Abominations

by Unknown Author

  Bruce looked around. They were in a spa, but there were no agents around. No one to crush as Emil and he threw one another around. “Where’s Morgan?” he said, jumping. “Where’s Betty?” pi'Morgan’s being taken care of,” Emil said, as the palm of Bruce’s hand collided with the Abomination’s throat. ‘Soon I’ll have his lying tongue on a key chain.” “I thought you said you didn’t expect to come out of this.”

  “You can always dream,” Emil said. The scaly demon fell backwards, and the Abomination gasped for air as his back struck the tiles, the long ridge of scales down his back cutting a wide gash into die floor. His red eyes flared in the steamy fog.

  Sf/‘Where’s Betty?” Bruce had Emil by the throat. He pushed with his feet and they slid another meter or two, and now Emil’s head was hanging over the edge of a hot tub, the bubbling water swirling and pulsating with the red emergency lights.

  “No idea.”

  “Wrong answer,” said Bruce. He raised his back and plunged his hands forward with Emil’s head, and saw the red eyes plunge down under the water.

  rhere was a noise, the scaly, finned head moving under the water, and when the head came back up, Emil spat water and twisted, rising, Bruce’s arms bending as Emil moved in one vicious arc, his body whipping up. Bruce felt razor-sharp teeth dig into his shoulder and he winced. Bruce rolled back and sent Emil flying, and felt tiny pieces of dense flesh from his shoulder go with him.

  “You want to see Betty?” Emil spat. “I have something to show you.’ The Abomination sprang up and ran through the doorway, moving like a green, scaly panther, gone in a red-pulsing flash.

  The Hulk wasted no time running after him. He turned the comer, following the deep impressions of Emil’s feet. Another comer and he felt and saw red carpeting as he spilled into one of the business corridors of the Helicarrier. The steam dissipated; now there was only the glaring red emergency pulses of light and the loud alarms, which still blared, deafening, in his ears. And now there were people.

  The Hulk reached the end of the hallway. How does he move so fast?

  Bruce stopped. There was a fork. Now, lie had to decide which way to go, and as if the heavy indentions of Emil’s feet didn’t point the way enough, Emil had left him a sign: there was a SAFE agent tossed against the wall, one knee up, as if he were resting, one arm on the knee, pointing the way, the head rolling back. Except he wasn’t pointing the way. Because Emil had taken to hand stealing again.

  The Hulk ran left as the hand that wasn’t there told him, moving down the corridor. He reached the lift bay at the end of the hall.

  The SAFE Helicarrier, like most good places to work, had so many stories that the elevator bays held nine elevators, three for the first eleven floors three for 12-24, and three for 25-37. The Hulk surveyed each wall until he found the one with drops of blood running down the button panel. He pressed the up button, and in a moment a door to his left shot open with a pneumatic hiss. The Hulk got in. There was blood on number 26, a sign next to it labeled bridge.

  Inside the lift, the sound of me alarms was distant, a pulsing bass cry in the bowels of the ship, and Bruce realized his ears had been slightly deafened by the sound, because now the comparative quiet of the lift felt like the curiously loud silence you hear when you leave a concert.

  Blood on the walls, want to watch a movie?

  The doors opened and the Hulk saw a splotch of blood on a panel on the wall, and followed the smudges to the notation that said a/v room, room 2698.

  All this and an A/V geek, too.

  Bruce ran a quarter mile green feet padding along Morgan's expensive carpets, before he found the large double-doors labeled 2698. He looked down in disgust to see the dead man’s hand, tossed aside. Bruce pushed the doors open and saw John Wayne.

  The room was dark except for the red emergency lights which lit up the dark backs of the audience seats. Twelve large screens attached to one another so that they could make one big picture played, light and color mixing with the pulsing red. And John Wayne was on screen, in a helmet.

  “The Green Berets,” the Hulk said, turning around. Near a control panel in the back sat a figure in the dark, a pair of red eyes on a great, scaly form, the whole person lit up every naif-second by the red lamps.

  “Yes,” said Emil. “One of the worst war movies ever made about any war, fittingly about Vietnam. Also one of the few where the sun sets in the east—but no one stayed that long.”

  “Where’s Betty?” The Hulk started to step toward Emil and the Abomination spoke.

