, and the room was bathed in slick, wet darkness.
‘Come on, Rick. It’s the numbers. You know how this works.
“He’s a putz.” Rick Jones paced in his dressing room. They had thirty, forty minutes before they went live, and the last thing he wanted to be doing was arguing with the producer about changing questions.
™§|Senator Hill will bring in some good ratings,’' Mack Stocker said. Stocker was the executive producer of Keeping Up with the Joneses, the program that Rick and Mario Jones hosted, day in and day out. It was a talk show with a fairly local bent and, Rick liked to think, something of an edge—or at least more of an edge than most of his competitors.
BjgSince when,” Rick asked/."are people interested in seeing politicians on talk shows?”
“But he’s so controversial,” said Stocker, practically slobbering over the word,
“Oh, I agree. And that’s why I let him on the show. But Mack, Mario and I have worked up some great stuff. We have the research on the mob ties, this Wulf Christopher guy ..
Mac shook his head. “He’ll storm right off the set, Rick. He told me so himself,
“Then what the hell’s the point?” Rick sat down in his chair because the makeup artist had just come in. He continued gesturing even after she had put a sheet over his hands and silently began applying base.
“The point is you let him talk and let the audience yell at him ' ’
“They ought to yell at him,” agreed Rick. “That ridiculous campaign slogan of his: ‘My eyes on the stars, my feet on the ground.’ He’s a reactionary and he’s dangerous and he’s crooked. People should know that.’*!'
‘ ‘Then let him hang himself. But you keep your questions, ah,...”
^?Cneesy?”
“Exactly. Hey, it’s not for two days. Think it over, okay?”
“Rick?” The assistant director, Laura Hutchins, stuck her head around the doorway. “Phone call.”
“Now?”
“Says it’s important. A doctor, Indian name.”
Rick looked at her. “Indian?”
“Um ’ ’ She popped her gum and tried to recall it. ;.!b—Dormammu?”
Rick mouthed the , name back. “Dr. Dormammu. Huh.” He looked at Mack and at the sheet hanging from h i s neck. The silent makeup artist looked at her watch and raised an eyebrow. “I better take this. Be right back, I promise.
“Rick,**'Said Stocker.
“You’re the boss. Mack, whatever you say,” he said, sating up and moving out, the white sheet flowing around him. Whatever. Maybe he could sneak a few double .meanings in or something. Mario would be livid. Dor-'nammu?
Down the hall the phone lay off the hook on a high stool and Rick picked it up. ^“Dormammu?”
“The Dread one himself,” came the familiar voice on the other end.
‘ 'Couldn’t pick something less—f ’
“Dreadful?” Bruce always called with a fake name. Lately he had been having fun with it. For a week or two Rick kept getting phone calls from a guy named Uatu.
“What’s up, Doc?” Rick grinned. “I’m already in makeup.”
There was a pause, and Rick felt the frivolity slip away. The deep voice on the other end said, “Rick?” “Doc?”
“How are things?”
“Bmce—’'
“Okay, okay.”
Rick kinked around. What now? “You okay, Doc? Betty okay?’ ’
“Yeah. We’re fine for now, I think. I just wanted to ...ah...”
“Uh, Doc, really—
“I just wanted to say that if I were out there in New Mexico on the base, and you went driving out there with your harmonica and your jeep...”
Rick nodded. Where this could go he had a few ideas. He couid never forget that he had been the cause of Bruce Banner’s exposure to the full blast of a gamma bomb. “Yeah?”
“I know how you feel about it, Rick. And I just wanted to say that if it happened again, if I could go back?” He paused.
“Yeah?”
“I’d still do it.”
Rick felt a tingle of absolution run down his spine. “I know that, Bruce.”
“I just wanted to say that.”
“Okay,” said Rick. “Thank you ... for that. Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“For now, yeah. The Hulk was lying through his teeth. “I gotta go.”
“Okay, Doc. You take care. Uh, maybe we can do something this weekend, you and Betty and me and Mario.”
“I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be in town.”