  “More violence, Dr. Banner? Don’t move and I’ll tell you. Actually, I think she’s still at the embassy.” The Abomination sat there in the chair, idly watching John Wayne being brave and wooden. Emil flipped a switch and a news report came up on one of the lower screens. The Hulk listened for a moment, over the blaring sirens. After a moment he said, ‘What do you plan to do? Fire a missile? They’ll never let that happen. I saw fighters out there; they’ll blow this ’carrier out of the sky if—’’

  “Really?” The scaly claws flipped more switches and now the screen lit up with twelve different images, alter nating, changing, and Bruce’s mind tumbled across all of them as the Abomination spoke. There was Nikita Krus-chev, shoe slamming against the table, there was Ike, there was Kennedy. Reagan in an old submarine movie. James Bond. “I doubt they’lj do that. They can’t blow up a vessel this size this low,” the slithery voice said. “It’ll scatter across twenty city blocks. Untold thousands could die. Is one consulate worth that?” ij£‘Thev might shoot a missile out of the air,” the Hulk said.

  “Yes,” said Emil. “They could do that. ’ Khrushchev ballooned to fill six screens, Kennedy exploding to the other six, both men waving their arms, Nikita’s shoe pounding, foaming at the mouth. “If there were a missile.” The shoe, falling, slamming against the table, Kennedy verbally signing a blank check, pay any price, bear any burden ... “Those were the glory days, there,” F.mil said, his red eyes glowing. “We never felt more alive than when we hated one another the most.”

  “What do you mean, ‘If there were a missile’?”

  “I was in the United States when Kent State happened. Do you remember that?” Emil smiled, the face lighting up with the pulsing red and plunging back into darkness, the red eyes burning throughout. “An interesting lesson. Do you know what that lesson was?”

  Bruce swallowed. There were jets circling out there. Where is Morgan? “I don’t have time for this.”

  “The lesson was that when you get a lot of excited people to line up and yell and wave hardware, wonderful things can happen.”

  Bruce opened his mouth. “The Helicarrier is a decoy.”

  Emil clapped his hands in time with Kruschev’s falling shoe. “Yes! Just a personal touch, a way to involve Morgan in the most catastrophic event of the post-Cold War era. Of course it’s a decoy. The bomb is already in place.’1

  fey Betty...”

  “And I’m afraid those trucks they’re lining up, and all those things they’re going to use to try to keep the blast contained, will be fairly useless. You’re been at ground zero on a gamma test, right?”

  “Emil,” The Hulk burst over the seats, grabbing Emil by the throat, pieces of chairs flying. “Are you telling me there’s a gamma—”

  Emil coughed, rising to meet the Hulk. “We can waste as much time as you like. But I figure they have about fifteen minutes.”'! t

  etty pushed the panel down and peered through the |\ opening. The room below her was one she had not seen, which was no surprise, since this was her first visit to the consulate. She could make out a dark wood interior and, even with the lights off, the room fairly glowed with shiny surfaces. Pushing the panel a little wider to get a better look, she saw a man standing against the wall and froze.

  The man did not move. After a moment Betty peered more closely and saw why: it was a suit of armor, or something like it; a dummy dressed in leather and furs. Nearby stood more recent armor, and so on,
up to the decorative coats of the army of Nicholas, the last tzar. Betty slid the panel aside and dropped through, landing deftly on the carpet. She surveyed the room in its entirety.

  On another wall, near a dart set, was a large, blunt, double-bladed axe, with a handle about two feet long. The metal axe head was nearly a foot long. Perfect. Betty took the axe off the wall and began to walk with it, the weight swinging at the end of her thin but powerful arms.

  There were footsteps outside the door to the museum room and Betty got behind one of the suits of armor as she heard the door creak open.

  The man who entered was one of the men who had come into the bathroom, whom Selznick had called Kimball. Kimball was about forty, well built, with short gray hair. As he stepped into the doorway, surveying the dark room, Betty realized there wasn’t a thing about him that didn’t scream military.

  Kimball surveyed the dummies lined up against the wall and stopped, obviously seeing for the first time the panel in the roof. He moved forward, walking closer to

  it, and folded his arms, laughing softly. He keyed his radio. “Spacey, she’s in the ceiling.”

  Betty began to move, her eyes on the back of Kimball’s head, hands grasping the handle of the axe, now breathing quietly and raising her arms, ready to bring down the axe head. The axe head came up.

  Kimball suddenly dropped about ten inches and Betty felt the air fly out of her as a heavy' boot collided with her sternum. “Christ, woman,” Kimball said as he turned around. ‘You think I’m an amateur?”

  Betty slammed against an end table and felt her shoulder collide with a lamp that was bound to have been expensive, pieces of glass flying. She held fast to the axe nandle and paid dearly for it when the weight of the thing caused the back of her arm to slam hard against the table edge. Kimball’s radio erupted: “Kimball, you in the museum room?”

  “She’s here.” Kimball had his gun aimed and Betty jumped in the air, dancing across the cushions of an antique green sofa when she saw the silencer flare and a cushion burst on the sofa behind her ankle. She grabbed a crystal vase and hurled it as she jumped behind the sofa. The vase flew, Kimball ducked, the base of the vase connected square with Kimball’s temple, and the URSA man’s body whipped back, stunned. Betty looked up from behind the sofa, not having been there half a second, saw the momentary daze in the man, and jumped. She sprang up onto the couch and sprang again, hitting the ground behind him and to his left, bringing the axe up as she did so. Thirty pounds of iron smacked against the back of Kimball’s head and the gun clattered to the floor as Kimball felt forward. The agent fell headlong, smacking his forehead again against the cushions of the sofa. He did not move.

  Idiots. Who did they think they were dealing with? She was the wife of the Hulk. She’d spent most of her adult life being shot at, beaten, kidnapped, even transformed into a harpy once. And to top that, Dad had spent many a night teaching her to defend herself, to be resourceful, all that imagine-you’re-lrapped-in-enemy-tenitory-with-a-sucking-chest-wound crap. Yeah, he was “Thunderbolt” Ross. But what had he called her, way back then, on that Fourth of July? The boys were shooting targets and she was hunting lightning bugs of all things, pouncing, slapping jars down with an efficiency that made him just a little scared, just a bit (though Dad would never admit it) and put up such a jovial, ingratiating fuss, laughing through that cigar. He knew he'd never control her, could only share her with the world, could only watch as she made her decisions, pounced when she had to. What had he called her? Chain Lightning. You move just like Chain Lightning, little girl.

  Betty heard footsteps running for the museum room outside in the hallway. Spacey. She grabbed the lamp on an end table next to the door and tossed it across, running the cord under the doorway. Then she dove for the dummies, taking her place once again beside the suits of armor.

  Spacey was clearly a runner, wiry frame, about five-foot-three. Not tall, but neither was Alan Ladd, whom he resembled. Spacey turned in through the door at full speed. He hit the cord and his foot brought it up, yanking the door hard into Spacey’s face. Betty pounced as Spacey fell forward, twisting to roll free of all encumbrances. Betty kicked him once in the face,as the agent brought his gun up at her. She swung the axe once, barely missing severing the man’s hand, instead connecting with the barrel of the gun. The metal spun away in the darkened room as Betty brought the axe handle down once more square against the side of the man’s head.

  Betty breathed then. Jeez. These guys are teddy bears. She looked around in the dark, listening. There was a commotion in the lobby. Her shoulder hurt like hell, but she felt ready now. She diought briefly about taking one of the pistols, but decided against it. She was above that. They underestimated her and she had no intention of thinking like them. Betty massaged her sore shoulder and arm as she stepped neatly over the unconscious Spacey, kicking the lamp cord aside.

  Betty grinned, the axe swinging on the end of the deliciously sore arm. Like a cat, Chain Lightning Ross moved out of the dark room and into the hall. Two teddy bears down. Two to go.

  Sean Morgan was starting to regret that he had long since stopped carrying a stiletto.

  The colonel cried out in pain as Sarah lunged at him with her razor, a line of red spewing out from Morgan’s chest. Morgan fell back and reached for his sideami, bringing it up. He fired, saw the woman he had known as Jo Carlin catch a slug in the chest and spin around, crashing once more against the panel of Tom’s GammaTrac station.

  She hit the floor and lay there in a heap, face down, her hand still holding the razor.