Rick had heard that before. ‘ ‘Then we better make it a date. Keep in touch.”
“I will.”
“So long, Doc. ’
“So long, Rick. See ya soon.”
Rick hung up the phone and walked back to the dressing room. The makeup artist gave him a look and set right to work.
The Hulk and Betty retired early again for the second night in a row. At eleven o’clock Bruce lay awake, staling at the ceiling. They had been walking around the house like zombies, doing everything to avoid making plans. And now, in the haven of the dark bedroom, Bruce found that every time he closed his eyes he thought of jelly and glass and fire.
Something bright flickered on the far wall and caught Bruce’s eye and he tilted his head up. It happened again, and ir the tiny dust particles he saw that the light on the wall came from a beam that swept over the curtains, occasionally cutting through spaces. He looked at the thick curtains and confirmed it. Someone was shining a light on the window. The beam swept slowly back and forth, as 't scanning. Presently he became aware of a strange, low hum.
“Betty,” he whispered.
“Hunh?’iyi"-r
Bruce turned over and took the curtain in one hand, and pulled it to one side, a few inches, to peer out. It was dark outside, a moonless night, and he could see nothing. The beam had been shut off. “Get down,” he said
Betty flickered to life and looked at him for a second. “What?’M
“Get down.” As Betty rolled off the bed and crouched next to it, Bruce got on his knees, causing the reinforced frame to whine tortuously. All at once the Hulk hurled the curtains wide and the lights came on again.
Very big lights. Bruce held up his hand and felt his eyes adjusting and saw a hovercraft light up outside the window, two great, hard white beams shining in. The craft now swam with lights, in fact. Well, well. SAFE. And they were lighting up like a Christmas tree on purpose.
A man stood on the deck of the hovercraft in a topcoat and suit. He held up a megaphone. “Dr. Banner?”
The Hulk snarled and nodded contemptuously. Morgan.
“Why don’t we go somev/here we can talk?”
In less than a minute the Hulk was on the hovercraft and the lights had been doused again. The vessel floated high over the condo,: and Brace wondered how many people had seen it shining outside his window. Luckily, even Westchester New Yorkers tended to mind their own business.
The hovercraft was one of the larger models, big enough to fit a large SWAT team, and Morgan told his two guards to hang back up front with the pilot while he and the Hulk moved to the aft section. The Hulk put his hands on the railing and looked down at the streets. “Well, you did say to contact you.”
“I said to give me a ring," Bruce snarled.
“If you’d be more comfortable we could go up to the Helicarrier,'^ said Morgan.
_ “I feel fine right here.”
Morgan nodded, leaning on the rail. The
Hulk looked down at the fair-haired man and said, “You’re taking a lot for granted, Morgan. Your guards couldn’t get to you if I chose to throw you over the side.”
Morgan folded his arms. “The thought had occurred to me. I’m willing to take that chance.”
The Hulk frowned. He was tired of playing around. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry about your son.”
Morgan bit his lip and shook his head. “It’s a madhouse with my ex-wife. Madhouse. And there’s not a lot of time to take care of things/-’ The Director of SAFE was talking to himself and letting the Hulk listen. “He was a sophomore, you know.”
“I did what... what..
§|fe:‘Don’t,” snapped Morgan. “I’m not here to talk about that. I don’t know what to think about your involvement in David’s death.
My involvement? “It had already happened when I got there—’ the Hulk started.
* ^‘That’s not what I mean,’ Morgan said curtly. “But—”
■ "VDrop it. Now. We have work to doid Morgan’s face vas a stone.
“It’s the Abomination, isn’t it?”
“We think so.”
“I guarantee it. But I’m not going to do this again,” said the Hulk, shaking his head. * ‘Every time I work with
SAFE or S.H.I.E.L.D. I end up with more trouble than I started with.”
“There’s a big difference between us and S.H.I.E.L.D., I like to think. Big difference between Nick Fury and me.”
“Oh, absolutely. You shave.”
“The Abomination blinded an entire theater audience—look at this.” Morgan fished a manila envelope out of his coat and opened the flap, let a contact sheet come out in his hand. There were about twenty photos there, taken at the hospital. “Look at this. This is a little girl here, see that?” He stabbed at the photo. There she was, too, a nameless girl with dark hair and a hideous strand of green, puss-bearing welts on and betv/een her eyes. The eyes themselves seemed to be fused.
God, Emil. The Hulk shook his head again. “That’s terrible. But what do you want?”
“We want you to help us bring him in and hand him over.”
“And that’s the rub, Morgan. If I can stop Emil I will, but I don’t want to go around capturing prisoners for the government.”
“What,” snapped Morgan, “afraid of what it’ll do to your sterling reputation?”
“Get serious. You work for a very powerful organization. Don’t you think I know how valuable a gamma mutant, dead or alive, would be to you and your labs? I’ll just bet there are teams of scientists salivating over the chance to get at our DNA alone.”
“He’s dangerous, Dr. Banner;’-13 “I agree. But I’m not going to give him to you.” Morgan sighed through tightly pursed lips. “Really. Then let me ask this. What are you prepared to lose?1’ Brace threw Morgan a suspicious glance. “What do you mean?”
Morgan turned around and leaned on the rail, facing the same direction as the Hulk. He clasped his hands and
rubbed them. “How does Betty like her job?”
Bruce gritted his teeth. “You bastard.”'
“Watch your language, son,” said Morgan. “She likes it, then?”
“She loves it. Best thing that ever happened to her. A final hint of normalcy.”
“I hear she is held in some regard.’
“Yes,” Bruce responded. “I figured you had. some hand in that.”
“We helped. We owed you for helping us against Hil debrandt in New York.”
Bruce nodded. “So it was a trap to get me back here.’ ’ “We’re not Hydra, Dr. Banner. This was strictly SAFE, and no one shared this information. We did it purely out of the goodness of our hearts.”'
“Wow.”
“Now,” Morgan rubbed his hands again. “I want you to pay very close attention. We have very tight security, but information can leak. And I don’t want to think what could happen if Richards College figures out that Betty Gaynor isn’t who she says she is. Indeed, when they figure out who she really is.”
The Hulk whispered. “You people are all alike, you know that?”
“Don’t I ever,” said Morgan. He stood up a little straighter and said, “Look. Honest, Dr. Banner. I’m not a bad guy. I don’t want to see that happen either. ” “But?”
‘ ‘But I really need some help here..”"^
The craft passed over Route .4, and both of the men stopped to watch the mangled guardrail go by. The Huik said, after a while, “So I help you bring in Emil and then what? I go home, vulnerable to blackmail as ever?”-Morgan sniffed. ^‘We can be of some help to you, actually.t^he said. “There are certain folks at the KGB who would very much like to talk to Blonsky. And they are willing to trade a great deal for him. Something about
Blonsky’s involvement in some Russian rebei group.” “Go on.”
“You deliver the Abomination into our hands and I can see to it that your record is wiped. You’ll still have your reputation to contend with, but I mean clean. No more tanks to crush.’'
The Hulk gave out a short laugh. .‘T think I’ve heard that before.”
“I’ll do it,” said Morgan. The Hulk made eye contact with him and somewhere in there it looked like he might just be telling the truth. “A clean delivery and I’ll do it.” The Hulk folded his arms, watching the freeway go by. “The stranger comes bearing a gift in one hand and pain in the other, and he says, ‘choose.’ ” pt|That’s right.”
£-V'!God, I loathe you agency guys.fe®
“A wise choice. We loathe our very selves.”
“All right,” said the Hulk with an annoyed sigh. “Where do we start?”
“He’s underground again,” said Morgan. “We start there?-' r=
Time?”
Jo Carlin extended a leather-strapped arm and consulted her watch. “Eleven hundred hours, Dr. Banner.”