  Morgan felt the pain in his chest begin to throb. She had cut him rather deeply. Morgan looked around and realized that the emergency alarm was still blaring, and the throbbing in his chest seemed to keep time with it. As he moved, the muscles in his chest sang out in defiance, every motion of his arms and shoulders pulling at the slice across his pectoral. The woman was good with a blade. Morgan turned around, leaning for another moment on one hand, panting. He holstered his sidearm. He hated to admit it, but who was he kidding? He wasn’t as good at the physical stuff as he had once been. He was a long way from the cocky idiot that had gotten Darla and Mickey killed in Paris. He hadn’t paid that little attention in years, he was more mature, yes, all that. But he had lost a great deal of that wiry fire-escape-jumping bravado.

  Morgan began to walk and winced in pain. Yeah, well. Let the kids jump off the fire escapes.

  He should have known Jo for the mole. He should have made that connection. It was inescapable. But her cover had been the best. Her references were excellent. (Just like Betty Gaynor’s vitae is solid gold. Such things can be arranged% What did it come down to? He just hadn’t wanted to believe it, choosing to ignore the warning signs until too late, until the flatbed was right on them. Great, Morgan realized. I’m not the cocky kid anymore, and I’m still just as careless. Or I can be.

  Pain. Jeez, that hurts. Morgan stepped over one of his agents as he reached the lift. What could he say? The fact was, he had screwed up, and he had been too caught up going to funerals to see all the signs. He wanted to be harder on himself, but he stowed that. The fact is, Morgan, you screwed up and that happens. Get over it, and move on.

  Morgan reached the lift bay and pressed a button for the express bridge lift. The door slid open and he stepped inside, slapping the appropriate button, when Sarah Josef slammed into him from behind, sending his sore chest colliding into the metal wall on the other side.

  Morgan spun around and dropped, kicking out and connecting with Sarah’r, right ankle as she slashed at him again with the razor. The lift doors shut and Morgan looked up at Sarah. “Bulletproof vest?”

  “The thinnest possible,” she sniiled, jumping on him, grabbing at his jaw. She kneed him sharply in the solar plexus and Morgan cried out, and Sarah reared back her razor. “I’m taking that tongue first, Andy.”

  Andy?

  The lift doors slid open as the razor came down. Morgan drew up and kicked, hard, and th
e razor caught him across the chin as Sarah flew back and through the door, spilling out onto the bridge. Sarah fell against a chair and righted herself, holding the razor in front of her.

  “All right, Mary Lou,” said Morgan, “I’ve had enough of this.” He drew his gun. “I know you don’t pad your head. Drop it.”

  Sarah stood her ground, swaying. “You don’t understand, Morgan. We’re about to be witness to a very large explosion, and we’re just above ground zero. You’re going to die. I just prefer to see you dead at my hands. But I’m content enough to know you’ll go either way.”

  “Jo ... Sarah ... whateverMorgan stooped himself. He was being 3ip, and suddenly he looked at the girl again and realized how wrong that was. “Look, it was—was a different time. I did my job.”

  “And I will do mine, Colonel Morgan. I’m not interested in your apologies. I lost interest in that when I was a little girl and you took my father from me. It just so happens that my job involves you being dead.’ ’

  “Isn’t it splendid,” Morgan said, “when you can make personal and professional goals mesh so well?” She moved forward. “Don’t I can kill you very easily, Sarah. I will.”

  And that was when Bruce Banner collided with the underside of the Helicarrier. As the ’carrier groaned and pitched, Morgan lost his balance, just for a second, and Sarah shrieked, jumping, slashing down and slicing across Morgan’s gun hand. The piece clattered to the floor and bounced.

  Morgan brought his nurt hand into his chest and shot out his left, catching the woman under the chin, kicking simultaneously, hitting her in the hip. Sarah shrieked in, pain and slashed at him again, up and across. Morgan looked down in horror and unmeasurable relief as the blade sliced through the crotch of his finest suit pants and came away having severed only one hundred percent wool.

  Sarah dropped and kicked hard at Morgan’s shin, and as he fell back she jumped him, grabbing his collar. Morgan felt his back crash againsi the floor and Sarah’s weight pressing his abdomen, pulling against the slice across his chest. He grabbed for her wrist with his gun hand, pain shooting through every fiber of his body, his other hand going up to the woman’s hair, giving it a yank. Sarah winced, whipping her head, and Morgan slammed her knife hand againsi the base of one of the chairs on the bridge. Pain shot through his hand as the pressure reported the impact, pulsing with the emergency sirens through his aching wound. He saw the knife come away and as it did he grabbed for it.