For an augmented human who ostensibly fared badly with teams, the Hulk had certainly worked with a number of them. Even in his purple-panted, Hulk-smash-puny-missile-silo monosyllabic days, the Hulk had found himself allied with teams of all ilk: the Avengers, the Defenders, the Titans Three. Odd, Bruce reflected, as the hovercraft holding Jo Carlin’. Gamma Team sped toward the park, that since his brain had come back the teams he worked with had become less colorful, more corporate. For a time he had taken up with the Pantheon, an augmented security force and occasionally renegade paramilitary outfit. And now, for the second time, he was working with SAFE, of ali people. Working with SAFE seemed a short step away from going ahead and working for the Army. The thought made his stomach turn. He had not worked for the Army since the gamma bomb explosion. Generally,^ he had run from them (occasional tank-stompings aside).
As they neared the park, the Hulk turned to Morgan and pointed out a sewer cover near a bench. “Let’s start there.”
He turned to the rest am looked them over. Seven SAFE agents, including the leader, Jo Carlin, looked up at him, each one wearing the distinctive close-fitting uniform, . ith a patch on the shoulder pronouncing their status with Gamma Team. The only one without the patch was Morgan, although for once Morgan was actually wearing a field outfit. The Hulk was impressed with how well the bureaucrat fit the roll of field agent. Still, it
seemed odd that Morgan would want to come along on this particular mission. There didn’t seem to be anything here that Gamma Team and Jo Carlin couldn’t do alone, especially with Bruce’s help. But for some reason Morgan wanted in on the action. “Hey,” Jo Carlin had said, in a brief moment when the Hulk had asked her about that, “he knows what he’s doing.”
Gamma Team eyed Bruce warily, as if they expected him to suddenly start trashing the hovercraft and they’d have to turn their weapons on him. It was not lost on Banner that working with this team would provide them with valuable information should they ever decide to come after him; after all, that was what they were created for.
Each member of Gamma Team carried distinctive weaponry of his or her own. The Hulk recognized one
as a heavy netgun, developed by Stark Enterprises, designed, Bruce presumed, to capture the Hulk. He doubted it would work on either himself or the Abomination, but Tony Stark’s capitalist willingness to provide toys to all sides never ceased to amaze him. Some carried tranquilizer guns that would pierce a helicarrier’s hide—that might work. Jo Carlin carried a trank rifle with a mounted light guaranteed to blind anything that looked at it. To be sure, the rest were just guns with large-calibre titanium bullets, designed strictly to slow the gamma beasties down. That was pretty much all you could do. Slow him down. Knock him out. Tie him up. Every one of those was almost a fantasy. Amazing how simple things could get when the quarry got powerful enough.
“All right,” said the Hulk, as die pilot began to lower the hovercraft toward the sidewalk. The craft stopped about seven feet off the ground. A few joggers gave it a second look and went on about their regimen. This was the town where the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, and Spi-der-Man made their homes, after all. :‘.‘When I met the
Abomination last, this is where we went in, so'I figure we ought to start here.”
Morgan spoke to Jo Carlin. “Jo* it’s your team.” JyfDown below,” Jo called, “you will follow the orders of Dr. Banner, and Colonel Morgan will be second in command. Now, I know some of you might have a bit of trepidation about Dr. Banner. Cool it. We’re all on the same team here. Understood?”
The Hulk heard the not-entirely-unenthusiastic, “Yes, ma’am,£ from the team and grinned a bit: Carlin obviously treated her team with respect, and in the past few hours, going over plans at the Helicarrier, he had seen that she had a mind like a trap. She was a valuable asset to SAFE, and it was apparent that Morgan knew it.
“Turn on your com]inks,§ said Jo, tapping the unit that wrapped around her neck and ran from ear to mouth. The Hulk had worn a. more sophisticated version of this in his Pantheon days. He switched his on, as did the others. Next came the upper half of the headset, which held a tiny but powerful halogen beam at each temple.
“Let's go,.’J said the Hulk, and he hopped over the side, followed by Gamma Team. One of the heavy gun wielders ran to the sewer cover as the hovercraft raised up and zipped away. In a moment the cover had been pulled back. For another moment the agent shone a strong, forearm-mounted light down the hole—to check and see if anything were waiting below, Bruce supposed.
Abominations Page 7